How To Convince Everyone To Believe A Conspiracy Theory.

        The Internet has done many wonderful things for everyone, including (but not limited to): a seemingly endless stream of cat pictures, letting us buy a £2,500 print of Paul Ross at 2:30am, endless footage of people falling over, and all the adult material one's heart could possibly desire. It's even allowed us to get access to an entire map of the globe, where we can zoom in on literally anywhere for a looky-see, only made better by the fact that the first thing people zoom in on is not the pyramids, or huge sculptures, or any other amazing thing that they might not see in real life. Nope, it's their house. From the top. Not like you've never seen that before, people! Then when you're done pointing at the screen and saying "that's where my bedroom is", you can update everyone you know about the make of baked-beans you're enjoying with your toast. Then, you can go on to watching clips of Newsreaders being humiliated by their colleagues and reading the reviews on that lovely Paul Ross print.


        Then, we get onto another interesting effect that the Internet has: the effect of making seemingly normal people believe anything (such as the "fact" that we eat eight spiders a year in our sleep) because someone wrote it on the web. We've had conspiracy theories and urban legends for years, but without the ability of one outrageously daft person to read something written on the Internet by someone with either an amazing sense of humour, or with too much time on their hands, they tend not go go further than a few people. To save you and Google from a lot of wasted time and effort, let me inform you of a couple of these golden nuggets. First, there's the "Reptilian" conspiracy, which says (and I'm not kidding) that most Governments, and the Royal Family, are actually shape-shifting reptiles that are intent on enslaving us. Thought that was hilarious? Try this: apparently the years AD641-AD911 didn't even happen. Yep, the "dark ages" were only dark because they were faked. Now, you'd have to go to a long way to explain how everything that came from those years were made up, and then the experts were somehow convinced to lie about it forever, but hey! If it keeps them happy, why not. That tin-foil hat might even become a new fashion trend! Although no doubt they'll accuse Primark of reading their thoughts and stealing their idea.

        But this makes me think. I've seen documentaries and whatnot involving these major conspiracy-theorists, people who believe we're ruled by Godzilla and that Paul McCartney died years ago, and they actually don't have tin-foil hats on. In fact, at no stage did I see any evidence that these people had experienced any sort of lobotomy whatsoever! This then leads me to conclude that they're sane, normal people, who do sane, normal things with their day. I can only assume that their lives are so boring, that they need the idea of some super-secret world Government conspiracy, simply to make their day more of a mystery. Why else would we have gotten into Star Wars so much? Not for the inter-character relationships or the special effects, that's for sure. However, the slightly scary realisation that we come to, is that these people are not only everywhere, but they can vote! Just imagine the next time you go to choose which Government can mess things up this time, that they will be basing their choice on who was least responsible for helping fake the moon landings.

        And just when you thought you could say "Ah, but the Internet is also full of clever stuff that you can use to correct them". Nope, sorry. There's also confirmation bias which, for those too lazy to click on the link, basically explains that people will look for evidence to back up what they already assume, or totally ignore things that don't run with their beliefs. This explains why people still find Jim Davidson funny, even after going so far as to show them clips of Jim Davidson being extremely unfunny. Unfortunately, people will continue to believe that Bin Laden didn't die in May 2011, and pointing out that it's somewhat unlikely that his whole family, and Al-Qaeda, were convinced to confirm that he did die (while keeping him quiet) are all ignored for one very important reason: Because people don't like to be wrong. Who does!

        So therefore I will leave you with this thought. Whether you're asking about who would be best to vote for, or which fast-food "restaurant" really serves the best coronary-inducing burger, have you already made up your mind? If so; if you found something authentic that showed you were wrong, would you accept it and look into it, or dismiss it? Actually, that's a rhetorical question, as I suspect the honest answer will be the latter. No one seems comfy enough to accept that whatever they were cheering for earlier had been very wrong. It is a hard thing to accept, but it does show that someone who likes the idea of a secret group of people who run the world from their space headquarters maybe isn't as nuts as we first thought. Hey, maybe we're all just a boring life away from believing in it too.

        Not me though. One problem I have with always being right, are the jealous people who always make up stuff to show that I'm wrong. Pah, I know best....


image credited to imagerymajestic

Tweet