False Flag Attacks?

[Prince EWS]

This is a very underrated critique of conspiracy theories. Almost none of them are any worse than stuff that's already been pinned conclusively on the US government (this, Tonkin, forced LSD experiments, violent radicalisation of civil rights movements by undercover CIA agents, ~everything the CIA did in developing countries during the Cold War). If people don't care about that stuff, why would they care when they find out they're all lizard men secretly plotting to control your mind with vapour trails?

Right, there's definitely something to this. But in saying that, we all know Operation Northwoods would not be declassified if they actually went through with it. "Oh hey, remember when the Cuban government killed US civilians on US soil, and we used that fact to start a war with them? Well funny story, we actually killed those Americans and blamed it on Cuba so we could get support for the war." That's absolutely something that they'd keep secret at least until everyone involved was dead. There'd be people out there floating the theory, but they'd sound exactly like the jet fuel can't melt steel beams people. In fact, they probably would be the jet fuel can't melt steel beams people.

After I found out about this particular incident, it made me view conspiracy theories a bit differently. I no longer employ "that sounds a bit far fetched and needlessly evil to be true" as way to discredit them in my own head at all, because after that I really can't put anything past the US government on those stakes anymore. I end up discounting most conspiracy theories just because I don't think state institutions (not even deep state institutions) are efficient enough to pull them off in the way most of the theories claim. The theories that don't involve some amazingly executed plan and/or perfect cover-up operation tend to be the things I don't think people would care enough about for the government to bother hiding, as you alluded to.

 

[Bahnz]

After I found out about this particular incident, it made me view conspiracy theories a bit differently. I no longer employ "that sounds a bit far fetched and needlessly evil to be true" as way to discredit them in my own head at all, because after that I really can't put anything past the US government on those stakes anymore. I end up discounting most conspiracy theories just because I don't think state institutions (not even deep state institutions) are efficient enough to pull them off in the way most of the theories claim. The theories that don't involve some amazingly executed plan and/or perfect cover-up operation tend to be the things I don't think people would care enough about for the government to bother hiding, as you alluded to.

And even if they could, grand conspiracies involving hundreds of officials would inevitably get leaked at some point especially in the era of the internet (the Snowden revelations being the most obvious recent example).

 

[Uppercut]

There'd be people out there floating the theory, but they'd sound exactly like the jet fuel can't melt steel beams people. In fact, they probably would be the jet fuel can't melt steel beams people.

I'm not so sure about this. Full-time conspiracy theorists have a very distinctive mode of reasoning where they create a vast web of spurious connections. It's quite similar to the thought process of someone with schizophrenia. Being such a flawed mode of reasoning, it very rarely gets to the truth.

The people floating it would be investigative journalists with a curmudgeonly and obnoxious personality. Such a personality is generally necessary to actively argue for theories considered 'extreme', but it tends to poison almost everyone against what they actually say. Glenn Greenwald, for example.

 

[Gnske]

And even if they could, grand conspiracies involving hundreds of officials would inevitably get leaked at some point especially in the era of the internet (the Snowden revelations being the most obvious recent example).

It's not a conspiracy if you can just leak it.

So many sheep in this thread, not surprising really.

 

[brockley]

I wouldn't rule anyting in and out.New terrorist laws.facial verification systems.chipping every animal in sight to watch their movements etc.