This week’s conspiracy roundup is a departure from the typical format. Instead of looking at the large posts on r/conspiracy this week we will be looking at a series of comments on r/askreddit responding to this post about the craziest conspiracy theories people have heard. And instead of looking at the top comments and limiting…
Conspiracy Round-up 11/6/23 – The Good, The Bad, and The Cabal.
Another week, another dollar, another set of conspiracies from r/conspiracy to analyze and debunk for this scholar. We have five posts to analyze this week, all with different topics. Two notes though before we dig in. Note 1: I’m skipping the anti-semitic posts this week. In my mind, there’s not much to debunk or analyze…
Conspiracy Roundup 11/2/23 Now with Even More Opinions
Wild (Religion and History) This week’s top post is a repost of M.I.A’s December 2022 tweet that she faced backlash for saying “Jesus is real.” While the post is simple and doesn’t need an in-depth skeptical treatment (she made the post, Christianity is one of the major religions, she probably did get some backlash from…
Conspiracy Theory Roundup 10/23/23 – Quick Debunks Inside
There’s been a number of notable, and noted, events in the last month. Israel and Hamas going to war, Donald Trump’s various trials and lawsuits, celebrity gossip, and more. Easily the biggest topic on r/conspiracy over the last month has been the Israel and Hamas conflict in the middle east. Misinformation, conspiracy-mongering, antisemitism, and fearmongering…
Sound of Freedom and QAnon Ties
There’s a new movie making the rounds called “Sound of Freedom” which claims to be based on a true story. As a reminder, the word “based” can do a lot of heavy lifting. While the movie is apparently very compelling and emotionally powerful. It’s star, Jim Caviezel has ties to the QAnon movement. Without going…
New UFO Claims 6/5/23
There’s a new claim circulating that “Intelligence Officials say U.S. has retrieved craft of non-human origin” (thedebrief.org). The story, in short, is that David Charles Grusch, a US military veteran with experience in intelligence and recon work, served on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force from 2019-22 and that he is now coming forward as…
The Importance of Knowing Your Limits
One of the most important things we can do to be less wrong is to remain intellectually humble. But what does this mean exactly? In essence, intellectual humility means accepting that we may be wrong about what we think we know. From there, we can list or describe things that would make us say “Oh,…
Chemtrails: The Conspiracy in Plane Sight
The chemtrail conspiracy theory is fairly simple. It is the belief that those white, fluffy trails left behind by airplanes are not condensation trails left by super-hot exhaust gases hitting cold air in the upper atmosphere. Instead, the trails are chemicals being sprayed by the nefarious “they” of conspiracy beliefs in an effort to meet…
Why People Believe: Need for Uniqueness
People hold various beliefs for various reasons. One particularly alluring piece of conspiracy beliefs is that they often contain “secret knowledge” or an extra level of understanding that other people do not have. Put simply, conspiracy beliefs are a free way to express uniqueness and set oneself apart from the rest of the world. This…
Laying Out Definitions: Conspiracy Theories
What is the difference between a conspiracy, a conspiracy theory, and conspiracy thinking? Generally speaking, a conspiracy is when two or more agents act together in secret for some malevolent or evil goal. In contrast, when I say “conspiracy theory” I am referring to the explanation of some event as the result of a conspiracy,…