Yes, good point.

Absolutely. We aren't the crazies, that word is reserved for those who are fast asleep. This is just propaganda from dissuading people into asking questions.

Agreed. Once you can look at propaganda objectively, it really changes how you view anything. We breed an anti-bullshit society.

NO!! Because that frames us in a positive way. Then everyone will want to do it, and we won't be special anymore.

Double talk? I can barely tell through the layers of sarcasm. Yes, conspiracy theorists is a negative connotation, but no, it doesn't make us "special" (as if that were ever the goal). Expose the truth. Expose criminality. Fight for your rights.

I was going to reply something similar but that statement was way too confusing to rebut.

Yeah, I was kidding. Sorry.

Yeah, but the ostriches would cry and whine too much. Might as well act like we're fringe to make it easier for them to swallow.

I suppose you're right but I have no doubt that we will grow slowly reaching humongous numbers of free thinkers. If only we knew how to make this movement of truth speed up WAY faster.

Just keep talking. Personally, I've found that qualifying my thoughts with, "I'm a conspiracy theorist, but..." helps others not react so strongly to my thoughts and consider them without balking immediately. But I have had random strangers I've stuck up conversations with correct me when I say I'm a conspiracy theorist with, "No, you're a critical thinker" and that's pretty kickass. We're everywhere.

Friends and relatives will now seek me out for my insight on things, saying, "Hey, dejenerate, I know you're a crazy conspiracy theorist, what's your take on $some-batshit-insane-news-item-that's-obviously-a-conspiracy?" In fact, I've had some relatives bring (incredibly plausible and original) theories to me. When Michael Hastings died, my mother brought up the fact that he was likely murdered before I did...

That is amazing. I'm glad people around you are more open to understanding. Thank you, this validates that hope can never be lost as long as the truth exists.

I also think being a 'Conspiracy Theorist' in this day and age is pretty great because if someone decides to fact check you they might get their face blown off with evidence rather than just a 'theory'.

this is the tactic i use, i usually just point people in the direction of a topic and tell them to look at it for themselves.

sort of a twist on you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink sort of thing.

Yep. You can talk at people all day long and make zero progress, especially sometimes due to personal dynamics (like my Dad doesn't ever want to be wrong, right?) - but seed a little bit and allow them to do the research themselves and it's amazing.

Yes, that or "Alternative Historians"

While I think that that is the most palatable term, the most accurate is 'heretics'.

Not only do we question the orthodox narrative for a variety of subjects, we are treated with the same disdain as heretics of old. If you put aside your religious beliefs and read heretical arguments from a purely secular point of view, you will find that they are not very different to the sorts of things we talk about here. Heretical arguments, from both sides, are often along the lines of "we believe that you are mistaken in your interpretation of the evidence and that we are correct in ours". Another common theme is "you are lying and unjustly profiting from that lie", albeit not always outright stated.

The greatest heresy to ever successfully threaten the Catholic Church was the Protestant movement. We call them Protestants because people protested what they saw as a corrupt Papacy and, by extension, a corrupted religion. The issues of simony and indulgences, which in part led to the Reformation, are little different to the issues at the top of this sub right now: corrupt people in positions of power using their status to further their own wealth or agenda at the expense of the pissant majority.

What? The Archbishop paid for his position? He might be the second son of the local lord, but he earned his position through merit. You're just a conspiracy theorist! trying to sully the good name of a good man with your ignorance. The Church needs those indulgences to spread the word of the Lord, those people telling you about palaces and gold don't know what they're talking about! Have you ever been to Rome? I have, and I can tell you it's just a normal town like yours. We should burn the stupid book you read that in, and the person who wrote it!

While the subjects are a little different, the arguments, tactics, and results are, more or less, the same: ridicule and attempts at suppression which sometimes lead to convenient deaths. The heretics of five hundred, or a thousand, years ago threatened Catholic hegemony in the same way that conspiracy theorists threaten governments and corporations today. If a region converts to heresy, they no longer pay tithes to the Catholic Church and this might spread, shaking the World Order and threatening to bring the whole structure crashing down.

When you come here and question the official mainstream narrative of 9/11, you are engaging in heresy. When you come here and discuss corruption the MSM is ignoring, you are engaging in heresy. When you discuss climate change, vaccines, UFOs, the CIA, Monsanto or Reptilian Satanist Jews, you are engaging in heresy. Even if you're a God-fearing, rosary-wearing, Church-on-Sundays type of Catholic, you're a heretic when you challenge the orthodoxy as we do in almost every thread in r/conspiracy.

Gutenberg's Press led directly to Martin Luther and the Reformation. Berners-Lee is the modern Gutenberg and we are the heretical protestants spreading dangerous ideas. To stretch the analogy further, as the self-described "front page of the internet", reddit is very much like the apocryphal cathedral door getting shit nailed to it all day. Reformation 2.0 is in full sway. Some know it, more sense it, but most still look to Rome for guidance and mock those silly heretics.

Nope. People are turning to "conspiracy theorists" more and more. At this point it's a sales tactic.

Did you just call us normal and rational? You take that back!

it always has had that meaning, or did you miss the multiple posts popping up here all the time on how it was a term created to try and shush people who didn't buy the bullshit stories they were feeding the public?

journalism is printing what others want to keep secret, everything else is public relations (i probably butchered the exact quote but you get the idea)

you should phone the cia and suggest it

It was developed by the CIA as a psy op.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-23/1967-he-cia-created-phrase-conspiracy-theorists-and-ways-attack-anyone-who-challenge

Don't have tp change anything. If someone calls you a conspiracy theorist, just thank them. Why wouldn't someone be a conspiracy theorist in this day and age? After all that has been getting revealed over the last few years.

Naw. Most conspiracy theorists are nutballs. They deserve the label that is hung around their necks. There's no critical thinking in saying that planted explosives took down the Twin Towers, for example. It's just nut talk.

It's ironic how the country of "free speech" doesn't question what happens or what the media says about it.

This conversation happens once a fucking week.

I would like this conversation to happen every day if it's needed.

You is kind. You is smaht. You is impotint.