• Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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    23 days ago

    I once heard of a pediatrician who successfully convinced a concerned mother that anti-vax ideology was likely a psyop by the Russians to weaken the health of the American populace starting with our children. Doesn’t hurt that it’s probably true.

    EDIT: My personal conspiracy theory is that the Chinese government did engineer (or at least selectively cultivate) COVID, but not to kill Americans. In the early days of the pandemic there was some speculation that it affected some blood types more than others, particularly type A. While no link to blood type specifically was found, type A is a more common genetic trait as you move out of Asia and towards the middle east. China has been heavily persecuting the Uyghurs (Chinese Muslims), and those who have managed to get out of the camps have reported medical experimentation and being injected with unknown substances. In addition, the virus would also kill a significant number of the older population, which is important because of the population crunch they’re about to experience due to one-child policies resulting in a high amount of female-specific infanticide. They’re about to have a bunch of old people and a massive shortage of able bodied young people to care for them. Even if they didn’t directly “engineer” the virus in a gene-sequencing manner, they have a lot off motive to just generally cultivate and spread (you can’t really “breed” a virus) an infectious disease targeting people of middle eastern descent and elders.

    Thank you for coming to my tinfoil-hat Ted Talk.

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      The reason I absolutely believe this to be true? Because I’ve used this on my little brothers since we were kids. I’m 45.

      It’s called “reverse psychology.”

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        23 days ago

        It’s a bizarre and (afaik) unfounded conspiracy theory, but I don’t think this reasoning works as a refutation. It’s still very possible that the experiment got out, and even if not they still needed policies to protect all the people they didn’t want to be affected because the targeting isn’t perfect.

    • overcast5348@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      How are China’s stringent lockdowns explained in this conspiracy theory? Also, where do I sign up as a member?

      • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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        23 days ago

        Well you can’t not do that, especially not if you’re already known for doing that kind of thing anyway for other things.

          • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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            23 days ago

            I remember reading somewhere that while a western audience would perceive this as utterly farcical, a Chinese citizen is at least more likely to perceive it as the government taking their safety and security seriously enough to be thorough about it. While I’m sure there was some person somewhere in the chain of command who thought this was a good and important idea and that they needed to check the pigeon butts for explosives, there’s no way all of the people involved in doing those searches thought it was likely to uncover an actual weapon, but the cultural context makes it important to err in that direction. Meanwhile in the US, the government is more successful in hiding abuses by “protecting freedoms.” Powerful people all around the world have basically the same playbook, but a big part of that strategy is knowing their audience.

            You can also utilize the somewhat covert bribery and diversion systems to this end. As long as everybody thinks everybody ELSE is following the guidelines, and that they’re the only ones really getting away with things / reporting that they’re following guidelines when they’re not, you can get the same result and all you have to do is not look too closely, which is probably what you’re doing with most other things already. In the US you don’t even need to bother doing that because aside from not culturally having enough shame to do so, actively hiding our idiocy in any way would be considered a restriction on freedoms. Around these parts its your god given right to be a dumbass and the gubmit can pry that from your cold dead hands.

            We’re stupid, but at least we’re honest about it. They’re stupid, but at least they have the decency to not act like it out in broad daylight. Neither is better and both can easily be a tool of the bourgeoisie.

            • IndiBrony@lemmy.world
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              23 days ago

              I like you.

              Like, this is what conspiracy should be - actually somewhat believable - and not dumb shit like flat earth.

              I always held that 9/11 was dubious. Not an “inside job” per se, but definitely a case of “we’re gonna turn our backs for just a second, and you terrorists better not do something silly while we’re not looking!”

              One of the biggest things that will always stick out to me: the WMDs. They were adamant Iraq had them. They said they had actual evidence. None of it was true. It all came across as an excuse for ol’ George to go in and try to finish what daddy started in '91.

              Just to be clear as well, I think other conspiracies such as the controlled demolition of the towers and the fake plane at the pentagon are bullshit. I don’t have my tinfoil hat on that tightly.

              • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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                23 days ago

                Yeah like. They’re already covering up enough stuff that is both stupid AND awful all at once you don’t need to make up extra shit.

                • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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                  21 days ago

                  This thread brought to you by Western Imperialism™.

                  Seeing this allowed on mander.xyz is deeply disappointing.

              • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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                23 days ago

                I always held that 9/11 was dubious. Not an “inside job” per se, but definitely a case of “we’re gonna turn our backs for just a second, and you terrorists better not do something silly while we’re not looking!”

                But why? What they won letting that happen?

                • SuperIce@lemmy.world
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                  23 days ago

                  The Patriot Act gives the government practically unlimited permission to spy on all citizens. It was created and passed as a result of 9/11.

              • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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                22 days ago

                other conspiracies such as the controlled demolition of the towers

                Maybe not WTC 1 or 2 but WTC 7 looks exactly like a controlled demolition.

            • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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              21 days ago

              We’re stupid, but at least we’re honest about it. They’re stupid, but at least they have the decency to not act like it out in broad daylight.

              Wrong comparison. People from the US are stupid and proud of it. There’s nothing honest coming from the US except bombs.

    • rbits@lemm.ee
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      23 days ago

      Can confirm this is true because the same was true for my mum. She was against the COVID vaccine, but then she started believing that the theories were started by the Chinese government to target people who don’t listen to the authorities.

      • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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        23 days ago

        That doesn’t change the distribution of demographics by itself. Even assuming the birth rate skyrocketed after the nixing of the one child policy, it takes ~20 years before those people are working age.

        • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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          23 days ago

          The big problem China faced and why the one-child policy was abandoned after all is that there was a staunch focus on having a male child to “keep the bloodline alive” (cultural reasoning) which led to a stagnation in the 0-14 years age group due to an overpopulation with males. This is not fixed by killing off your elderly.

          Covid was most deadly for the age group of 65 and above and in 2019, they had proportionally less people aged 65+ than the US (13.50% in China vs. 16.4% in the US). Either China’s scientists failed immensely or the virus stemmed from bad hygiene practices in livestock markets selling bats.

    • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org
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      22 days ago

      My personal conspiracy theory is that the Chinese government did engineer (or at least selectively cultivate) COVID

      The theory I’d believe more is that the U S of A govt or one of its agencies engineered and released it in China.

      China and India are growing economies, with decent populations and a pandemic would seriously delay their growth and help the U S of A keep it’s top place for a bit longer or destroy its competitors.

      I’ve heard the theory being given decent thought by non-western people. And it’s equally, if not, more believable than the other one.

      The US is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons on civillians, so them using biological weapons on civillians would not be a big moral barrier for them or a big stretch to think about.

      They probably didn’t think it’d spread this much and their own citizens n even president would be idiotic enough to be against vaccines and masks, when people were dying.

      • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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        21 days ago

        The US is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons on civillians, so them using biological weapons on civillians would not be a big moral barrier for them or a big stretch to think about.

        That’s such a small stretch that it’s actually a confirmed fact that the US has repeatedly used chemical and biological warfare. Korea and Vietnam are merely two easy examples.

      • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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        23 days ago

        The theory I’d believe more is that the U S of A govt or one of its agencies engineered and released it in China.

        They did a stupid ass job them, killing the older only gonna help China, and it didn’t even killed enough people to make a difference and it backfired in the US, the conspiracy that China was engineering with it and shit escaped make more sense

        • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org
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          22 days ago

          They did a stupid ass job them

          They probably didn’t expect their president to be idiotic enough to be against vaccines and recommend stuff like bleach.

          They’re a developed nation and could’ve had better control.
          They were able to hinder Chinese trade a bit.

          And didn’t they try and fail to kill Castro in many stupid ass ways?

          I think them doing it is more likely than China doing it to their own, considering the trade issues that the virus caused for China at the time.

          And again, they were the first to use nuclear weapons on civillians. Did it twice even.
          I don’t think they’d have an qualms about using biological weapons, if they thought that it’d give them an edge.

          They also can float the ‘China virus’ conspiracy to confuse the public and make them anti-China too.

          • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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            21 days ago

            You forgot the anti-vaccine campaign they ran in countries near China saying their vaccine contained pig parts. Not the US state dept’s first anti-vax campaign btw.

            US vaccines were made available first and foremost to Western citizens, and only then were made available to purchase. China released their vaccine worldwide, so countries without a vaccine program had access earlier and cheaper than they could acquire vaccines from the US. Their anti-vax campaign was meant to prevent other countries from accepting China’s offer, thus preventing goodwill towards China, protecting the profits of US companies, and leading to the deaths of millions who could have been saved in “US Allied” countries such as the Philippines.

            If you were going to buy into one of these two conspiracy theories, first you should have some actual evidence, and then you should look at the behavior of these countries and ask yourself: which behavior is more consistent with releasing a virus that could act as an economic weapon meant to shut-down a country, but not kill everyone?

    • bloubz@lemmygrad.ml
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      23 days ago

      The Chinese government has not persecuted Uyghurs, tin foil hat person

      • F04118F@feddit.nl
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        23 days ago

        I understand your desire to defend communism.

        But really, how far does an authoritarian regime have to go, while calling itself communist, before you judge them?

        What evidence would change your mind about the CCP?

        • kureta@lemmy.ml
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          23 days ago

          I was banned from /r/latestagecapitalism for not loving China. Anytime I tried to explain why I do not unconditionally love everything about China, they said “but USA?” Dude, I don’t care about USA. It’s thousands of kilometers away from where I live. Everything I said was interpreted as defending USA. I say “China does this” they hear “USA doesn’t do that”. There are other countries in the world, you know, not everything is about USA. End of rant :)

        • bloubz@lemmygrad.ml
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          23 days ago

          Where did I defend the CCP or communism?

          (I do fully support communism and have critical support for China, but that’s not the question here)

          What evidence would change your mind about […]

          Show me evidence that the Uyghur are being persecuted

            • F04118F@feddit.nl
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              23 days ago

              The communism preference, yes. As for the CCP: They literally denied Uyghur persecution. Not even genocide, which is a claim that, due to its severity, is always going to be hard to prove, and thus debatable, I get that.

              But even just the fact that the ethnic-religious group of Uyghurs are being persecuted on a large scale, had to be denied. That’s pretty extreme.

          • F04118F@feddit.nl
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            23 days ago

            Thank you for answering.

            I am not sure where to start, but let’s take the easy way: At the moment of writing, the wikipedia page “Persecution of Uyghurs in China” has 585 references.

            They’re probably all written by seemingly independent institutions, journalists and scientists who somehow have a McCarthyist-like fear of communism that they’d risk their credibility just to add a bit of damage to communist China’s moral standing?

            Or are they all factually incorrect through some other mechanism?

    • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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      23 days ago

      This was highly effective when I used it in real life.

      The conspiracy theorist got real mad demanding I name sources, I kept telling him to find it on the internet with fake search terms.

      • Match!!@pawb.social
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        23 days ago

        congress is full of marxist-leninist-pelosi-ists who intentionally cause inflation to distract us from finding obama’s birth certificate! google “MLP inflation” if yu don’t believe me!

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      22 days ago

      I once got on the topic of the moon lending with a creationist co-worker. He said he wasn’t sure, but that if it happened we should be able to see it from satellite pictures. So I said “yeah you can”, pulled it up, and zoomed in on a landing site. You couldn’t see footprints or anything, but you could see the shadow of the flag next to clearly man-made debris

      I showed him exactly what he agreed would be proof in a difficult to fake form, and it just temporarily nudged the needle for him

      Now, I fight conspiracies with the opposite conspiracies.

      Earth is a 4D hypersphere, the earth isn’t hollow, Agatha is just another part of the surface reached by holes

      The elites are hiding all the best vaccines, like the ones that cure cancer

      • coffee_whatever@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        I recently watched “Brief history of the Wrong Earths” by Hardcore Sci-Fi, not many of these are well known so you could have so much more ammunition for fooling around like that with people.

        “flat earth? Nah, it’s expanding bro! Oh wait actually it’s 9 hollow earths one in another!”

  • GooberEar@lemmy.wtf
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    23 days ago

    My best friend has an unnatural talent for this sort of thing and really enjoys toying with conspiracy theory nuts.

    When folks start talking about crazy shit, it makes me very anxious and I tend to shut down. Not my buddy. He eggs them on, encourages it, and gets them to say things or agree with things that are even more outlandish than where they conversation started. Things will start at “China invented covid to kill off old people” and somehow end up at “Hillary Clinton paid to have her chromosomes added to the covid vaccines so that DNA evidence can no longer be used against her in the courts”.

  • kromem@lemmy.world
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    23 days ago

    I fondly remember reading a comment in /r/conspiracy on a post claiming a geologic seismic weapon brought down the towers.

    It just tore into the claims, citing all the reasons this was preposterous bordering on batshit crazy.

    And then it said “and your theory doesn’t address the thermite residue” going on to reiterate their wild theory.

    Was very much a “don’t name your gods” moment that summed up the sub - a lot of people in agreement that the truth was out there, but bitterly divided as to what it might actually be.

    As long as they only focused on generic memes of “do your own research” and “you aren’t being told the truth” they were all on the same page. But as soon as they started naming their own truths, it was every theorist for themselves.

  • CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml
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    23 days ago

    I once tried to get a conspiracy theory going that Flat Earth was a fake conspiracy started by the government to cover up the real conspiracy - that the moon is flat. That’s why we only ever see one side of it and why we were able to land on it. It didn’t take lol.

    • atocci@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      I just need people to know that they didn’t fake the moon landing, that really happened. They faked the moon. It didn’t exist prior to the 1960s when it was created by the US government in order to move the goalposts in the space race.

      The insider knowledge that there would soon be a moon to land on gave NASA the head start they needed on the Apollo program to finally beat the Soviets, who were thoroughly blindsided by the sudden appearance of the moon.

      • Agent641@lemmy.world
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        22 days ago

        This is bullshit. What we see as the moon is actually the earth, after the reptillians ruined it. What we live on is actually a domed space station orbiting the moon-earth.

        We didnt go to the moon, we went back to the moon.

    • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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      23 days ago

      why we were able to land on it.

      This is why you failed. Everyone knows the moon landing was fake and directed by Kubrick.

  • barsoap@lemm.ee
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    23 days ago

    Jet fuel indeed doesn’t burn hot enough to melt steel. Forging temperature, OTOH, no issue.

    • illi@lemm.ee
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      23 days ago

      You don’t understand, steel is either solid or melted. No in-between. No idea what you mean by forging temperature, swords for example are forged by pouring liquid steel to a form, it’s in so many movies!

      /s obviously.

      • Buglefingers@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        I know the /s but I also want to introduce you to amorphous solids! (Because I like them so now you get to read this lol) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorphous_solid

        Which is essentially a “solid” structure without a proper crystalline structure. This will cause it to move as a liquid at incredibly slow speeds. Such a glass for instance. Extremely old historical glass can be seen to be thicker at the bottom than the top. Not because it was built this way, but because over hundreds of years it has “poured” down [1].

        *This is a simplified explanation and therefore may not be acutely accurate for sake of simplicity

        TL;DR Some solid stuff is really just super slow liquids. I.E. Glass

        [1]: See link in comment reply. Glass is an amorphous solid but sources say that glass pane construction is the cause of thicker bottoms rather than it’s movement over time.

    • sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      22 days ago

      Yeah let’s ignore the fact that it loses 70% of its strength at like 800 F, that fact invalidates my meme catchphrase!

  • Paradachshund@lemmy.today
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    23 days ago

    When I started reading these comments I didn’t expect them to be full of actual, unironic conspiracy theories. 🤔

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        23 days ago

        The wizards hunted dragons to extinction because their wings made good spell components and they want to dodge responsibility for it.

        Its ugly, but it’s true.

        • Jolteon@lemmy.zip
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          22 days ago

          Then the warlocks killed off all the wizards for taking away their sources of power. It’s why you don’t see magic in use today. The wizards have all been killed off and the warlocks have no entities left to pact with.

  • Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net
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    23 days ago

    Jet fuel doesn’t need extra tanks of mind control agent, they’re already using leaded fuel

    • spacesatan@lazysoci.al
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      22 days ago

      lead is in avgas for prop planes, not jet fuel.

      *I guess turboprops also use jet fuel so I should have said small GA planes but you get the point.

        • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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          23 days ago

          decomissioning millions (?) of perfectly good planes doesnt seem practical and modding old airplane engines to use different fuel doesnt seem like the safest way to solve this problem.

          how do we even begin?

          • Liz@midwest.social
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            23 days ago

            I thought that you can still sell new props that need leaded fuel, is that not the case?

          • Sonori@beehaw.org
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            22 days ago

            Note, since the 80s the vast, vast majority of piston driven aircraft engines have been able to operate on unleaded fuel. We know this because for decades GA pilots have been filling out the paperwork for an experimental fuel variance and then running these engines unmodified on the cheaper unleaded they got from the gas station down the street without any apparent issue or rise in engine maintenance/failures among pilots that do this. The main hurdles being the necessary and not insignificant paperwork as well as concern over insurance rates.

            From my understanding there was a problem with one series of engine in the seventies that was suspected to be due to unleaded fuel among the more modern product line of a major manufacturer, and while the engine was modified to fix it neither Lycoming nor Continental, the two primary piston engine manufacturers who make up the vast majority of the market, saw significant pressure to drop the official recommendation for unleaded until relatively recently.

            Since the US finally started to get serious about phasing out leaded avgas in the 2010s, and the aditude of its been fine so far so why risk any change has run up against said pressure, both have to my knowledge dropped the requirement retroactively with no modification necessary for the majority of their historical and current product line.

            You might need to re-engine or more likely just get an exemption for flying history aircraft, but the benefit to the hundreds of thousands that live near GA airports in terms of reduced damage to children’s nervous systems far outweighs the nebulous cost of switching the default form of avgas.