Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
It's been a while since I've done one of these- what's a small scale conspiracy theory you're willing to go to bat for?
Now, by 'small scale conspiracy theory' I do not mean grand unified theories of the jewlluminati or lizard people, or major government direction, or whatever. It's small-scale.
Some things I think are likely true-
The 'Marriage penalty' in US welfare law is- or was- an intentional experiment to prove that marriage was outmoded in late-industrial societies. It fits the zeitgeist of the time and we know there were other reckless experiments going on in first world countries(like German pedophiles). It was not based on the assumption that single mothers need the help more.
Coyote predation on small children is far more common in the USA than commonly acknowledged(note that a huge increase over a trivial base is still trivial), and those toddlers who just disappear and everyone assumes the parents killed them but they're never charged because nobody ever finds the body were mostly snatched by coyotes. Wildlife departments and law enforcement agencies prefer to cover this up to discourage reprisals by poisoning, which has substantial knock on effects. The only confirmed coyote kill of a child(there is also a case of a hippie musician who wandered near a den, but this probably wasn't a predatory attack) was interrupted during the attack rendering it undeniable.
Conventional health wisdom overstates effect sizes because it originated in attempts to explain the rise of chronic disease in the mid twentieth century. In reality, these diseases became common because people lived long enough to get them(largely due to reduced disease burden), with effects from rising waistlines, sedentary lifestyles, etc.
Anyway to answer the OP:
-- Musk never intended to buy Twitter, he wanted to buy enough stock to force the company to give him a board seat so he could advocate for the company to change some policies. Unfortunately, when he bought that stock, the SEC started investigating the way he did it, and the company informed him of all the things he wouldn't be allowed to say if he was on Twitter's board unless he wanted to face a shareholder lawsuit. The only way out was through, so he upped the stakes and put in an offer to buy the company, figuring that it would fall apart one way or another before being consummated and in the process he could shed the lawsuits. Unfortunately, right about then every social media stock dropped 20-30%, and the company officers had to hang onto his offer because it would maximize shareholder value, and so he was ultimately forced to purchase the company. This explains a lot about the shambolic way Twitter has been managed with DAU dropping by about 50% since the purchase.
-- The NBA orchestrated the Luka Doncic trade in exchange for fixing the draft lottery to get Flagg to the Mavs. The Buss family wanted to sell the Lakers, but their buyer balked at buying the team when its current incarnation consisted of the aging remnants of the 2020 championship team with no clear way forward. The NBA wanted to see the sale happen. So they convince the Mavs to trade Luka to the Lakers. Now LA has a young, good looking, marketable, MVP candidate for the next ten years. The team is sold for $10bn and in the process the value of every other NBA franchise goes up by, what, ten figures? We're talking about ~$30bn in value created! In turn, the Mavs win the NBA draft lottery despite 1/50 odds, and get Cooper Flagg, who if he turns out to be as good as Tyrese Maxey is the most marketable NBA player since Lebron. Luka for Anthony Davis and change is a terrible trade, Luka for Anthony Davis and Cooper Flagg might be decent business. The NBA also doesn't mind fixing the lottery to make sure Flagg goes to the Mavs, because they want to see him on a franchise that has historically been well run and has the ability to put pieces around Flagg immediately and get him into the playoffs, they don't want to see their Great White Hope first overall going to perpetual fuck ups like the Hornets, Wizards, or Sixers.
-- Opposite party politicians get along better than we think they do, same party politicians get along worse than we think they do.
-- I cannot provide details for professional reasons, but major consumer corporations have Indiana Jones style warehouses full of better mousetraps that they have determined it would not be profitable to market, but don't want to let anyone else license to compete with their existing products. I don't think the cure for cancer is in there, but it wouldn't surprise me if a better pill bottle and a better paperclip were.
-- Right wing twitter recently melted down when location was shown for accounts, and it turned out that 70% of users with a name like DefendTheWest turned out to be from India and Nigeria. I suspect that if we could do a similar reveal, it would turn out that a huge percentage of prominent identitarian authors on the left would turn out to be white ghostwriters with a black face attached. Tiffany Haddish's memoirs, for example, were ghostwritten by Tucker Max. We'll never find out, but I suspect that a lot of people aren't who we think they are.
Interesting in the context of the preexisting small scale conspiracy theory that the giant casino company which owns the mavs deliberately traded him to reduce the team’s fortunes, because they think a losing team gives them more political influence.
Also revealed a giant percentage of man hating feminists were from South Asia and sub Saharan Africa.
The trade was so bad it spawned instant conspiracy theories, but the payoffs only became apparent over time.
And I didn't even realize there were man hating feminist accounts from South Korea! What do they post? I'm surprised they even lied about it.
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