Bruno D.
Senior Member.
I am a member of Metabunk since 2013. I think I started visiting 1 year before that. Curiously it was not Metabunk that brought me out of the rabbit hole, it was YouTube. YouTube made me go both ways. ;-)
I am from Brazil (now living here in US), and as it sometimes happened to many foreigners, there was a strong anti-america feeling all around. It always looked like US wanted to be the sheriff of the world, attacking countries against UN advise, trying to solve all conflicts, and so on. I was 23yo, still in college, with a lot of irrational feelings and trying to find someone to blame for everything wrong that happened in my life. It could be the teachers, the ex-girlfriend, the president or US. Anything would fit.
Then the 9/11 happened. It was very clear to me that someone out there got really really angry about this US arrogance, and decided to do something about that. I was shocked for days. I couldn't leave my home for a week. It was just too much. I read a lot about it online everywhere, even reading some primitive conspiracies, but it was so obvious that all that anti-america hatred transformed into this attack that I always instantly ignored that.
After 4y +-, I was navigating through YouTube, and eventually got to those strange places there, and started watching "the truth" videos. I learned and understood it all. How could it be true that someone outside US would have the power to attack and damage them? They always bragged about being the most powerful nation, and it only made sense that only they could attack them.
Then I learned about how they did it, how they had the guts to kill their own citizens only to invade "oil" countries, only to get more funding for weapons research, only to be able to find a new enemy face after the cold was was over. I became an expert on the Whys and Hows. Poor me, thousands of miles away, internet detective, knowing it all.
And then I started reading the debunking comments in YouTube. Man, I was so disappointed with them. All facts were there, how could they say it was wrong? I never thought that people that didn't believe the truth were part of the conspiracy. I always believed that they actually didn't understand what I understood, and that I had a privileged position as an outsider to help them all (who is the arrogant now? ;-) )
I am a very organized and rational person (how ironic, huh?). One of the arguments that stuck into my mind was the one that said: "The amount of people needed to participate in that conspiracy is so high that it's impossible to have happened. Watergate had only a handful of people, and they couldn't cover it.".
I decided that I was going to calculate the amount of people involved in 9/11 scheme with high accuracy, document it and publish it. I decided to organize all the different versions of the conspiracy (man, there was a LOT) and calculate the crew for each one of them. I started analyzing each one of the "facts" ... and then, I found it ... THE theory that changed it all.
One of the theories claimed that all 3000 deaths in the towers were actors, showing pictures of at least 50 of them, comparing with alive people. It really blew my mind. I would need to factor in at least 100 people (a small social/professional circle) for each one of the 3000 in order to cover for this theory. It made absolutely no sense, so I decided to ignore this theory. As I needed to ignore this theory, I started deciding which one of the other theories I should ignore in order to make my job easier:
- Fake holographic planes? I will not bother with this one.
- Remote controlled planes? No, also too big to cover for.
- Judy Woods Space Beam? Ok, I'll pass this one also
- Mini Nuke Devices? No no, not at all
- A missile for Pentagon? Plausible, put too complex. Let me park this one.
- and so on
And then I started questioning all of them, trying to understand how to accomplish it. Eventually I got to a couple of debunking videos to support my decisions to disregard one option or another. It was at that point that I realized that all the conspiracy idea was not only impossible to plan and execute (I am an IT Project Manager today, managing everything from the conception of a project up to the delivery, analyzing all resources [human and not], risks, alternative plans in case of deviation, etc), but the science was also incorrect. I realized that I was only believing the opinion of unknown YouTube users instead of using my own rationality. Those 1h videos are planned to brainwash you. Why the conspiracy videos are 1h long while debunking videos are 5min long? They are not created to educate, they are created to alienate. And they got to me, and I was angry and ashamed.
It took 3 years between the time I was sure I understood it all and the time I was ashamed of myself for being a dumb mindless resourceless senseless pawn. The only good side of it is that I never discussed that with anyone. It was my little internet secret.
I spent some more years trying to put my shit together, trying to convince others that any of that made sense.
Since I arrived here in US (what a life plot twist) I could see it happening over and over again with a lot of people: Sandy Hook, Boston Marathon, etc. I have no energy to debate anyone in YouTube anymore.
As many others, I eventually got here through Infowars, and up to today this is my little sanity spot in internet. Thanks guys for that.
I am from Brazil (now living here in US), and as it sometimes happened to many foreigners, there was a strong anti-america feeling all around. It always looked like US wanted to be the sheriff of the world, attacking countries against UN advise, trying to solve all conflicts, and so on. I was 23yo, still in college, with a lot of irrational feelings and trying to find someone to blame for everything wrong that happened in my life. It could be the teachers, the ex-girlfriend, the president or US. Anything would fit.
Then the 9/11 happened. It was very clear to me that someone out there got really really angry about this US arrogance, and decided to do something about that. I was shocked for days. I couldn't leave my home for a week. It was just too much. I read a lot about it online everywhere, even reading some primitive conspiracies, but it was so obvious that all that anti-america hatred transformed into this attack that I always instantly ignored that.
After 4y +-, I was navigating through YouTube, and eventually got to those strange places there, and started watching "the truth" videos. I learned and understood it all. How could it be true that someone outside US would have the power to attack and damage them? They always bragged about being the most powerful nation, and it only made sense that only they could attack them.
Then I learned about how they did it, how they had the guts to kill their own citizens only to invade "oil" countries, only to get more funding for weapons research, only to be able to find a new enemy face after the cold was was over. I became an expert on the Whys and Hows. Poor me, thousands of miles away, internet detective, knowing it all.
And then I started reading the debunking comments in YouTube. Man, I was so disappointed with them. All facts were there, how could they say it was wrong? I never thought that people that didn't believe the truth were part of the conspiracy. I always believed that they actually didn't understand what I understood, and that I had a privileged position as an outsider to help them all (who is the arrogant now? ;-) )
I am a very organized and rational person (how ironic, huh?). One of the arguments that stuck into my mind was the one that said: "The amount of people needed to participate in that conspiracy is so high that it's impossible to have happened. Watergate had only a handful of people, and they couldn't cover it.".
I decided that I was going to calculate the amount of people involved in 9/11 scheme with high accuracy, document it and publish it. I decided to organize all the different versions of the conspiracy (man, there was a LOT) and calculate the crew for each one of them. I started analyzing each one of the "facts" ... and then, I found it ... THE theory that changed it all.
One of the theories claimed that all 3000 deaths in the towers were actors, showing pictures of at least 50 of them, comparing with alive people. It really blew my mind. I would need to factor in at least 100 people (a small social/professional circle) for each one of the 3000 in order to cover for this theory. It made absolutely no sense, so I decided to ignore this theory. As I needed to ignore this theory, I started deciding which one of the other theories I should ignore in order to make my job easier:
- Fake holographic planes? I will not bother with this one.
- Remote controlled planes? No, also too big to cover for.
- Judy Woods Space Beam? Ok, I'll pass this one also
- Mini Nuke Devices? No no, not at all
- A missile for Pentagon? Plausible, put too complex. Let me park this one.
- and so on
And then I started questioning all of them, trying to understand how to accomplish it. Eventually I got to a couple of debunking videos to support my decisions to disregard one option or another. It was at that point that I realized that all the conspiracy idea was not only impossible to plan and execute (I am an IT Project Manager today, managing everything from the conception of a project up to the delivery, analyzing all resources [human and not], risks, alternative plans in case of deviation, etc), but the science was also incorrect. I realized that I was only believing the opinion of unknown YouTube users instead of using my own rationality. Those 1h videos are planned to brainwash you. Why the conspiracy videos are 1h long while debunking videos are 5min long? They are not created to educate, they are created to alienate. And they got to me, and I was angry and ashamed.
It took 3 years between the time I was sure I understood it all and the time I was ashamed of myself for being a dumb mindless resourceless senseless pawn. The only good side of it is that I never discussed that with anyone. It was my little internet secret.
I spent some more years trying to put my shit together, trying to convince others that any of that made sense.
Since I arrived here in US (what a life plot twist) I could see it happening over and over again with a lot of people: Sandy Hook, Boston Marathon, etc. I have no energy to debate anyone in YouTube anymore.
As many others, I eventually got here through Infowars, and up to today this is my little sanity spot in internet. Thanks guys for that.