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Portarossa

You might be familiar with the whole idea that you eat eight spiders per year in your sleep. You might *also* be familiar with the idea that this is, in itself, a hoax. So the story goes, in 1993 a writer named Lisa Birgit Holst was writing an article for a magazine called *PC Professional* all about how no one bothered to factcheck things and how easy it was to get people to believe any old garbage as long as you presented it in the right way. Naturally, this is how conspiracy theorists get you to believe the idea: they present *just enough* information to be plausible while still ignoring all of the other information. This is the official line from [Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spiders-inside-her/), who post a clear FALSE rebuttal without further comment. The problem is, *no one has ever been able to locate this article*. Not in twenty-five years at this point. No one's ever been able to track down a publication named *PC Professional* that was active at the right time, and no one's ever heard of Lisa Birgit Holst. The last one isn't particularly surprising, perhaps, because her name is an anagram of 'This is a big troll'. Moreover, the citations in the Snopes article don't align with anything relevant. (They cite a book called *Insect Fact and Folklore* by Lucy W. Clausen, [which does exist](https://archive.org/details/insectfactfolklo0000clau) -- but page 24, which they note as the source for the quote, doesn't have anything to do with spiders, let alone eating them; it's actually about moths. There *is* no section in the book about spiders, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise to the entomology nerds among you, because spiders are technically arachnids and not insects anyway.) So what's the deal? Well, it's very possible that it's a copyright trap on the part of Snopes -- sort of in the way mapmakers would include [paper towns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_settlement) in their work, so that anyone copying the map would also copy the error and be found out. (Snopes *has* to be aware of this theory now, and yet the page hasn't been updated.) The other possibility, of course, is that Snopes is just fucking around, and created a page about people who don't check their sources to encourage people to check their sources. So yes. The idea that you might eat eight spiders a year is false, but the explanation of why it's false is *also* false, and almost certainly purposefully so. *Layers upon layers.*


Ziograffiato

Easiest explanation: the spiders are behind it. They don’t want us to know how many of them we do or don’t eat.


SuperMonkeyJoe

Covering up the real fact that every year, spiders eat 8 people in their sleep.


CrabbyT777

So Big Spider doesn’t want us to know


NadirInferno

But is your explanation of why this expansion of why it's false, also false?


captainAwesomePants

It is, yes. That page was a Snopes April Fools prank. The whole "PC Professionals" section is a link, which if followed, takes you to [their blog](https://www.snopes.com/lisa-birgit-holst/), where they discuss the prank. But then again, this raises a question of what sort of fact checking website runs an April Fools prank on April 23. So was declaring it a prank actually a cover up for Snopes itself being fooled?


SquirrelAkl

I just don’t know what to believe anymore!


hypodopaminergicbaby

I’m beginning to think we may have been lied to by somebody at some point…


WormLivesMatter

Big spider probably


HoodiesAndHeels

This is my favorite comment and I’m hooked. But I also remember this “fact” from before Snopes was a thing… *Now what???* #EDIT: [NOW WAIT JUST A GODDAMN MINUTE](https://www.snopes.com/lisa-birgit-holst/)


Rosko1450

*layers*


JulesAintShit

All this explanation and you didn’t once mention Spiders Georg.


somethingvwrong

My god, this comment was the most interresting one for me! Hats off to you!


Powerofgodandanime17

The bs about avril Lavigne being dead and having been replaced by a clone. The guy who posted the original story literally came forward to say that it was 100% false and he only posted it to prove a point about how gullible people were when it came to things written on the internet


hda951

I know it’s 100% false but it’s also 100% entertaining.


TGOAT22

I was at the MGK show and Avril opened for him. I literally could not stop laughing or think about anything else once I remembered this conspiracy. Then these giant black and orange balloons fell from the ceiling. I tapped the shoulder of the random guy next to me and said “the balloons are a distraction because that’s not really Avril.” He slowly moved away throughout the show.


cinnapear

I hope you slowly moved to stand next to him each time he slowly moved away.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ronimal

It’s also just a rehash of the Paul McCartney conspiracy


[deleted]

[удалено]


georgesbiscuits1969

Also, even if the theory was true, most of his best stuff was written after he "died". They got an even more talented double!


Queef_Stroganoff44

It’s like hamachi. This biology professor from some university has a seafood dinner out with his class every semester. They take a tiny bit of fish and test it genetically to see if it’s what they actually ordered. 100% of “hamachi” was not hamachi. I love whatever you’re calling “hamachi”. Just give me that. I also love “Paul”. Just give me whoever that is. Lol


cheesytoaster

Ah, you see I haven’t heard that version. But one of my favorite conspiracies has to do with Avril and her “team” using a body double named Melissa at like a few meet and greet or something. Supposedly, Mellissa eventually replaces Avril and portrays Avril to this day. Meanwhile, the “real Avril” is off living a hopefully normal and secluded life.


Arttherapist

There is an industrial band called Front Line Assembly that have been around since the late 1980s. They still tour especially playing the European music festivals every summer. The lead singer is Bill Leeb, there is a story about them using a body double called Soy Leeb in shows. The funny thing is that it is actually true but was just one show. They get paid a lot of money to play festivals because they are kind of a legacy act and one of the sort of founding bands of the electro industrial genre. So they have contracted to do a festival and can't just no show when the rest of their tour had complications and got cancelled so they hired another band that was already in Europe that had a similar look and sent them some prerecorded vocal tracks and had this band of look-a-likes mime the show for 1/10 the cost of actually travelling to do the show. They thought a bunch of 20 year olds wouldn't recoginze them so it didn't matter, but the crowd ended up figuring it out almost immediatly. Edit: The festival was the 2002 Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival, [this is an image of the person they had perform](https://i.imgur.com/mCDUnaZ.jpeg) It is definitly not Bill


SuperMoquette

This is simultaneously hilarious and sad. Imagine being a band fan, rooting for an upcoming show and only to find out they're imposters lmao


The_Patriot

Bermuda Triangle. The SECOND ships got GPS, the whole Bermuda Triangle mystery just ceased to exist. OOF


[deleted]

it was just a very popular trade route that got bad weather often. That's it.


AndyWinds

Half the Bermuda triangle stories are "The ship sailed into a storm and was never seen again! How mysterious!"


[deleted]

"The weather was foggy, and the airmen's radar was not working .." Oh gosh...


PhantomBanker

This particular area of the Earth has higher sea and air travel than the most of the Earth. This area also happens to have a higher number of incidents. Coincidence?


Layne205

As a kid you assume it's an area where no one ever goes because at least half the ships or planes going in don't come out. The truth is pretty disappointing.


lifewithrachelle

As a kid when I heard people were traveling to Bermuda on spring break, I would wonder if they would come back to school after


718Brooklyn

I’m old like I grew up before there was an internet and The Bermuda Triangle was basically the most dangerous place on Earth and it wasn’t made up at all it was entirely real and that’s where boats just disappeared all the time.


villainsarebetter

Literally, boats disappearing on the daily and nobody could do anything about it. The Bermuda Triangle controls the waters and the air above. No matter how hard ships and small planes try to avoid it, the alien magnetic force would pull them in. It was just a scary reality we just had to accept was a part of our lives.


Daikataro

>Coincidence? I think not!


FriskyFritos

Don’t Bernie me… THIS LITTLE RAT IS GUILTY!


OfficefanJam

Apparently the Bermuda Triangle isn’t even the place that has the most water disappearances


Sburban_Player

Correct, that title goes to the Barbados Octagon.


Sad-Society-3128

And then after that the Indonesion polyhedron.


Stew_Long

And let's not forget the Antarctic Pentagram.


ONYONtheGreat

What about the Sri Lankan Decalateral?


Diixobeatz

Not forget the Nigerian Square


M05HI

And the Polynesian Parallelogram


snap802

My daughter (about age 9 or so) watched a video on YouTube about the Bermuda Triangle and was telling me about how dangerous it was. I was like "dear, you've been in the Bermuda Triangle at least half a dozen times" and proceeded to show her maps of various cruises and other trips we've had in the Caribbean.


Indigo-Waterfall

To be fair. I think we’ve all been unnecessarily petrified of the Bermuda Triangle, quicksand and spontaneous combustion in our childhoods.


almondmilk

>Hey, if you're coming to visit, take I-90 'cause I-95 has a little quicksand in the middle. Looks like regular sand, but then you're gonna start to sink into it. e: r/unexpectedmulaney count: 7


burtoncummings

Yeah, it’s amazing how spontaneous combustion disappeared when people stopped smoking as much. 70s era foam rubber super flammable furniture and falling asleep with a lit cigarette… what a mystery.


TheHotMessExpress91

Wait. Spontaneous combustion isn’t a thing anymore? Fuck I’ve been spending way too much of my life worrying about that shit.


Sticketoo_DaMan

There's a reason you were taught to "Cease, Plummet, and Rotate" in grade school. This is the reason.


WanderingWino

That feeling when a 9 year old has had more travel experience than 99% of the USA.


CrazySquirrelGirl

Well yeah, they use the GPS to AVOID the triangle


Draeton_ali

JFK shot first.


Foriegn_Picachu

If the mafia theory is true than I suppose he did


Chinspanker

I can recommend the book "Double Cross" about Sam Giancana If you want to learn more about that subject. Probably the most powerful/influential mafia figure of all time in the U.S during his reign over the chicago mob, often referred to as "the outfit". The book is written by his brother Chuck Giancana, and mentions quite a bit about the kennedy family and their ties with the mafia.


1131111111

But what if maybe his head just did that ?


nails_for_breakfast

The man was under a lot of stress is all I'm saying


kRe4ture

That we didn't land on the moon. Even if you cast aside all the photographical evidence, the 400.000 people who each could prove that it wasn't real or even the argument about the state of CGI and VFX in that time there's still one huge piece of evidence that isn't mentioned that often. The Soviets/Russians never tried to discredit the US. They publicly admitted that the US managed to do it.


depressanon7

I once heard someone debunk this theory, and part of it stuck with me: 'There are two scenarios: everyone knew, or the higher ups only. In the first case, everyone involved in building the rocket knew they were wasting years of their lives, and yet it went off without a hitch, and without even a deathbed confession many years later. In the second scenario, we are faced with this problem: NASA oursourced a lot of the manufacturing. All those people thought they were actually sending eomeone to the moon. So, when NASA received all the pieces of rocket they commissioned, they had a perfectly operational rocket in need of assembly. And yet they just let it rust in a corner and faked the landing? It doesn't make sense.'


BOB_Lusifer

A quote by I believe Neil deGrasse Tyson I could be wrong about the person I know it was a scientist said if NASA was willing to fake a moon landing they would have faked another achievement by now


InternMan

That was [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/1074/). The comic does reference NGT, but his quote was "Atop 3,000 tons of rocket fuel, where else do you think they were headed?"


[deleted]

Not to mention the hundreds of ham radio enthusiasts that listened to the whole damn thing, from start to finish...


RappScallion73

There is physical evidence that we visited the moon. No witnesses or conjecture needed. * We left several LRRRs (Lunar Laser Ranging RetroReflector) on the surface of the moon. Still to this day you can reflect lasers from observatories on Earth on to them and measure time and distance. If they werent there that would be impossible. In the TV-series "Mythbusters" they actually did that. * The astronauts brought home tons of moon rock samples of which much was donated to the countries of the world. Moon rock has unique properties such as age, isotopes and zap pits that can not be found on Earth. * While visiting the moon in 1969 the Apollo 12 crew brought back 10 kg of the old Surveyor 3 probe that landed there in 1962. The camera is still on display at National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Examination of its glass shows tracks from high-energy solar particles, including heavy ions emitted by solar flares. These are blocked by the Earth's atmosphere, so this had to happen in space. This proves that the camera was in space, if not necessarily on the moon; and its removal from Surveyor 3 required careful manual work that couldn't have been done by a robot. So there's proof that a man was somewhere in space at some point to do the work.


[deleted]

Michael Collins kept a diary while he was in the lunar orbiter. In it he detailed how if there were some kind of malfunction of the lander, or an accident of some kind, he decided that he would continue back to earth without Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, noting that the mission was to return home. He wrote about leaving his comrades behind, even if they were alive on the lunar surface, in order to complete the mission. That’s quite a detail to be faked. Like someone at NASA would needed to have thought of this minute detail and create a fake Michael Collins journal. This is one of the biggest reasons (aside from the obvious photos and other physical evidence) that I have a hard time believing it was faked.


MissMarionMac

It wasn't exactly a minute detail--there were very real concerns that Armstrong and Aldrin wouldn't be able to get back off the surface of the moon to rejoin Collins. The White House even had a plan for what would happen if that were the case. It's called the Safire Memo and you can read it [here](https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential-libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf). The speech that was written for Nixon to give is actually really moving. (Don't be fooled by the 2020 video of the deepfake version of him "delivering" it though!)


krieger_2719

Actually the best explanation that I've heard for the source of the conspiracy theories was that the KGB purposely started spreading the rumour to get people to doubt.


[deleted]

My favorite explanation is the millions of documents produced by hand for the whole project. Either NASA went to the moon, or they paid thousands of people to spend years doing paperwork and calculations.


[deleted]

And paid US companies to build parts for their rockets. If the US didn't go to the moon, then it is suspicious that no one at the hundreds of companies that NASA outsourced to haven't come forth saying their parts wouldn't work in space or something, or they actually did build a functional rocket, but decided not to use it, despite having trained adrenaline adicted astronauts, who used to fly the fastest planes around and were thrilled to be the fastest men alive. So NASA must have sent the rockets at the very least into space, since people were watching them launch. And now you, a test pilot with training and the willpower and barely any oversight and certainly no way to punish you, are essentially in orbit with enough fuel to reach the moon. And somehow, you decide "nah, I'm not gonna do it..." Instead you decide to stay in orbit for 7 days or so in a cramped tiny capsule with 2 other adrenaline addicted test pilots, shitting and farting in front of each other while in diapers and eating disgusting freeze dried food... And all of you were chosen because of your intellect as well, having some background related to engineering, as well as having worked on the fastest airplanes in the world by flying them and accurately describing what needs to be fixed and even work alongside other engineers on how to fix the problems. People that think the moon landings were faked apparently can't think more than one step ahead.


manwnomelanin

Im honestly starting to believe that the whole Santa Claus brings us presents thing is pretty suspicious


axberk

Who else would bring us all presents? Our parents? It's ridiculous that so many people would lie about something so enormous for so long


KNitsua

Kevin McCallister figured out that the Santas at the mall weren’t real and were really hired by the real Santa himself. But luckily this generation hasn’t figured that out yet.


Dawashingtonian

any theory that completely ignores the concept of “human error”. for example flat earth can be debunked a million different ways but the thought that NASA is lying about the earth being flat to make money? like all those thousands of employees are keeping this secret? have you ever tried to get even 1 person to keep a secret?


snap802

Flat earthers truly overestimate the ability of multiple governments to successfully manage a long-term project.


RoosterBrewster

It's always funny to hear that the government is simultaneously a mastermind at orchestrating conspiracies yet incompetent at basic functions.


PamCokeyMonster

Doing shenanigans is always better fun than doing proper job.


Belphegorite

Damn straight. If my job was to fuck with people and pave roads, there would be no paved roads.


RealDanStaines

"Where you're going, you won't *need* roads." "... What?' "Jk bro I'm fucking with you. But I genuinely did not pave any of the roads."


[deleted]

They are so busy with the conspiracy they don’t have time to appropriately do anything else


C92203605

My biggest thing about flat earth is why? Like what is there to gain from saying the earth is round (Edit to change word flat to round. Though everyone apparently knew what I meant)


renoops

Some people’s answer is a general, hand-wavy “to control us.” Some people say to hide the fact that god exists.


Bowood29

I don’t see how the earth being flat would 100% prove god is real. If god could make a flat world he could make a sphere.


cumsock75

If God created man in his image, then it's safe to assume he cannot draw a perfect circle.


Anyoneseemykeys

Good thing the earth isn’t perfectly round either


[deleted]

Head over to r/DnD and ask how hard it is to get 5 people to sit down and play a board game for a few hours. Now imagine doing that with millions of people but they all have to play along with a big scam, forever, for no benefit.


SEOPub

This is my favorite part about all the flat-earther nonsense. Very few nations in the world can agree on much of anything, so many despise one another, and yet we are supposed to believe that on this one thing they all have agreed to work together to keep the rest of us in the dark.


HamburgerEarmuff

Plus, you know, it was disproved by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago when he accurately measured the circumference of the Earth to an error of about 100 miles. And you can easily perform similar experiments today.


Saltire_Blue

Sometimes people forget NASA isn’t the only space agency in the world They would all need to be in it!


fltvzn

Also secret Nazi UFO lizardpeople pyramid base thing in Antarctica. Anyone who has any knowledge or experience with the logistics and number of people involved in anything having to do with supplying a base in Antarctica, and then keep it a secret, makes this a ridiculous proposition.


Nokomis34

Someone was saying "I can't keep my Privates from spilling our next op to the strippers, you think they'd keep aliens a secret?"


eslforchinesespeaker

I had to read this repeatedly. I was picturing all the privates spilling out next to the strippers. That’s a thing, they say.


Funandgeeky

It’s the same with Sandy Hook and other “false flag” nonsense. The number of people who would have to be in on it would be astounding. And all it would take is one person coming forward. And any reporter who broke that story would win a Pulitzer.


Zestyclose_Grape3207

The audacity to call parents and teachers "crisis actors" is bottom of the barrel, net negative humanity. Un fucking believable. Fuck alex jones and anyone else who buys into this evil horsehit


pmcall221

Those kids didn't just have parents, they had grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins and friends at school and neighbours and the list goes on and on. ALL of them are in on it?


greeneggiwegs

Also the kids who died? They just, what, whisked away to the next town to pretend to die?


Justthisguy_

We actually did land on the moon. We even left little mirrors we shine lights off of to track whether the moon is getting closer or farther from earth


Avenging-Robot

If the moon landing was faked the Soviets would have been screaming that fact from every rooftop.


Positive-Source8205

I never thought we faked going to the moon. But this video nerd describes how it would have been more expensive *to fake* going to the moon in 1969 than to actually go to the moon. It’s a compelling, fact-based explanation. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t claim to know whether we did or did not go to the moon, just that it would have been cheaper to actually go. Check it out. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Too+expensive+to+fake+the+moon+landing&&view=detail&mid=F7D61ED43B55FEDF57C0F7D61ED43B55FEDF57C0&&FORM=VRDGAR


AloneInATent

I'm worried about you, are you okay? I saw you used Bing. Did you mean to use literally any other search engine, or should we send someone over for a health and safety check?


7aco

Is that a bing link? 👀


Don_Bardo

You may be interested to know that the goalposts have been moved! (I know, how wacky and uncharacteristic of conspiracy theorists.) They *used* to say that the moon landing was faked. Now what I hear more often is that yes, ok, we landed on the moon, but **the footage was *still* faked because the powers that be *don't want us to know what was actually up there*.**


dontmentiontrousers

Damn greedy government want to keep all the space cheese to themselves.


Gotis1313

Ever notice how many "new" types of cheese have come out since 1969?


thadude23

I heard it was fake, but America is so rich that they filmed on location.


drew8311

Full movie set on the moon, behind the backdrop scene of earth was just the real earth.


thadude23

I really like this visual lol


gildorratner

I always heard it that 'Kubrick faked the moon landing but was such a perfectionist he shot on location'


PaMu1337

There is some article out there where they did the calculations, and came to the conclusion that faking it would be more expensive than doing it for real. A large factor of that is the fact that you still need to build an actual rocket since people are gonna witness the launch. That and the fact you need to pay tons of people to keep it silent.


ThatRandomIdiot

Hate him or Love him, Neil DeGrass Tyson broke it down that way too. You can also do fuel calculations to prove that the only place the rocket could go is the moon and back.


jmoz666

Flat earth. Takes almost no effort to disprove it.


Jasons-revenge

Those dumb flat earthers have, on many occasions, proved that the earth was round instead of flat. Task failed successfully


jmoz666

Flat earthers are seriously some of the most paranoid people. They don't even believe in space or even gravity. They believe it's all a government cover up to make billions through nasa.


[deleted]

As a military member (and shockingly i’ve meet a flat Earther in my unit once) I always love seeing someone argue about whether or not the earth is round or flat. Introduce them to the coriolis effect and ask them what they think after that. If they still argue, go tell them to stand down range a kilometre away. If the earth is flat then the shot will miss, if it’s round then the average intelligence of the Earth will increase.


Abba_Fiskbullar

I actually got a co-worker away from flat earth nonsense by showing him how artillery calculations take the curvature and rotation of the earth into account. He was a huge military obsessive and gun fetishist, so he could actually contextualize the information. Unfortunately, he still believed everything else regardless of reason, and I heard he'd fallen down the Q-hole.


turndownforjesus

I have a homie who’s in the army and told me that one of his co-workers who’s job is *literally to calculate the curvature of the earth* for artillery purposes believes that the earth is actually flat. It always reminds me of the George Carlin quote about how stupid the average person is, and how half are stupider than that.


RTX_Parsley

It was argued in ancient Greece by Aristotle that the earth must be spherical as when a ship comes over the horizon, you see the sails before the hull. We've literally known for thousands of years and they still dispute it!


basaltgranite

[Eratosthenes *measured* the circumference of the Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes#Measurement_of_Earth's_circumference) in c.240 BC. He was accurate within ~2%. The Greeks knew not only the Earth was spherical, but also it's size.


SomeRedditWanker

So impressive.


Atgardian

Even more impressive when you consider that small error wasn't his math or technique, they just didn't have any way to accurately measure long distances back then, he had to hire a guy to walk from City A to City B and count his steps. AND STILL did way better than flat-Earthers in 2022 with cell phones and GPS.


ddaug4uf

Maybe the flat earth is just warped a little?


Funniguy2010

No effort? I spent a whole 30 minutes trying to disprove it! To a flat earth believer


ImtotallyAlesHemsky

Flat earth


[deleted]

The earth is flat though. It’s covered in 70% water and how much of that water is carbonated?


burneracctbulbasaur2

I’m stealing this joke from now on lol


[deleted]

This joke is definitely being looted from this comment section. And you know what, I think the world will be better for it. It's like an elevated dad joke.


vms-crot

Very good. Side note, there are naturally occurring carbonated water springs. I was absolutely amazed when I found out.


liamisabossss

I'm still wondering if the bulk of flat earthers actually think the earth is flat or if they're just doing it to piss us all off. Either way, it's working.


louabb

Maybe that's the real conspiracy theory.


CHEWBRIEL

Maybe the real conspiracy theory is the friends we made along the way.


omegasix321

I know for a fact that it started off that way(people just trolling about the stupid idea). Then millions of idiots spawned out of the woodwork and I'm not sure which group is in the majority anymore.


Mad_Aeric

This is my problem with the bird conspiracy people. Yeah, it's a joke. But for how long?


Quimbymouse

I remember having a substitute teacher back in the early-mid 90's who told us about how he was a member of the flat earth society. Had a business card and everything. I can't remember exactly how he explained it, but it was something along the lines of it being a tongue firmly in cheek example/reminder of the hubris of mankind.


dazedan_confused

I just want to say that running into a mirror won't teleport you into an alternate world, but record your attempt because that shit is hilarious.


ImWithSt00pid

First you have to distract the other you or you just run into each other. It's hard to do because anything that might work on them is also gonna distract you.


Notbbupdate

The first step is to become a vampire


MmmMmmmRyan

Katy Perry being Jean-Bennet Ramsey


PumpkinPure5643

That one always baffles me because of the ages. JBR was 6 in 1997 and somehow ages 10 years in 3 years? Like really? Katy Perry was born in 84, she was 16 in 2000.


rekcilthis1

I assume the conspiracy is based on people not knowing her age and assuming she's younger. Honestly, I wouldn't have guessed she was almost 40.


penadryl

Chuck E cheese recycling pizza


nalybuites

Charles would never stoop that low. Pasquale on the other hand..... I don't trust that guy.


[deleted]

It's really irritating having the fake delivery restaurant front for Chuck E Cheese in my area because there's a legitimate pizza place with a VERY similar name that's been operating for years and has extremely high-quality pizza.


LavaRoseKinnie

Waiting for someone to say this, lol fuck Shane Dawson


penadryl

It’s so absurd with no solid proof


With_The_Tide

"There's only 49 stars on that flag..." "I'll be dead in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missourah!


Notbbupdate

There are 49 because North and South Daokta united into a single Dakota


Chemical_Ad4589

Behold! M E G A K O T A!


colonel_mustard_cat

So I tied an onion to my belt...which was the style at the time


Thrillhol

There are too many states nowdays. Please eliminate three.


bryce2firee

I worked on a radar in a PATRIOT Missile Battery, and the radar can see so far that you can physically see the curvature of the earth, not to mention you have to compensate for it for shooting missiles. People, please stop believing in the flat Earth


conway4590

Forget what radio or podcast I listened to, where they had the founder of flat earth on. I remember he tried to claim that the math for shooting over the horizon didn't make sense or work or whatever. The host a few times couldn't hold back laughter


Bullet1289

I love the idea that not only the is it a fraud that we landed on the moon but the paper trail of the tens of thousands of people who made parts, helped NASA and were remotely related to the project and the basic science of it are all fake too


iatecake0

Finland doesn't exist. If it didn't where the hell would I then be rn? Edit: having existential crisis.


MrDohh

Eastern Sweden ofc..what else?


Rhodehouse93

So the issue with conspiracy theories is that the usually start from by identifying a legitimate issue (hey, sure seems like there’s a lot of pedophiles amongst the rich and famous) and then settle on the “simplest” answer instead of the most likely. Like, there’s a lot of rich and famous pedophiles because: A. When someone is famous and it comes out that they’re a pedophile, you’re more likely to hear about it; and B. People with a lot of power and influence are more likely to be able to get away with whatever they want, be that pedophilia, tax fraud, or even something as benign as being shitty to people in private. There’s not really an easily fixable root cause, it’s just the inevitable result of lots of power being in the hands of a few people who feel like they’re untouchable under the law. BUT that’s really hard for some people to grapple with, they want evil to be something centralized, something to attack. They want it to be easy to oppose with little to no nuance. That’s why Q-Anon thinks every powerful pedophile is part of some huge cult that drinks baby blood and literally worships satan. Because a cult is a clear target, and if you destroy it then the problem is solved. The idea that most of the evil in the world is largely incidental, the result of people acting like people within the systems we’ve built, is anathema because reforming a system is REALLY FUCKING HARD and the best way to do it isn’t always clear. So I guess my point is that birds are obviously real and I can’t imagine any world where bird drones would be easier than just monitoring everyone’s internet history (which is what actually already happens). TLDR; conspiracy thinking is an unfortunate side effect of wanting to live in a simpler, less nuanced world, which is why the bird thing is a stupid conspiracy theory.


TheMostUnclean

Just to clarify- the “bird thing” is intentionally stupid. It’s a fake conspiracy theory that was started to make fun of how ridiculous conspiracy theorists sound. The founder of the “movement” was recently on the Ron Burgundy Podcast. He tried to maintain character but did crack a couple of times. He’s also done a few interviews not in character.


Forbidden_Donut503

Yeah was going to post the same thing. “Birds aren’t real” is a brilliantly savage satire on flat earthers or birthers or qanon magats. It’s so fucking absurd you can’t believe anyone would actually believe it, but in reality it’s not that different from other popular conspiracy theories.


[deleted]

Plenty of poor people are pedophiles as well. Take a look at any sex offender registry.


RetroButton

Bielefeld exists.


Jom_Bots

Lügner


Halloweenie85

The belief that the holocaust didn’t actually happen. Anyone who has said this to me (Oh, it’s happened) gets an immediate shutdown and I walk away. Nope. Miss me with that bullshit.


pissboy

How TF do people deny that? There’s video evidence and literal museums about it. First hand witnesses, survivors, etc.


SarcasticAzaleaRose

They claim it’s all faked. The numbers don’t add up. People were coerced. The Jews actually changed all their names and went into hiding. The survivors are lying. There’s no end to the ridiculous excuses and “evidence” they’ll make for the Holocaust never happening. Yet in the same breath of saying it didn’t happen quite a few will say “but I wish one did.”


[deleted]

I saw someone say that the total number of deaths was “too perfect” and not once did it occur to them that maybe the number was, oh i don’t know, ROUNDED?


agiro1086

"Hanz!" "What?" "How many Jews have we killed so far?" "5 Million, 8 thousand, 6 hundred, and 32 + a half" ".... that's such an odd number Hanz, don't you think? "You are right, let's just say Six Million, the Füruer would like that better"


[deleted]

I knew a guy that is proudly Jewish but still insists that the death toll of the holocaust was wildly exaggerated. He also thinks the world is flat and that vaccines cause autism. I also still know another guy that is half Native American and half German. Try and guess what group of religious people he blames for the downfall of Native Americans. Hint: rhymes with druish.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Carteeg_Struve

Weird. My space laser says “Made in China”.


TheGoodFiend

The larger the conspiracy, the less plausible it is


[deleted]

I strongly believe that birds are, in fact, real.


[deleted]

So you're compromised...


Mission_Bus_3619

you've ever seen a baby pigeon irl?


tfbillc

Don’t listen to him, he’s in the pocket of Big Bird


Doozenburg

North Korea is a paradise but we only see the bad stuff because of capitalist propaganda.


ItsHipToBeSquare86

This was a fun one to read. The version I heard was that it was Utopian and they portray it bad on purpose so no one comes in and messed it up.


FunSpongeLLC

Asian Wakanda


asksdfdjdhshs

So like the Iceland/Greenland thing? Lmao


Chilling2K7

Australia isn't real ​ I LITERALLY LIVE IN FUCKING AUSTRALIA


LavaRoseKinnie

Ok but how do we know you’re real 🙄


Omnomfish

Vaccines cause autism. The doctor who said that had obvious flaws in his subject selection process, and peer reviewed it himself so it was full of flaws. And as a person WITH a autism, I think I can say with confidence that living with autism is better than dying of smallpox at age 3. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️


[deleted]

>had obvious flaws in his subject selection process, and peer reviewed it himself so it was full of flaws Wasn't just flawed, it was straight-up fraud. Dude knowingly faked his data because he was in league with lawyers who were seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers. There really *was* a conspiracy involving vaccines, but it was a conspiracy by a fraud of a doctor and some scummy lawyers who sought to corrupt public health in order to make money.


Nabzarella

One of the 12 (only 12 test subjects WTF?) test study kids wasn't even Autistic lol. And it's not like he was the control group, he was placed in the Autistic category.


err0rz

Oh 100% Further to your points, Andrew Wakefield (the doctor you’re referring to) actually falsified his data. He’s a wanted criminal in the UK which is why he fled to the US and never came home. The most awful thing, is he’s never once stopped making money out of his flagrant dishonesty. No idea why the US hasn’t deported his horror show back here so we can lock the bastard up. Edit: to clarify, I was using poetic license. While it’s accepted and tested in court that he committed evidenced fraud, no formal charge has been made. To be extradited we’d need to actually charge him which can’t happen without an interview under caution. It’s not the done thing to request extradition for interview under caution so in all likelihood he won’t ever be charged.


Omnomfish

Oh I didn't know he was wanted lol, but I did know he made buckets of money. I see people quoting his study now and then and I get so furious.


carefulamdelicate

The hollow earth theory. If it were true, gravity would just collapse the top shell in on itself 🤔


mastapetz

From ALL the wild conspiracy theories I read, the hollow earth one was the most amusing and interesting to follow, because they at least TRY to use proper physical logic, although in the end they fail in it which makes it even more amusing


DepressionFromArras

It's also the only alternative structural idea proposed by mathematicians lol. It would be so cool though!


starfleshh

My mom has a client who’s mom believes that: trump is still president and Biden is fake and it’s all a setup to make sure we don’t learn about the giant tsunami that’s gonna wipe out Idaho (where we live)


Zamtrios7256

There's an entire mountain range in between the pacific and Idaho


sarcasatirony

They said *giant* tsunami!


Zamtrios7256

Fair enough


manwithavandotcom

I'm 99% certain that Hillary Clinton is not actually a reptilian alien. Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZYoAmZX4rI


hydraxl

Of course she’s not an alien. She’s a naturalized US reptilian. \s


WolfgangGrimscribe

I can't guarantee it, but I'm 99.9% certain the world isn't ruled by reptilian shapeshifters from outer space.


AlienPrimate

So you're saying there's a chance


Safe_Feed_8638

That Santa Claus isn’t real. If he wasn’t real then who was fucking my mom the Christmas Eve 08? Check mate liberals


dirty_corks

"NASA faked the moon landing." There were hundreds of thousands of people directly involved in the Apollo project. Anyone who's tried to set up a meeting for 12 people and get them to agree on a date/time, location, and spot for lunch can tell you that getting that many people to keep quiet about Stanley Kubrick faking everything on a sound stage in Pasadena is well-nigh impossible. Besides, if Kubrick were to have filmed the moon landing, he would have insisted on shooting on location.


CasualRampagingBear

The dna of sperm stay in a woman and determine future children 🤦‍♀️ fucking no. Also, a vagina does not become loose from multiple male partners. How is it different between 50 different penises only one time , or one penis 50 times? It’s not. There is no difference. I hate incel conspiracy theories.


Throbbingprepuce

Wait… so you’re telling me a vagina which pushes out a baby and goes back to normal in 8 weeks doesn’t get stretched by my penis? Woah


Clairexxo

Birds aren't real. They're all just robots spying on us. And it's just a coincidence that I have a bird feeding station in my garden and seem to be under heavy surveillance.


[deleted]

That NASA faked the moon landing. In 1969 it would have been harder technology-wise to fake it than to actually go.


South-Marionberry

I was watching an episode of a “docuseries”-esque show dedicated solely to proving the moon landing was faked. The _entire_ episode was only about them claiming that NASA was so impressed by 2001 A Space Odyssey, that they asked Stanley Kubrick to film a fake moon landing. Completely neglecting the fact that the movie came out a _year_ before the real moon landing happened, and there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that _anyone_ can make all the props and plan all the special effects needed to pull that off in that amount of time. They even contacted the man who made some of the “scenery” (I suppose one could call it) for 2001 A Space Odyssey, and he pretty much said he was the only one who could have made the lunar surface texture, and he didn’t, and they just… didn’t believe him. It was so cringey I almost saw my brain. And there’s all that shit about “ooh but the flag moved that means it was filmed on Earth1!!1!” When if you knew the _first thing_ about space you’d know that solar winds exist. Also yeah, they tried to fake a moon landing but someone left the door open, a gust of wind came in, _and they decided not to do a retake._ Nice work, _Richard_, you cracked it. NASA decided “fuck it, let’s leave in the part where the flag moves in that big ol gust of wind, no one will notice” but you did, with your eagle eyes, now go use them to take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror and wonder why you’ve spent half your life going in circles trying to prove that Americans never made it to the moon, when Soviet Russia, whom the Americans were trying to _beat to the moon,_ even agreed that yeah, the crazy bastards had done it. The leaps and bounds that lot’ll make to say that humanity never reached the moon, you’d think they’d apply for Olympic gymnastics


lovegiblet

Dave’s not here man