America's 10 Most Popular Conspiracy Theories
Phil Wolf, owner of Wolf Automotive used car dealership, paid $2,500 to install this "birther" billboard. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?
First of all, it’s not just a few loners on the internet—prior research indicates that half the American public believes in at least one conspiracy theory in any given year.
Political scientists Eric Oliver and Thomas Wood, who studied the subject , defined a conspiracy theory as “an explanation that makes reference to hidden, malevolent forces seeking to advance some nefarious aim.” A conspiracy theory does not have to be untrue, but it is sure to contradict the usual, popularly-accepted version of the same event or phenomena.
Once a conspiracy theory becomes the accepted explanation, it stops being a conspiracy theory and becomes a fact of history. This certainly is one reason people continue to believe—they hope their views will eventually be proven right. (Read it all)
An interesting list-- with information about each one. (Number one on the list has been around as long as I can remember. although in its current form supposedly the perps are not the traditionally mentioned ones. (It used to be the alleged perps were The Illuminati-- now its the mythical "Deep State"). Here's a rather humorous NT seed on the subject-- great fun to read 
The Deep State Is Real, And Much Bigger Than You Know
Tags
Who is online
77 visitors
Here are some of the most common conspiracy theories of the recent past:
1. Secret Group Controlling World - this conspiracy proposes that a secret group called the Iluminati has been really controlling the world and is looking to create a one world government. Their end-goal is supposedly to create the New World Order, which will dissolve national boundaries and people’s identities, while allowing for total authoritarian control.
A version of this theory also sees other groups in a similar position of world domination - the Freemasons, the Jewish people, the Bilderberg Group or the “globalists” that are often invoked in rightwing media outlets like Alex Jones and Breitbart News. President Trump himself mentions “globalists” and invokes fighting against insidious “elites” as a battle cry for his base.
Some have viewed conspiracy theories as a particular affectation of the American right, with President Trump being both a proponent and target of a number of conspiracy theories. Historian Richard J. Hofstadter's influential essay “ The Paranoid Style in American Politics” described a paranoid strain that runs through the thinking of far right politicians in America's history that can be still discerned today.
This approach views all of history as a “vast and sinister” conspiracy of sorts, whose “ gigantic and yet subtle machinery of influence set in motion to undermine and destroy a way of life”. This rather apocalyptic way of belief sees the world in constant turmoil, where only the one who understands the conspiracy can defend the attacked way of life, destroy the enemy and save humanity.
Modern researchers, however, challenge the view that conspiracies are an exclusively rightwing feature, seeing such theories as a kind of magical thinking that allows people from all walks of life and political persuasions to cope with complex emotions, often brought on by an inexplicable event.
Certainly, in the wake of President Trump’s victory, there’s been no shortage of conspiracy theories that sprang up on the left. Such an occasion can trigger people to look for patterns, to make sense of an emotional upheaval. But the mental shortcuts that we use when searching for patterns (called heuristics) can often find relationships between things and events that aren’t necessarily there. An explanation that includes such heuristics can feel very compelling and emotionally satisfying.
This reminds me of a really fun book by one of my favorite authors, Umberto Eco.
Foucault's Pendulum (original title: Il pendolo di Foucault [il ˈpɛndolo di fuˈko] ) is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco . It was first published in 1988, and an English translation by William Weaver appeared a year later. [1]
Foucault's Pendulum is divided into ten segments represented by the ten Sefiroth . The satirical novel is full of esoteric references to Kabbalah , alchemy , and conspiracy theory —so many that critic and novelist Anthony Burgess suggested that it needed an index. [2] The pendulum of the title refers to an actual pendulum designed by French physicist Léon Foucault to demonstrate Earth's rotation, which has symbolic significance within the novel. Some believe that it refers to Michel Foucault , [3] noting Eco's friendship with the French philosopher, [4] but the author "specifically rejects any intentional reference to Michel Foucault" [5] —this is regarded as one of his subtle literary jokes. [6]
Three vanity press employees (Belbo, Diotallevi, and Casaubon) invent their own conspiracy for fun after reading too many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories. They call this satirical intellectual game "The Plan". The three become increasingly obsessed with The Plan and sometimes forget that it is just a game. Worse still, other conspiracy theorists learn about The Plan and take it seriously. Belbo finds himself the target of a real secret society which believes that he possesses the key to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar .
The book opens with narrator Casaubon [7] hiding in fear after closing time in the Parisian technical museum Musée des Arts et Métiers . He believes that members of a secret society have kidnapped Belbo and are now after him. Most of the novel is then told in flashback as Casaubon waits in the museum.
~WIKI~
The murder weapon in the Kennedy assassination was found at the sniper's perch. The assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was seen at the shooting location, and in fact had a job there. After the shooting he demonstrated great consciousness of guilt by shooting and killing a Dallas police officer.
Yet more words have been written to try and disprove Oswald as the lone assassin than just about any single event in human history.
There appears to be an innate tendency toward gullibility in the human psyche.
With the influx of new members from a not to be mentioned site I've been wearing a tinfoil hat when I log on to NT...
Indeed. And the handful of some of them are creating a negative view of NT and its Members, and one older Member that has been an equally divisive poster here for some time gets even more rabidly encouraged by those who are here to do nothing but create a hateful and divisive environment, just like they did in the other unmentionable place. They don't come here to have civil, respectful, intelligent and relevant dialog, debate or discussion, only to disrupt discussions and demean, denigrate and malign and insult other Members as much as possible. That is their only reason for coming here to NT. They merely use politics as a means to do it.