Tunnelvisionary
Member
Conspiracy theories and the people who believe in them offer nothing but fear and paranoia. Usually, when someone believes in them, they do nothing except post about them on the internet and share pictures on facebook as a means of raising awareness but never doing anything productive. Worse yet, the conspiracy theories usually being false means they're wasting their time on chasing shadows.
This is why I am so glad for places of discussion and truly critical thinking like this. Make no mistake that ya'll do good work by debunking these things. Some of us have difficulty seeing fallacies of logic or knowing when facts are wrong. It really helps people who aren't too far gone yet to read through debunkings. I'm a biochemistry major at my university and I am doing well for myself. I thought I was too smart to be fooled, which is probably why I was fooled so easily by conspiracy theories (EDIT: To better explain this part, I meant that I believed that I would just KNOW if something was bogus or realistic. I wouldn't believe in things like shape shifting reptilians, but the more "rational" theories that didn't involved interdimensional beings. But I could not see the fallacies in logic or reason or real facts that led me to believe in things like the NWO, Big Pharma suppressing cancer cures, our government is intentionally poisoning us with fluoride, etc). I know better now. I was never completely gone down the rabbit hole, but I found myself reading CTs for fun and then found myself taking them very seriously, to my detriment.
I started out mostly with alternative medicine and all sorts of diets and natural remedies for things. My obsession for physical and dietary purity led me to darker places. I started reading about NWO and Illuminati stuff. It was funny at first, but then I began believing that the existence of these groups would prevent me from having the purity I wanted. I believed the FDA was putting things in our food to get us to consume chemicals to poison us. I suddenly wanted to believe in reports of all the good things happening against the fight of the "global elite". Then there were others who claimed that the people I followed were actually disinfo agents. Then those people were disinfo agents. Everyone is a disinfo agent in this world. It's a huge clusterfuck of nonsense.
I stopped reading those things for my own health, but I hung on to the belief that things weren't right. Then years later, I find blogs like Thrive Debunked, Contrail Science, and this site to finally kill off these paranoid beliefs.
I was diagnosed with OCD and an eating disorder long after all this. In the peak of my conspiracy theory days, I was posting about them everywhere. Fairly convincingly too, yet I was mentally ill. It is difficult to tell when someone is mentally ill, across a computer or even in person, but thanks to my mental illnesses, I found myself being obsessed with CTs.
Nowadays, I read debunkings for fun and because I find the psychology is conspiracy theorists very fascinating, being I was one myself. Lots of behavior I still find odd and unbelievable, but I know better than to take any claims seriously without some solid evidence. I used to go with my gut on things, but that doesn't tend to work too well when you have a legitimate anxiety disorder. Haha.
So thank you, for those of you who debunk. You help extinguish the insane wildfires of paranoia and fear and can stop people from really ruining their lives as well as helping people like me try to think things through before jumping to the worst conclusion. Thank you so much.
This is why I am so glad for places of discussion and truly critical thinking like this. Make no mistake that ya'll do good work by debunking these things. Some of us have difficulty seeing fallacies of logic or knowing when facts are wrong. It really helps people who aren't too far gone yet to read through debunkings. I'm a biochemistry major at my university and I am doing well for myself. I thought I was too smart to be fooled, which is probably why I was fooled so easily by conspiracy theories (EDIT: To better explain this part, I meant that I believed that I would just KNOW if something was bogus or realistic. I wouldn't believe in things like shape shifting reptilians, but the more "rational" theories that didn't involved interdimensional beings. But I could not see the fallacies in logic or reason or real facts that led me to believe in things like the NWO, Big Pharma suppressing cancer cures, our government is intentionally poisoning us with fluoride, etc). I know better now. I was never completely gone down the rabbit hole, but I found myself reading CTs for fun and then found myself taking them very seriously, to my detriment.
I started out mostly with alternative medicine and all sorts of diets and natural remedies for things. My obsession for physical and dietary purity led me to darker places. I started reading about NWO and Illuminati stuff. It was funny at first, but then I began believing that the existence of these groups would prevent me from having the purity I wanted. I believed the FDA was putting things in our food to get us to consume chemicals to poison us. I suddenly wanted to believe in reports of all the good things happening against the fight of the "global elite". Then there were others who claimed that the people I followed were actually disinfo agents. Then those people were disinfo agents. Everyone is a disinfo agent in this world. It's a huge clusterfuck of nonsense.
I stopped reading those things for my own health, but I hung on to the belief that things weren't right. Then years later, I find blogs like Thrive Debunked, Contrail Science, and this site to finally kill off these paranoid beliefs.
I was diagnosed with OCD and an eating disorder long after all this. In the peak of my conspiracy theory days, I was posting about them everywhere. Fairly convincingly too, yet I was mentally ill. It is difficult to tell when someone is mentally ill, across a computer or even in person, but thanks to my mental illnesses, I found myself being obsessed with CTs.
Nowadays, I read debunkings for fun and because I find the psychology is conspiracy theorists very fascinating, being I was one myself. Lots of behavior I still find odd and unbelievable, but I know better than to take any claims seriously without some solid evidence. I used to go with my gut on things, but that doesn't tend to work too well when you have a legitimate anxiety disorder. Haha.
So thank you, for those of you who debunk. You help extinguish the insane wildfires of paranoia and fear and can stop people from really ruining their lives as well as helping people like me try to think things through before jumping to the worst conclusion. Thank you so much.
Last edited: