NY Times: "conspiracy theories persist in Pakistan because most are true"

The New York Times published a story today on Pakistan's own conspiracy nutter culture - which goes down to catalog all the usual eccentricities ...

According to many Pakistanis, the C.I.A. used a mysterious technology to cause the devastating floods that affected 20 million people in 2010. Washington had the teenage champion for girls’ education, Malala Yousafzai, shot as part of a campaign to demonize the Pakistani Taliban and win public support for American drone strikes against them. The terrorists who strike Pakistani targets are non-Muslim “foreign agents.” Osama bin Laden was an American operative. The Pakistani penchant for conspiracy theories results from decades of military rule, during which the army controlled the media and the shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence agency controlled much of everything else. The lack of transparency and scarcity of information during subsequent democratic rule has further fueled rumors.

... but then ends with this gem:

Mostly, however, conspiracy theories persist because many turn out to be true.

latitude.blogs.nytimes.com...

That is because in places like Pakistan the news media just paints a story of what they want the masses to believe so people are forced too "fact check" themselves to weed the gold from the rock pile........wait that is about everywhere. Wish we could get a percentage of time they are right in some other nations but then I guess there would be no conspiracy. S&F

A lot of conspiracy theories actually turn out to be true, or very close to the truth.

Originally posted by BlindBastards
A lot of conspiracy theories actually turn out to be true, or very close to the truth.

lol ... define "a lot"

reply to post by AtticusRye

The Pakistani penchant for conspiracy theories results from decades of military rule, during which the army controlled the media and the shadowy Inter-Services Intelligence agency controlled much of everything else. The lack of transparency and scarcity of information during subsequent democratic rule has further fueled rumors.

If that’s the case in Pakistan, what’s our excuse in US and the west?

I think it has more to do with human nature. We humans tend to hunt for answers when things don’t smell right. It might be more prevalent in countries like Pakistan because their people aren’t bogged down with American Idol, Survivor, Jersey Shore, etc.

I love how the media will admit the most ridiculous conspiracies are true yet when something gets to close to the truth we are nothing but nutjobs who like to demonise tptb whilst making them cry