American government told the whole world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. America used this as justification to invade Iraq and murder its people. It turns out there were no weapons of mass destruction after all.
This is why I don’t trust any government trying to justify any warlike behavior. It’s all a scam. There is no justification good enough for civilians and young men to suffer and die.
The politicians play chess and we die
This is slightly extreme. Go tell Europeans in the late 30s and early 40s that there’s no justification for going to war against Germany. There are always exceptions.
We didn’t go to germany, germany came to us.
Just like usa did many times.
And i don’t think it was so obvious at the time. Russia was massing weapons, middle east had problems, and tensions were everywhere.
You’re being obtuse about the definition of “go to war”. If they invade your country and you fight back you’re still going to war.
Fair enough. But in the context of usa it never had a defensive war, always the agressor. And the propaganda was “they have bio weapons of mass destruction and will use them”, and later “they terrorists”. None of which was true. Iran was far from innocent either.
Ok I concede there are exceptions but I think even in justified war the government is full of shit. The propaganda gets pumped out in full force during military actions.
Like how Japanese internment in America wasn’t justified, even if involvement in WW2 was.
Now there’s something that sounds like an insane conspiracy theory but actually happened.
There are people alive today who survived the Japanese internment. For example George Takei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Takei
Aside from literal defense from invaders
I still don’t trust the government. Obviously defending yourself is justified war. For example Ukraine fighting Russia. But there’s been many documented cases of Ukrainian propaganda outright lying. They are not unique so I am not trying to single them out - there are many many many examples in modern times and historical. One of the most famous examples in the Ukrainian war was the “Ghost of Kyiv”, early on into the war.
They came up with the idea of a legendary ace fighter pilot that was going around and shooting down a bunch of Russian planes. However that pilot never existed. The government even acknowledged a few months later, after this idea had become viral and spread around everywhere - effectively already accomplishing its purpose - that it was a fabrication.
This is sort of what I mean. During war, propaganda goes off the charts. There’s a fog of war and the government uses that as a tool to totally flood people with fake knowledge. And sure, you might argue that it’s justified because they are trying to raise their population’s morale and potentially lower the morale of the enemy - but I’m a guy who wants to know the truth. So I don’t trust governments when it involves any military action.
They may be telling the truth so I don’t discount it entirely but I’m immediately skeptical and will try to confirm using sources that aren’t directly from the government.
so like a psyop
And they knew it.
It’s worth going back to the 1980s to start pulling that thread though. The US and west have been messing around in Iraq since the Iran Iraq war. Probably Saddam’s greatest mistake was shaking hands with the devil.
I’m not a big fan of Whoopie Goldberg, but her way of telling (starts at 7min 53sec) about Iraq and WMD has always stuck with me. It’s worth a watch. It’s the perfect amount of funny mixed with reality.
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Not just America unfortunately. The UK government did this too, their part should not be forgotten.
I always thought poppy production in Afghanistan had something to do with it. In 2001 the Afghan government sucessfully eradicated poppies, and again recently after the American occupation ended.
It was oil, not poppies.
P×dophiles are flocking to churches because they’re unregulated by the government. They’re becoming a safe haven for these sick fucks because they often attempt to handle conflict and scandals within their own walls. Also, due to a high need for childcare, often no background check is needed!
A “scandal” is bad for
businessattendance numbers, so they like to keep it quiet, if they can.My family has gone to so many churches throughout the years, and at least 5 or 6 have had the sexual abuse of a child come to light within church leadership.
I am dead serious about this: KEEP YOUR KIDS OUT OF CHURCHES!!!
EDIT: I forgot to mention that most clergy are not bound by laws that would make them mandated reporters for child abuse.
Even better, stop going to churches at all.
I mean, yeah, that’s how I deal with it.
But even some non-church-going folks with drop off their kids at “youth group” essentially for free childcare and debatable “moral development.”
Even when it does come out, church people often rush to support the perpetrators. They do the “I’ve had a beer with them and I like them so they couldn’t be a bad guy” thing that I do not understand at all about people.
It’s true. There will be some volunteer that has inappropriate behavior with a minor that gets kicked out then just does the same at a different church. No one tells the police because of the intense sexual shaming and stigma. This is when you’re lucky enough to be somewhere where the church doesn’t outright protect the abuser and force the abused out.
This is true, they try to hide this type of activity, and if you fight it they’ll take you down too. Source: personal experience.
The MOVE bombing. The fact that the Philadelphia police dropped not one but TWO explosive devices on the roof of their house via helicopter is still nuts to me. What made it even worse was the fact that the fire department showed up and let it continue to burn, destroying 61 evacuated neighboring homes and leaving 250 people homeless.
Any time I tell someone about it that hasn’t heard the story, they’re skeptical.
Another one is the time I learned that I was under local surveillance for being an activist that was part of a local non-violent black liberation org. The police would send a unit weekly to check my whereabouts and movements. I learned through a friend of a friend that didn’t even know who I was, but knew my name and that I was on a surveillance list. Pretty sure they were checking in on everyone involved.
Edit: if this comment has taught me anything, it’s that you’re better off not engaging with pointless nitpickers and police apologists. Fuck me for having an opinion.
I just looked up MOVE after reading this comment. Amazing power dynamics (from wikipedia):
In 1978, a standoff resulted in the death of one police officer and injuries to 16 officers and firefighters, as well as members of the MOVE organization. Nine members were convicted of killing the officer and each received prison sentences of 30 to 100 years.[2] In 1985, another firefight ended when a police helicopter dropped two bombs onto the roof of the MOVE compound, a townhouse located at 6221 Osage Avenue.[3][4] The resulting fire killed six MOVE members and five of their children, and destroyed 65 houses in the neighborhood.[5]
The “city” was found to have used excessive force, and compensation in these cases comes from taxpayer money.
The Philadelphia police wanted MOVE gone because they bucked the system and were at odds with the police over the ongoing murder of their people. That’s why they went to such lengths to eradicate them at their main row house. I remember reading about how it was essentially a shooting gallery for the police. As people tried to escape the building, police fired upon them.
It was an insanely careless plan borne out of hubris, hatred towards black liberation groups in a time of high racial tensions, and the police (again) thinking that they were above the law. I’m actually shocked there was even a lawsuit that stuck. That alone shows how fucked their whole plan was. Even the city and a federal judge couldn’t overlook this one.
The fire department showed up and the move members started shooting at them, which is why the fire department moved back.
Police and MOVE were still exchanging gunfire, so the firefighters were ordered to back away.
Also, to add some intent, the police plan was to make a hole in the roof through which they could shoot year gas and force MOVE members to evacuate. Witnesses did see officers on the adjoining buildings ready to go. It was a stupid plan.
The conspiracy part comes in, though, because we really only have the word of the police on all of this, since all but two of the MOVE people died, and one was a child
Isn’t most tear gas flammable? What the fuck is wrong with our cops and why are they so stupid?
You said above “the fire department showed up and let it continue to burn” This is a completely inaccurate statement. The fire department was there from the beginning and were ordered to move back because of the gunfire. Your statement is saying that the fire department showed up at sometime during the event and just waited around and let it continue to burn, which is absolutely untrue .
It’s not inaccurate. That’s what happened because the police decided to corner MOVE members in their home and then fired at them as they tried to move outside. The goal from the start was to kill everyone there and in their rage, they devised easily one of the stupidest plans ever. The police forced people into a corner and they retaliated. The police also got hit with a lawsuit in federal court for use of excessive force and illegal search and seizure.
We can split hairs on phrasing, but the police are to blame for the entire thing and crafted a scenario where the fire department’s hands were tied.
The goal from the start was to kill everyone there
[citation needed]
It was well known that the police disliked MOVE as a collective. That’s why they got slapped with a lawsuit by a federal judge for excessive force, illegal search and illegal seizure. They killed women and children with their plan because of their carelessness, and fired upon anyone that ran from the building they set on fire with their bombs.
Your “citation” is cops and their interactions with black folk on the daily. I’m not gonna play this game where the opposition picks apart the irrelevant parts of a stance to try to weaken it.
Edit: here’s your citation
They killed women and children with their plan because of their carelessness
So, it wasn’t intentional.
Your “citation” is cops and their interactions with black folk on the daily
So, cruelty, indifference, but not an actual desire to murder all of them?
Edit: here’s your citation
I can’t read that because it requires a subscription, but I very much doubt it says “the police plan was to kill everyone, and here’s the evidence for that”.
He didn’t say that. It was a different person. Read the usernames.
None of it would’ve taken place if the police weren’t so fucking stupid with their plan. I get why the fire dept. held back, but the police created that entire scenario.
Also, my statement isn’t wrong.
Got cheap, no-name, unbranded LED bulbs off of eBay. Years later, not one of them had broken.
But Philips LED bulbs? Those things don’t last a year. In fact, none of the high-rated, “high quality,” top-ten-list, LED light bulbs have ever outlasted an incandescent in my experience.
If you want your LEDs to last, buy the no-name bulbs, guys. The Phoebus Cartel is still out there.
Boy do I have a video for you. It’s regarding the cartel and light bulb engineering if you’d be interested:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb7Bs98KmnY
Monopolies are scary though, especially if they can make such collective actions without telling anyone.
Oi that’s my boy Technology Connections!
He’s on Mastodon, btw
Unsurprising tbh
Ha, I was about to dig out that video.
I will say in regards to LEDs, it’s a bit of a tricky thing. Philips in general are terrible, I don’t know what they do, but they’re also really pretty. Amazing for rarely-active mood lighting. For actual lighting, I use the white-tone-changeable Ikea bulbs, and they seem to last forever, hot as they get.
That’s the weirdest thing: The Ikeas run hotter than the Philips, yet still last longer. I really get the feel that Philips optimizes purely for color, smoothness and softness. They know what people use their overly expensive stuff for since in some areas they got little competition. It’s annoying, but for those purposes it also works really well.
I love that man, his brain and how he probes any subject matter which comes across his party.
The way my head absorbed what you said was: Phillips is the Apple of the LEDs. If you want something longer lasting, stick with the “ol reliable” brand such had to innovate to sell cheaper. I wonder if people have done experiments…
I will say that maybe Philips’ regular LED bulbs are bad, but I have Hue bulbs I’ve been using since 2015 without issues still. They’ve been extremely reliable.
Do not remember the video but isn’t that the whole problem: LEDs like to be cooler. Bright pretty LEDs get hoter. People buy smaller prettier bulbs. Things have a tradeoff independent of price. A small bright LED that is in an enclosed space will not last long. Recommend buying pretty LEDs and using them without enclosure or buying dimmable and setting them to 50% on default.
And not buying the integrated shit.
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Oh. Huh. Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting to encounter anyone who had good experience with those bulbs.
That… blows a hole in my theory.
I still don’t regret the cheap, foreign light bulbs I got off of eBay (best LEDs I’ve bought thus far)… but maybe my family and I have just been unlucky with name brand LEDs.
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I don’t think they were hue bulbs. I think they were just regular LED light fixture bulbs.
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I haven’t had any problem either, even in enclosed fixtures that the bulbs I have aren’t rated for. There are so many different models I don’t know if you can totally generalize by brand. And I don’t use anything higher than 60 watt equivalent. There is such a thing as too bright.
I have Philips hue leds in daily use that are actually 6 years old.
Theres a huge network of private surveillance cameras, microphones, and other sensors constantly collecting everyone’s information and selling it to whomever can pay, or just straight up giving the feds access to the data.
I like to refer to that corporation as “Little Brother”.
That beautiful
I legitimately believe this.
Amazon’s Ring cameras do give this information over. Businesses use beacons whoch ping mobile devices to count foot traffic. If you look at your phones “key locations” setting you’ll find your phone has been logging all your for traffic for years, and your ISP will be doing the same. Even the Tim Hortons app was logging and selling user’s detailed location history. That’s something a lot of apps are definitely doing at smaller scale (or via SDKs where the app may not even know they’re sending that info – segment is almost definitely doing this type of thing).
I did the math once on the “my phone listens and sends ads for what I say” conspiracy and it’s squarely feasible to build even years ago.
Mobile OSes have gotten better permissions, but you could use low quality speech to text algorithms and a bloom filter to select ad categories without much memory or battery hit. You would be able to generate a list of “definitely haven’t used” terms and “maybe used” terms, which is good enough to target ads.
Phone have crazy good microphones too, and you can never know when they’re on or off.
Mostly I think people thinking this was happening were vastly underestimating how much Google and FB know about them – nearly every website sends your info to them. Even if you use a VPN your weather app can leak your IP, or any other app running in the background of your phone like your email client checking Gmail for new messages. All that data can be loaded into an identity graph, which correlates that data with known instances of your activity and assigns a probability of an action being you each hop out in the event*feature network. That’s how FB shadow profiles worked years ago.
I sound like a conspiracy theorist but practically anything you do online can and will be traced back to you. VPNs only protect you from your ISP. Always assume you’re being watched and what you do will be used against you in the future, even if it’s all legal.
Always remember Ken Bone who people loved but then the media ripped on over his commenting on a pregnancy porn subreddit.
I don’t doubt anything you said, except for the last paragraph.
Ken Bone did an AMA on the same account that he commented on porn subs with - that was not a result of surveillance programs.
Yes, I guess my point there is if there’s something people can use against you they will
Also think about all the other cameras that have their eyes on you. Every security camera in large stores feeds back to their corporate cloud storage which is used to build new models on shit like shopper habits, and they’re most definitely selling that data. New cars all have cameras and cellular modems in them now too.
There’s also these fucking things that have been popping up all over my area. They track every single car that passes them by. Color, make, model, and plate numbers. They insist they’re not doing facial recognition as well but it’s literally the same technology.
Trying to avoid all of this tracking, online and IRL, is fucking EXHAUSTING and probably futile in the end. On top of that everyone I tell about this shit either say “meh, i know im being tracked and I dont care” or just think I’m a paranoid schizophrenic.
Yeah it creeps me out. It’s the wanton collection of all data that’s worrying, an adversarial government could do a lot with it.
lol
There is a huge amount of fake and bot accounts on social medias, probably as much as the population of many cities, made and used to manipulate the public opinion.
That’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s been studied and shown true over and over.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-020-0340-4
https://medium.com/@robhat/an-analysis-of-propaganda-bots-on-twitter-7b7ec57256ae
https://headlineusa.com/china-bots-boost-propaganda/
https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/computational-propaganda/
Yeah man that’s the point of this thread. The idea is it’s things that aren’t conspiracy theories. They just sound like them.
Right
Correct
So true
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I was driving with a friend on in Louisiana about 3am one night in the late 90s. I thought I saw something ahead in the right lane so I moved into the left lane just in case.
As we got closer there was a giant shadow of some kind with only tiny reflectors at the edges. It was a HUGE matte black boat filling the lane on a matte black trailer with no plates. Closest comparison I can come up with would be one of those river patrol boats from the Vietnam war.
We were on cruise so it took a few seconds to pass them. The boat was being towed by a matte black F-550 (?) MDT with no plates and no lights other than headlights.
I did not look up at the driver when we passed. I have no idea if this was a drug thing, an intel thing, or what.
It could be many things, but I’d guess it’s just someone who thinks it’s cool to have matte black everything. I had a neighbor (who was a cop) who really liked matte black vehicles. It’s not like it’s illegal or anything. (Although, being a cop, he very well may have been a drug dealer also, so who knows?)
And isn’t there some special paint that is the most light absorbing black possible?
I kind of imagine some Dale Gribble type driving it…
Vanta Black.
Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.
Yeah, something I truly can’t believe it happened.
And it’s worse than that because about half the country MEANT to do that the first time…
Well significantly less than half because of voting percentages.
ITT: People who don’t understand the topic.
Yeah OP didn’t ask us “what’s the latest conspiracy theory you read about on Truth Social.”
COINTELPRO. Since I learned about that the whole Ehrlichmann story about criminalizing drugs to oppress black communities and possibly even CIA involvement in the opoid and crack epidemics seem pretty plausible to me.
The people in charge in the U.S. want to eliminate transgender people so that they can have men and women in neat, separate boxes and continue to oppress women as they have been for centuries.
I personally think it’s more about manufacturing an ‘other’ to blame everything on and unite people in hate.
There’s little benefit to targeting women for oppression in the modern economy - they’re just more undifferentiated labour to be exploited (though it remains possible to pay them less). I think this was meaningfully different when living off a single income was a realistic proposition.
I think it has to do with the fact that they can’t run on “make abortions illegal” anymore so now they have turned to “lgbt bad”
It’s really whatever gets people riled up that week
There’s no single unified group of “people in charge in the U.S.”. There are various people with varying amounts of power. Some of them are religious nutters who interpret their religion as saying that anything other than traditional gender roles is satanic. Some of them are opportunists who see religious nutters as useful idiots, they rile them up over transgender issues in order to get their support for other things (i.e. tax cuts / loopholes for special interests, etc.). Some of them are somewhat liberal, but are still uncomfortable with transgender people and see their political opponents using transgender issues to rile up their base while they do really destructive things (tax cuts / loopholes for special interests, etc.), so they focus their efforts not on defending transgender people, but in trying to attack what they see as the real issues. A small minority of “people in charge in the U.S.” are transgender, or very concerned with transgender issues, and are doing everything they can to fight for transgender rights.
Don’t forget that the majority of the “people in charge in the U.S.” are over 60 years old, and so even basic gay rights are a major departure from the world they were raised in.
It’s pointless to argue. Anyone who says “the people in charge” when talking about a government have no idea how the world really works.
And the people who think there are “people in charge” other than a government are deluded fools. Yes, rich people lobby and get special loopholes and exemptions from laws. But, they’re hardly a cartel that agrees about things, makes decisions collectively and then implements those decisions by simply passing laws or whatever. Rich people have more influence, but they’re not in charge, and they’re certainly not working together. If you know anything about the ultra-rich, it’s that they’re sociopaths. People like that don’t work together, they backstab each-other, have vendettas against each-other, etc. They’re not “in charge”, they’re just the loudest voices in the room.
And they’re doing startlingly well in their attempts…
sounds like a conspiracy theory
Remember that democracy is not something done to you. It is something you do.
“You will own nothing. And you will be happy”
That’s a line from a piece of creative writing, not s conspiracy theory
A piece of creative writing presented at the WEF and baldly stating the goal of agenda 2030.
It’s not the goal of agenda 2030. You can read it online here:
https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
There’s nothing nefarious about it. For some reason conspiracy loons have latched onto it and think it says things that it doesn’t say.
Can you please point me to the WEF stating it’s their goal? Like any line or paragraph of text which says that?
Everything I’ve read with the WEF taking about the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development is about very easy to agree on goals like ending poverty, hunger, giving access to health care and education, clean water and sanitation, affordable clean energy, decent work and economic growth, innovation industry and infrastructure, sustainability, responsible consumption, climate action, ecological protections, peace, justice, and equality.
They don’t seem to have any aim of ending personal or private property, rent seeking corporations like Adobe and BMW would love you to pay them endless and ever increasing subscriptions but that’s nothing to do with the WEF.
Then why is everything I own actually owned by a bank?
So you mean like you borrowed money to buy things and haven’t finished paying it back yet? If so then that’s your answer I guess.
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Celestial Seasonings tea and Shen Yun both have ties to cults. With Celestial Seasonings the cult that founded it no longer own or profit off it thankfully, but their tea is shit so I still don’t recommend buying it.
Shen Yun doesn’t hide it. Their show is all about Falun Gong. Although they don’t advertise it as such. Went to one of their shows with my wife and mother thinking it would just be about Chinese artistic culture and then BAM - Two hour long Falun Gong propaganda piece.
Isn’t that show expensive or am I thinking of something else?
Ticket prices are about mid-range relative to other live performance shows in the same category, $100-$200 depending on seating.
Wife and I saw Hamilton recently and tickets were $300 each, for example.
I mean they post posters up in every Chinese food restaurant within a major metropolitan area, I wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere near Hamilton or even regular theater pricing off that odd advertisement technique…
Oneida cutlery too. The cult died, the cutlery survived.
I’ve seen a UFO while I was truck driving. Most amazing thing I have seen to date.
Edit: On the night of the Dec 11th 2020 at 9:30ish I had stopped for the night to sleep whiledriving towards Colorado on I25 in New Mexico. I had stopped at a truck parking area maybe 10 miles away from Old Sunshine gas station and parking area. I was gazing at the stars and milkyway and enjoying the lack of light pollution when I witnessed it. Where the sky had previously been black and full of stars a blue light appeared for 10 or so seconds and then shot directly upward in an ice blue streak. At first I didn’t think anything of it until it moved incredibly fast straight up. It was instantaneous. I used to be ing the Air Force so I have seen all kinds of Arial vehicles. Never seen anything like this.
I couldn’t find a mile marker but the coordinates are “35.3965167, -105.4138241”.
Would you care to elaborate internet friend?
I added the event to my original post.
We all see unidentified objects all the time. Most of us don’t make a big deal about not being able to identify something though.
I drove by a house in my neighborhood. There was a pure white van, no windows, license was VAN 3. A man was walking towards the van dressed in white coveralls and gloves.
As I passed, I stared at him. He stared at me with cold murderers eyes. I’ve seen that look twice before and both guys turned out to be murderers.
Sounds like you have more stories to tell.
VAN3 relative begs to differ
Sounds like you passed a painter who works at a company with at least two other vans. I thought painters only wearing white was an old time movie thing, but the one we hired wore all white. His van AND trailer were white too. Normal eyes tho, didn’t murder us.
Wouldn’t a company that bothered to get vanity plates for their van put a logo on it?
I saw something weird like that in Portland once…
This was almost 10 years back, but it’s still fairly vivid in my mind due to the apparent mysteriousness of the sighting.
It was a weekday morning, probably around 8, and I was driving home after my regular shift at the mortuary. There was a man walking on the sidewalk of a busy street in an upper-middle class neighborhood. He kinda stuck out because his outfit looked to be of high quality, expensive pieces, which kind of drew the eye, yet he also looked like a straight up Bond villain, with black pants, a black, leather, car coat type jacket, rolled-up stocking cap, and leather gloves, all topped off with Eastern European features on a serious looking face. He was also carrying full-size bolt cutters, which were tucked upwards under one arm, like he was trying to casually conceal them and hope no one noticed.
I obviously don’t know why he was carrying bolt cutters down the street like that, but I figured parking sucks in PDX, and maybe he got stuck with a shitty spot around the block from where he was either delivering a much-need tool to a friend in a pinch or doing a B&E while hunting Jason Bourne.
I only saw him for about 10 seconds as I slowly passed by while driving and, ever since, he pops back up in my mind from time to time and frustrates my thoughts with a lack of closure as to what he was actually getting up to that morning.
