Are there people that exploit conpiracy theorists?

Hmmm... if we get serious, once could say many people do try that. From the survivalist gear vendors ('get your 10-year MREs here, society breakdown is due next October!'), the gold and silver peddlers, quack science cures and remedies for every sickness, books and multi-hour tapes with the same stale 'theories' one can find in YouTube by the thousands, using the lowest-res, multi-generation phonecam video and interpreting every JPEG/MPEG compression artifact as UFOs, aliens, entities, holographic ships and thermite explosions.

There are scammers in every field, and some could say even big name conspiracy popularizers are doing nothing but fattening their bank accounts on the credulity of many. For scammers, it's no different from fooling housewives or sick people or elders.

As for the specific description of your friend... sadly, sounds like a classic case of progressive mental distress. Paranoia, mood issues, something that amounts to a fantasy, a self-delusion. What were/are his means of economic support?

I once joked with a friend about how delving too deep into the conspiracy theories world is just like getting into drug experimentation: one better have a failsafe, a spotter, someone to slap you back into sense when you begin doing stupid things, and to start with a solid health, both physical and mental, in order to not fall into the dark hole.

Never suspect a conspiracy when ignorance and greed are more appropriate culprits.

I first heard that when Adma Kokesh said it. Have to agree to certain degree

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element

Could these be the metals he was talking about? It makes some sense if it is because they aren't traded the way gold and silver are. It's almost a private/closed market. So almost any speculation on it can be made up with the right market indicators.

Your friend needs to talk to someone. But I know that getting him to take the first step is only something he can decide to do. Be a good friend to him though. Remember, to him, this is reality. Any attack on his reality filter may be misconstrued as an attack on him personally. If he gets too "deep" with it, you may need to talk to his family. But again, tread lightly and be very careful for your own sake.

All the survivalist and natural/alternative medicine pushing is a point worthy of discussion. It's hard to unravel though as in the real world web sites and their owners need to survive. How do they do that? You can only do that a certain number of ways and advertising is the most popular. So we open up the problem of conflicts of interest , where the stories and narratives a site promote, promote fear of establishment medicine and the system itself. Many sites posted here contain copious amounts of fear driven advertising. Many people will assert that buying heirloom seedkits , water fits , survivalist kit is preparedness but without a crystal ball no one can be sure.

Yes, people are taken advantage of, but not everyone is. Fear-mongering/fear-porn are things people will try to cash in on if they can. Try and scare the crap out of someone, convince them they need something in order to survive, collect $$$$. It can usually be explained as bogus quickly by tighter communities if it shows up, but not everyone is capable of not being gullible.

With that said, the rabbit hole is unbelievably deep. When people start to go into the rabbit hole, they can often become overwhelmed, and that information will become their night and day, the only thing they begin to care about. You can be very concerned about what goes on around you, without subsequently letting it consume your life.

Every one of us knows at least one person who took too much information in too fast, and basically had a system overload. They kept digging deeper and deeper and it took over.

It's the reason why I advise everyone to learn about what exactly is happening in the world around them, but at the same time to continue living your life. Keep your relationship(s) strong, keep your family close and keep living your normal life the way you can.

If people aren't careful, the mental distress you can take on from the amount of information that you can come across, can be absolutely staggering.

First guess - Gold bug with severe paranoid schizophrenia. Im not one to call any conspiracy theorist crazy either. But there is a line when you let you mind wander these dark alleys. Its one of the things spooks are trained to avoid, but dont always manage. When you cross that line, you start to see patterns that arent there and connect dots that dont form lines.

There are a LOT of people that target these types, or the edge cases (driving them over the edge) with scams that will make them money. And those types ALWAYS discourage reading or educating from other sources - because their all part of the MSM conspiracy man!

But yeah #1 heavily advertised by $$ amounts is gold bugs. They are just waiting for fiat currency to collapse so their $1000 an oz buy will pay off.

[deleted]

Im not speculating either way as to whats going to happen with gold. Just saying its an area of advertising that would fit perfectly into the persons neurosis and anger in regards to economic decisions and the 'dragon family' issues.

Firstly, We do not know that the guy is not right and would suspect that many here would agree with many of his ideas.

Saying that , the internet is the ideal medium for both broadening your cognitive horizons and at the same time narrowing them. If you take a conspiratorial view of world history and events then it is entirely possible/likely that you will immerse yourself in this filter bubble and become immune to and avoid anything that disagrees with your world view. In search of the truth you can become more and more isolated both socially in the meatspace and intellectually aswell. I think it is very easy to get overwhelmed and confused.

But again I'd reiterate that none of us really can say with certainty that we know the truth , and it's relatively easy , whatever your persuasion to find 'evidence' supporting or agreement for your position.

Sounds like he lost the plot brother.

Any clues as to what he had invested in? Sounds like it was not something tangible, like precious medals or physical commodities, but something else. Technology maybe? Or perhaps he had been scammed. The increased agitation sounds like your buddy fell FAR into that rabbit hole. It's easy to do, I've got a friend who has fallen into the deep end of the conspiracy swimming pool.

That's because the person who scammed him used the same vague language. People experiencing that level of hardcore cognitive dissonance can't even evaluate their own behavior most of the time. If he was talking about it all the time, he would have gone into detail at some point, especially if he was emotional and a long-winded talker.

No idea, other than your conductive metals (silver, copper and gold, in that order), unless he had something else, far more bizarre up his sleeve. Like a "lead into gold" idea.

I can tell you on general principle that all commodities will go up greatly in value as the USD collapses, so the longer they can keep the bubble inflated the longer it would take for him to get his windfall.

For example, JP Morgan has a naked short on Silver right now that's over 20:1 at 28 or so USD an ounce when that collapses each ounce will be worth 200 or more. Top economists like Max Keiser say they won't be able to keep that up past April, but who really knows.

The rabbit hole is an interesting analogy. Obviously 'The Matrix' made the saying pretty popular . A rabbit hole is the entrance to a warren which is a network of living spaces that doesn't actually go anywhere.

I've always thought of it as one hole splitting off to another, and then to another, and so on...until the path back up, or back down has been confused, as in "Alice in Wonderland".

There are various compartments but am not sure if each one splits into another though.

Alice in wonderland

We're all mad here.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." "I don't much care where –" "Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”

“Do you think I've gone round the bend?" "I'm afraid so. You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another.”

+1 for this quote, one of my favorites ;P

There is one line that I cannot remember but am not sure if it even is actually in the book. Something like, 'everything is what it isnt and ..'

Not sure if I am misremembering

Ah yeah, Alice says it while talking to her cat. (Had to google it because I could not think of contrariwise in the quote and to make sure I didn't add an extra "what it wouldn't be" to the end ;p

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrariwise, what it is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be it would. You see?"

I liked it a lot, but my fiancee loved the book (through the looking glass much more, but Alice in Wonderland as well) so I've seen the movie and heard quotes from the book more than enough times ;p

Thankyou! , so I was misremembering. I tried googling myself for a bit earlier with no luck. If I had remembered it was 'everything would be' instead of 'everything is' I probably would have had more luck.

So much mindfuck in that story.

So much mindfuck in that story.

And yet, an incredible amount of truth. It's definitely one of those stories that I think everyone should know very well, if they can make sure to actually carefully read it to make sure their brain didn't play any tricks on them :p

[deleted]

Somebody probably has been putting him on and feeding his belief in a big payday.

It is likely to be a Big Lie.

If it is anything.

Either way you should be compassionate to him and try to help him... but without going along with anything he says. Some things are universal - one needs shelter, food, and water. If he starts losing those, he's in danger of losing his health.

So if you care about him make sure he has those, and someone to talk to.

If he is receiving bad messages from someone, then chances are they'll do him no favors.

If he's not... then who knows. But be a friend, not a hero.

Could this investment story be true? Are there people that exploit conpiracy theorists?

Hmmm... Hold on, let the foulbastard finish his Tangy Tangerine while I think about that...

Does he smoke weed?

Never heard of any investment opportunity that was clearly a scam. Scams have to be viral in nature for the scam artist to make any real money, see: Nigerian money scam. The "conspiracy" community on line is extremely tight knit and any scam would be quickly exposed so if he was being hustled it was someone who was targeting him and him alone.

I don't think you understand how fast information travels within the "conspiracy" circles.

No I'm saying if someone was trying to scam the conspiracy community, especially the anti FED community writ large, even if your friend didn't use the internet someone who did would have posted about it and news of the scam would have spread quickly, which is why I'm telling you if he was getting hustled it was just him. Unless they were smart enough to only target people who are loners or don't communicate at all on the web. However that is highly improbable.

You seem to be unclear about the size of the world and the number of people in it. This guy was clearly scammed, and I'm sure he was not the only one.

No I'm pretty clear on that and I'm not ruling out the possibility of him being scammed individually, but I am pointing out a group scam is highly improbable because someone would have not fallen for it and spread the word.

Things disappear into the Internet every day. They could have taken a group of 30 or so forum members, tricked 20 of them, and the rest just decided against it and didn't really pursue it.

To say some random force came in scammed 2/3rds of a forum and the rest decided to slink off into the ether without warning others is a gigantic leap of logic. Our knowledge level about "conspiracies" is based entirely on people blowing the whistle on information they have that others don't.

Yeah I already edited it. It's late and I'm tired.

5th time reiterating this now, I said it's entirely possible he may have been scammed individually.

But, if it was a group scam for it not to be done through, or spoken about on the internet and then that information not get out to the rest of the community which is extremely communicative with itself is highly improbable.

I'm trying to give you what you wanted an analysis of his situation and I can tell you that if it was a scam we would most likely know about it.

There are various compartments but am not sure if each one splits into another though.

Alice in wonderland

We're all mad here.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." "I don't much care where –" "Then it doesn't matter which way you go.”

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”

“Do you think I've gone round the bend?" "I'm afraid so. You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another.”

There is one line that I cannot remember but am not sure if it even is actually in the book. Something like, 'everything is what it isnt and ..'

Not sure if I am misremembering