Drawing the Line, What is a Conspiracy Theory?

What is a conspiracy theorist? What is a conspiracy theory?

Is a conspiracy theorist someone who believes in aliens, Nibiru, reptilians, and weird metaphysics?

Or is a conspiracy theorist someone who believe in things such as these before disclosures were given?:

Monsanto suing farmers for violating patents
Dupont forcing the government to ban old products so they can sell new products,
CIA inciting uprisings in foreign nations and supporting radical terrorist groups to fight off the USSR.
9/11 became an excuse to start the Iraq War which had nothing to do with 9/11 or WMDs.


What is a real conspiracy theory?

Is a conspiracy theory an alternative explanation to a situation based off of substantial evidence?

Or is a conspiracy theory ANY unsubstantiated idea?


Personally, I think real skeptics and intellectuals who propose conspiracy theories are being discredited by those who say aliens came down and probed them in the ass.


How do we get people to understand and utilize the understanding of the difference between a substantiated conspiracy theory and ghosts or faeries?

Ya know, I thought I knew before I started frequenting ATS.

It's hard to really define, apparently. Anything that's not common knowledge seems to be a conspiracy.

reply to post by die_another_day


Well a conspiracy theory is hard to define by the nature of conspiracy itself.

But I do know that it is not making up any old thing and throwing it into the ring and claiming with indignant arrogance that everyone must accept it.

It seems that a lot of people think that making up any old claim, without any reasoning or cause for it to be so, and then finding evidence for it - despite the evidence not being there or being proven wrong - is a conspiracy. And if you don't agree with them then you're an agent or a shill. Usually accompanied with "Well why are you on ATS then?" if you don't swallow it hook, line and sinker.

These people I consider paranoid. Deluded people, but sadly, there seem to be a lot of them and they seem to add to each others paranoia. Kind of like if there are so many people falling for a hoax youtube video, it somehow makes the hoax not a hoax any more. As if in numbers, they make up reality.

A lack of intelligence seems to be a common trait...

I'd personally say the definition isn't so hard ...it's just mixed with the age old practice of trolling ..or being a r0dent as I knew the term in the days of dial-up BBS's.

Conspiracy Theory is any truth of matters that lay beyond the 'Accepted' facts or what society defines as 'true' simply because they say so. I'd add to that, anything done in total secrecy that is either intended to stay that way or at least, remain that way far longer than Conspiracy theorists are content to let it ride.

I can't help but say conspiracy and imagination can be a fine line for any approach which isn't well grounded in critical thinking and pushes on beyond the point where evidence turns to opinion without distinction.

Another way of saying that would be to always keep an open mind ..but not so open that your brains fall right out and go splat.

Conspiracy:
1.A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.
2.The action of plotting or conspiring.


A theory is a hypothesis that has supporting evidence.

So, a secret by a group that can be shown to have some amount of evidence to support the hypothesis into the next phase (theory).

I enjoy reviewing the evidence and see what stands after debunking..quite often, not a lot..the difference between a "conspiracy theorist" and a "conspiracy nut" is, a theorist will indeed bow to the debunking process..the nut will become angry when the evidence started to get debunked..as they don't seek truth, they seek a religion and/or delusion to believe in.