How to convince people they should think, know and care about certain conspiracies.

Past weekend I had a discusion with an old friend of mine about corrupted governments in general . This person is so vast asleep that he refuses to belief that what is discussed at the Bilderberg convention has no influence on any country whatsoever....and never will. He is convinced that like minded businesmen and government officials are merely exchange experiences. Such vast asleep people do not believe in conspiracies,...conspiracies do not exist. Politicians do not and can not organise stuff like 911.

This is not the first time I encounter people who have never questioned the intension/ dealings of their government or officials therein. Often they reply to me ... don't worry, everything is going fine...if what you suspect is true, would it change anything..... and if so, what can you do about it?

At times these ignorant people can make me boil, as if they play naive... or stupid on purpose..

What would you say to make these people understand that it does concern them when their government or persons in their government are involved with illegal activities and are protected from procecution by that same government? Is there an illuminating example to tell these people? What line or story will make them shut up, listen and give them a good jolt in order to wake them up.

Thx

a reply to: zatara

At one point, political parties themselves will use conspiracy theories to push their agenda. Use "truth" to sandwish a lie and make it palatable for us conspiracy investigators.

Which implies, that some conspiracy theories around here are conspiracy themselves.

In a disinformation war, you can have no opinion - so I tell you this: Read everything, but never give your full trust to any source. I never believe - I investigate.

For the TRUE hidden hand... you never hear about it. Not on MSNBC, not on ATS.

The single most damaging aspect of Conspiracy Theories is the propensity for people to let their imaginations run wild and express those wild imaginations with no regard for factual evidence.

This is off putting for most people.

A lot of people, many on here, just throw out what they feel are conspiracy theories, lacking the aforementioned factual data, and then when they get "called on it", the ones presenting facts are too often labeled shills etc.

Imagination is fun, but it has no place in an intelligent discussion and as stated above, leads to most people not concerning themselves with conspiracy theories..

a reply to: zatara

Why not provide an example of a conspiracy with some supporting facts.
You mentioned 9/11. If you believe it was an inside job then explain to the person why you believe.
Provide information on the topic that comes from a recognized source.

Ranting and arguing about something the person refuses to believe won’t help your cause. Just provide facts and let your friend decide.

Some people will always accept what the ‘LSM’ and our ‘leaders’ tell us as fact and that’s okay. Most of the time because of people like us who ask questions and don’t accept something just because it’s on the news the truth is revealed.

What is your end goal?
Have them join ATS and start prepping?
Maybe you being the catalyst for creating some sort of armed rebellion?
Just want someone to talk to about stuff you believe in?

What is your point overall?

Here is the thing, what your discussing are a mishmash of theories, considerations, mysteries, etc..which is (in my opinion) interesting to talk about, but does John the carpenter need to have 9/11 and other type conspiracies in his already busy life of just working and being a family person? how would it enhance his life? what would he even do if overnight he became a full blown believer?

What is your motivation and goal?

And one final thought...your frustrated that they won't think how you think...but they may be equally frustrated that your not thinking how they are thinking..so both of you are wondering what the hell is wrong with each other and why they believe as you two do.

its good to have opposing ideas though, because that is what drives a person to question (if they want it to).

As far as what I would say about keeping an open mind..simple really.
Scams are pulled off all the time, people burn down their homes for insurance fraud, murder one another for the same reasons. All these multi-millionare wall street types that ended in prison shows its not limited to just a bunch of people stealing tiny amounts, but rather corruption and scamming is all over the place...and the only time a person knows when a scam is happening is when..the investigation happens after its all said and done.
..then just say you are trying to see the scams before its common knowledge, if only for your own peace of mind.

originally posted by: zatara
What line or story will make them shut up, listen and give them a good jolt in order to wake them up.

You might start by considering they may be wondering the same thing about you.

I'm a big skeptic. I do believe in some conspiracies (very few), but too many people here believe every possible conspiracy that comes down the pike and they end up turning people away. Semper said it perfectly.

Sometimes I think those ignorant people you talk about, actually have it better.

Ok, you know this and that, but has it made life any easier for you?

It doesn't matter that you've uncovered truth of a conspiracy in some form. In the end there isn't anything you or I can do about it because we aren't in positions of power. I suspect if you were, you wouldn't be here on ATS, but doing the same as the conspirators, to further your own power.

(In regards to TPTB)

a reply to: zatara

Why do you want the person to believe conspiracies? Isn't that just having the person abandoning one form of brainwashing only to adapt another form of brainwashing? Shouldn't you be encouraging your friend to not take anything at face value and investigate things he is being told more throughly? This goes for conspiracies. Just because you post on this site doesn't mean that your eyes are "open" or anything. Parroting random conspiracies like 911 being an inside job without any factual evidence will get you nowhere. Your friend isn't going to take kindly to you giving him the answer to the research you want him to do. Truthers who say that we should question everything are correct, but that is where it ends. We should be questioning everything, not providing our own (unsubstantiated) answers to the questions as well. When we do that, we are just as bad as the talking heads on television.

Personally, I think that our resident skeptics are more likely to have their eyes open then our resident believers. The skeptics are not only questioning the mainstream accounts, they are also questioning the conspiracy theorist's accounts as well.

I think the OP has a very important and timely question. There are many things still called "conspiracy theories" when in fact they are just plain conspiracies - a plot by a small group of people using unethical or illegal means to attain a goal.
20 years ago people would laugh when I told them the government was spying on them and making plans for martial law. Those same people will quietly acknowledge it's true but then have no desire to do anything about it. It's as if we've become fatalists who feel we have no power to effect change.

I suppose a history lesson might be in order for the unbelievers - how Oak Ridge and the atomic bomb were kept a secret, how FDR set up the Pacific fleet to be hit at Pearl Harbor, how we sucked in to Vietnam over the Gulf of Tonkin incident, how the Federal Reserve was given control of our money and how a private bank has been charging us interest for over 100 years - what we now call the National debt.

I would gladly welcome any suggestions as to how to awaken people to what's been going on. Evil plans are not made in public meetings but behind closed doors.

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
I think the OP has a very important and timely question. There are many things still called "conspiracy theories" when in fact they are just plain conspiracies - a plot by a small group of people using unethical or illegal means to attain a goal.
20 years ago people would laugh when I told them the government was spying on them and making plans for martial law. Those same people will quietly acknowledge it's true but then have no desire to do anything about it. It's as if we've become fatalists who feel we have no power to effect change.

I suppose a history lesson might be in order for the unbelievers - how Oak Ridge and the atomic bomb were kept a secret, how FDR set up the Pacific fleet to be hit at Pearl Harbor, how we sucked in to Vietnam over the Gulf of Tonkin incident, how the Federal Reserve was given control of our money and how a private bank has been charging us interest for over 100 years - what we now call the National debt.

I would gladly welcome any suggestions as to how to awaken people to what's been going on. Evil plans are not made in public meetings but behind closed doors.

You and Semper BOTH bring up some valid points.

I just want to also add, the noticing how the MSM and the Whitehouse have jumped on the bandwagon throwing out the term "conspiracy theory" as nothing more than a means to distract from the truth coming out?

Sure, there are those out there whom are perhaps just a few cards short of a full deck, but don't bet your life savings on the fact that there are not people out there that are paid to come on sites like ATS and promote a totally batsnip crazy idea, just to make those whom are questioning the "official story" look like idiots!



Another one.

I think the first thing you need to do is examine your own beliefs with a skeptical mindset. Is it your friends who are ignorant, or is it you? You tend to see conspiracies behind every fence post. Ask yourself: Is this a reasonable way to look at the world? Is anything any two people say or do in private therefore a conspiracy? Are you completely sure Chemtrails are real? How about reptilians in the higher echelons of government? How about 9/11? Are you sure those airplanes were holograms or that the charges were set on the ground? Really? How about Climate Change? Are you convinced fossil fuels are melting the ice caps and bringing doom on us all? Or maybe we're still coming off a rather horrendous Ice Age and warming up would overall be a good thing? Do governments always lie and scientists always tell the truth?

Basically I'm asking you to examine your own evidence. Would it hold up in court? Would it pass peer review? Of those conspiracies in which you do not believe, what sets them apart from those in which you do believe? How can you tell one from another? And how can you tell all this from sitting on a couch with a laptop in hand? Is this really "research"? How reliable are the "facts" you are getting? And how much of what you believe in the way of conspiracies is because you never go anywhere else than the comfort of places like ATS to examine the opposite viewpoint?

And what makes you so special that you have been in a position to KNOW, without any doubt, how all this works? Are you really more intelligent than your peers? Do you have extensive life experience that has placed you in secret hidey-holes so that you know all this from direct experience? Or are you simply listening to the raves and rants of others you've never seen or met? You mean to tell us that at your young age you are wise? Did you get that in a previous life or what? In other words, what is it about your background and experience that lends credence to your theories of conspiracy? If you question everything else you've been taught, why don't you question these conspiracies with as much vigor? Why are you giving them a pass? Chemtrails? Really? You're sure about that?

It's a logical possibility that it is your "ignorant" friends who have a better grasp on reality than you do, that they have a better understanding of how the world "really" works than you do, and that it is you who are a wild-eyed conspiracy nut who deserves their pity even though it is you who are calling them names because they don't live in the same paranoid world you do. They might not want to join you in putting on a tinfoil hat because you are the one who is crazy.

I think a lot of people react this way because they fear that much of it is true.

Homo phobics comes to mind in a similar regard.

Some prefer to be willingly be sheep because they can`t take those emotions from up front.
Just the possibility of the existence something fearful is too much and it will cause an irrational emotional reaction and the person will immediately discard everything about those ideas.

You can`t force people to see your version of the truth but I think it`s possible to conditionalize people towards asking question and not be afraid of questioning the reality of something they fear without loosing objectivity.

originally posted by: schuyler
Basically I'm asking you to examine your own evidence. Would it hold up in court? Would it pass peer review? Of those conspiracies in which you do not believe, what sets them apart from those in which you do believe? How can you tell one from another? And how can you tell all this from sitting on a couch with a laptop in hand? Is this really "research"? How reliable are the "facts" you are getting? And how much of what you believe in the way of conspiracies is because you never go anywhere else than the comfort of places like ATS to examine the opposite viewpoint?

Well said. But to piggyback off of this, I'd like to say that thinking such as this has led me to disbelieve many of the conspiracies (like NWO, chemtrails, 9/11, etc) on this site since they are all pretty much interrelated with some even relying on others to be true in order for them to be true. So if I find one conspiracy theory to have shaky and questionable premises (say NWO based on needing to believe Christian mythology to bring about Revelations or even worse, Reptiles lol), this automatically discounts many other theories as well (like chemtrails). That isn't to say that I don't think that conspiracies don't take place (they totally do, the creation of the Fed is a very real conspiracy), the real ones just aren't as nefarious as the posters on this website like to make them out to be.

The easiest way to get people to believe in a real conspiracy is to use reverse psychology. Say you do not believe in it even though there is so overwhelming evidence to prove it exists. Say, you trust our government and the corporations. Say there is not a problem with the execs of those corporations getting many millions of dollars in stock options.

They will be on the net researching the conspiracy you told them that you did not believe in initially so they can tell you that you that you should investigate it better. Then tell them you also looked into it again and agree you were wrong.

One thing you need to remember is that there will be many sheep sitting unprepared no matter how many times we broach the subject. I know it is aggravating to discuss CT with people that have their head in the sand, especially friends and family.

That being said, I have found that over many, many years these people come around. One method I have used is to give them key words that for some reason has gone right over their heads. For example: I have repeated the NWO and that it has been brought up by Presidents, Politicians, etc. often on television and news broadcasts. People that never would believe in an NWO conspiracy would start hearing that on TV from say President Bush, and the newscasters. I don't know how they never seem to hear things like that. But, after pointing it out and them continually hearing it they would come back and say, "Wow, I have heard it several times and never knew it was right out there like that".

You just have to draw them in slowly. It's like a child taking their first steps. They don't want to believe their world is run by secret societies, bankers, etc. behind the scenes. Some people don't have the mental capacity to handle it. Paranoia is something that some people have which really interferes with their lives and is considered a mental disorder. Just give them information with things they can go find themselves.

Also, realize that groups often chastise CT's. These friends may very well when by themselves go out and do a little research. Send them emails with information they can research, or good documentary videos. There are a lot out there that will surely damage your cause.

And, if you bring up CT's that are generally well debunked, i.e. moon landings never happened, you are going to lose credibility with someone that is insulated by false teachings and propaganda on other CT's like NSA Spying, NWO, Agenda 21.

Agenda 21 is something most people think are CT's that don't exist. However, you can provide actual UN documentation on Agenda 21. You could tell your favorite target for conversion all about Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development and what is planned. When they don't believe you, come back the next day with a printed copy of the actual program docs, or email them the docs, or a link to them at the UN itself. You have to remember that these people don't want to believe their world is so messed up. They also have a fear of being ridiculed for their beliefs and try to stay with the crowd. We true CT's are a minority remember. It takes a lot of work to get people to start taking baby steps to waking up. I see it all the time on here. People that once didn't believe in CT's and then the become avid ATS community members.

Trust me, if the DHS MRAPS start rolling down their street they will come running to the person that told them before that these things existed and are being deployed. Hang in there. It isn't a lost cause, but it is frustratingly slow at times. The best thing you can do is bring them in on documented things first. However, once documented with facts, it is no longer a conspiracy theory, but conspiracy fact.

Cheers

This inability to allow people to remain ignorant is something that i have struggled with also. The first time i finally found some truth about things i had always doubted my life has changed forever, but it is with this new desire for truth comes a shock at the minds of everyone around me. Offering (not forcing) alternative information on any subject is met with varying responses. One is agreeing with you yet not really just avoid forming their own opinions and have a quick escape from the conversation. Another is ridicule with the usual conspiracy theorists, the aliens did it and i wouldnt be that naive to see this. And finally but in my opinion the worst (actually from my father) was i dont really care, i prefer to bury my head in the sand and what are you going to do anyway. I know i should get angry but aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah really pi**es me off at the complete disregard for other peoples suffering and attitude of if they are not directly effected then il carry on watching XFactor.
This situation of the young girls being kidnapped in Nigeria is something that has shown me that the truth doesnt matter unless it is from the main stream media. In the same moment when trying to have a discussion about the federal reserve and met with disinterest, a quick check of the mobile phone and the incredulity about the brutality rings out. So in answer to what is one to do if faced with this attitude from the mass is one of a few possibilities. One is just to give up and become part of the problem. Another is to just go f*cking nuts and take to the streets and overthrow the corrupt b**tards. Or the only logical one i can find is find anyway you can to become more like politicians and lie. Bring these truths with as many ways the individual can become directly effected. It seems that unless you connect these dots back to them step by step they dont care. So basically try to scare the #e out of them about what will happen to them, and if they are selfish then what will happen to their children and grandchildren. Just by writing this im even more frustrated and feel useless in exposing these crimes against mankind.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Why do you want the person to believe conspiracies? Isn't that just having the person abandoning one form of brainwashing only to adapt another form of brainwashing? Shouldn't you be encouraging your friend to not take anything at face value and investigate things he is being told more throughly? This goes for conspiracies.

Well, way to beat me to the punch.


I was thinking the same thing.

a reply to: zatara

What line or story will make them shut up,

I bet that is what you friend that are asleep are thinking to themselves.

This is not the first time I encounter people who have never questioned the intension/ dealings of their government or officials therein. Often they reply to me ... don't worry, everything is going fine...if what you suspect is true, would it change anything..... and if so, what can you do about it? At times these ignorant people can make me boil, as if they play naive... or stupid on purpose.. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Can you answer the question posed, what can you do about it?

Trying to wake people up doesn't cut it, are you really awake or do you think you are because you believe in conspiracies?

Could it be that you blood boils because you don't know and are simply speculating on many things and that is why your friends play naive in your eyes.

They suspect as you do but wont invest any of their time and sanity to something they only suspect but have no evidence or proof of.

If you or anyone had evidence or proof of a conspiracy would it be discussed here, well yes it would but it would be all over the MSM so as to have a larger group to divide and conquer.

SNF, I have been meaning to ask ATS this question myself. Some ideas I have had about this phenomenon:


People constantly brush off truth, fact, and speculation as 'conspiracy'. Its part of the way that their minds and morals have been constructed by society. Even if you present someone with all of the relevant facts, and they start to come to the conclusion you are fishing for (the conspiracy theory), generally people will adamantly deny everything. They start to look for any hole in your story, any means of disproving you instantly. They will become upset with you, offended by you, and hostile towards you!

I think of it as a survival mechanism. Someone goes over to a lake, gets eaten by an alligator. Witnesses run back to the tribe saying "don't go in they're, you'll be eaten by an alligator". Someone doesn't listen and gets eaten. More people agree: there are alligators, don't go in there. You haven't seen the gators yourself, but you must believe the group because if you don't listen your as good as dead! We are creatures forced, on a genetic level, to believe the majority of a group even if the evidence directly contradicts the popular belief.

In school I decided I wanted to be a computer programmer and the idea ran through my mind -if I could program a persons mind, what would my program look like?- The contradiction in the idea of being pre-programmed lies in the idea of free will. Now, conspiracy theorists contend that free will can be 'managed' or essentially stripped away from a persons mind using brainwashing tactics. Hypothetically, if you were running around programming people's minds, you would need some kind of trap to keep the person from realizing they are programmed and choosing to disable the program. My program would look like this: "if this person starts to investigate the possibility of themselves being programmed: Jump to: adamant denial of the possibility of mind control technology". Could it be possible that the majority of the people in the world are programmed, somehow, this way?

Either way, these people's minds are trained to dismantle your theories. There is no way to undo 20 years of society training you to think a certain way in 20 minutes. Its not possible (haha maybe if you had mind control). It takes a certain type of life philosophy and belief system to overcome these hurdles and keep a genuinely open mind. If the person does not want to believe it, they are not ready. Just let them be. Plant the seed and maybe one day it will grow.

It is not my intension to answer my own question but after reading the first replies these thought came to me..

I know that discussing conspiracies can be a sensitive passtime with a stranger and one should be aware that with subjects like these thin ice is around everywhere. That is because there is little hard evidence to support it.... but that is what it makes a conspiracy. If there is little evidence it will mean there is an indication something is going on and will the matter be still inconclusive. We are done speaking of a conspiracy if there is hard overwhelming evidence to support the theory...if there is enough evidence the matter has become fact and theory no longer.

Because there is thin ice everywhere I know that some evidence is requiered to make the discussed conspiracy plausible, reasonable, acceptable and believable. Some conspiracies are more important than others..why? Because of the influence it can have or has on our lives. That is why I wrote in the thread title "certain". Of course is the best example for that the murder of JFK. It should interest people because there are strong indications that the entity responsible for this crime still is influencing government policy...domestic and foreign. Many people are convinced that life for american citizens would be better if JFK was not killed.

IMHO this is an example for why someone should know about a conspiracy and care for it. If everybody would never digg deeper the criminals would always have the playground for themselves and able to do whatever they want. To this day "They" still do what they want but with the difference that at least someone is keeping an eye on them.

An ATS member mentioned The Bay of Tonkin. This is an other beautifull example of conspiracy gone fact. If people keep searching for other other explanations and find facts to support a different conclusion than what the government has been telling us it will add to the list of malversations. Because of this questioning the people can ask the government for an explanation... why does the goverrnment lie so much, should we trust you, and to get them really nervous...should we trust you with our money?

Anyways, I appreciate all the interesting replies so far and look forward to some more thoughts on the subject.