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 ourselves to just a handful, I’ll be picking a hodgepodge of comments that are on the various dimensions of zany, fun, serious, silly, and concerning. In short, if it’s interesting, we’ll take a peek at it.
Owning chickens
That owning chickens would be a gateway drug or introduction to conspiracy theories is an interesting take. I think user WaltChamberlin captures a good, logical path for how chickens can lead to more serious conspiracy thinking. The summary is that folks who tend to keep and raise chickens may also tend to be more self-reliant and distrustful of government or others. While not everyone who raises chickens would necessarily fall into conspiracy thinking, the tendency for some folks to gravitate towards both activities makes sense.
Rocks are soft
I like this theory because it calls to mind some of the philosophical questions raised in solipsism. It also is a great exercise in scientific thinking. How can we be sure that rocks are hard before we touch them? Well maybe we throw something at them and see if it bounces. Okay, but what if the quality of “being hard” was passed onto the rock from the thing we tossed? Well we can measure hardness without touching it then, perhaps with light.
While the special pleading can keep going on forever, we can also come up with more and more complex tests to separate our senses from the truth of the rock’s hardness. We can also define “hardness” and what it means for a thing to be hard.
Gisele Bundchen is a witch
This theory is a bit more serious because there are folks who believe witches are real and that spells and magick actually exist. So there are potentially multiple folks who think Ms. Bundchen actually did curse Leonardo DiCaprio after their break up. While we don’t accept magick as a real thing here, we should keep in mind that others might.
In terms of debunking, it would be interesting to see what type(s) of magick people say was used to make this curse. There’s enough competing schools, beliefs, and ideas out there that getting a single, authoritative answer would probably be impossible.
Green lawns are due to big pharma
An interesting conspiracy theory here. The logic is that pesticides are needed for green lawns (they aren’t), and pesticides cause cancer (they don’t). Thus big pharma wants people to have green lawns so they get cancer and need medical interventions.
As noted by Mister_Chef711, this is a great example of the logical fallacy known as “Cui Bono” which is essentially saying that anyone benefiting from a thing must be in control of the thing. In this case, since the pharmaceutical companies benefit from the supposed increase in cancer, they would be the ones to blame for it.
A grand example of cui bono thinking in action can be found in JFK assassination theories and 9/11 conspiracy theories. For JFK, conspiracy theorists may say the CIA, FBI, or Cuba benefited from JFK’s death, and thus was behind it. For 9/11, since Bush used it to initiate a war on terror and invade Iraq, he must have been behind the attacks somehow. Neither of these are true, but the cui bono logic shortcuts through the evidence to reach these conclusions.
Prisoner Kidneys
This is one of the darker conspiracy theories discussed in the thread. It is essentially that prisoners in the American penal systems are harvested for their kidneys in order to get transplants for other people. While an obvious violation of human rights, the theory also neglects to consider the well-known chain of custody for organs. In short, no one is transplanting random kidneys that haven’t been ethically sourced, or at least no one is doing this in a reputable setting. Perhaps an underground market of organs does exist in the USA, but it would be the vast, vast minority of cases.
Antarctic Ice Wall
I love the antarctic ice wall theory because it supposes that the world is surrounded by a massive ice wall and there are lands beyond the wall to explore. While not supported by any evidence, the creative aspects of this theory and the idea that there could be more of the world to discover is enticing.
The ice wall theory also falls apart if it is part of the infinite, flat earth belief. In this subset of flat earth beliefs, the believers say that the Earth is flat and expands infinitely in all directions. But if this were the case, the mass of the Earth would make it possible to see the distant reaches of the flat earth in the sky. Put simply, Earth’s gravitational field would bend light until it came back down towards us wherever we are. Since we can’t look up and see distance lands, the theory of an infinite earth beyond the ice wall falls apart.
Marilyn Manson. I mean Prince. I mean Alice Cooper
The conspiracy theory here is that certain famous musicians had some ribs removed that allowed them to pleasure themselves with their mouths. The theory is notable because as Frantastic79 noted, every generation seems to have a version of this conspiracy theory. For me as a Millenial, it was Marilyn Manson, but for others it was Prince and Alice Cooper. Needless to say, a reputable doctor would not participate in the surgery needed to do the acts in question. And with the number of contortionists in the world, it may not be needed.
The interesting thing to me is that there are certain beliefs that just won’t die. They just choose a new host or target. Who knows what Gen Z will say about this theory in a few years time.
Transvestigation
One of the concerning conspiracy theories again. Transvestigation conspiracy believers think that most, or even every, famous person is actually trans. They engage in anomaly hunting and pseudoscientific analysis to reinforce their preconceived conclusion that a certain person is actually trans. This can be based on bad anatomy, natural variations in human appearance, or even straight-up lies to make a point.
Transvestigators are not only wrong though. They also engage in bullying, bigotry, and transphobia. The very basis of the idea is that there is something wrong with being trans, and thus the alleged trans celebrities need to hide their transness. However, if Elliott Page has taught us anything, it’s that trans folks can come out in Hollywood.
Sold at Birth
Sovereign citizen pseudolegal jargon took awhile to show up in the comments. However, one of the core tenets came up here. While sovereign citizens need their own post, or section even, the basic idea that we are sold to banks when born falls apart when we try to access any of the funds we were “sold” for. Plus, the social security administration is open about how numbers are assigned.
The Philadelphia Experiment
A classic conspiracy theory that ultimately boils down to the delusions of a possibly ill man that has been thoroughly debunked by the Navy itself. While obviously the Navy could be lying about the ships at play and the experiment itself, there’s no evidence of falsehood available at this point.
The Philadelphia Experiment is an interesting exercise in critical thinking as well though. The mythology has been so thoroughly explored that there are even veterans and others who claim to have been on the ship during the experiment. As such, there’s real people involved in the story at this point. So we need to focus not on what the story is, but whether or not the original event actually happened, which in this case it did not.
Dollar General
I’ll close with this one that is new to me. I love this conspiracy theory because it’s such a uniquely American phenomenon, and it ties together multiple social phenomena. First is the USA UFO phenomenon. We see a lot of UFOs in the USA, and a lot of those are seen by folks out in the country where there’s less light pollution. Second is the tendency for Dollar General to open stores in backwaters and rural areas where other stores tend not to open.
So we have a lot of stores opening up in places others do not, and a mild correlation with UFO sightings. The (pseudo)logical conclusion then is that the two must be related. And since the employees at Dollar General are not aliens (as far as we know) they must be some sort of investigators or government agents trying to observe and report back. Otherwise, who would be willing to work in these rural areas in a store.
Conclusion
There’s a lot more comments to get into over the coming weeks, and probably months. As of this post’s creation, there’s about 1900 comments in the thread. I encourage you to go through and read some more of them to see what logical fallacies and new ideas you can find and educate yourself on. By knowing how and why certain people believe in certain things, we can help understand them and make connections with them to help them attain more reality and evidence based beliefs.