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End state of tankie 'thought' (media.piefed.social)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/tankiejerk@piefed.social
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[–] 33 points 5 months ago (8 children)

I honestly cannot understand how people can be so stupid as to believe that something so vast can be faked. Every example you can find of a conspiracy theory that was found to be true involved quite a bit less than millions of conspirators. Somehow that's easily ignored by morons.

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (6 children)

    Millions of white people gaslit themselves into believing black people are biologically inferior, with entire disciplines like phrenology being made up out of thin air.

    Huge conspiracies are quite possible, if they take the right shape. Hide the alleged facts behind experts that everyone chooses to trust for no reason other than that they want it to be true. Make sure your claims are unfalsifiable because of time, expertise, or deceptive vagueness. Have "eye witnesses" make vague claims or none at all. Get people invested in propagating the lie by tying it to community and morality and social fabric and profit so people struggle to let go even if they disbelieve part of it.

    The holocaust does not fit this pattern, but there is plenty of "common knowledge" that does.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (5 children)

    I can't help but think that calling racism a conspiracy is a weird semantic stretch though. It's an incredibly shitty opinion first. Then the racist creates "facts" out of thin air to support it, to convince themselves they're justified. There may have been some vast (what I would call) conspiracies, but there couldn't be many.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    What do you think a conspiracy is, if not a large group of people creating "facts" out of thin air to support something so that thing seems justified, and collating those "facts" into a narrative that makes the thing as believable as possible to wide audiences?

    The Latin meaning of "conspiracy" is "combined breath", or metaphorically "combined intent". It is the shared intent of racists to justify racism, and so they conspire to create a narrative that justifies racism.

    What is the difference between historians collectively deciding to hide the "truth" of ancient aliens and phrenologists collectively deciding to hide the truth that phrenology has no predictive power and was retrofitted to describe black people as psychologically adapted for slavery?

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    I think a conspiracy is when a group of people plan something, usually nefarious, and then execute it in secret. It typically wouldn't be based on millions of shitty opinions that come from a combination of human nature and a suppression of empathy. In any case I'm not interested in arguing the definition, this is just how I think of conspiracies and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone on this. Think of them how you like, that's your prerogative.

    The context here was regarding the Holocaust. You may have a point that the way I worded things wasn't the best to express my point, however my point entirely stands. It's very stupid to think millions of people made up millions of stories that all match up to hard evidence. Which is in a very different category to racism and how easily I can believe people can run with that idea. All you have to do to be racist is be a selfish asshole who makes the wrong connections between ideas. You don't need phrenology or anything else, that's just a desperate attempt to prop it up after the fact.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    In any case I’m not interested in arguing the definition

    What else have you been doing in your replies to me? What else could you have argued, given my comment was about the definition of conspiracy?

    You are free not to argue about definitions, but then don't write comments arguing about a definition. If you dislike my comment but also think it's not worth arguing against, use the downvote button. That's what it's there for.

    I am not responding to the rest of your comment so I don't tempt you into doing something you're not interested in doing.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Goddamn you're fucking pedantic. Fucking obviously meant that I don't want to continue a pointless argument. What an asshole.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Okay, sorry to retract my previous kindness, but you're making me curious now. How many more words would you continue to use to express you don't want to continue this conversation? Could I trap you like Tantalus, constantly making yourself unhappy as you reach to have the last word, only for it to slip away as my next inane reply rolls in?

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