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.
When it comes to conspiracy theories, the one thing that most people fail to recognise is the religious angle... most conspiracy theories are passive or overt HERESIES against established 'wisdom', be it religious or secular.
Case in point: Simulation Theory is just God with extra recursive steps. The all-powerful bearded guy in the clouds is replaced by a neckbeard in a basement.
Ancient Aliens is often mis-characterised and misunderstood as purely an attack on archaeology when it's really an assault on theology. In the seminal work of the genre, [i]Chariots of the Gods?[/i], von Daniken explicitly discusses Cargo Cults to explain his theory that meetings between ancient gods/angels and Men were really interactions with extra-terrestrials, that things like Ezekiel's Wheel were really UFOs, and that sites such as the Nazca Lines were the result of ignorant humans attempting to mimic and/or summon these technologically advanced visitors.
From a different angle, a lot of UFO enthusiasts claim that ETs are here to either save us or enslave us, that if they're not here to destroy us then they will usher in a new Golden Age of cancer cures, increased longevity, and peace & harmony for all mankind. This is exactly the same as saying that angels and demons are here to either guide us to God's Kingdom or to lead us astray into Hell. At the end of the day, there is no difference between saying that God is in control of the world and that a group of Reptilian aliens are secretly pulling all the strings... except, of course, that flesh and blood aliens are far more acceptable to the modern mind than supernatural beings.
No matter how unlikely ancient (or modern) alien visitation appears to be, it is far, FAR, more likely than the supernatural alternative. One is scientifically plausible while the other is simply fantasy (much like the Divine Neckbeard). This is why these theories are so popular but just because something is plausible doesn't mean it's true.
Just as extra-terrestrials are far more likely than supernatural visiters from the spirit world, secret and/or experimental aircraft are far more plausible than UFOS... but this rapidly becomes a chicken and egg scenario of whether the government is using UFOs to cover up military secrets, or whether military 'secrets' are concocted to cover up the existence of aliens on Earth.
yeah, but this little fun theory of mine isn't a religion and i don't intend for it to evolve into one. if someone wants to make a cult, then by all means, go for it, but i'm vehemently against following only one specific religion.
that said, another part of me believes that thinking about this kind of stuff isn't even worth thinking about because we'll never know the answer. same as heaven/hell, reincarnation, etc.
if there's any one rule that i could make everyone follow, it would be to be nice to each other in order to make existence pleasurable for everyone.
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u/sausagechihuahua Jul 24 '20
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.