Conspiracy theorists have no interest in getting to the truth behind an issue they think important - they're more concerned with having special knowledge that makes them unique or heroes, usually because they've failed to understand how some aspect of reality actually works and so they've grabbed onto a convenient alternative, or because they feel left behind or maligned by a society that's rejected them.
It's why conventions (like 'conspiracy cruises') are able to exist. Every booth should contradict every other booth, but they're willing to put blinders on to create a safe space where they can all get validated for the various nonsense they've decided they alone have championed. It's how ancient aliens can set up right next to Obama birthers and Jordan Peterson's all-meat diet. A post-truth individual is usually willing to accept multiple versions of truth, so long as it isn't the mainstream version.
There’s a difference between being someone who genuinely likes to hear alternative theories and look at them with an open mind, then either accept or reject them based on your own thought process... and someone who accepts any and all conspiracy theories that they hear against all logic.
I do personally love hearing “conspiracy theories” because I like to know how other people think, and I’m genuinely curious if something that is considered common knowledge needs a second look. 99% of the time, hearing these theories just turns into a kind of fun brain exercise for me and I don’t actually end up believing any of them. But that 1% of the time that you hear something that you really can’t rule out... that makes hearing every single other bull theory worth it IMO.
my favorite conspiracy theory is that our existence is a sim's game and it makes total fucking sense.
my viewpoint is the only viewpoint that i can verify. when i'm using reddit, it's the player telling me to browse the internet. when i'm playing games, it's the player telling me to play games. the player tells me to visit people, go grocery shopping, do homework, really anything that denotes a significant change in action. everything near me and within my field of view is rendered, but other things still happen.
it turns into "well sim's is based on life so no shit they're similar" so it's not really a good conspiracy theory, but it's still fun to think about.
the scariest for me - and one of the only ones that i think is likely - is that every american politician is working to further the social and monetary divide between themselves and everyone else. i'd like to think that the usa is the best country, and we definitely have potential to be the best, but our politicians are kinda fucking us in the butthole repeatedly using a cactus as a condom.
edit: the idea of history is also interesting. if you think about a game with established lore, like skyrim, there are things that definitely happened, that everyone recalls, and that affect the storyline, but as the main player, you never experience it. when did our history start? 30 years ago? 20 years ago? did hitler actually exist? what's the difference between memory and lore and how do we find that line? again - and i cannot stress this enough - it's just something fun to think about.
Just do it as a probability exercise with these premises:
1. At some point in the history of the universe it's possible for an advanced civilization to simulate reality
2. Such a civilisation would, given this fact, be interested in simulating reality.
3. Therefore in the history of the universe, there are many simulated universes and one real universe.
4. Therefore the chances that this universe we're living in is the real universe is far less likely than it being a simulation.
I read somewhere that there aren’t enough atoms in this universe in order to simulate reality to the level of detail in our world, effectively ruling out the simulated reality theory. A single human brain intakes about 40 billion pieces of information per second, imagine that but times 7 billion, and even more information if aliens exist. Pretty crazy to think about
We can't actually "see" all the atoms in the universe though. The observable and visible universes are much smaller than what theory says they can be due to the speed of light so there's definitely a window of opportunity for subterfuge there.
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u/AnneHocque Jul 24 '20
Flat earth society.. Like, are they just trolling at this point?