
Anna Merlan's "Republic of Lies" Explores Fixation with Conspiracy Theories - rbanffy
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/20/715211935/republic-of-lies-explores-the-fixation-with-conspiracy-theories
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credit_guy
For about ten thousand years now, human societies everywhere had haves and
have-nots. Transition from have to have-not could be swift and brutal. The
thing that you stopped having could be your wealth, or your liberty, or your
life. Transition from have-nots to haves was an arduous process, most times
multi-generational, and most times unsuccessful.

In such societies, survival required alliances, sometimes side switching, and
most surely secrecy, misdirection and deceit. Conspiracies were the rule, not
the exception. Actually there were no exceptions, there were only conspiracies
everywhere.

The ability to guess what's going on was then a huge advantage, and you bet
evolution has selected for that. Could evolution have erred on the side of
being too trigger-happy? Little doubt about that. Innocent until proven
guilty, benefit of doubt, right to due process, habeas corpus, etc, were all
luxuries that few could afford until very recent times.

The fact that some people believe in conspiracy theories should not puzzle
anyone. This is our natural state. Education and culture is how you exit this
natural state, but even then, you are never completely immune to believing a
good story. At least I know I'm not. Maybe I'm in a minority...

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ta17711771
> that some people believe in conspiracy theories should not puzzle anyone.

Especially considering how many conspiracy theories turn out to be conspiracy
facts..

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brobdingnagians
I've never understood why it is controversial to say that some people seek
fame, power, and money using dubious methods, and that those people might form
social clubs to do it together. They might even not want to publish it because
they know most people would think poorly of their methods... And I think that
has been going on for a long time, at all sorts of levels.

I guess that would be a "conspiracy", even if it isn't little green aliens
body-snatching. I think having a reasonable conversation about it isn't
impossible. We just have to avoid both extremes, the "little green aliens"
theorists and the "nope, nothing to see here, move along" crowd.

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pgnas
It’s ok to ask questions regardless of how outrageous they seem. When you are
met with censorship and physical barriers are put in you way, there is
probably something there.

The Illuminati is real, there are many blood oath secret societies and our
presidents, most all of them, have been members of one, there is an agenda 21,
agenda 2030, Vietnam gulf of Tonkin was fake, the sinking of the lusintania
was staged Martin Luther king was killed by the government... these are all
real, factual, provable things that are considered at one point to be
conspiracy theories.

We have to be vigilant and we have to think for ourselves. We have to be able
to ask the difficult questions.

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ta17711771
FBI docs show Hitler ended up in Spanish America, etc

