Asklemmy

Speak for yourself. Whenever I hear the vague "they" I ask who exactly that is supposed to be. Sometimes in earnest, sometimes I just sarcastically throw it back at them: They?

But as far as I can I try to make sense of what people are trying to tell me.

BTW a PhD does not protect one from being nuts, please perish the thought.

In the case you mentioned I'd really like to know why they said it wasn't true anymore, in addition to who "they" are.

MKUltra was a secret government program that experimented on people using LSD and torture. The man who became the Unabomber was one of its victims.

COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the FBI aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations that the FBI perceived as subversive. This included feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti-Vietnam War organizers, activists in the civil rights and Black power movements (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr., the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party), environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement , Chicano and Mexican-American , and independence movements (including Puerto Rican independence groups).

The Iraq War was predicated on "weapons of mass destruction" which the government knowingly lied about.

The United Fruit Company backed a coup in Honduras.

General Motors conspired to collapse the streetcar industry to gain a monopoly on public transportation.

Cigarette companies suppressed information on the health effects of cigarettes.

Oil companies suppressed information on the environmental effects of fossil fuels.

Purdue Pharma conspired to suppress the risks of Oxycontin and to expand the use of the drug to levels they knew would cause addiction.

My point is, there are true conspiracies all the time. The internet has made it possible for more people to know about it. Unfortunately it has also made it easier for false conspiracy theories to propagate

How did we get here? We've always been here. There have always been people warning about "they". Some portion of them have always been otherwise intelligent.Some portion of them have even been correct. This isn't a new phenomenon. It's easier for conspiracy theories to spread now, with the internet, and that's led to them being less fun and more dangerous, but it's mostly just the same shit.

I think it’s a reaction to another institutional tendency, which is to treat the best known theories as if they were incontrovertible facts.

Science and history are largely the search for closer and closer approximations to truth, but those approximations are always flawed and incomplete. And if they’re presented as already-attained truths, a critic can point out the flaws as evidence of deliberate deception—and then present any alternative they like without its being subjected to the same scrutiny.

Social Media.

Thanks, welcome to Costco. I love you too!

The answer was about a vague ‘they’ wanted us to think that, but it wasn’t true anymore.

I hear the vague ‘they’ so frequently now it’s just a normal conversation.

If you want to know what “they” someone might be talking about, then ask them. Some conspiracies are very much real.

Michael Parenti, 1996, Dirty Truths: Reflections on Politics, Media, Ideology, Conspiracy, Ethnic Life and Class Power:

Almost as an article of faith, some individuals believe that conspiracies are either kooky fantasies or unimportant aberrations. To be sure, wacko conspiracy theories do exist. There are people who believe that the United States has been invaded by a secret United Nations army equipped with black helicopters, or that the country is secretly controlled by Jews or gays or feminists or black nationalists or communists or extraterrestrial aliens. But it does not logically follow that all conspiracies are imaginary.

Conspiracy is a legitimate concept in law: the collusion of two or more people pursuing illegal means to effect some illegal or immoral end. People go to jail for committing conspiratorial acts. Conspiracies are a matter of public record, and some are of real political significance. The Watergate break-in was a conspiracy, as was the Watergate cover-up, which led to Nixon’s downfall. Iran-contra was a conspiracy of immense scope, much of it still uncovered. The savings and loan scandal was described by the Justice Department as “a thousand conspiracies of fraud, theft, and bribery,” the greatest financial crime in history.

Often the term “conspiracy” is applied dismissively whenever one suggests that people who occupy positions of political and economic power are consciously dedicated to advancing their elite interests. Even when they openly profess their designs, there are those who deny that intent is involved. In 1994, the officers of the Federal Reserve announced they would pursue monetary policies designed to maintain a high level of unemployment in order to safeguard against “overheating” the economy. Like any creditor class, they preferred a deflationary course. When an acquaintance of mine mentioned this to friends, he was greeted skeptically, “Do you think the Fed bankers are deliberately trying to keep people unemployed?” In fact, not only did he think it, it was announced on the financial pages of the press. Still, his friends assumed he was imagining a conspiracy because he ascribed self-interested collusion to powerful people.

At a World Affairs Council meeting in San Francisco, I remarked to a participant that U.S. leaders were pushing hard for the reinstatement of capitalism in the former communist countries. He said, “Do you really think they carry it to that level of conscious intent?” I pointed out it was not a conjecture on my part. They have repeatedly announced their commitment to seeing that “free-market reforms” are introduced in Eastern Europe. Their economic aid is channeled almost exclusively into the private sector. The same policy holds for the monies intended for other countries. Thus, as of the end of 1995, “more than $4.5 million U.S. aid to Haiti has been put on hold because the Aristide government has failed to make progress on a program to privatize state-owned companies” (New York Times 11/25/95).

Those who suffer from conspiracy phobia are fond of saying: “Do you actually think there’s a group of people sitting around in a room plotting things?” For some reason that image is assumed to be so patently absurd as to invite only disclaimers. But where else would people of power get together – on park benches or carousels? Indeed, they meet in rooms: corporate boardrooms, Pentagon command rooms, at the Bohemian Grove, in the choice dining rooms at the best restaurants, resorts, hotels, and estates, in the many conference rooms at the White House, the NSA, the CIA, or wherever. And, yes, they consciously plot – though they call it “planning” and “strategizing” – and they do so in great secrecy, often resisting all efforts at public disclosure. No one confabulates and plans more than political and corporate elites and their hired specialists. To make the world safe for those who own it, politically active elements of the owning class have created a national security state that expends billions of dollars and enlists the efforts of vast numbers of people.

I think it's always been like this. I'm old as dirt, and I remember noticing the same thing in the 90s

We desperately need to teach critical thinking skills and source evaluation

I think it's quite simple, really. In the absence of truth comes speculation. It's not important who the "they" is and is irrelevant to the topic being challenged. What is important is to find a path to truth that can regain the public's trust. "Extreme" transparency will now be required in order to regain that trust. As always the pendulum swings to great lengths and effectiveness.

Repeat something enough times and people will believe it.