When do conspiracy theories jump the shark?

I guess it depends on one's definition of jumping the shark.

I can still find fervent believers in the Evolution Conspiracy (i.e. scientist conspire to hide the evidence of a young Earth, evidence of the Flood, and all the evidence that disproves evolution).
 
I'd say Conspiracy Theories in general jumped what little shark they had when they stopped making sense internally as well as externally. The 9/11 Conspiracy Theory in particular is really the 9/11 Paranoid Delusion. It's not smart enough to be a conspiracy theory.
 
CT's don't jump the shark.

They crash headfirst into the swimming pool

At least Fonzie made it over.
 
Garrison said:
Fat chance, the LRO pictures didn't so much as make the CT's flinch. They will either claim the new missions are fake or that they put the Apollo hardware there recently for the new missions to see.
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CORed said:
No, the hoaxtards will just claim they went to the moon to plant fake evidence to support the hoax.
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Back when the Chinese first started making noise about wanting to land on the Moon, my prediction was the hoaxers would say they know the new video is fake, because it looks just like the Apollo videos.
 
LSSBB said:
Nick, I can't think of a single CT within the last 40 years that was correct. That said, I think you are underestimating how pervasive they are overseas, as evinced by occasional polls and the pervasiveness of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in the Middle East, despite it being long outed as a hoax.
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Worldwide abuse of children by Roman Catholic officials and the systemic cover-up by the RCC.
 
Darat said:
Worldwide abuse of children by Roman Catholic officials and the systemic cover-up by the RCC.
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That was a conspiracy, but was it a conspiracy theory? How many people were accusing the RCC of these activities, and being discounted by the mainstream?
 
Horatius said:
That was a conspiracy, but was it a conspiracy theory? How many people were accusing the RCC of these activities, and being discounted by the mainstream?
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Quite a few and the RCC and states like Ireland simply dismissed the claims and allegations for decades. Eventually after a lot of work more and more people came forward and that then built to apply enough pressure to start official inquires and the subsequent revealing of the worldwide abuse and systemic cover-up by the RCC (and in the case of Ireland the state itself).

It's actually a very good example if people want to study how an actual worldwide conspiracy committing terrible acts can be kept hidden for decades, even when it directly involves probably thousands of people who knew what was happening and indirectly at least hundreds of thousands.


ETA: For a good overall of what happened see the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases (that concentrates on the sexual abuse conspiracy the RCC was also involved in much abuse that was not sexual in nature).
 
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Darat said:
Quite a few and the RCC and states like Ireland simply dismissed the claims and allegations for decades. Eventually after a lot of work more and more people came forward and that then built to apply enough pressure to start official inquires and the subsequent revealing of the worldwide abuse and systemic cover-up by the RCC (and in the case of Ireland the state itself).
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It was a little more complex than simply dismissing the allegations.
The RCC was so embedded in Ireland that, while there was an awareness of what was really going on, in typical fashion, it was swept under the carpet.

This was for a few reasons:

Reluctance to confront the issues.
FUD actively cultivated by the RCC.
Arrogance of the RCC.
Conspiracy of silence of the RCC. (both perps and victims)



Darat said:
the RCC was also involved in much abuse that was not sexual in nature).
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Oh yes, many members of religious were in the teaching professions and were sadistic. A kid in my school had an ear torn off in class. Sure, he had been acting the fool in class, but an ear torn? Said teacher vanished on indefinite leave.

Another used to keep a length of teak or mahogany and struck knuckles with the square edge of those who displeased him. Nice for the pain factor, but not leaving much in the way of visible marks.
 
abaddon said:
It was a little more complex than simply dismissing the allegations.
The RCC was so embedded in Ireland that, while there was an awareness of what was really going on, in typical fashion, it was swept under the carpet.

This was for a few reasons:

Reluctance to confront the issues.
FUD actively cultivated by the RCC.
Arrogance of the RCC.
Conspiracy of silence of the RCC. (both perps and victims)


...snip...
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Remember this was not confined to just Ireland and it was and still is a very complex phenomena but it's a fact that many people were dismissed by either the RCC and/or the authorities for decades in many countries.
 
In my experience, individual conspiracy theories go in cycles. They rise in popularity, meet sufficient resistance, then fade away to be resurrected for a new generation of gullible readers.

I think there are a lot of reasonable metrics proposed here, and I think each one exposes a different aspect of conspiracism.

"Meets sufficient resistance" could mean attraction from mainstream science, or at least from a more respectable authority. One of the watershed events in the recent decline of the Moon landing hoax theory was the 2007 Mythbusters episode. Nowadays I hear a lot, "You still believe in that? Didn't you see Mythbusters?" Whether their science is airtight is immaterial; their presentation was seen by many.

"Meets sufficient resistance" could mean new information that the conspiracist can't handle, such as recent photo fly-bys showing the landed spacecraft on the Moon. Sure, the conspiracist claims those are fake photos, but that explanation starts to wear thin to the uncommitted listener.

And that leads into "meets sufficient resistance" that requires a disbelief so large it can't be rationally suspended. There appears to be a point at which you can credibly rewrite history and science no more to suit your claim. Now pretty much every conspiracy theory is DOA, so it's a little like asking "When does the irrational become truly irrational?"

"Meets sufficient resistance" could mean obviously grasping at straws. When you're relegated to querying every microbe at Ground Zero or sitting in a darkened room clicking frame-by-frame through moonwalk video, you can't pretend there's much potential there for an Earth-shattering revolution. I liken this stage of a conspiracy theory to defibrillating a corpse: sure, there's a lot of impressive flopping about, but no real promise of life.

And the ultimate measure of "meets sufficient resistance" is when it fails to surface in public discourse. Typically that's when the principal proponents realize they can no longer make money and become famous with that idea and then go off toward (hopefully) more honorable pursuits. In another 10-20 years, someone will dust off those old claims and generate another furor.

In the marketplace of ideas, conspiracy theories are like holiday neckties with LEDs for Rudolph's nose. They seem fun enough at the time, but there comes a point where we say, "Why am I wearing this monstrosity?"
 
CORed said:
No, the hoaxtards will just claim they went to the moon to plant fake evidence to support the hoax.
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Or double down and claim the new landings are a fake.
 
Scene... NASA press conference. A man in a conservative three piece suit and glasses approaches the mike. He clears his throat.

"Ladies and Gentleman of the Press. It is my sad duty today to announce that... the conspiracy theorist were correct. The watershed moment in NASA's history.. the moon landings... were faked."

*Clamouring from the press*

"Please... please. There will be time for questions in a moment. It became apparent by the late 60s after the Soviets had successfully beat us with the first satellite, first animal, and first human into space, we needed something dramatic to revitalize the American space program. But there was no way we could actually launch such a massive mission in time. So we faked it on a soundstage. We hired special effects expert Douglas Trumball and Director Stanley Kubrick."

*A member of press stands up.*

"So you're telling us that the Apollo missions were all faked on a soundstage here on Earth?"

"Oh no... not on Earth. We tried to, but it just didn't look right. Gravity made verything look all funky. So we build the soundstage on the moon."

*The press is silent for a very, very long time.*

"Waa... w.... what?"

"Yeah so we built a massive soundstage on the moon. Cost us over 80 trillion dollars. We flew everyone up there on the Saturn 6, that's a huge top secret rocket... and we filmed it up there. And let me tell you the results were awesome. You would never know it was filmed on a soundstage on the moon and not really on the moon."
 
Robrob said:
At least a few should evaporate on their own, E.G. once we return to the Moon the whole "Moon Landing was a Hoax" CT should die out.
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Dream on. With the advent of the Internet, crap can grow legs along with every thing else and run away with itself. Note Godlike Productions.
 
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