Chemtrails, NWO, and UFOs: How many believers do these CTs have?

[Santa's sidekick]

The title pretty much says it all. Does anyone have information on the following:

1. How many people believe in some variant of the major CTs (Chemtrails, JFK, 9/11, NWO, Zionists, UFOs, etc)?

2. Are the proportions of different national populations that believe in these CTs the same, or are certain beliefs more prevalent in some countries than in others?

3. What is the breakdown of CT believers into different socioeconomic/education, ethnic, age, and religious groups? And, lastly,

4. Do a significant proportion of believers 'drop out' at some point?

Hard numbers would be great, but if they don't exist then anecdotal experience will have to do - though bearing in mind that 'the plural of anecdote is not data'.

 

[Chew]

There are several polls that addressed conspiracy beliefs. Here's one: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/04/conspiracy-theory-poll-results-.html

 

[Whitebeard]

Is this of use? if not to you, then anyone else?
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-...al-studies/the-psychology-conspiracy-theories

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you…
There is a curious relationship between psychology and the study of conspiracy theories. Historians, philosophers, sociologists and political scientists often present conspiracy theories as being of an essentially psychological nature.

A detail of a mural in Denver International Airport, subject of much conspiracy theorist interest. A plea for peace, or a plan for future martial law?

Many such writers describe belief in conspiracies as manifestations of ‘paranoia’, ‘anxiety’, ‘fantasy’, ‘hysteria’ and ‘projection’, or as fulfilling a profound psychological need for certainty in the precarious (post-)modern age. In everyday discourse too, ‘conspiracy theorists’ are often labelled ‘lunatics’, ‘kooks’ or ‘paranoiacs’, implying that they suffer from some intrinsic psychological deficiency or dysfunction.

Yet, surprisingly, little psychological research has been conducted on this topic. In fact, it is only since the 1990s that social psychologists have turned their attention to the conspiracy theory phenomenon and scrutinised its psychological roots in a systematic way.

Investigating the conspiracy theorist
Much psychology research has focused on identifying factors which predispose certain individuals to endorse conspiracy theories. Given that not everyone believes in conspiracy theories, psychological studies have sought to uncover what distinguishes believers from non-believers, and in so doing create a "psychological profile" of conspiracist individuals.

Researchers have explored the relevance of more general demographic factors like gender, socio-economic status, educational level or ethnic background and so on, but also things like disenchantment with political authority, sense of powerlessness, political cynicism, authoritarianism or alienation from society.

They have also looked at personality factors and aspects of cognitive functioning (resistance to disconfirming evidence, tendency to circular thinking, attributional styles, etc.) to see whether conspiracism is underpinned by some intrinsic perceptual or reasoning deficit which leads people to misunderstand or misinterpret causal relations in the world.

Overall, this quest for the psychological profile of conspiracy theorists has yielded modest results. Conspiracy theorists have been shown to be quite similar to sceptics in terms of cognitive functioning or personality. In fact, the only consistent finding is that believers tend to be disenchanted with authority and cynical about the mainstream of politics.

But this is hardly surprising: these are the central motifs of any conspiracy theory!

Look again…
One possible reason why the psychology of conspiracy theories produced so few meaningful results is that researchers have been approaching this phenomenon in the wrong way. They have tended to see conspiracy theories first and foremost as individual beliefs, thereby reducing them to events that are going on inside a person’s mind (information processing biases, personality characteristics, etc.).

But conspiracy theories are not just a set of individual attitudes.

Did you hear about…?
Anyone who has had the opportunity to engage with conspiracy theories will realise that they are, in fact, a dynamic set of stories and shared assumptions about the world which persist and evolve over time. As such, they are continuously exchanged, debated, evaluated and modified as people try to make sense of the world and events around them.

Also, conspiracy theorising is more often than not a shared endeavour and a social activity, performed through organisations, movements, campaigns, or through jointly produced websites and internet forums.

This means that conspiracy theories are least interesting (or least damaging) when they are confined to a person’s head; they are far more interesting when they are in the public domain, circulating as a set of ideas – on the basis of which movements are established, political projects forged and power relations challenged and sustained.

A theory of conspiracy theories
Where does this leave the psychology of conspiracy theories? Clearly, looking for stable psychological characteristics or cognitive biases that differentiate believers from sceptics may not be the most productive avenue for research to pursue. Instead, the focus should be turned to the study of conspiracy theories as a social and ideological phenomenon.

As a number of social psychologists (including Henri Tajfel, Michael Bilig, Keneth Gergen or Serge Moscovici) have argued over the years, psychology ought to be turning its attention away from looking for psychological underpinnings of social phenomena and consider instead how specific ideologies, worldviews and cultural traditions produce particular patterns of thinking and behaviour.

Put differently, it is not that ‘faulty reasoning’ causes people to endorse conspiracy-based explanations, but rather that something within those explanations, within their thematic configuration, narrative structure and explanatory logic, leads people to exhibit these seemingly ‘faulty’ patterns of thought.

This suggests that the central object of study should be the structure, logic and evolution of conspiracy theories, with a view to explaining how and why this tradition of explanation persists in modern society, and how it sustains distinct forms of individual and collective thought and action.

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[deirdre]

if not to you, then anyone else?

isn't EVERYONE on the planet 'critical of mainstream politics'? : )

They will never get anywhere studying CT thinking or psychological attributes until they break them down into specific CTs and specific groups. For instance I know several people who still question the JFK thing but don't believe Chemtrails or anti vax evil government CTs of today. And then there are those who believe EVERY gov related CT that exists.

Does anyone have information on the following:

a metabunk thread with some breakdowns
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/co...ace-splits-on-chemtrails-etc.1345/#post-34560

 

[Cairenn]

There are some that seem to overlap a lot, the anti GMO folks and the anti Vaxxers. Chemtrailers and agenda 21 folks and anti vaxxers.

My guess is that they get taken in by one, say anti GMO or anti corporation and then they add in the other ones

 

[AltoidSBS]

They will never get anywhere studying CT thinking or psychological attributes until they break them down into specific CTs and specific groups.

Agreed.

Also: without a clear definition of a CT, you could run into some difficulties, @Santa's sidekick. For example, you list "Zionists" -- what does that mean, precisely? I personally believe the pro-Israel lobby wields undue, and at times dangerous, influence over many U.S. politicians. Does that alone mean I'm a Zionist conspiracy theorist?

 

[Santa's sidekick]

Agreed.

Also: without a clear definition of a CT, you could run into some difficulties, @Santa's sidekick. For example, you list "Zionists" -- what does that mean, precisely? I personally believe the pro-Israel lobby wields undue, and at times dangerous, influence over many U.S. politicians. Does that alone mean I'm a Zionist conspiracy theorist?

I don't want to get pinned down by definitions, because that can get really difficult.... What I meant by 'Zionists' was beliefs like that espoused by former Malaysian PM Mohamed Mahathir, who suggested on multiple occasions that Zionists control world finance and the governments of the major Western powers, and act in concert to damage their enemies. Similarly, George Galloway, a British MP, has said that Zionists manipulated world governments into invading Iraq. This concept is ubiquitous on stormfront and in antisemitic literature like 'Protocols of the elders of Zion' and Henry Ford's 'The international Jew', where the terms 'Jew' and 'Zionist' are often interchangeable.

The belief you hold (which I agree with) is a lot more rational and even apparent - AIPAC is a lobby organization, lobbyists try to influence politicians to support causes, and US politicians are usually irrationally and blindly pro-Israel. Believing that pro-Israel lobbyists (or pro-oil or pro-anything-else-you-can-think-of lobbyists) influence American politicians does not require a belief in 'secret' and 'nefarious' organizations or people doing something that most people are totally unaware of - everyone knows who lobbyists are and what they do. But the bigger point would be one of definition, and while that can be rather difficult to pin down, it does seem that most CTs involve a belief that 'things at not as they seem' and 'we are all being duped', in a big way (though never for the better - it's never 'fluoridation of our drinking water prevents cancer!' or 'The Bildurbegers are doing a swimming job leading the world to world peace!'), among other things. Saying that lobbyists exert influence over politicians definitely does not meet this criteria.

 

[deirdre]

Saying that lobbyists exert influence over politicians definitely does not meet this criteria

that's what I was getting at as far as polling or trying to psycho analyze CTers. For instance if someone identifies as an anti-vaxxer (in my experience) that in no way means they believe there is something nefarious going on. Most I know just think the government is 'wrong' in their interpretation of 'risk'. So polls and studies on CTs would have to be very careful to weed these types of people out OR better yet use these people (and say Altoid) as the control groups vs using the general public as the control groups.

Then of course you have "who bothers to sign up for studies/polls". I think any 'numbers' you find would have to be taken with a huge grain of salt. It would be much easier to find data or gather data if you pick ONE specific CT to focus on. : )

 

[Santa's sidekick]

There are several polls that addressed conspiracy beliefs. Here's one: http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/04/conspiracy-theory-poll-results-.html

That's a great find. Unfortunately, however, they don't report the text of the questions or how the sample was chosen, so there are all kinds of miscommunication and self-selection issues that could be there.

Taken at face value, some of their results are suspicious:

- 21% of voters say a UFO crashed in Roswell, NM in 1947 and the US government covered it up. More Romney voters (27%) than Obama voters (16%) believe in a UFO coverup

- 28% of voters believe secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, or New World Order. A plurality of Romney voters (38%) believe in the New World Order compared to 35% who don’t

- 13% of voters think Barack Obama is the anti-Christ, including 22% of Romney voters

- 9% of voters think the government adds fluoride to our water supply for sinister reasons (not just dental health)

- 4% of voters say they believe “lizard people” control our societies by gaining political power

- 5% believe exhaust seen in the sky behind airplanes is actually chemicals sprayed by the government for sinister reasons

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Some of these are hard to believe:

4% - one in twenty five! - believe in reptilians
13% believe Obama is the anti-Christ
21% believe in Roswell

And consider this: 28% believe in NWO as compared to 5% who believe in chemtrails. (Contrails are incorrectly described as 'exhaust seen in the sky'.)

Also, they describe '13% of voters including 22% of Romney voters' as believing the anti-Christ thing - but as Romney voters were ~47% of the total, that leaves ~2.7% of Obama voters who believe he's the anti-Christ! And if by 'voters' they mean 'registered voters', then as the turnout was an abysmal 51%, that leaves ~7.7% of registered voters who did not vote against Obama (including both those who voted for him and those who didn't vote) who believe Obama is the anti-Christ.

Others are not necessarily CTs, such as climate change denial (many deniers just think the science is wrong but do not believe it's a deliberate hoax) and the vaccine-autism link (ditto, as @deirdre pointed out above).

And all are vaguely worded.

 

[Seeker]

I don't think it is possible to put an accurate figure to the number CT believers in the world. I believe some do door over time whilst others don't and some may drift from one group to another of expand their portfolio of beliefs. I think it is fluid.

 

[Santa's sidekick]

I don't think it is possible to put an accurate figure to the number CT believers in the world. I believe some do door over time whilst others don't and some may drift from one group to another of expand their portfolio of beliefs. I think it is fluid.

It's great to have you back, @Seeker!

Many things that are fluid are nevertheless measurable in a practical sense - people's religious and political beliefs often develop and shift but this often happens slowly enough to survey. So the question then would be, how much volatility is there in CT belief?

 

[Santa's sidekick]

It would be much easier to find data or gather data if you pick ONE specific CT to focus on. : )

I agree with everything there except that last bit - I think CTs share enough features in common that they can be measured as a group. It's kind of like how social scientists measure religion - it often takes the form of 'X proportion of Y SES/age/ethnic group attend church more than once a month' or 'count themselves as members of religious groups of X typological classification' - the actual religion/sect/etc in question often doesn't matter, as they and their members share enough characteristics to categorized together.

(And on a surface level religious groups don't have as much in common as you would think - most groups believe in heaven/hell, Jewish people don't; most groups believe in God and divine texts, followers of some Budhist sects and some Jewish denominations don't. Even within a given religion - say Islam, Buddhism, etc - you often find an astounding diversity of opinions. What these groups share are sociological and philosophical characteristics, as I suspect do most CTs).

 

[Seeker]

It's great to have you back, @Seeker!

Many things that are fluid are nevertheless measurable in a practical sense - people's religious and political beliefs often develop and shift but this often happens slowly enough to survey. So the question then would be, how much volatility is there in CT belief?

Thank you Santa's SK!

You are right that fluidity does not prevent measurability and your new question certainly deserves some thoughts. I don't know how volatile their beliefs are but I would imagine that would be down to the individual and the depth of conviction. If a strong believer, then one should reasonably expect lower volatility or fluidity and vice versa but who knows? Nobody has actually taken a census of who is a CT believer, how often they change their beliefs or start to disbelieve.

 

[deirdre]

4% - one in twenty five! - believe in reptilians

and that's 4% that were willing to ADMIT they believe that!

I think CTs share enough features in common that they can be measured as a group

that's cool. but I disagree. this topic has been discussed quite a bit on this forum, so yea its a very mixed bag on how people categorize CTs and CT 'groups' and 'subgroups'.

I think you can find a very specific question and poll people "do you believe in ANY wide scale government coverups? do you believe in 3 or more wide scale government coverups? To get a round about 'number'.

but as far as 'analyzing' the reasons WHY, I don't think you can do that without a real fine breakdown.

 

[Santa's sidekick]

I posted previously (regarding the survey found by @Chew):

[the survey posits that] '13% of voters including 22% of Romney voters' [believe] the anti-Christ thing - but as Romney voters were~47% of the total, that leaves ~2.7% of Obama voters who believe he's the anti-Christ

Perhaps the explanation is that 2.7% of US voters are members of Satanic rock bands!

 

[Jonathan Teatime]

An interesting POD cast here that looks at the psychology of conspiracy theories and theorists.

 

[NoParty]

Taken at face value, some of their results are suspicious:
4% - one in twenty five! - believe in reptilians
13% believe Obama is the anti-Christ
21% believe in Roswell

I don't think they're suspicious at all, given that most reputable polls in the
U.S. & UK--in the last few years--put belief in ghosts at or around 50%.

By that standard, 4% for reptilians seems embarrassingly low!!
Why should reptilians be only 1/12th as plausible as ghosts, damn it?!?

 

[Chew]

but as far as 'analyzing' the reasons WHY, I don't think you can do that without a real fine breakdown.

I emailed the pollsters when that poll came out and asked for the raw data but they wouldn't give it to me. I was going to make a Crank Magnetism Venn diagram with the individual respondent data. Bob blaskowicz or however you spell his name, the skeptical English Lit professor, tried to get it too but didn't have any luck either. He wanted to use it for a class he was teaching to demonstrate crank magnetism.

 

[Santa's sidekick]

I emailed the pollsters when that poll came out and asked for the raw data but they wouldn't give it to me.... Bob blaskowicz or however you spell his name, the skeptical English Lit professor, tried to get it too....

Frankly that makes me wonder whether there's a conspiracy here...

 

[Santa's sidekick]

I don't think they're suspicious at all, given that most reputable polls in the
U.S. & UK--in the last few years--put belief in ghosts at or around 50%.

Does that seem right to you? When you ride a bus or look around you on the streets (never mind converse with friends and relatives) can you accept that half of these people believe in ghosts?

If you were to attend a grade school reunion (provided that the school was representative of the general population) do you not found it hard to believe that half of the people there would believe in ghosts and one in twenty five in reptilians?

I'm struggling with the concept.

 

[Spectrar Ghost]

One problem, as I understand it, is that usually the polls don't come out and ask whether you believe in ghosts or whatever, but ask a more circumspect question that is used as a proxy for ghost belief. This to avoid false negatives due to people being uncomfortable admitting it. But then you run into the problem of whether you're getting false positives and inflating the numbers.

I'll look around for a source for this.

Aha! Sort of.

http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploa...inion-on-conspiracy-theories_181649218739.pdf

Quantifying the precise number of Americans who are conspiracy theorists is not possible with the data we have. Each specific conspiracy in this collection of questions produces different responses, and it is not possible to use surveys taken at different times to produce a specific figure. Softer questions, asking if the government isn’t telling the full story, if there is more to know, or if there is cause to wonder consistently produce stronger responses than questions specifically about whether plots and schemes are afoot. In addition, conspiracy theorists frequently mask their true beliefs by insisting that more questions still need to be answered. These qualifications make it hard to come up with a firm figure.

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[Santa's sidekick]

One problem, as I understand it, is that usually the polls don't come out and ask whether you believe in ghosts or whatever, but ask a more circumspect question that is used as a proxy for ghost belief. This to avoid false negatives due to people being uncomfortable admitting it. But then you run into the problem of whether you're getting false positives and inflating the numbers.

I'll look around for a source for this.

Aha! Sort of.

http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploa...inion-on-conspiracy-theories_181649218739.pdf

Quantifying the precise number of Americans who are conspiracy theorists is not possible with the data we have. Each specific conspiracy in this collection of questions produces different responses, and it is not possible to use surveys taken at different times to produce a specific figure. Softer questions, asking if the government isn’t telling the full story, if there is more to know, or if there is cause to wonder consistently produce stronger responses than questions specifically about whether plots and schemes are afoot. In addition, conspiracy theorists frequently mask their true beliefs by insisting that more questions still need to be answered. These qualifications make it hard to come up with a firm figure.

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A technique for getting embarrassing responses some social scientists have found effective is to ask three yes/no questions as a series, two of which are innocuous and one the question of interest - for example, did you eat breakfast today? Do you enjoy classical music? And do you believe the Earth is flat? - and then tell the subject to say how many 'yesses' there are but not which questions receive them. The average number of 'yesses' the innocuous questions when presented alone accrue (say, 1.3) is then deducted from the average number of 'yesses' accrued when the embarrassing question is added (say, 1.7), and the difference is the proportion of your sample that responded positively to that question (0.4).

I wonder whether this has been tried with CTs?

 

[Hama Neggs]

Does that seem right to you? When you ride a bus or look around you on the streets (never mind converse with friends and relatives) can you accept that half of these people believe in ghosts?

I'm not sure what the definition of "ghosts" would even be.

 

[NoParty]

I'm not sure what the definition of "ghosts" would even be.

"Angels," etc., too.
Polls are pretty consistent over the years...

And don't be in such denial, Hama......look two posts above yours...

 

[Efftup]

Well this if course is your problem. If they won't give you the raw data, then you don't know HOW MANY people they asked, how they ascertained they got a good spread of people across certain demographics etc.
I have been stopped in the street by Market researchers before who didn't want me because I didn't fit into a specific criteria they were looking for. This is either because they didn't want opinions from someone like me or because they had already filled their quota of weirdos in a suit and hoodie with a t shirt on his head and needed to fill out where they had gaps in order to be properly balanced.

We asked 100 people who are too busy to answer market research questions what they thought of market research 100% of the people we asked told us they were too busy to answer our questions.

SOME people don't want to bother spending the time to answer questionnaires and some people are too paranoid to answer them cos they think "THEY" are trying to find out stuff about you.


So it's overall REALLY difficult to find out who really thinks what.

I, like Whitebeard, work on a community radio station, and I would say the percentage of the volunteers at mine who believe in at least ONE conspiracy theory is actually pretty high, but that is likely because of the sort of people who will volunteer for a community station.

 

[tadaaa]

It would be interesting to see whether there had been a rise in CT'ers specifically the NWO, Zionist Banker - or in other words, the "them" type meme in recent years

My totally unscientific, anecdotal, COD analyse (I.e. proceed with caution) would be that it has been growing

In part because the younger generation somehow (and with some justification) feel terribly let down, the future they were promised, or at least assumed they would achieve, seems impossible



This is the first time in recent human history where most children (in the developed world) may well be poorer than their parents



With reports from two very different organisations, Oxfam and Credit Suisse that suggest the top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 50% of the worlds population

The simple narrative that "they" have conspired to steal the future seems an easy link to make and in a way gain some control their lives

 

[Efftup]

It's not just that, it's also the rise of the internet so information and "disinformation" is much more easily available.
PLUS the fact that a lot of people have busy lives or are just lazy, so it;s easy for the lie to be spread as it will contain many points to trigger the right response and people reading something shocking on FB that suits their worldview won't bother to check it out before commenting and sharing.

 

[tadaaa]

Lol, good points too


But maybe that is something to do with "confirmational bias"


It is still pretty easy, using the same tools, to debunk the cr4p

 

[Whitebeard]

I know a few CTers who will claim 'I've done my research, I know whats REALLY happening', then when you ask them to show you their evidence, it turns out their 'research' consists of nothing more than reading the usual CT web-sites (cos everything else is disinformation) and watching hours of you tube vids that only serve to pander to their own world view.

Now these people are not stupid, far from it, some of biggest CT believers I've encountered over the years really are smart cookies; but its like the whole conspirasphere is brainwashing itself to believe ANYTHING the CT 'gurus' (Icke / Jones / Simpson / (insert a vast list of the guilty here).) tells them is true. Then they will tell you that 'a vast majority of the people agree with them', again because the gurus say so. (Total hogwash of course, CTer's and us debunking rationalist skeptics are both in small minorities in the general scheme of things).

I grew up in a very religious (but not fundamentalist) christian household, and although my family and a lot of the people were not 'headnagers' about their faith, I did meet a lot of born again types, and the way the born againers, and the hardcore CT speak act and preach are very similar. Which all brings me back to my own belief (and I know a few will disagree, which is fine, free world and all that), that CT is almost a form of religion, or some kind of cult at the very least, and I dread the prospect of a day when one of the more unhinged of the CT gurus decides it's time for their followers to 'drink the kool aid.'

 

[Spectrar Ghost]

Micheal Shermer opined in "Why People Believe Wierd Things" that intelligent people are no more or less likely to believe in conspiracies or other woo then others, but that once they do they are less likely to let their beliefs go because their intelligence allows them to rationalize their belief more effectively. This is a very plausable theory to me.

 

[WeedWhacker]

Micheal Shermer opined in "Why People Believe Wierd Things"

That reference intrigued me, thank you. SO? I found a "TED-Talk" clip from ...ermmm..."Ted-Talk":

 

[deirdre]

That reference intrigued me, thank you. SO? I found a "TED-Talk" clip from ...ermmm..."Ted-Talk":

that is TOO funny. Thanks, lol!

The irony, Halbig said, is that the tracker worked - as a deterrent. All Halbig had to do was pull out the antenna and wave it around to provoke a reaction.

''I saw kids watching me as I used this product,'' he said. ''I think I got their attention. Teachers and students wouldn't walk by me.''

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[JRBids]

I think there is a hierarchy of CTs. People who believe in Niburu, Reptilians, or what I would consider the most far out CTs tend to believe ALL the others. The chemtrail believers seem to believe MOST of them, except some don't believe Niburu and CTs like that. Most chemtrail believers appear to believe every political CT. At least from my unscientific lurking of Chemtrails Global Skywatch, anyway. Hollow Earth believers are in a class by themselves, I think.

 

[Efftup]

While I think a lot of us would agree with Whitebeard on the religious cult angle, I think there is a sort of hierarchy or maybe just a different style.
for example it is plausible that 9/11 was an inside job. People can even point to other false flags that have happened or at least been planned so I wouldn't put it past either the Us administration or even certain elements in the security services who would do something without telling the president or whatever. but logically the easiest way to do this would be to pretend to be Al Qaeda and recruit some guys to hijack planes.

If it suits your worldview that this event could not happen, that your political view or racial/nationalistic stereotype cannot believe that 19 arabs with boxcutters could take on the best goddarned country in the world (wipe away tear) then it forces you to look elsewhere.

but really people don't actually think that anyway. They didn't REALLY at the time think: " That just looks wrong" they later read something on the internet with all the right arguing points that stacked up a pile of "evidence" that was then "very compelling" (I bet you've heard that phrase a lot) and people don't have the time or even the inclination to question the individual pieces of evidence to see how flimsy they ALL are.

There are very few people who literally see conspiracy in EVERYTHING, but I suppose it's the end result of believing too many others. if the gubmint did 9/11, MI5 killed Diana, NASA lies, THEY are spraying us with stuff, giving us nasty vaccines etc etc then why WOULDN'T they be alien lizard people? That actually makes more sense than humans doing all this stuff to the planet.
when I first got into debunking, I discovered a guy on the TPUC forums who was OBSESSED with Saturn. Saturn is apparently the same "God" as Chronos and also Set and possibly Satan so with a bit of numerology and word play (with a huge cognitive bias) it was easy to link everything to Saturn (and the planet and god seemed to be linked or one and the same thing too) Joanna Yeates murder? well she went to the Bristol RAm pub and then shopped in TESco or Set Co.
See? Ra and Set which are Egyptian gods and so therefore = Saturn. because... erm.

 

[Santa's sidekick]

While I think a lot of us would agree with Whitebeard on the religious cult angle, I think there is a sort of hierarchy or maybe just a different style.
for example it is plausible that 9/11 was an inside job. People can even point to other false flags that have happened or at least been planned so I wouldn't put it past either the Us administration or even certain elements in the security services who would do something without telling the president or whatever. but logically the easiest way to do this would be to pretend to be Al Qaeda and recruit some guys to hijack planes.

If it suits your worldview that this event could not happen, that your political view or racial/nationalistic stereotype cannot believe that 19 arabs with boxcutters could take on the best goddarned country in the world (wipe away tear) then it forces you to look elsewhere.

Just to focus very narrowly on this point: your point that it's simpler to assume 9/11 happened the way it did just with FBI agents in the 'al Qaeda role' than to assert the huge operation truthers put forth is a good one. But here's the thing: if truthers can 'disprove' the official story (as they believe they have) then in their minds the only alternative is their version. If 9/11 happened just as it did but with FBI agents carrying out the hijacking, then truthers are left with very little to disprove.

Some creationists have a similar motivation: as a creationist friend once told me, some of them have no problem with evolution from a religious standpoint, they just think that by 'disproving' evolution they automatically 'prove' theism, so they invest much effort into 'disproving' evolution (and they succeed in convincing themselves, if no one else).

 

[Santa's sidekick]

when I first got into debunking, I discovered a guy on the TPUC forums who was OBSESSED with Saturn. Saturn is apparently the same "God" as Chronos and also Set and possibly Satan so with a bit of numerology and word play (with a huge cognitive bias) it was easy to link everything to Saturn (and the planet and god seemed to be linked or one and the same thing too) Joanna Yeates murder? well she went to the Bristol RAm pub and then shopped in TESco or Set Co.
See? Ra and Set which are Egyptian gods and so therefore = Saturn. because... erm.

That reminds me of a CT radio show on AM640 in Toronto called 'View from space'. The guy has so many numbers and names involved in his Illuminati CT that it's inevitable that he find symbolism everywhere. But it's all delivered in an awesome, bassy radio voice, and his speech is punctuated by long, contemplative silences, so it all sounds really reasonable and even convincing.

 

[Hama Neggs]

the inclination to question the individual pieces of evidence to see how flimsy they ALL are.

Yep. CTs are about a mountain of somewhat plausible innuendo. Each bit having no real substance, but the believers don't care to examine ANY of them closely enough to see that. They only see the mountain.

 

[WeedWhacker]

innuendo

Well, that's the 'model' at FOX "news". Uh-oh....I realize there is a global audience reading these threads, but surely a quick Internet Search will clarify the reference.

Real journalism (at least as I once learned it) isn't about "innuendo" nor "speculation"...or worse? Out-right lying. No, that's the 'bailiwick' of FOX "news". Unapologetic lying. Not much different from some grocery store 'Tabloids' that I tend to see, weekly.

Whatever "sells"? Will "sell".....

 

[skephu]

The belief in chemtrails just doesn't seem to gain traction. It's been around for several years now, but still only a negligible fraction of the population believe or even heard of chemtrails. I keep hearing complaints from chemtrail believers how they fail to convince other people about their beliefs. They get alienated from their family, get laughed at by people at work, etc. The yearly "global march against chemtrails and geoengineering" typically only attracts about a dozen people even in large cities. This year, it was canceled in Hungary because of lack of interest. In Hungary, we even have a Facebook group for people who like to make fun of chemtrail believers; this group has many more members than the group of chemtrail believers. It looks like chemtrail belief will remain marginal after all.

 

[Steve Funk]

The yearly "global march against chemtrails and geoengineering" typically only attracts about a dozen people even in large cities.

So far, there are no events scheduled for Northern California for the April 25 global march. http://globalmarchagainstchemtrailsandgeoengineering.com/events