how do you deal with people who believe in batshit insane conspiracy theories?

  On 12/6/2009 at 2:56 AM, marf said:

How do you deal with people, Period

Fingerbang them first, ask questions later

i still need to watch Rambo

  On 12/6/2009 at 2:56 AM, marf said:

How do you deal with people, Period

I hand them a Tampon.

i think the most viral conspiracy is the baby boom fear of communism a la glenn beck Obama is the next Castro cause he wants to help poor people. A lot of 45 + people don't see the subtlety of democratic socialism, a fine balance between free market and social welfare. Its either a small room with a few people with the codes to the nukes and thats the government or all out communism, no in between.

  On 12/6/2009 at 3:34 AM, marf said:

i think the most viral conspiracy is the baby boom fear of communism a la glenn beck Obama is the next Castro cause he wants to help poor people. A lot of 45 + people don't see the subtlety of democratic socialism, a fine balance between free market and social welfare. Its either a small room with a few people with the codes to the nukes and thats the government or all out communism, no in between.

cool story bro

  On 12/6/2009 at 1:41 AM, ezkerraldean said:

as a geologist i have a paticular disdain for creationists. creationism, and the entire science of geology, are mutual exclusives. creationists are fucking cunts without exception, including the ones that you are friends with and you think are fit.

i thought you were working in a ticketing office for the busses or something ;-p

if you really are a geologist .. is it in training? what will you specialise in ... should go into ore extraction and move to aussie .. (mesh gear will love me for that comment)

  On 12/6/2009 at 2:36 AM, Pennywise said:

  On 12/6/2009 at 2:31 AM, abusivegeorge said:

  On 12/6/2009 at 2:26 AM, Pennywise said:

watmm is for losers huh.

 

Loving your joyrex.com post count.

2000th post now and every post has been crap and no one knows who I am on here or gives a fuck...but I just dont care.

aww, I'd like to get to know you through your posting but you like ullililah .. or whatever he's called, i think fred and joyrex like that site too .. so i'm also weary of their sanity quotient ..

heh, there you go, precious interaction, now you can say something snappy like, but it was only fucking deleter, why would i give a shit ..

hah, soz,. tired as

  On 12/6/2009 at 3:42 AM, delet... said:

i thought you were working in a ticketing office for the busses or something ;-p

 

if you really are a geologist .. is it in training? what will you specialise in ... should go into ore extraction and move to aussie .. (mesh gear will love me for that comment)

used to work for some crappy office that managed other companies' databases, including oystercards for the london underground which i think i've nattered on about here before...

but yeah, i'm in my 4th year of a geology degree now. i don't really want to go into exploration, partly because i haven't specialised in the relevant topics during my degree and also because that would require me moving to random shit holes far from where i want to be. geology's pretty awesome though!

  On 12/6/2009 at 2:49 AM, Rambo said:

  On 12/6/2009 at 1:59 AM, ezkerraldean said:

  On 12/6/2009 at 1:44 AM, Awepittance said:

i find it strangely divisive to throw around the term 'conspiracy theorist' as a disparaging remark. It's become almost a new way to refer to someone as crazy.

if you want to debate someone based on facts do it, but stop using the blanket ad hominem of 'you're just a conspiracy theorist' at least have a genuine debate about whatever subject is at hand.

but they really are fucking cunts. well, i guess it depends on the particular theory at hand. but from my experience (which without meaning to sound like a cunt is more than most, since i've actively hunted these folks out in the past), someone who believes in one is going to believe in most of them.

 

the Apollo moon landing hoaxers are no better than creationists in my mind too, since i'm using Apollo data in my fucking master's project and their beliefs are nothing more than denial. it would make as much sense to claim that the whole concept of chemical reactions is a conspiracy.

 

I agree with you that there is a certain "type" who believes virtually every conspiracy they hear but to just generalise that everyone who has ever believed a conspiracy believes in all conspiracies is idiotic(sorry). For example, i believe JFK probably wasn't killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, yet i believe we went to the moon. Have i just blown your mind? I know plenty of people who suspect some things could be a conspiracy and are sure that other things aren't. Maybe i just hang around exclusively with incredibly exceptional individuals, or maybe your just completely wrong in your generalisation?

it all just depends on what makes more sense to believe

Dubai ?

  On 12/6/2009 at 1:44 AM, Awepittance said:

i find it strangely divisive to throw around the term 'conspiracy theorist' as a disparaging remark. It's become almost a new way to refer to someone as crazy.

if you want to debate someone based on facts do it, but stop using the blanket ad hominem of 'you're just a conspiracy theorist' at least have a genuine debate about whatever subject is at hand.

agree. when friends say they don't believe in conspiracy theories, in a way that makes me think they're just trying to tell me they aren't crazy but other people are, i ask them if they think think some companies agree not to lower prices amongst themselves, ergo not creating a price war, in other to sustain their own profits at the expense of the consumer? when they answer yes i then congratulate them on believing in a conspiracy theory. if i feel like pushing it a little more i remind them that enron executives agreed with their accountant to hide enron's actual dealings in order to increase share prices at the expense of the suckers buying the shares as the executives were offloading them--the executives, accountants and a number of others conspiring against the average share holder to make profit. i suspect the people who say they don't belive in conspiracy theories really mean they don't believe the world leaders are lizard and other strange stories, but the utterance "i don't believe in conspiracy theories" annoys me still.

I'm going to contribute more fully to this thread tomorrow I think, as it's late. But my brother is insane about conspiracy theories, ever since he got the internet and discovered Youtube really. He doesn't just settle with the big ones (9/11 inside job), but one time he asked me what browser I was using, I told him Firefox, he said I shouldn't use it as it's developed by Microsoft secretly. Apparently they developed it so it would be marketed as better, more secure etc but the idea is that it's actually tracking and saving your personal information and sending it to Microsoft, but people think it's safer so they move to that! ARGH!

When it gets to that point it can be annoying. Since he's been doing all this research and learning (lol) from Loose Change etc he's gotten my dad into it and it's almost become an addiction for them to try and outdo each other on who's got the latest conspiracy. Between them they have the underground workings of the world figured out it seems. So, I never stop hearing about this, my dad even tries to destroy Jehovas Witnesses religion by telling them all this stuff and trying to shatter their fantasies about the world by telling them the people they think are the good guts are the ones causing all the terrorist attacks. At first it was funny, but to be honest I'm kind of sick of it.

Fucking hell, it's no wonder I'm becoming such a nihilist. I just swallowed a bottle of painkillers, Night everyone

  On 12/6/2009 at 3:48 AM, ezkerraldean said:

  On 12/6/2009 at 3:42 AM, delet... said:

i thought you were working in a ticketing office for the busses or something ;-p

 

if you really are a geologist .. is it in training? what will you specialise in ... should go into ore extraction and move to aussie .. (mesh gear will love me for that comment)

used to work for some crappy office that managed other companies' databases, including oystercards for the london underground which i think i've nattered on about here before...

 

but yeah, i'm in my 4th year of a geology degree now. i don't really want to go into exploration, partly because i haven't specialised in the relevant topics during my degree and also because that would require me moving to random shit holes far from where i want to be. geology's pretty awesome though!

you remember the doco earth story with aubrey manning, they're on a drive somewhere i must rewatch ..

chax what is your avatar from

  On 12/6/2009 at 4:33 AM, delet... said:

 

 

you remember the doco earth story with aubrey manning, they're on a drive somewhere i must rewatch ..

YES it's called Earth Story. i have the book of it somewhere

  On 12/6/2009 at 4:17 AM, Obel said:

I'm going to contribute more fully to this thread tomorrow I think, as it's late. But my brother is insane about conspiracy theories, ever since he got the internet and discovered Youtube really. He doesn't just settle with the big ones (9/11 inside job), but one time he asked me what browser I was using, I told him Firefox, he said I shouldn't use it as it's developed by Microsoft secretly. Apparently they developed it so it would be marketed as better, more secure etc but the idea is that it's actually tracking and saving your personal information and sending it to Microsoft, but people think it's safer so they move to that! ARGH!

 

When it gets to that point it can be annoying. Since he's been doing all this research and learning (lol) from Loose Change etc he's gotten my dad into it and it's almost become an addiction for them to try and outdo each other on who's got the latest conspiracy. Between them they have the underground workings of the world figured out it seems. So, I never stop hearing about this, my dad even tries to destroy Jehovas Witnesses religion by telling them all this stuff and trying to shatter their fantasies about the world by telling them the people they think are the good guts are the ones causing all the terrorist attacks. At first it was funny, but to be honest I'm kind of sick of it.

 

Fucking hell, it's no wonder I'm becoming such a nihilist. I just swallowed a bottle of painkillers, Night everyone

that would be cool to go round to jehovahs witness households, in an attept to deconvert them. Uni kids could form fun debating clubs, create a form intro and standardise responses to typical rebuttals. Would beat the boozy pub run anyday. Be fucking classic.

you would been to film it though ..

whoa !!

  On 12/6/2009 at 5:01 AM, xxx said:

Well, my cousin and his wife are attending a naturopathic "medical" school and this past Thanksgiving, they let me into that little batshit insane world. I use a mixture of active listening and very targeted questions. For instance, he said "These remedies help people feel better about themselves." and I simply asked, "absolutely? On all levels?" just as a gentle nudge towards a more critical viewpoint. I was sad for him because our entire talk came down to him saying this: "I see these guys who are so smart at school and if they're that smart, surely there is some truth to this otherwise they'd be smart enough to see through it." I really felt badly that that was his ultimate defense but it is telling when it comes to figuring out who is susceptible to stuff.

 

They have a 6 month old baby and the kid's fucking cranky as shit all the time. His wife gave him the tit like every 5 minutes but he still kept suckling at the air. My mom said I did the same thing and her mom said "that baby's hungry" and so I got some rice cereal with my mammary and was happy as could be. My mom tried to fix a bottle but wife said "oh no, he doesn't get bottles." Not even water--they believe that the chlorine used to make plastics induces "miasms" or negative energies so that knocks out tap water and virtually everything in the world.

 

Fuuuuuuuucked up.

What the fuck just happenned, your wife told your mum you don't get bottles? Are you still suckling? Serious what the fuck just happenned?

here's hopin you have a rocky start

  Quote

but yeah, i'm in my 4th year of a geology degree now. i don't really want to go into exploration, partly because i haven't specialised in the relevant topics during my degree and also because that would require me moving to random shit holes far from where i want to be. geology's pretty awesome though!

  On 12/6/2009 at 3:39 AM, Lube Saibot said:

  On 12/6/2009 at 3:34 AM, marf said:

i think the most viral conspiracy is the baby boom fear of communism a la glenn beck Obama is the next Castro cause he wants to help poor people. A lot of 45 + people don't see the subtlety of democratic socialism, a fine balance between free market and social welfare. Its either a small room with a few people with the codes to the nukes and thats the government or all out communism, no in between.

 

cool story bro

It'll be even cooler when these people vote the next president in office. Then you will think its really cool. Like the last president

not long till we are implanted with veri chips so that the govt can track and eliminate all the "undesirables" of society.

alex jones told me so

My friends were convinced that the Columbine and Virginia Tech killings were done by robots built by the government, I said, That makes no sense! and she said, NO...

I was all

To be more direct, I think this video answers your question as to why some people think the way they do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7QwxbImhZI

i think its more of a conspiracy to believe that "government is in the best interests of the people"

for every government or ruler/organization that has done something in the way of social progression/peace/harmony, financial stability, there are one hundred governments or rulers or organizations that do not care about the welfare of the common person.

why this is so hard to believe after millennia of solid history? is all of history a conspiracy? the majority of rulers and social hierarchies cause more peace and stability than not?

government is in the best interest of money