
What does it take to keep a conspiracy secret? - todsacerdoti
https://isene.org/2020/05/Conspiracy.html
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mjw1007
I'm unconvinced by reasoning that assumes that once someone inside the
conspiracy decides to talk, the conspiracy will be unmasked. People may not
believe them, particularly if the members of the conspiracy are in a position
to undermine them.

For example, there are many conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Dag
Hammarskjöld. Supposedly in later life Van Risseghem admitted that he shot
down the plane. But this hasn't led to the case being resolved, because we
don't know if it's true that he said that, and even if he did we don't know if
he was telling the truth.

Similarly, as I understand it, conspiracy theorists around the Kennedy
assassination aren't short of statements, or reports of statements, by people
who claim to have been in the know (for a number of mutually inconsistent
theories, of course).

~~~
carry_bit
Yes, the conspiracy being unmasked just means it goes from being unknown to
being a conspiracy theory, and that's a long ways from it being accepted as
mainstream history.

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pitt1980
125 people can do a lot

I bet secrets are easier to keep when they don’t seem fun to brag about,

I suspect a fair number of war crimes and similarly un-fun secrets have been
safely lost to history

~~~
carry_bit
125 people can be a lot too, when you consider only 12 astronauts have walked
on the Moon. So while the math might blow to pieces the fake Moon landing
conspiracy, it doesn't for related ones.

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badrabbit
What about the manhattan project?

I don't like how this post generalizes. 2531 regular americans is not the same
as 2531 Nazi officers who will have their families turned into soap if they
don't keep their mouth shut.

The whole "loose lips,sink ships" mentality of WW2 is a very interesting case
study where entire towns were in on a secret. Lots of other shady things were
conspired by governments and inteo agencies from the 50's through 80's and
lots of people were in on it.

Merely establishing prolonged social contact with an ex-military person is all
it takes in my experience for me to be told of some conspiracy they've seen
that I wouldn't believe (I don't even care!!).

A lot of the famous conspiracy theories are false flags but they have some
root in reality. If someone told you have the stuff snowden leaked without
proof would you not shrug it off as baseless conspiracy theory? Exactly how
many people were in on it? His leaks happened in 2013 but they were from 2008!

In short my opinin is that the number of people you can include in your
conspiracy largely depends on their incentive and intent to keep their mouth
shut as well as your ability to mount false-flag misinformation campaigns
before and after the fact.

~~~
Judgmentality
I know someone very high up in the CIA. He told me about PRISM before Edward
Snowden. He told me about Stuxnet before the public was aware of its
existence. He told me a bunch of other stuff as well.

The things he told me were both fascinating and terrifying. It made me
reassess how many US government conspiracies are crazy, and now I actually
believe most of them are true.

~~~
jl6
Which of the following US government conspiracies do you believe are true?:

Aliens crashed at Roswell

Secret society rules the world/USA

Moon landings were faked

9/11 was an inside job

Something nefarious is being added to the water supply

The government created HIV

~~~
TheHeretic12
1\. No. Simply impossible. Experimental aircraft maybe, but no aliens.

2\. Somewhat. The cabal is there, thankfully they dont control everything yet.
See: Rothschild and sons; communism.

3\. No. A technical miracle, but they happened for sure. With a very high
power telescope you can see some tracks the rovers left.

4\. Definetely. Theres enough circumstantial evidence to take to court and
win. Biggest obvious one is Al Franken admitting on Congressional record that
he got "the Jew call" (his own words) to not go to work in the towers on that
day.

5\. Only through negligence and bad science. Fluoride at the end tap cannot be
measured en masse effectively, so it is often overused. It is a potent
neurotoxin, even at low levels. There is a chicken-egg problem with measuring
many contaminants present in recycled water.

6\. Again, only through negligence. Insufficient standards in medical supply
and waste disposal, needles being reused is how HIV got out.

Keep asking, I can do this all day. Ive been to the bottom of the rabbit hole
and back. We have such sights to show you!

~~~
wayneftw
I can find no Congressional record of Al Franken saying this.

What I did find were quotes from his book and a lot of people saying that he
was being sarcastic and if you read the next few sentences you can see that.

(I still think it was obviously an inside job though without even knowing
about Al Franken.)

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nl
Oh this is really good!

I've always been looking for sensible ways to talk about conspiracy theories.
It's hard because as soon as you push back on them the immediate response is
to accuse you of being part of it.

~~~
Judgmentality
Obviously people who understand "math" are just part of the conspiracy, fellow
conspirator.

------
ggaughan
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE-
tpiAiiHo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE-tpiAiiHo)

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mjaseem
That's what they want you to believe. Smh

