• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Conspiracy Theories: WaPo Quiz

lpetrich

lpetrich

Contributor
Joined
Jul 27, 2000
Messages
25,055
Location
Eugene, OR
Gender
Male
Basic Beliefs
Atheist
Opinion | Will you fall into the conspiracy theory rabbit hole? Take our quiz and find out. - Washington Post

The quiz questions were on conspiracy theories, which ones does one believe. Some of the conspiracies are real and well-documented, others are poorly supported or discredited.

1: Jeffrey Epstein was murdered (50%); JFK was killed by a conspiracy (44%); the FBI spied on civil-rights leaders to discredit them (*); the world's real rulers are some secret group (35%)

2. Republicans cheated to win in 2000, 2004, 2016 (27%); Hillary Clinton sent nuclear-bomb materials to Russia (28%); during Reagan's presidency, some officials sold weapons to Iran and funded Nicaraguan revolutionaries with it (*); Obama faked his citizenship (birtherism) (20%)

3. Genetically-modified food dangers hidden (45%); US Gov't secretly dosed people with LSD in experiments (MKUltra) (*); the AIDS virus was genetically engineered on purpose (22%); the COVID-19 virus was genetically engineered on purpose (31%)

4. School shootings are "false flag" ops done by the gov't (17%); the number of Jews killed by the Nazis was exaggerated on purpose (15%); Satanic sex traffickers control the gov't (14%); None of them (*)

5. The US Gov't did not treat some black men's syphilis (the Tuskegee experiments) (*); Donald Trump faked his COVID-19 to get re-elected (26%); Donald Trump colluded with Russia to get elected (37%)

6. The Rothschilds control gov'ts with their wealth (29%); there is a "deep state" in our gov't (43%); fossil-fuel companies knew that global warming would happen and they spread misinformation to deflect blame (*)

Conspiracy theories often have this three-part form:
(Powerful people) (use deceitful or shadowy means) (to benefit themselves or harm the public)

In conclusion,
Congrats, you've aced this quiz! But even if the questions here were obvious to you, about 9 in 10 Americans would likely fail at least once — probably someone you know and love is one of them.

Even reasonable people fall for conspiracy theories. During George W. Bush’s presidency, half of Democrats said Bush let the 9/11 attacks happen so he could start wars. Two-thirds of Republicans believe the “big lie” — that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.

These theories have consequences. Since the 2020 election, Republicans have pursued election “audits” — recounts aimed at casting doubt on Joe Biden’s win. Other conspiracy theories, such as anti-vaccine narratives, threaten public health.

Eventually, you’ll run into a conspiracy theory that appeals to you politically or psychologically. So be careful and double-check your sources — or you could fall down the rabbit hole, too.
Click to expand...
 
The WaPo article noted
Do Conspiracy Beliefs Form a Belief System? Examining the Structure and Organization of Conspiracy Beliefs| Journal of Social and Political Psychology (open access; not paywalled)

They asked their subjects about belief in 20 conspiracy theories, looking for correlations between them and patterns among them. They found 6 clusters.

  1. Republicans' theories: HillaryNuke, Birther, Climate, Threat (COVID-19 exaggerated to hurt Trump)
  2. Strong antagonism (least supported): FalseFlag, Holocaust
  3. Science and medicine: AIDS, Anti-Vaxx, Bioweapon (COVID-19), 5G (the cellphone technology)
  4. Democrats' theories: Collusion, RepSteal, TrumpAsset
  5. (less well-defined) (moderate support): Rothschilds, SmallGroup, DeepState, JFK, GMOs
  6. "Easy" (highest support): Epstein, 1%
The fifth and sixth ones were close together, as were the first three. Overall clustering: (123 (4 56))

FalseFlag and Holocaust were close together relative to their branching from the others, as were Rothschilds and SmallGroup.
 
The researchers then did a principal-components analysis, looking for dimensions of variation. They compared what they found to various features of the experimental subjects.

Partisanship and ideology were very close.

Nearly orthogonal to them was a set of fairly close axes: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, tendency to spread false information, acceptance of violence. I'll call this set antisociality.

The Democratic theories (fourth one) and the Republican theories (first one) were in opposite directions on the partisanship axis, and they were roughly at the center in the antisociality axis, though on the Republican side, Birther and Climate were in the antisociality direction by a sizable fraction.

The other clusters were close to the center on the ideology axis. The least antisocial cluster was the sixth one (Epstein, 1% in increasing antisociality), followed by the fifth one (JFK, GMO's, DeepState, SmallGroup, Rothschilds, near the center of the axis). On the more antisocial side was the third cluster (5G at the center of the axis, Bioweapon, Anti-Vaxx, AIDS) and finally the second cluster, the most antisocial of all (FalseFlag, Holocaust).

So antisociality varied from Jeffrey Epstein being murdered (least antisocial) to Holocaust denial (most antisocial).

There was not much partisan variation in the four nonpartisan clusters, though 1% was toward the Democrats and Bioweapon, DeepState, JFK, and Epstein were toward the Republicans.

"Clusters 1, 2, and 3 are negatively related to trust in government, but cluster 6 is positively related (counter to expectations) and Clusters 4 and 5 are unrelated."
 
I did the test and got 6/6. Does that mean that Aussies are less susceptible to conspiracy theories than yanks? (Or perhaps I am must so good :) )

It is disturbing to see have many believe some of those (to me at least) transparently ridiculous theories.
 
lpetrich said:
2. Republicans cheated to win in 2000, 2004, 2016 (27%); Hillary Clinton sent nuclear-bomb materials to Russia (28%); during Reagan's presidency, some officials sold weapons to Iran and funded Nicaraguan revolutionaries with it (*); Obama faked his citizenship (birtherism) (20%)
Click to expand...

Given the obvious right answer I got this but I consider there to be two correct answers here.

Republicans did cheat to win. Voter suppression is a form of cheating. Whether it was enough to tip the elections we do not know, but did you not cheat to win if cheated but would have won anyway without cheating? Would the college not say you cheated if your score without cheating still warranted an A and thus it didn't change your grade?
 
You know, for some theories, the only 'analytical thinking' you really need is the ability to count.

I recently read someone's account of how each person in space depends heavily on thousands of support staff on the ground, constantly working and reworking all the things systems that are trying to fail and become a threat to all life on board. Food, water, air, navigation, the shitter, all just centimeters away from being 'The Thing That Killed Them.'

Then i thought about Capricorn 1, the movie where OJ Simpson was part of an effort to fake a manned expedition to Mars. The plot was that most of the world, and most of NASA, thought it was a real flight, but a few knew the spaceship had a lethal flaw. So they had a small cadre work to sneak the astronauts out of the rocket and film them from a set. Anyone who got close to the truth got disappeared.

But it would be hard to convince those thousands of support staff. "Hey, how come no one's complained about the taste of the water in a month?" or "I just realized the toilet's been turned the fuck off for the last three months." or "According to this, Peter's nightlight has been turned on continuously for seventeen weeks. But John's never, ever turned his on."

So all those people would have to be in on the conspiracy. As well as whoever covered for them during a vacation or emergency. And eventually, the conspiracy becomes so huge it shifts from intrigue to industry.



I saw a post about the scamdemic that starts:
Having worked in different aspects of law enforcement and intelligence for 47 years, I can state unequivocally that this campaign [COVID 19]...not a single whistle blower or defector, out of approx 3 or 4 thousand people at a minimum estimate, that have intimate and detailed inside knowledge, has come forward with the inside narrative concerning the ostensible genocide, being carried out in almost every country in the world. .... Not a single insider defector.
Click to expand...
Good points, right? Thousands of people would be involved in scamming the entire world about C19 if it was a cover for nefarious agenda.

What does this individual decide, what does this evidence tell him?
Nothing has ever been kept that secret without defectors in world history ... so I look at the occult and theological. Certainly, there is circumstantial, photographic evidence of satanism, most notably Britain's preeminent banking family.
Click to expand...

Oy gevalt. Inches away from a clue, then a sharp veer into the rabbit hole....
 
Ohhh, I definitely didn't pass the quiz.

I find their standard of truth interesting here, as it appears you are "normal" if you believe in conspiracy theories that later turned out to be 100% true, but a "wacky conspiracy theorist" if you're reserving judgement on issues where accusations have been made but not yet proven? That's interesting, since it means that if you believed that the government might be using LSD to try and create psychic super-warriors in 1976, you were insane, but retroactively became normal in 2001 when the relevant documents were declassified. There's a lot of items that come down to a matter of perspective as well. Did Republicans cheat in various elections? Depends on whether you consider gerrymandering voting districts to achieve what you know to be non-representative Electors for your state to be a form of "cheating" or not. I do, but I can see why a Republican would choose not to. Both of us would have reasons for our beliefs, that have nothing to do with our willingness to suspend credulity. Gerrymandering isn't a secret, we just have a moral disagreement about whether it constitutes fair play.
 
Keith&Co. said:
You know, for some theories, the only 'analytical thinking' you really need is the ability to count.

I recently read someone's account of how each person in space depends heavily on thousands of support staff on the ground, constantly working and reworking all the things systems that are trying to fail and become a threat to all life on board. Food, water, air, navigation, the shitter, all just centimeters away from being 'The Thing That Killed Them.'

Then i thought about Capricorn 1, the movie where OJ Simpson was part of an effort to fake a manned expedition to Mars. The plot was that most of the world, and most of NASA, thought it was a real flight, but a few knew the spaceship had a lethal flaw. So they had a small cadre work to sneak the astronauts out of the rocket and film them from a set. Anyone who got close to the truth got disappeared.

But it would be hard to convince those thousands of support staff. "Hey, how come no one's complained about the taste of the water in a month?" or "I just realized the toilet's been turned the fuck off for the last three months." or "According to this, Peter's nightlight has been turned on continuously for seventeen weeks. But John's never, ever turned his on."
Click to expand...

While Capricorn 1 couldn't have been pulled off it wouldn't be exposed how you think.

Nothing modern has gone into space without at least one complete duplicate on the ground. (Very useful. When something goes Oh, shit! in space you can try doing things with the duplicate before you try it with the real hardware.)

Thus you put the crew on the duplicate and just about the whole support team is actually seeing a feed from the duplicate, not from the real spacecraft.
 
Blogography × Detached from Reality
notes
Abbie Richards on Twitter: "Shaming people who believe illogical things just pushes them further into their radicalization networks. Disinformation is everywhere. We need to teach people how to spot it early.
This is my Conspiracy Chart. I think it helps. (pic link)" / Twitter

What's what in it:
  • Grounded in reality
  • Things that actually happened -- Big Tobacco lied about cancer, COINTELPRO (FBI effort to disrupt Sixties activist movements), Operation Mockingbird (CIA attempts to influence the news media), FBI and NSA spying, Tuskegee experiments (having black prison inmates go untreated to track the progress of their diseases)
  • Speculation line
  • We have questions -- Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself, conspiracies of deaths of JFK & Marilyn Monroe & Princess Diana, UFO's, Roswell NM, Area 51
  • Leaving reality
  • Unequivocally false but mostly harmless -- cryptids: Loch Ness monster & Bigfoot, crop circles, Elvis Presley is still alive, Greta Thunberg is a time traveler, ET's built ancient monuments like Stonehenge, Prince Charles is a vampire
  • Science denial
  • Dangerous to yourself and others -- gov't-made diseases, COVID-19 made in a lab, global-warming hoax, 5G wireless-system effects, anti-vaxxers, essential oils as great cures, chemtrails (airliner contrails spreading something or other)
  • Anti-Semitic point of no return
  • World ruled by supreme shadow 'elites." Once you believe one you usually believe most. Get help. -- "Antifa" starting wildfires, hollow Earth, Nazis on the Moon, Moon landings faked, PizzaGate, Obama birth certificate fake, Sandy hook fake, Satanic cult panic, Holocaust denial, Bill Gates microchipping, New World Order, white genocide, George Soros, "Cultural Marxism", reptilian overlords, flat Earth, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Deep State, QAnon
  • Detached from reality
 
lpetrich said:
Blogography × Detached from Reality
notes
Abbie Richards on Twitter: "Shaming people who believe illogical things just pushes them further into their radicalization networks. Disinformation is everywhere. We need to teach people how to spot it early.
This is my Conspiracy Chart. I think it helps. (pic link)" / Twitter

What's what in it:
  • Grounded in reality
  • Things that actually happened -- Big Tobacco lied about cancer, COINTELPRO (FBI effort to disrupt Sixties activist movements), Operation Mockingbird (CIA attempts to influence the news media), FBI and NSA spying, Tuskegee experiments (having black prison inmates go untreated to track the progress of their diseases)
  • Speculation line
  • We have questions -- Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself, conspiracies of deaths of JFK & Marilyn Monroe & Princess Diana, UFO's, Roswell NM, Area 51
  • Leaving reality
  • Unequivocally false but mostly harmless -- cryptids: Loch Ness monster & Bigfoot, crop circles, Elvis Presley is still alive, Greta Thunberg is a time traveler, ET's built ancient monuments like Stonehenge, Prince Charles is a vampire
  • Science denial
  • Dangerous to yourself and others -- gov't-made diseases, COVID-19 made in a lab, global-warming hoax, 5G wireless-system effects, anti-vaxxers, essential oils as great cures, chemtrails (airliner contrails spreading something or other)
  • Anti-Semitic point of no return
  • World ruled by supreme shadow 'elites." Once you believe one you usually believe most. Get help. -- "Antifa" starting wildfires, hollow Earth, Nazis on the Moon, Moon landings faked, PizzaGate, Obama birth certificate fake, Sandy hook fake, Satanic cult panic, Holocaust denial, Bill Gates microchipping, New World Order, white genocide, George Soros, "Cultural Marxism", reptilian overlords, flat Earth, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Deep State, QAnon
  • Detached from reality
Click to expand...
What do you call the influence of civil servants over elected officials: Officials like James Clapper or Comey who sit in powerful positions, who don't leave when presidents do and who watch presidents come and go? These un-elected bureaucrats who influence policy and influence our elected president!.

They are collectively called the "deep state", you do not have to believe in the Protocols of Elders of Zion to know that they most certainly do exist! And if you do not believe me just ask Senate leader Chuck Schumer...................

“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

You have to be detached from reality NOT to believe in the deep state.
 
RVonse said:

You have to be detached from reality NOT to believe in the deep state.
Click to expand...
Because all government information is not made public hardly means there is this thing called deep state. But if you really, really, really, really believe there is such an animal would it be too much for me to ask when deep state actually started?
 
RVonse said:
What do you call the influence of civil servants over elected officials: Officials like James Clapper or Comey who sit in powerful positions, who don't leave when presidents do and who watch presidents come and go? These un-elected bureaucrats who influence policy and influence our elected president!.
Click to expand...
You answered your own question, bureaucrats and the 'intelligence community'.

They are collectively called the "deep state", you do not have to believe in the Protocols of Elders of Zion to know that they most certainly do exist! And if you do not believe me just ask Senate leader Chuck Schumer...................

“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

You have to be detached from reality NOT to believe in the deep state.
Click to expand...
The problem with your posts relative to what often seems to be The Deep State, is that you often imply that it is well organized and has a specific agenda. And you usually introduce TDS to create a narrative around stuff that far more simply is just how things turned out verses your envisioned conspiracy.
 
RVonse said:
“Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.
Click to expand...

The awesome thing about that statement is you can replace "intelligence community," with just about anything:
Jews;
Muslims;
Unions;
Corporations;
Employees;
Catholic Church;
Evangelicals;
Mainstream Media;
Establishment;
Students;
Hollywood;
actors from the play Cats.

There are deep states everywhere!
 
And don't forget the Boy Scouts. You guys think those jamborees are jamborees? Go fish!
 
T.G.G. Moogly said:
RVonse said:

You have to be detached from reality NOT to believe in the deep state.
Click to expand...
Because all government information is not made public hardly means there is this thing called deep state. But if you really, really, really, really believe there is such an animal would it be too much for me to ask when deep state actually started?
Click to expand...
IMO there has been a slow but steady evolution since the beginning of the CIA (Trumans term) but really picking up speed during the Bush Jr. formation of the Department of Homeland Security and NSA branches. People who supposedly work for the POTUS and/or congress but are not really accountable to anyone or anything since they can not be fired. Certainnly not the citizens of the US. Example: James Clapper lying to congress under oath with no consequence because of his kingly powers in government..

When you can tell me why James Clapper is celebrated for lying to congress while Snowden is the criminal for being the truth teller I will adjust my position that there is really no "deep state" worth worrying about.,
 
funinspace said:
The problem with your posts relative to what often seems to be The Deep State, is that you often imply that it is well organized and has a specific agenda. And you usually introduce TDS to create a narrative around stuff that far more simply is just how things turned out verses your envisioned conspiracy.
Click to expand...
They absolutely DO have a specific agenda. To make sure they continue their own selfish power and job security. And considering their most generous pensions much greater than the average US working wage.....I do not blame them.
 
RVonse said:
funinspace said:
The problem with your posts relative to what often seems to be The Deep State, is that you often imply that it is well organized and has a specific agenda. And you usually introduce TDS to create a narrative around stuff that far more simply is just how things turned out verses your envisioned conspiracy.
Click to expand...
They absolutely DO have a specific agenda. To make sure they continue their own selfish power and job security. And considering their most generous pensions much greater than the average US working wage.....I do not blame them.
Click to expand...
First, US Federal employees, stopped having pension rights if they started working after 1985. That put them in the FERS program, pretty much a 401k.

Of course people have agenda, but they don't have secret committees with leaders planning shit in secret. That would be akin to a 'deep state' apparatus. Nor do they all sing to the same tune. Nor do thousands of people cooperate to keep shit secret w/o a damn good reason, like real national security. And even then, it only lasts so long.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom