Are All Conspiracy Theories False?

[MRC_Hans]

Yes. And they usually fall flat on their face before crossing the starting line, and almost invariably get more publicity more quickly than they ever counted on.

In short, yes, but they all fail miserably at being secrets.

[ADVOCATE=DEVIL]
Except all those we never discovered [/ADVOCATE]

ETA: Muhahahah!

Hans

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Yes, back to the topic. Do you guys think conspiracies ever happen?

Yes.

For example; contracting firms in New York City controlled by the Gambino crime family conspired to do a substandard job of installing fireproofing in the World Trade Center and pocket the difference for themselves.

This criminal conspiracy had the effect of leaving the steel inside the WTC virtually defenseless against the raging fires wich resulted from the impact of the hijacked aircraft on 9-11 and was a major contributing factor to thier collapse.

 

[Muckar-duva]

I believe there are many cases of CYA which could be mistaken for CTs. Actual CTs, I believe, are rare.

But for me, it has to be a case-by-case thing. If I were to kneejerk every time I come across a CT, going "FALSE!" I wouldn't be much of a critical thinker.

I just wish people didn't throw quite so huge piles of crappy ideas at me, though.

 

[SwissSkeptic]

No - the Holocaust was the result of a general distrust and jealousness to the jewish success in financial issues within a economy depression. This general thinking was pushed by the Nazis in a very ugly way to give them the face of an enemy within the own state.

Hitler did some radical things to raise the economy and people started to trust him because they saw that things get better. However - Hitler pushed his personal hate against jewish people and people also believed in this words, too - because of the general distrust in jewish people.

It had nothing to do with a conspiracy that people believed in - not from what i´ve learned about the issue. I have no clue at wich point the "jewish conspiracy" started and for what reason. I even didn´t know much about the zionism before i listened to boards, websites and radio-shows after seeing Loose Change - 3 months ago.

But my "alarm bells" are ringing if i hear such ideas like Eric "i did not do much research about the holocaust " Hufschmids: "Holohoax - Joooos did it".

I disagree that the Holocaust was not the result of a paranoid conspiracy theory. You seem to underestimate the role of CTs in forming the whole distrust in the jews that you mention. Antisemitic CTs were going strong in post-WWI Germany before the NSDAP was even formed, e.g. the "Dolchstosslegende". Much of the Nazi ideology was based on this and similar antisemitic conspiracy theories. You might want to read up on Alfred Rosenberg. He was one of the main ideologists of the NSDAP and also a CTist of the highest order.

ETA: In fact, ktesibios's post almost exactly reflects the thoughts I had after reading the OP (only that he/she put it better than I could possible have put it).

 

[TruthSeeker1234]

Yes. And they usually fall flat on their face before crossing the starting line, and almost invariably get more publicity more quickly than they ever counted on.

In short, yes, but they all fail miserably at being secrets.

NSA existence? Overthrow of Iran? Manhattan project? Operation Northwoods? Operation Shamrock?

 

[defaultdotxbe]

NSA existence? Overthrow of Iran? Manhattan project? Operation Northwoods? Operation Shamrock?

so which one of those involved thousands of civilians conducting their operations in the busiest area of the one of the largest cities in the world?

 

[Horatius]

NSA existence? Overthrow of Iran?

Both of these involved only professional espionage agencies, who are trained and expected to keep secrets. These agencies also tend to self-select for people who think the sorts of secrets they keep are worth keeping. You know, the sort of people who are very rare in society, and wouldn't likely be working for all the non-"profesional spy" agencies that would be needed to pull off 9/11 as you imagine it.

Also note that despite all this, quite a lot of actual evidence is still publicly available, unlike the 9/11 CTs.

Manhattan project?

Not professional spies this time (although they were involved), but quite a lot of scientists who were refugees from the various European powers we were fighting. They believed that stopping the Nazis and Fascists was worth the effort, and was worth keeping the secret.

Also note that, despite this, there were still at least a few spies for the Soviets in their crew.

Also note that despite all this, quite a lot of actual evidence is still publicly available, unlike the 9/11 CTs.

Operation Northwoods?

This wasn't so much a conspiracy, as it was a "What if" letter from some military nerd. It was never implemented.

Also note that despite all this, quite a lot of actual evidence is still publicly available, unlike the 9/11 CTs.

Operation Shamrock?

Never heard of it, but based on your track record, I'll go out on a limb, and say it's probably similar to one of the above cases. Anyone else want to bat this one out of the park?

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

...
Never heard of it, but based on your track record, I'll go out on a limb, and say it's probably similar to one of the above cases. Anyone else want to bat this one out of the park?

iirc, Operation Shamrock was a joint effort between the NSA (or the dept. that became the NSA) and the telegraph companies to analyis wire communications that crossed the Atlantic in an effort to find spies.

 

[kookbreaker]

Never heard of it, but based on your track record, I'll go out on a limb, and say it's probably similar to one of the above cases. Anyone else want to bat this one out of the park?

It was called 'Project Shamrock' and it was a passive intelligence collection by means of gathering all telegraph data going into and out of the US. Since this is basicly a case of 'sit on your arse and collect the data' the comparison to 911 doesn't hold up. THe NSA and CIA were the big boys in this one. It was criticized in 1975, but it seems many members of congress and other knew about it well before that.

 

[TheGrunion]

The penthouse of WTC7 collapsed because the explosives on the columns which support it were detonated first. Being on one side of the roof, I suspect the engineers needed to get it out of the way first in order to maintain the symmetrical collapse of the whole building.

So in other words:

Your ill-informed theory presumes the use of CD's due to the fact that the time elapsed from start to finish of collapse was less than free fall.

And that in order for your theory to "work" there needed to be additional CD's that take place before "the clock starts".

If you are going to believe a complete piece of fiction, maybe you should pick something that isn't quite as blatantly self-contradicting.

 

[boloboffin]

Hey, I do!

And I save about $AU40 a week by doing so!

Me, too! Well, the bike and the bus and foot. The weather's been pretty clear this summer, but I'm not looking forward to winter...brrr.

But I have no car payment, no filling up the tank, no insurance, no maintainance...ahhh.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

Not professional spies this time (although they were involved), but quite a lot of scientists who were refugees from the various European powers we were fighting. They believed that stopping the Nazis and Fascists was worth the effort, and was worth keeping the secret.

soemthign else to consider here was that each scientist that was involved signed nondisclosure agreements and other secrecy contract BEFORE they were given any information

9/11 would involve paying off and/or silencing many witnesses after the fact, this is much more difficult

Never heard of it, but based on your track record, I'll go out on a limb, and say it's probably similar to one of the above cases. Anyone else want to bat this one out of the park?

this was sort of a predecessor to echelon in which telecommunications were monitored by NSA agents

of course upon exposure and investigation of this operation the foreign intelligence surveillence act was passed to prevent it from happening again

and again, this involved NSA and CIA agents sitting in a room reading telegrams, nothing was publicly exposed, and no civilians would have been involved




i wish these CTers would realize that the difficult part of a conspiracy is not the conspiracy itself, but the coverup, and none of these things were covered up

 

[CurtC]

If the military knew there was no attack, but said there was knowing that it may lead to their reasons as to why they said there was when there really wasn't, wouldn't that be considered a gov't conspiracy?

The Maine blew up, and the US government used it as an excuse to go to war which they might not otherwise be able to justify politically.

The Riechstag was set afire by a crazy man, but the Nazis used it as propaganda to demonize all commies.

The ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, well, I'm not an expert on those details, but whatever happened was not planned by the government but was still used as a public excuse to justify military action.

Now if you define all these as conspiracies, then I can see how you might also define the US's response to 9/11 as a conspiracy. 9/11 was used as justification (in the public's mind, anyway) to start a war in Iraq, even though Iraq had next to nothing to do with it.

It seems to me that the best word to describe all these is not "conspiracy" but "opportunism."

 

[Loss Leader]

NSA existence?

So much an open secret that people joked that NSA stood for "No Such Agency." Also, no American civilians ever died from decoding intercepted signals.

Overthrow of Iran?

How was this a secret? Everybody knew about the CIA's involvement. The Iranians knew. Decades later, they were so mad about it they stormed our embassy. Decades after that, they're still so mad about it they're building a nuclear frickin' bomb.

Manhattan project?

The Manhatten Project did not involve the murder of American civilians. Even so, the government proved incapable of keeping the program secret and its existence was revealed shortly before the end of the war.

Operation Northwoods?

Not an actual operation. It never took place.

Operation Shamrock?

They're always after me lucky charms.

 

[Horatius]

this was sort of a predecessor to echelon in which telecommunications were monitored by NSA agents

of course upon exposure and investigation of this operation the foreign intelligence surveillence act was passed to prevent it from happening again

and again, this involved NSA and CIA agents sitting in a room reading telegrams, nothing was publicly exposed, and no civilians would have been involved

So, just another example of Case #1. Colour me surprized!

So, that's 5 for 5 on bogus "conspiracies" that pretty much proves the opposite of what was intended: Big "conspiracies" are almost impossible to truly keep secret, even if all those involved are professionals who are personally committed to maintaining the secret. Add in a whole bunch of randomly selected regular people, and the secret is probably going to be out before you've even finished the plot!

i wish these CTers would realize that the difficult part of a conspiracy is not the conspiracy itself, but the coverup, and none of these things were covered up

Exactly!

 

[Horatius]

NSA existence? Overthrow of Iran? Manhattan project? Operation Northwoods? Operation Shamrock?

Another point I just thought of: How many of these "conspiracies" were exposed by people who weren't involved, by means of "connecting the dots" of available hints and speculation? Compare and contrast to the number that were exposed by someone involved in it directly, either by mistake or on purpose, or that were exposed by professional investigators, or that were exposed by those who were targeted by the "conspiracies". I'd bet good money the CTist crowd weren't the main source of info for any of these. I'd bet good money they didn't contribute anything at all, in fact, for most of them.

 

[TjW]

How do you pay off a bomb-sniffing dog? They're trained to bark when they smell explosives. "Oh, never mind the bomb dog going ape(rule8), I've got Snausages in my pocket...."

And there WERE bomb dogs there, at least part of the time. This whole thing is making my head hurt. I'm going back to bed.

They threatened their puppies...

 

[Dog Town]

They threatened their puppies...

Or fed them kittens, the other white meat!

 

[Topspy]

Case by case. Of course there have been real government and non-government conspiracies.

It's a question of evidence.

eta: In your example of Germany in the 30s, if we were around then and you told me what you thought was brewing, I would say, "let's see the evidence." I would think there was solid evidence at that time that things were getting very bad. I'm not sure if Nazism was a conspiracy, though--wasn't Hitler pretty open with his ideology?

POOF Hindsight is easy. COULD be happening now .....

 

[jimtron]

POOF Hindsight is easy. COULD be happening now .....

What could be happening now?