It truly is scary. It's Invasion of the Body Snatchers level creepiness.

they are half-way normal.

And then they show their ass on social media like no one is watching.

when they are on social media. Somehow, it seems to bring out a part of them that was either dormant before or they're just more vulnerable to conspiracy crap.

I know people who have gotten hooked first on right-wing news and from there they went to all the crazy on social media, but I remember a time when they held very normal, reasonable conversations. Still do sometimes. It is a phenomenon and I think it is global.

All the good that the Internet has brought us, is often offset by all this unfathomable nuttery.

more of us than them. It's a cult and cults don't last. They self-destruct.

We need to vote in very large numbers.

believing in a wacko sounding conspiracy theory makes them “more informed “ or “superior” to everyone else.

a deep thinker, a misunderstood sage. His words.

He also advocated for staring directly at the sun, while barefooted. Some kind of "grounding" bullshit.

He was encouraging people not to wear solar glasses.

the conspiracy train it gets easier and easier to continue their journey to places they never would have gone before.

Along the way they meet like-minded travelers. Not many, but a few, and they feed each other's "deep state" secrets and loony conspiracy theories.

Pretty soon there's an entire train car full of them. They seem to recognize each other. Maybe they all have some bat-shit crazy pheromone they exude through their conspiracy gills, or something of that nature.

After a while it's impossible to get off of that train and they ride on forever, getting more angry and disturbed, as the crazy train gathers speed and goes off the rails completely.

That's my conspiracy theory anyway, and I'm sticking to it. 😉

You may be onto something!

Belief in "special knowledge" bolsters their ego, it provides a sense of superiority that they haven't been able to achieve in any other way. Conspiracy theories fill a deep emotional need, which will overrule rationality every single time.

in front of the eclipse and the airplanes creating the clouds. I didn't even ask why, I don't want to know.

The Anti-social Network explains how these bizarre memes get started and it is frightening - Q is a bunch of hackers getting laughs. The Democrats being pedophiles and Hilary drinking baby's blood are just a few that have stuck and they were started by people, usually guys, who were trying to see how far they could get with the crazies. Apparently there is no limit. The question really is, why are people believing this crazy stuff.

...I think about things like this whenever I'm at a doctors or dentist office, when I'm working with my bank, I even wonder if my mail carrier is looking at return addresses etc.

I know I'm getting paranoid, but I also know these people are not entirely sane and I'm just not comfortable dealing with them or knowing they can get access to sensitive info of mine.

Fingers do you see?

"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character."

Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

that was Milo Minderbender. The guy who wanted to sell chocolate covered cotton balls.

... it makes sense, since the incident in 1984 is so well known it gets referenced all the time. It would be a good fit for catch 22.

who was trying to get out of combat by pretending to be insane.

The leader of this team of doctors was a dignified, solicitous gentleman who held one finger up
directly in front ofYossarian and demanded, 'How many fingers do you see?'
'Two,' said Yossarian.
'How many fingers do you see now?' asked the doctor, holding up two.
'Two,' said Yossarian.
'And how many now?' asked the doctor, holding up none.
'Two,' said Yossarian.
The doctor's face wreathed with a smile. 'By Jove, he's right,' he declared jubilantly. 'He does see
everything twice.'
They rolled Yossarian away on a stretcher into the room with the other soldier who saw everything
twice and quarantined everyone else in the ward for another fourteen days

We won't see any of.it? Um, No, we're in southern Oregon, we're not in the path! This was after a half hour argument with my client about why you definitely need special glasses And filters on equipment to view the eclipse. He insisted it was nutty libs only wearing that stuff, until his daughter sent pics of great grand kids wearing that shit... from Texas. Then he was, I thought you could only see it at night! I told him, We are done talking about this. And, stop watching your crazy newsmax and then trying to talk to me! You Know I hate when you do this! I told him so many times, how toxic it makes my work environment. He just doesn't care. So, I decided, next time, I'm telling him to call his sister to talk about it, because they watch the same channel. And dial the phone for him, or hus daughter, who will just threaten to cut the cable if he keeps watching! Lol

some of these nut jobs actually argue with me about Daylight Savings.

The argue that somehow the Feds are able to do something to make the sun shine an hour longer in the evening..

I patiently explain, no, we all just reset the clocks, and that makes the sun comes up an hour later and sets an hour later, then vice versa in the fall.

One told me how stupid I was to think my explanation was true, when in FACT his explanation was correct and I should research it and learn the truth.......

I am most saddened by the fact that stupidity isn't painful...........

I never expected that question from him. Gobsmacked me!

I was dying when I read that! What a moron! LOL!

was that that person had a masters degree........That is the most perplexing thing about some of these ignorant and stupid trumphumper flat earthers.......

I have a button left over from the sixties that I am going to start wearing again:

Stupidity Should Be Painful...........

Everything out of a Republican's mouth, is as dumb founding as being told: 2 + 2 = 22..........It leaves you speechless......

Well I don't know, surely, but I've known some weird people, that is people who had an alt side, but it was a hidden side that only came out when they were comfortable or thought it had some benefit. That is, their normal side was the everyday thing. They could still balance a checkbook, go to work, understand the world from a place of normalcy. What's happened? I don't know. The bad side got a boost.

...or family reunions to encounter them.

They're the guys off at the end of the counter muttering to themselves and any poor sap unlucky enough to sit next to them.

Feds spend $2.4 million on cloud seeding for Colorado River
BY BRITTANY PETERSON
Published 11:00 AM MDT, March 17, 2023

snip...

DENVER (AP) — The Southern Nevada Water Authority on Thursday voted to accept a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to fund cloud seeding in other Western states whose rivers feed the parched desert region.

The weather modification method uses planes and ground-based cannons to shoot silver iodide crystals into clouds, attracting moisture to the particles that falls as additional snow and rain.

The funding comes as key reservoirs on the Colorado River hit record lows and booming Western cities and industries fail to adjust their water use to increasingly shrinking supplies.

You had the luxury of not encountering it in the wild all that often. Lucky Charms, indeed, to have managed to have gone so long avoiding the shocking magnitude of stupid out there.

Cause then you have the Trifecta of dumbassery!

Add in young earth creationist and you have a Perfecta!

Not sure about being a flat-earther.

of conspiracy nut to be a flat-earther. 🤪Even most garden-variety conspiracy nuts won't hang around with them.

They're like the kid who eats the paste out of the jar in kindergarten.

I highly recommend the documentary about flat earthers called “Beyond the Curve”

Fascinating and scary

Is it on HBO or Netflix?

Looks like there are few places linked here https://www.behindthecurvefilm.com/

Let me know what you think if you watch it.

Thank you.

Invasion of the body snatchers.

Last edited Thu Apr 11, 2024, 06:34 PM - Edit history (1)

It is generally visible from most places in the state and it is quite lovely, stately, and snow crested year round and all. It is the tallest peak in the PNW and we're quite proud of it, at least until it blows, that is. It's a dormant volcano like Mt St Helens.

The joke goes that on cloudy days, visiting out of staters ask, 'Where's this mountain y'all been bragging about? I don't see nothing."

We tell them, oh sorry, bad timing. They took it down for cleaning. Most people over the age of 5 or so get a chuckle out of that. Most conspiracy theories are set for people of about that mental maturity.

Sounds like a good opportunity for some good old fashioned Ridicule. Be the Leader, give permission for others to join you.

Leadership Lesson From A Dancing Guy:

Note the one guy turning around to make sure they are on camera.

Link to tweet

and it’s so much easier to share.

They just used to have no easy way to organize.

But *he* told them, fuck that, say whatever you want.

People like him are going to be rounded up and put in labor camps. BLM has the contract to run the camps.

His people would believe him, and spread it, and inflate the MAGA vote. Not good.

Last edited Thu Apr 11, 2024, 06:26 PM - Edit history (1)

The internet has made them more noticeable, because it provides so many platforms for the dissemination of their nonsense. It also makes it much easier for them to find each other and band together to promote their foolishness.

They used to lurk in dark corners, often alone in their delusions, but the internet has handed them a great big megaphone to scream through. I don't know if there are more of them than before, but they've certainly become much more visible and harder to ignore.

because it's amazing what so many of my drug addled cohort could be convinced of. These days it's not drugs (or so these people would have us believe, I"m not so sure), it's religion and the torrent of hogwash released upon them by some charismatic ignoramus standing in a pulpit. It is being amplified by the kind of sleep deprivation embraced by people who have to put in days of work and go home to scroll though the garbage provided by the Fakebook, Xitter, and TikTok algorithms until it's the wee hours and they realize they're going to need some sleep so they don't drive into a tree on the way to work. Rinse, repeat.

I've watched mobs I'm not part of change direction, from dope to religion, lurching into New aGe health codswallop, off to wingnut politics (which wasn't necessarily Republican), and now they're all planning how to survive Armageddon so they're able to crawl out of their holes in the ground to welcome Jebus or whatever imitation pops up and that's why this moron and his buddies think HAART or jet planes or whatever sent those clouds to fuck up their view and only their view because they're so special.

Shit it was cloudy here in NM, which meant the partial eclipse just got a little gloomier on a gloomy day for an hour or so. NM has its share of 60s drug burnouts, but even they know when a cloud is only a cloud.

average intelligence is not very high and half the people are below average...

...if you don't go out of the house the chem-trail deep state gremlins won't get you. If you have to go outside, make a tinfoil hat first.

We had heavy cloud cover as well.

Obviously, the government is hostile toward balloon twisters for some reason...

they grumbled and griped about every tax as they sat on their money and ran the county. We lurched along with republicans always in charge.. most, not all, honest,thank goodness..mostly competent public employees kept it all together.
2015... bam! trumpers everywhere. who knew? I liked most of these people. WTF is wrong with them? I swear, I never saw it coming. Every day I hope he drops dead.

We had an older couple living a few doors down.....nice people........but their thinking was beyond any nut jobs I had ever seen or heard of........

I was commenting on some of the weird weather we are seeing here in Colorado, and the Hurricanes, Tornadoes, etc going on around the nation........The guy says, you know what is causing it don't you? I was thinking was going to say global warming, but, thinking I better not say anything, I bit my tongue and said No? What?

He started describing some giant magnet, located in a secret location in the Pacific, off the coast from California. He said that if turned on it can alter the weather depending where it is directed....Florida, New York, etc etc. He said that the U.S. House and Senate can't legally flip the switch and direct it, so THEY call Russia, and Russia turns it off and on..........

Holy Shit.......

Another one????

A neighbor calls and tells me she thinks her Husband is having a heart attack. I tell her to hang up and call 911 and tell them he is having an "MI". I rush over with my EMT kit, and start working on him........The paramedics show up, I give them a report and continue to assist them. This same neighbor comes running in the front door to see what is going on.......He sees a digital alarm clock in the room, and starts yelling, turn off the digital clock, and he will be fine......Over and over again he yelled this. There was a cop on scene and the Paramedics looked at him and nodded their heads. The cop escorted him from the house, and he was still yelling un-plug the digital clock!!!!!!!!!!

These lunatics make for some great stories.

of when we were younger, we maligned the "Pollocks"

Then we all told dumb blond jokes............

All the Dems should come up with "Dumb Republican Jokes" that are truly degrading............

We're literally living the satire movie, Idiocracy

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

math is not my thang.

Many, if not most of the people spouting such nonsense are 50+ and didn’t grow up with no child left behind.

... that the Government incorporated my city OUTSIDE the zone of eclipse totality. It would have been so easy to move the city's location a couple of hundred miles, but noooo, they punished this city.

especially when you meet someone the first time and they manage to seem relatively normal and you think, "Hey, that's a decent neighbor."

Then you go looking for their Facebook account and find a bunch of ramblings. And you realize that they just disguised their true thoughts and beliefs during that initial public encounter and it's only a matter of time before they unleash their B.S. on you if you get to know them better.

Of course, I cut them off at that point. Good riddance!

...I think it was Nicole's show, an expert on autocracies, said disinformation is addictive. We've all seen people in our lives who are addicted to drama and if drama isn't presenting from a predictable source, they will make drama happen and spread it all around to get their fix. Apparently, according to this expert, (who's name I just cannot remember) people can make their own disinformation and stay just enough detached that they don't notice they are the source of it, much like the drama addicts.

the human race more intelligent. Unfortunately it has made some regress back to the intellect of a rock. Didn't mean to insult the rock

Lyndon Johnson press secretary Bill Moyers said that the internet could potentially become a place for free speech and really be a positive force like in pre revolutionary days with the printing press and pamphlets like Thomas Paine's piece: Common Sense. No maga cultitist understands this piece unless they are against the principles found in that document. Sadly the internet has been mostly taken over by heartless corporations

Why did in anyone ever trust that serial failure, serial sex offender and compulsive LIAR? Why did anyone ever trust Rush Limbaugh? I used to think Americans were mostly intelligent and wise. Now I think we would be better off without conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. Now we have neo nazis and other filth openly opposing America while ridiculously claiming to be patriots... PHEW!

misinformation and disinformation, gaslighting has been out there permeating people's brains. Bannon and Miller are the orchestrators of it all, that orange bastard who is mentally disturbed is just their "useful idiot". He's nothing, just what E. Jean said about him.