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Comment count is 9
Anaxagoras - 2020-07-20

I remember this interview from back when it first aired. My favorite moment is when one of the QAnon dipshits condescends to another QAnon dipshit.


ashtar. - 2020-07-20

Remember when conspiracy theories were fun fringe weirdness (Bill Hicks, JFK) and not a rampant epistemic disease threatening the stability of human civilization?


SolRo - 2020-07-21

Remember when reality wasn't The Onion?


MacGyver Style Bomb - 2020-07-21

Some twenty years ago, I used to hold presentations on machinima at a local science fiction convention. Now due to some of the videos I would show having content not totally suitable for younger viewers, I would request a later time to be scheduled at. Now the thing was that at the time the convention only had one room for presentations that had a video projector I could hook my PC into. Those things were expensive to even just rent back then.

Anyway, this meant that there was only one space that I could use and it had to be at a later time in the day. As a result, this would result in me being scheduled right after the local conspiracy nut's presentation, and god damn did that self-righteous asshole go into my time. So I had to sit there waiting for him to stop talking about the weird experiments he would do in his back yard while saying that school shootings were the result of mind control rays in order to for the government to take away your guns and keeping you from fighting back against their sinister goals.

Now first off, people saying bullshit about Columbine and the like was a pretty good way to piss me off. Second, it was made very clear to me that conspiracy theorists sincerely believe the bullshit they spout and are ready, willing, and possibly able to do awful things as a result. I mean, what kind of disaster could he cause with his experiments? What news story could lead him to take direct action? Or hell, could an otherwise minor encounter with law enforcement or some other authority lead to an armed confrontation involving his stockpile of weapons?

I realized then that as much as these kind of stories made for the basis of movies, games, and TV shows that had long wore out their welcome, all of it boiled down into deranged bullshit that could get people killed. It was no longer fun and it was undeniable that giving theorists a platform to spread their insanity was incredibly irresponsible on so many levels.

This shit was always bad. It's just that with the internet spreading so much of it around and people putting it on display, the ugly parts of conspiracy theories are much easier to see.


exy - 2020-07-21

good points, MGSB. to piggyback,

gangstalking is a phenomenon (not purely a conspiracy theory, for it seems that paranoid schizophrenia is a prerequisite) that wouldn't be possible without the internet. paranoiacs reinforce each other's impressions of being targeted, and before long you have something resembling a liberation movement (though not so much as it resembles a funny farm).

i don't know how true it is that the seeming resurgence of flat earthers is attributable to 4chan trolls, but it's certainly easy to believe that it's possibly true. credulity is beating skepticism to a pulp out there.

i keep recalling some middle school(?) social studies(?) teacher saying we were transitioning into the information age, and my not really being clear what they meant. it's becoming clearer to me as the disinformation war heats up.


Nominal - 2020-07-21

The deep state mythology episodes of The X-Files were always terrible, but holy shit was it striking how badly they had aged when Carter decided to make 50% of the revival seasons consist of them.

Which is why Darin Morgan's episode "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat" was so brilliant. It dealt with The Mandela Effect, pointing out how stupid the idea of deep state conspiracy coverups were, and the not so subtle dig at Chris Carter for digging the series up again instead of just leaving it alone.


exy - 2020-07-21

I never got the hard-on for X-Files that so many of my cohort did, so I'd never heard of that episode. These quotes are pretty fun though.

https://www.tampabay.com/blogs/media/2018/01/24/the-x-files-th e-best-quotes-from-the-lost-art-of-forehead-sweat/

"Believe what you want to believe. That's what everybody does nowadays anyways." – Dr. They


SolRo - 2020-07-21

These are pretty much online-only cults, they have the same exact symptoms.


Nominal - 2020-07-22

The X-Files were a product during that window between the end of the Cold War and 9/11 when America needed something new to be paranoid about. Enter the rise of the deep state conspiracies, before the internet was established enough to realize it was all a bunch of dangerous crackpots which spoiled the fun. Most say Duchovny leaving the series (for the start of his successful movie career with Evolution!) was the reason, but personally I think it was the end of internet 1.0 that killed it.

Even disconnected from awful real world conspiracy theorists, the mythology episodes were terrible because it quickly became apparent it was all directionless horseshit that would inspire future mystery box horseshit like Lost.

But there were some damn great "monster of the week" episodes. Definitely check out everything written by Darin Morgan and Vince Gilligan.


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