munchie
Member
It's so nice to see a well moderated platform dedicated to removing useless bunk from the Internet (and from the world!). Some words about my past, I used to be one of those "maybe it is a conspiracy" people who did not actively spread conspiracies, but I considered some of them plausible.. and some even probable. The whole thing started with JFK, the fake moon landing theories, and ultimately chemtrails.
What happened was that I was very interested about them when I was younger, about 15-20 years old (I was 15 in the year 1996). It was the early days of mass Internet access, modems, ISDN and so on. I did follow quite a few conspiracy theories very early on, for example I did read ZetaTalk frequently and was very disappointed in Nancy Lieders predictions (or them not coming true..). It felt really nice to have such priviledge information about "Planet X", even if it did not turn out to be true. The whole chemtrails issue followed soon after that and it remained the most important conspiracy theory in my mind. A few years passed and after a military conscription and working for a few years I got drawn back to these issues.
What really alienated me from the conspiracy theories was the understanding that moon landings were not faked. I was really interested in personal biographies, accounts and general information and documentaries about the moon landings. I read the accounts of both US and USSR astronauts and as my knowledge of the issue increased it left smaller and smaller room for the conspiracy theories. One day I realized that my understanding of the moon landings being faked was totally wrong, and that led me to believe that maybe my understanding of other issues were also wrong. I would call this "growing up", I don't think it is not something that could be taught or explained to anyone, maybe it's something that comes with age.
I always thought I was a critical thinker and that I could see past any disinformation, but the irony was that I could not. People who believe in conspiracies tend to build a world in their minds that is simple enough to manage, a world that they understand. What they do is they take a set of theories.. NWO/depopulation, chemtrails, Agenda 21, anti-government, etc and build a theory in their minds that suit their needs. This is the trouble when confronting such people, and I know first hand. They cannot abandon one theory (such as chemtrails) because it supports all the other theories they believe in. They simply cannot admit to having it wrong on one theory, because their whole belief system is depending on all the theories supporting each other.
I believe this is why some people are very hard to "reach". They might seem reluctant to read different articles, understand some basic facts about the atmosphere or admit very basic principles of physics. They could even resort to "all physicists are lying" when they are defending their beliefs. Just be patient and don't be abusive, because that will alienate them. I think the posting guidelines and policies here are totally correct. People really do have very poor knowledge of these issues and explaining basic physics is really needed to snap people out of their beliefs. It might be their first step in understanding the issue, and people screaming "dumbass" wont help with that.
What happened was that I was very interested about them when I was younger, about 15-20 years old (I was 15 in the year 1996). It was the early days of mass Internet access, modems, ISDN and so on. I did follow quite a few conspiracy theories very early on, for example I did read ZetaTalk frequently and was very disappointed in Nancy Lieders predictions (or them not coming true..). It felt really nice to have such priviledge information about "Planet X", even if it did not turn out to be true. The whole chemtrails issue followed soon after that and it remained the most important conspiracy theory in my mind. A few years passed and after a military conscription and working for a few years I got drawn back to these issues.
What really alienated me from the conspiracy theories was the understanding that moon landings were not faked. I was really interested in personal biographies, accounts and general information and documentaries about the moon landings. I read the accounts of both US and USSR astronauts and as my knowledge of the issue increased it left smaller and smaller room for the conspiracy theories. One day I realized that my understanding of the moon landings being faked was totally wrong, and that led me to believe that maybe my understanding of other issues were also wrong. I would call this "growing up", I don't think it is not something that could be taught or explained to anyone, maybe it's something that comes with age.
I always thought I was a critical thinker and that I could see past any disinformation, but the irony was that I could not. People who believe in conspiracies tend to build a world in their minds that is simple enough to manage, a world that they understand. What they do is they take a set of theories.. NWO/depopulation, chemtrails, Agenda 21, anti-government, etc and build a theory in their minds that suit their needs. This is the trouble when confronting such people, and I know first hand. They cannot abandon one theory (such as chemtrails) because it supports all the other theories they believe in. They simply cannot admit to having it wrong on one theory, because their whole belief system is depending on all the theories supporting each other.
I believe this is why some people are very hard to "reach". They might seem reluctant to read different articles, understand some basic facts about the atmosphere or admit very basic principles of physics. They could even resort to "all physicists are lying" when they are defending their beliefs. Just be patient and don't be abusive, because that will alienate them. I think the posting guidelines and policies here are totally correct. People really do have very poor knowledge of these issues and explaining basic physics is really needed to snap people out of their beliefs. It might be their first step in understanding the issue, and people screaming "dumbass" wont help with that.
