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PaperclipPerfector  9hr ago (text post)   1549 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 26, 2026

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I dislike the terms "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist", as they're generally used as terms of dismissal or abuse: characterizing a particular hypothesis as a "conspiracy theory" is tantamount to saying that it's untrue, and characterizing the person who espouses it as a "conspiracy theorist" is tantamount to calling them paranoid and unserious. But this shouldn't be the case, because conspiracies do happen!

Of course they do, there is a criminal conspiracy term under many jurisdictions and these conspiracies are prosecuted all the time ranging from Drug or weapon trafficking, white collar fraud, RICO conspiracies, various government corruption schemes and many more.

However. We're all familiar with the type of person described by the term "conspiracy theorist". The people in tinfoil hats, the people who never believe the official story, the people who attribute every setback (no matter how trivial) to the dark hand of da Joos/the CIA/the Illuminati.

Actually we are in fact not familiar with "the type". Or to be more precise, there is more than just one type. The tinfoil hat chemtrail wacko is one type. But there are many other types, in general all leftisim is just one huge conspiracy theory. You know the type: everything is because of capitalism and billionaires. Or alternatively everything is because of white supremacy or patriarchy or whatnot. These are all the same level of "theories" than your regular schizoid who sees aliens everywhere, but for some reason being a commie leftist who thinks everything is because of capitalism is somehow considered as a normal thing.

So I agree with @Primaprimaprima that "conspiracy theory" label is primarily a propaganda term that is used just as an ad hominem attack on opponents epistemological credentials. It is often used in battery of ad hominems where one attacks all three faculties:

  • Attack on you epistemological legitimacy: "Only conspiracy theorists believe that, no serious academic can believe what you believe, you are outside of scientific consensus"
  • Attack on your mental legitimacy: "Who hurt you? Something must have happened to you, only people with unresolved trauma say these hurtful things. Did you try therapy?"
  • Attack on your moral legitimacy: "Only racists and fascists say what you say. You should be ashamed of what you say"

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