That plutocracies are very real. Everyone thinks democracy and capitalism go together and work so well. Are we still suppose to be scared of fascism?

unfortunately in the USA there is neither true democracy nor true capitalism

I agree but could you cite some specific examples?

90% or so of Germans don't believe a word of the govts 9/11 story.

source ?

Most Russians I've spoken to don't either. No source, I just live in Russia.

source ?

I just made it up.

90% of stats are made up man!

How can I give you a source to conversations I've had with people over the years that I've lived here? I guess you'll just have to believe someone over the internet.

Well, the problem lies in the fact that people say "most people I talked to believe this" and then they generalize that for everyone in the country or region. Problem is, you probably talk to people that are somewhat like yourself or at least people that frequent your milieu. So if you're a student, you probably don't talk with Gov't officials and if you're a Gov't official, you probably don't talk with say, military people and so on. So you don't get a real pulse about what everyone in a country thinks by looking only at your entourage.

When I say source, I mean, show me the poll or study on the subject.

[deleted]

FOR THE WIN!!!

Nice :)

Well, that's the gist of my understanding of sociology. I don't have a textbook that says so on hand so no source. On other hand, can we agree that

a) arguments until now have been "people I talk to here"

b) applying that to whole country is generalization

c) people one talks to aren't a representative sample of the population

Agreed, disagreed ?

according to a recent University of Minnesota study most stats are made up

according to a recent stat, most studies are made up

http://911blogger.com/news/2011-01-21/poll-germany-895-doubt-official-version-911

That article links to this article and Google translates the question as:

Do you think the U.S. government says the world public the whole truth about the attacks? NO - 89.5% YES - 9.2% No answer - 1.4%

So, there is a difference between "don't believe a word" and "not the whole truth". A major difference; for instance maybe some believe the terrorists actually were terrorists ramming the planes but the building implosion was actually controlled. Major difference here where the gov't maybe imploded the buildings so they wouldn't fall on other buildings for instance (I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm just pointing out the stat doesn't mean 89% believe it's all a lie, they just believe it's not all entirely true)

edit: or maybe 89% believe the gov't had tips about it or that the gov't could have done more about it.

Yeah, is there a particular instance or two that you're referring to? I don't believe UFOs (as another commenter suggested) falls into that category.

UFOs don't mean aliens. For the conspiracy theorists that feel UFO = little green men, please check your arrogance at the door.

If you don't think the governments of the world are operating top secret aircraft/vehicles that have not been disclosed to the public, then you are not well read on history at all.

SR-71, U-2, B2, and the F-117 are just a few examples of things that were tested and originally flown exclusively out of groom lake, area 51, and other ts facilities during their inaugural years. There was an Aurora program that had official funding in congress, that we have yet to see. The money trail and paper trail is there, but the actual project isn't.

Look up TR-3B and Aurora Project on google. If those do exist, and someone saw them, they would certainly be "Unidentified".

I get tired of the UFO meaning Aliens bullshit. The suggestion of aliens and the connection between the two comes from crackpots, yet the term UFO has absolutely nothing to do with craft from another planet, it has to do with multi-billion dollar government projects that are hidden from the public.

/rant.

I guess I never thought that anyone actually believed that the American government doesn't have military weapons that we don't know about. I thought that was common knowledge. I mean, when the SR-71 came out, they told everyone that they had had it under wraps for years. If they did it then, why wouldn't they do it now? Why would that be surprising to anyone?

Thus, I excluded military vehicles from my UFO category in my original question.

Fair enough, but as I said in my reply to Green, some people here find it interesting. I don't get pissed when I have to see link after link after link about rich people profiting from war and how the media is propaganda. I could just as easily say "duh" to that.

I mean honestly. The rich and powerful want to be more rich and more powerful? NO WAY!!!? Do we need 50 submissions a day about it? Why is that a fucking conspiracy, but government programs that may have developed reusable space planes and developed electro/magnetic fields capable of negating gravity are just common? Bullshit.

Some people are just interested in different things. That's all. I don't come here for chemtrail, planet x, and reptile people, but it's here, and yet that has zero facts or information to back it up. That's not conspiracy, that's fantasy and storytelling. At least the UFO debate (at its core) has a lot of facts and real world information to back it up that make it interesting.

I don't come here for chemtrail, planet x, and reptile people, but it's here, and yet that has zero facts or information to back it up.

Thank you. That is perhaps the most frustrating part about r/conspiracy.

I don't come here for ... that has zero facts or information to back it up.

We are not alone

:-)

Now, here I do agree with you that chemtrail, planet x and reptilian people should not be under conspiracy, but more along the lines of r/unexplained.

For the conspiracy theorists that feel UFO = little green men, please check your arrogance at the door.

The fact that the government is always developing and testing new aircraft technology is far from being a conspiracy. That's why when people talk about UFOs they are actually talking about aliens and not something as mundane as military R&D.

"how mundane, rich people wanting to get richer, DUH" could sum up 99% of the stories about the world elite, banksters, The Fed, and the Rockefellars that gets posted here.

Some people are just interested in different things. I just don't like how legitimate things that have facts surrounding them (like secret military projects) are not cool enough to post here. But stuff about chemtrails, planet X, and reptilians is OK.

Go figure. I thought this was /r/conspiracy, not /r/fantasy. My bad.

TR-3B reducing gravitational effect ? What ?! When was the Higgs-Boson discovered ?

Are you trying to say you don't believe in aliens or that UFOs just have nothing to do with them? Because if you choose either one, I think you need a reality check.

I believe in aliens, as the universe is too vast to not have other life out there that is more advanced than us.

That being said... does that mean we have any real or physical evidence of them being here? Does that mean anyone can prove aliens have traveled across the galaxy or between some adjacent stars just to buzz trailer parks and abduct rednecks? No... no we don't. We have fuzzy pictures and videos, and eyewitness accounts (which are the worst form of evidence, see the first video below where Neil talks about "an argument from ignorance). I'm skeptical and "I want to believe", and I'm definitely interested. I just hate that most people assume UFOs always mean aliens and dismiss the subject on that, when that is not what the term means. "Some aliens might be on UFOs, but not all UFOs are alien in origination". An alien would have just as good of a chance being in an identifiable vehicle for all we know.

Also, watch this video from Neil Tyson, he kind of sums up my views. Though he rants about UFOs and UFO nuts, he does believe in UFOs, he just reasons that its probably not aliens without further research. My favorite part is when he says "instead of telling us you were abducted, next time steal an ashtray off the alien ship when they turn around and bring it back, bring us evidence!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfAzaDyae-k

Also, his thoughts on "Are we alone in the universe".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re66MWWl8q8

I don't get all my information from these videos by any means. Its just a lot of my personal opinions and research has lead me to the same opinion as Neil. He just puts it in such better words than I ever could. :)

I think you need a reality check.

No, I'm actually very much grounded in reality. I'm skeptical (why I'm here and discussing this), but I need evidence and more than what we have. Time will tell with aliens, as again, I would like nothing more than to know we are not alone in this universe before I die.

"I want to believe". ;)

Actually, they do. See: Many countries in South America.

Yeah, pics or it didn't happen! :)

The Theory of Evolution. Global Warming.

case in point: UFOs

What countries regard UFOs as common knowledge?

Considering in the last few years we've had several countries release all (or so they say) of their documents regarding UFOs in the hopes that the US would, I'd say a few...

And a few include; New Zealand, Brazil, UK, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Mexico, Peru, Russia, Spain, Sweden, France and Uruguay. Link to more links

We all know UFOs exist in a literal sense as in any unindentified flying object. What people regard as conspiracy is the claim that these UFOs are aliens. Let me ask ask did the release of these documents confirm any of these conspiracy theories?

AFAIK, in all of the country's releases, there was/is an amount of sightings that cannot or have not been explained by craft coming from Earth.

Well firstly can I get a source. And secondly a sighting without explanation among hundreds is not evidence. Finally this still doesn't demonstrate that conspiracy theories in the US are regarded as common knowledge elsewhere.

Quit trolling and if you honestly care then do your own research on the subject. Any educated person would come to the conclusion that we are not the pinnacle of civilization in this universe. Why do people like you find it so hard to believe that we can be visited by ET's? Do you really need a freaking massive UFO to hover over your city to show you that they exist? Look at history and what it has told us. Hell the Nazca Line's and Ica Stones are proof enough that beings of higher intelligence are out there and have visited us in the past.

I am not trolling. I have done my own research and I have found not one solid piece of evidence for aliens. Almost every single piece of purported evidence that I saw was debunked by asking basic questions and considering Occam's razor. Nazca lines do NOT even suggest the existence of aliens and it is intellectually dishonest to suggest otherwise. Most educated men have said that while there exists a high propability of aliens there is no solid evidence to suggest that they have contacted us in any way.

Let me guess... this is hoax right....

http://www.timestar.org/ccchilbolton.htm

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"Without going into hardcore maths here, the basic premise is that the number of survivable planets within travelling distance (presuming a speed limit of c) is small enough to make alien visitors statistically unlikely."

When you say travelling distance you once again assume that a civilization that could be "lightyears" ahead of us in technology has not developed a form of interstellar travel. My point is that it is very naive to think that it is impossible that beings from another planet / galaxy could be visiting us. I have a very open mind to all arguments but to say that its impossible because they are just too far away is once again arrogant and stupid... you should know this as you are a computer programmer.

"It is just as likely that superhumans, dinosaurs, Jesus and his Merry Men or the crab people built them" Seriously? The argument that ET's from the past created these seems alot more plausible then anything I have ever heard... oh thats right the Mayan's / Incans created the Nazca lines using simple tools and a Air Baloon so they could make sure everything looked right. I am open to all beliefs; all I am saying is that I have come to the conclusion that they exist and they are out there. But we can always agree to disagree =)

My point is that it is very naive to think that it is impossible that beings from another planet

I never said that; you said I said it and called me arrogant for saying it. I said it was statistically unlikely.

Also, there's no benchmark to think that they would have broken the laws of physics. You are presuming that their rate of advancement in technology is the same as ours in the last century or so. It took several million years for us to get us to the wheel, there's no reason that technological discovery has to keep as n ever expanding rate. Finally on this point, you seem to be presuming that they have broken the laws of physics or our understanding is incorrect. You whole argument is based on logical fallacies, I don't understand where you are gathering any evidence for the ability to travel interstellar distances from apart from gut feeling.

Seriously? The argument that ET's from the past created these seems alot more plausible then anything I have ever heard

Why? What's the difference between saying that an alien created them or the crab people created them? Both are currently mythical beings which may or may not exist, may or may not be technologically advanced, and may or may not have been both technologically advanced/present on the Earth/secretive enough about their presence in the past.

Unfortunately, when we deal in absolutes we fail to look at evidence from an unbiased perspective. Nazca lines, to my mind, aren't a huge mystery. The idea that people believed that God was "up there" and found a way of using their knowledge of simple perspective to make pictures isn't completely beyond the realm of comprehension. I don't know though, that's a theory off of the top of my head and not something that I have dedicated research into. However, it is much more scientifically valid than aliens as we can prove that people existed, and they had an idea about topology, and they were aware of perspective.

Before you can attribute things to aliens, you actually have to prove that aliens exist, otherwise you are building yourself towers of illogical fallacies. As Sagan said, to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the Universe.

We can agree to disagree :)