What are the most popular conspiracy theories?
I don't really know what constitutes a conspiracy theory. Diamonds in wedding rings are essentially worthless, yet people still pay exorbitant amounts for them. So, I guess I'll leave it to personal judgment.
Popular conspiracy theories according to me:
JFK was not assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald alone. He was killed by the CIA / 2nd shooter on the grassy knoll
Actually no one killed him. His head just did that.
Most of the flouride stuff ive read about is more about concerns with the toxicity of flouride and some about it promoting calcification of parts of the body.
And a lot of the anti climate change stuff i find is less about promotion of alternatives and more about the government wants to control your freedom, self sustainability, and independence.
Avril Levine was replaced by a clone many years ago
Ooh that's a fun one. Paul McCartney as well, apparently. The McCartney one gets me thinking sometimes because supposedly they left clues to this in some of their lyrics.
I have also heard this about Jamie Foxx and Kanye West. I'm sure there's more.
My favourite atm is that kirk's wife had him killed.
ngl, seen deer shot with 30.06, not sure how anyone can figure he got zapped in the neck and it went in-through-out without a lot more damage...
I like the theory that suggests that JonBenét Ramsey wasn't killed, and was instead kidnapped and secretly raised by her captors to be a singer, and grew up to become Katy Perry.
That's a new one! I recently saw a different one About JonBenet that says Erika Kirk is actually her grown up, and she was kidnapped by Ghislaine Maxwell because she was in a picture from that birthday party or something.
My least favorite one is ancient aliens, because it is both inspired by Carl Sagan and inspired a ton of sci fi especially Stargate, but it’s also just white supremacy with extra steps.
I’m so conflicted.
9/11 was an inside job. There’s a belief that elements within the U.S. government orchestrated the attacks.
I think the US government knew about it, maybe not exactly orchestrated it, but they intentionally allowed it to happen to justify expanding powers.
I mean like... I only believe this 60% true, there's 40% of me that think government is just this incompetent.
I think even that gives them too much credit. It’s just incompetence.
The US “did 9/11” by interfering with global affairs for decades until one of those schemes finally backfired.
I don’t think there’s any conspiracy necessary beyond that to explain everything.
I've seen a clip from a Long Kiss Goodnight (1996) that describes the motive weapons companies could have for it very well, the government wasn't necessarily involved but I believe some of the elite definitely were.
Today I learned that the owner of the WTC had it insured against terrorism just six weeks before its collapse and made $4.55 billion. I had a chat with an AI about probabilities, and it doesn’t paint a good picture.
It had been the target of less permanent terrorism multiple times before that.
Discussing conspiracies is basically the worst case for LLMs. They’re both extremely sycophantic (they try to figure out and tell you what you want to hear), and not grounded in real references.
If you must, use something like z.ai's deep research mode, with a single even, neutral question. It’s way better than ChatGPT.
The guy set up the insurance for the building he just purchased that had a terrorist attack in 1993. Of course he got insurance for terrorism for a building he just purchased that was a target for terrorists.
Depends.
Birds aren't real is fake, but pretty popular, because it's funny.
Flat earthing is also fake but somehow has a huge following.
Depends are real, the US president wears them
no shit? (pun intended)
Religion.
I believe many religions are an analogy to the sun, but many people buy into them.
Flat Earth, the New World Order, the Illuminati, Jewish space lasers, Democrats/ Jews controlling the weather. MLK being killed by the government could be considered one, but, well. You know. All the classics.
lluminati / New World Order. A secret elite supposedly controls world governments and economies.
I think the only reason this is a conspiracy is because it claims there are shadowy, secret people coordinating their activities and running the world behind the scenes and only the conspiracy theorists will ever be clever enough to figure exactly out who they are.
In reality the political elites and billionaires are already doing exactly that very obviously and in plain sight with zero subtlety, making a public performance out of national relations while regularly meeting and being perfectly cordial and strategizing and horse-trading together behind doors, living a life of wealth and privilege, establishing themselves as minor celebrities and making sure people are always talking about them, and apparently hanging out on tropical islands with child-molesters. We know this is generally factual for very many of them, unless you think all the Wikileaks wires and Epstein files stuff is somehow faked. Unless you just haven't read them. It's pretty fucking clear what's going on in my opinion. No need for a conspiracy to be able to see what's going on in the circles of power. It's not much of a secret anymore.
In reality, an open elite controls world governments and economies.
The only thing that makes me think of this is operation paperclip, but that's not reason enough to believe their is a single group in control. More like many powerful groups like Blackrock pulling strings.
Chemtrails
Ronan Farrow is the biological offspring of Frank Sinatra, not Woody Allen.
Qanon
That's a lot of conspiracy theories.
The only actual conspiracy theory i hear about irl is chemtrails
Every construct theory in it's most extreme form always seems to end up antisemitic, so I'd say the antisemitic tropes.
Not exactly a conspiracy theory, but the idea that any of the "sovereign citizen" nonsense actually does anything.
this raises the question:
where does the line get drawn between conspiracy beliefs and genuine mental illness?
because if there's a line it's so fine I can't fucking see it...
Horses dont exist
The titanic one is a good one
Fun fact in financial circles its a popular one. Especially given the old money aboard happened to be big in banking and wouldve opposed major central banking laws.
People online actually exist and aren’t just a simulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_conspiracy_theory_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_conspiracy_theories
There is so much material out there from people in the CIA itself telling how the cannon of all this stuff is them making people believe that shit, e.g. area 51 to distract from actual weapon testing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemtrail_conspiracy_theory
You forgot flat earth.
Definitely up there. I didn't include it because others mentioned it already when I wrote this.
Hollow earth is a fun one too.
Covid must have multiple but I don't remember hearing about any concrete ones.
I remember "Covid was a Chinese bioweapon" being popular, alongside "Covid is fake and just an excuse for the government to inject us with 5G microchips"
That’s because it got mixed up with the very real and muddy “lab leak vs natural jump” debate.