Some people will believe anything as long as there's no proof and the claims are absurd enough.

I want to help these people but usually they're so far gone on a particular subject that facts just make them angry.

So I propose planting a conspiracy theory that engages their little brains to follow one clue to the next until they reach a conclusion completely opposite their original presumption, then starting with this new premise they follow the clues from this new starting point and it leads back to the original assumption. Bear with me.

So you tell them "A" planned to blow up building to start a war to get money from party "B" who was in league with party "C" who is an arch enemy of party "A" who now it looks like was the person who stood to gain the least from the plot implicating party "C" as the new obvious villian. So we now assume "C" was behind it in league with "D" who was a clear ally of (back to) "A" and start over again.

Make each contention, that "A" is guilty and that "C" is guilty mutually exclusive and incontrovertible, list plenty of facts that prove both opposite conclusions.

They'll either figure out the concept of not believing everything you read or sit their for the next few years going around in circles like trying to find a nut in the corner of a round room. Either way it would keep them busy so I wouldn't have to listen to them.
-- doctorremulac3, Dec 30 2010

Only useful for that subset of people who shut up when they're confused, and that subset is not the problem.
-- lurch, Dec 30 2010


I hope I understand the idea correctly from the title, because I had no patience to read through the whole thing.

+ Anything that will help truthers see their fallacy.
-- pashute, Nov 03 2015


Nuke em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
-- bungston, Nov 03 2015


I thought common core was all a liberal conspiracy.
-- travbm, Nov 03 2015


Sounds a bit like Reductio ad Absurdam - assume the opposite of what is true and work your way back to a contradiction.

Conspiracy theories generally strike me as distractions from the consequences of events. If people are engaged in thinking about things in that way, it gives them a sense of inside knowledge, thereby conferring a feeling of superiority, but doesn't involve engaging with the perceived outcome of the agreed consensus on what happened. That is, 9/11 was not a conspiracy but it was convenient, for example.
-- nineteenthly, Nov 04 2015


[doc], I think you are barking under wrong bridge after the horse has bolted.

Conspiracy theorists are absolutely brilliant, and should be cherished. While they are theorising, they are not competing with the rest of us in the job market or elsewhere.

What is more, they can be tapped for money quite easily, for example by selling them anti-chemtrail shoes or mind-ray-proof underwear.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 04 2015



random, halfbakery