Are there any examples of something that was a conspiracy theory being validated by confidential documents later? I can’t think of any, even though secret agencies sure did do a lot of crazy stuff.
Thanks, that’s a nice askreddit thread. A lot of these have the same problem though, which is that I have trouble believing (and have no idea how to find evidence, since they were well pre-internet) that these were conspiracy theories before they were revealed.
(I note now that I didn’t actually mention, in my comment, that by “was a conspiracy theory” I don’t just mean “sounds crazy” but rather “sounded crazy and there were actually people saying it”. I’m not interested in every insane thing secret agencies did*, I’m interested in stuff people successfully predicted.)
*well, I am, but it’s not what the question is about
There are plenty of books and articles discussing these things. This comment points to an excellent one you can read https://lemmy.ml/post/24336378/15865218
It’s not like information from before the internet is not accessible either. You can easily search for old news papers, and so on. This is a topic that’s pretty thoroughly documented.
Sure, the fact the US government spies on every single citizen without warrant or cause. The multiple CIA operations that overthrew various governments were conspiracy theories until they were proven.
Hell the existence of abu graihb and the idea the US military tortures and kills civilians was a conspiracy theory, until it was proven.
You want the real fucked up one… Stalin wasn’t crazy nor did he overreact with his actions against ‘enemies if the state’, the US genuinely did invest practically unlimited resources into trying to destabilize the ussr under Stalin, as supported by now declassified CIA documents, including recruiting from populations that aided nazi occupiers.
People still act like that’s a conspiracy theory today. I see mfs insisting it’s not or that it ain’t that bad and I gotta wonder if they’re paid disinfo, which, again, people treat like a conspiracy theory, but the US has by far the biggest psyop reach in the world.
Sure, the fact the US government spies on every single citizen without warrant or cause.
Ah, that’s true, I totally forgot about Snowden. Technically I don’t think I’ve heard of there being a conspiracy about it before 2013, but it’s a good example.
Stalin wasn’t crazy nor did he overreact with his actions against ‘enemies if the state’
Very questionable phrasing (I have some Soviet ancestors who spent years felling forests for the crime of being too educated and teaching things that didn’t quite align with the party line; that’s not an ‘overreaction’ to anything, but just tyranny), but anyway, this doesn’t count - it was definitely not considered a conspiracy theory in the Soviet Union to think that foreign states were doing espionage there.
I’m not sure what you mean. Arresting random intelligentsia is not a “well reasoned response” to foreign interference. And it’s also unrelated to the topic - I’m asking about conspiracy theories that were later validated, and “foreign governments are trying to sabotage us”, in Stalinist USSR, wasn’t a conspiracy theory - if anything it was the party line.
Covid lab theory was thoroughly discredited by fake news but official government reports 2 years later indicated that it is a valid theory but can’t be confirmed
Oh, the lab leak/zoonosis debate is a good thought, but I don’t think it counts as a conspiracy - if I search for news articles from before 2022 mentioning it, I immediately find, say, this BBC article from 2020 that treats lab leak seriously, so it was a mainstream-ish idea quite early on. This seems to match with my own memories, I’ve seen lab leak being discussed in 2022 and I think even earlier.
In general, though, there’s probably some good COVID-related example, even if I can’t think of one immediately (I think it’s pretty disingenuous how media demonized every prospective COVID drug, especially ivermectin - but they did turn out to be ineffective against the virus itself, and I don’t think there were any conspiracies about the drugs that ended up actually working, like Paxlovid).
Are there any examples of something that was a conspiracy theory being validated by confidential documents later? I can’t think of any, even though secret agencies sure did do a lot of crazy stuff.
plenty https://thoughtcatalog.com/january-nelson/2019/09/30-conspiracy-theories-that-might-sound-crazy-but-are-100-true/
Thanks, that’s a nice askreddit thread. A lot of these have the same problem though, which is that I have trouble believing (and have no idea how to find evidence, since they were well pre-internet) that these were conspiracy theories before they were revealed.
(I note now that I didn’t actually mention, in my comment, that by “was a conspiracy theory” I don’t just mean “sounds crazy” but rather “sounded crazy and there were actually people saying it”. I’m not interested in every insane thing secret agencies did*, I’m interested in stuff people successfully predicted.)
*well, I am, but it’s not what the question is about
There are plenty of books and articles discussing these things. This comment points to an excellent one you can read https://lemmy.ml/post/24336378/15865218
It’s not like information from before the internet is not accessible either. You can easily search for old news papers, and so on. This is a topic that’s pretty thoroughly documented.
Sure, the fact the US government spies on every single citizen without warrant or cause. The multiple CIA operations that overthrew various governments were conspiracy theories until they were proven.
Hell the existence of abu graihb and the idea the US military tortures and kills civilians was a conspiracy theory, until it was proven.
You want the real fucked up one… Stalin wasn’t crazy nor did he overreact with his actions against ‘enemies if the state’, the US genuinely did invest practically unlimited resources into trying to destabilize the ussr under Stalin, as supported by now declassified CIA documents, including recruiting from populations that aided nazi occupiers.
People still act like that’s a conspiracy theory today. I see mfs insisting it’s not or that it ain’t that bad and I gotta wonder if they’re paid disinfo, which, again, people treat like a conspiracy theory, but the US has by far the biggest psyop reach in the world.
Ah, that’s true, I totally forgot about Snowden. Technically I don’t think I’ve heard of there being a conspiracy about it before 2013, but it’s a good example.
Very questionable phrasing (I have some Soviet ancestors who spent years felling forests for the crime of being too educated and teaching things that didn’t quite align with the party line; that’s not an ‘overreaction’ to anything, but just tyranny), but anyway, this doesn’t count - it was definitely not considered a conspiracy theory in the Soviet Union to think that foreign states were doing espionage there.
You just proved it’s a conspiracy, that it was tyranny and not a logical, well reasoned response to the actions of others.
I’m not sure what you mean. Arresting random intelligentsia is not a “well reasoned response” to foreign interference. And it’s also unrelated to the topic - I’m asking about conspiracy theories that were later validated, and “foreign governments are trying to sabotage us”, in Stalinist USSR, wasn’t a conspiracy theory - if anything it was the party line.
Covid lab theory was thoroughly discredited by fake news but official government reports 2 years later indicated that it is a valid theory but can’t be confirmed
Mass government surveillance
Oh, the lab leak/zoonosis debate is a good thought, but I don’t think it counts as a conspiracy - if I search for news articles from before 2022 mentioning it, I immediately find, say, this BBC article from 2020 that treats lab leak seriously, so it was a mainstream-ish idea quite early on. This seems to match with my own memories, I’ve seen lab leak being discussed in 2022 and I think even earlier.
In general, though, there’s probably some good COVID-related example, even if I can’t think of one immediately (I think it’s pretty disingenuous how media demonized every prospective COVID drug, especially ivermectin - but they did turn out to be ineffective against the virus itself, and I don’t think there were any conspiracies about the drugs that ended up actually working, like Paxlovid).
It counts as a conspiracy that lab leak suspicions were suppressed. Aug. 2022: Why the Chair of the Lancet’s COVID-19 Commission Thinks The US Government Is Preventing a Real Investigation Into the Pandemic