Years ago I had fun with "what if the US never actually went to the moon". I did not believe it, it was just a nice plot idea, we even made a pen & paper oneshot about it. Nowadays I have no whatsoever fun in thought experiments like this, because the real threat of someone believing it to be true. I want to enjoy "birds aren't real" or "giraffes do not exist" or ... the worst is flat earth. It started out as a joke and now idiots try to proof the earth is flat, proof by accident it isn't and then question rather their methods than their belief system. We just can't have nice things.

That covid hijacks people's brains with a parasite that makes them act like it doesn't exist or isn't a big deal if it does.

I don't actually think it's true, it's just that if it were, nothing would be different.

the feds and big corpos are spying on you and the only reason you're still alive is because

a) you're a small fish

xor

b) you help them in some way by being a usefull idiot

xor

c) you're part of the conspiracy

I got another one (that's pretty much a fact) in order to get facial recognision, fingerprint sensors, etc working you have to login with your ms/apple/google acc, on windows 7 you didn't have to... now why would you need an online connection to setup a piece of physikal hardware with local sofyware??? It's pretty simple: apple, google and microsoft know your face, your fingerprint, your voice, your location, etc

Paper straws were pushed by big corporate polluters to build a negative association with environmentalism.

Plastic straws are single-use plastics, but seem unexceptional by those standards. It's almost a meme that they're being singled out like they're the single greatest source of plastic waste, or uniquely damaging to ocean life.

On top of that, there are way better ways of reducing straw usage. I've used bioplastics that seemed way better. You could redesign the lids. You can do the plastic bag thing and charge people a nickel for a straw or whatever. Hell, you could just not give straws with every drink, and plenty of people will just drink from their cups and glasses. Instead, we get paper straws, something that is so obviously a bad idea it sounds like a joke, or a metaphor for a useless invention. Often served with cups and lids made entirely out of plastic.

So you get a bunch of people who have their drinks kind of ruined by a frustrating straw. It's a small thing, but it's just a little nudge away from environmentalism. You build an association with disappointment and inconvenience. Maybe it doesn't cause a big sway, but it makes people maybe a little more anti-environmentalist than they already were, or just less passionate about environmentalism.

The Jan 6th temper tantrum was instigated as a response to the BLM and other Covid-era protests. The owner class was getting nervous about the working class protesting about things that matter, so they riled up some of their disposable morons to storm the Capital as a way to discredit direct action. And we're already seeing the effects; whether it's a labor strike or a student sit-in, we're told by centrists to "protest peacefully" and not inconvenience anyone, aka don't protest.

The removal of The Fairness Doctrine was a deliberate psyop of The Monied Elite to dumb down the general populace of the US to accept Capitalist propaganda and rule. Well, it's not a conspiracy theory, it's fact. Then we were bombarded by blatant capitalist propaganda for 50 years. But, but, the worst aim was to condition the general populace to casual cruelty as entertainment.

Witness how Congress has degenerated into The Jerry Springer Show and Judge Judy. And half of the populace think it's funny, and there's nothing wrong with it. Republican politicians daily lie their asses off, and there are no consequences. An entitled, malignant narcissistic psychopath is worshipped as a demigod. Congregations who watch Fox every night are literally telling their preachers/priests/pastors that Jesus is a woke pussy. That's not opinion, it's a fact.

I recall reading that Goering and Goebbels both stated that a lie that is repeated enough times becomes truth in the zeitgeist. This country is in big trouble, and I think the Heritage and Federalist stacked SCOTUS is going to appoint Trump King due to an avalanche of upcoming election lawsuits.

This country was established by rich men who didn't want to pay taxes. But, some good things came from it. That you could speak to power without the fear of retribution. That a religious entity could not punish you arbitrarily on a whim. That the rich could not pass on their wealth and power to scions without penalty. That this country would not be ruled by a blatant aristocracy and monarchy.

I will not live in a Trump Theocratic Oligarchy. I'm an old man, with no wife and no kids. Do what you have to do, and leave if you can. The writing is on the wall. I don't know how much more you need to see and know to wise up, but it's here, right in your face.

Alex Jones was a CIA plant, to make conspiracy theorists look crazy… And it worked really really well.

The government was nervous because there were some conspiracy theories that were a little too close to reality. Shit like MK ULTRA and the Harvard mind control experiment sound fake, but we have the declassified docs. We know they happened. And there were lots of conspiracy theories that were likely hitting just a little too close for comfort. But outright disputing the conspiracy theories would just add credibility to them, in a “methinks the lady doth protest too much” sort of way.

So instead, they set out to discredit the people making the claims. They wanted to poison the well. So they found a dude named Alex Jones who had potential. He’s easily manipulated, so they can basically feed him wild conspiracies and he’ll eat them up. And all they had to do was boost his message. Jones never even needed to knew he was a plant, (and in fact, it would work better if he remained clueless.)

They gave conspiracy theorists a face. Before Alex Jones, conspiracy theories were something the average person jokingly threw around while drunk at the bar. But suddenly, conspiracy theorists were up front and center. And here’s the important part: the theories didn’t have a good spokesman. Suddenly, the average person’s view of conspiracy theories shifted. They weren’t funny anymore; They had your crazy uncle ranting about dead kids being fake.

By giving conspiracy theories a face, then having that face spew the most insane bullshit alongside the true (or nearly true) theories, the government was able to discredit the true theories. They were able to poison the well, because the main person ranting about the conspiracy also thinks Sandy Hook was a hoax.

Oh, another one: anti-vaccination was pushed by health insurance companies to dampen public perception of government-run healthcare.

Vaccine development and implementation fucking worked. If people were happy with the results, they might end up swayed towards publicly-funded healthcare. So... put a lid on that by whipping up a bunch of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Some folks will no longer see the vaccination programs as successful efforts to protect public health, but as a conspiracy to... do something. And instead of pointing to it as an example of a public healthcare program, you've first got to spend time defending evidence-based medicine, which takes up so much fucking time and energy, and ultimately won't convince people who bored too deeply into that alternate-reality tunnel.

It turned a public health initiative into a fucking tar pit, and now the once-free vaccinations cost over a hundred bucks if you don't have insurance.

Heres my conspiracy theory:

Political extremism isn't real (specifically in regards to left wing "extremism"). Its a social construct created by the capitalist class to convince workers that left wing ideologies are scary and having your elections be between two liberals is "normal". If you ignore that ideologies like Anarchism become common sense. Why do we need lords and masters, why do we need the tyranny of capitalists and the cruel rule of "democratically elected" leaders? Ultimately we do not, the economy would be better if it was owned by the workers and world better if every person was free to be the master of their own life. Capitalists and politicans fully understand this, thats why they pump everyone with propaganda so they can keep their positions of privilege and power.

So many people believe that Covid was a way to scare us all indoors, so they could change batteries in all the birds.

That's preposterous.

Birds use rechargeables, that's why they're always sitting on the power lines. Like, duh, wake up sheeple.

Tiktok is a Chinese psyop to turn the next generation of Americans into drooling idiots.

You know how some people believe Paul McCartney is dead and was replaced with a body double? I think that happened to Jontron at some point before the incident.

I once read a beautifully indisputable piece on how Jar Jar Binks is a highly skilled Sith Lord. It's all a front!

Scientology isn’t a religion or a cult-like one - at least not for the top tier.

It’s a doomsday cult disguised as a religion to be a tax dodge. Scientology has Gold Base and Trementina base among others, all bunkers. The famous people get money, tax free, donated to their “church”, and is used to fund doomsday bunkers.

I don't think this is too far out there but I haven't seen it around much. Epstein was a honeypot.

He got an absolutely disgusting sweetheart deal for his initial conviction resulting in him being released for 12 hours a day for work and a 13 month sentence. Now the attorney that cut that deal (illegally, mind you) was Alex Acosta. He was nominated for secretary of labor in 2017 and faced scrutiny for that deal, to which he said he was told epstein "belonged to intelligence" and to "leave it alone."

Supporting circumstamtial evidence includes ghislaine maxwells father having known connections to MI6, mossad, and the KGB, though he died in 1991 so that doesn't necessarily imply much. Additionally, the FBI has HARD FUCKING EVIDENCE including tapes which doubt less contain CSAM, yet nobody has actually been arrested as a result.

The issue is that this relies on taking Acosta at his word, and he's kind of a huge piece of shit. It could be possible that he was buddies with epstein and gave him a deal and covered up the evidence because he was involved too, and presumably enough powerful people in government were involved to keep everything quiet.

Sounds crazy when spelled out, but it's hard to imagine why else nothing would come of the mountains of evidence that probably followed the raids, or why epstein wasn't closely watched after his initial conviction.

The fashion world is in a war on pockets, so they can sell more handbags. The fewer and smaller pockets we have, the more accessories we need to buy. First they came for women's pockets. Now they're trying to make cargo shorts unacceptable for the same reason.

JD Vance was forced in as the Trump VP pick by the Heritage Foundation so that when Trump either dies or stops cooperating with them on Project 2025, they already have a man in place to take over. And that's likely the reason for the assassination attempts.

If Trump dies, they get Vance (a true believer...unlike Trump who just wants the power to stay out of prison) at the top of the ticket.