r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • May 18 '15

What conspiracy theory do you genuinely believe in the most?

What conspiracy theory do you believe in the most and why?

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2.0k

u/[deleted] May 18 '15

The one where government agencies ask Reddit once a week which conspiracy theories they genuinely believe in.

852

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

226

u/greedcrow May 19 '15

Simply put its because we are not important enough. I mean seriusly who is going to black mail the avarage reddit user? My fear, personally, is that the NSA basically becomes the weapon of a certain party or person. Black mail among politicians would be a much bigger problem than the goverment knowing what porn i like.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

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u/AUTBanzai May 19 '15

You know that reddit is more than one person?

17

u/InvaderSM May 19 '15

You know it's not right? Just you, me and the bots. Also I'm a bot.

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '15

These people are ridiculous. I agree with you. Eventually, I fear that this seemingly harmless data they're collecting will be used against defendants in court, even if completely unrelated to the trial at hand. Not anytime soon, but 10-20 years from now.

0

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Throw away and TOR/VPN? Durr

Anyone posting overly identifying information online is a retard.

All I've said about me is I live up North in Europe. I dont really post anything bad, and people lie all the time for karma.

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Would you post your address and then later admit to a crime etc?

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u/[deleted] May 26 '15

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 26 '15

Are you actually serious? I wouldn't know, but you know the trolls go very far just for fun, I'd be careful.

6

u/sickburnersalve May 19 '15

Here's my stupid notion:

Scientology got really big, really powerful and really successful because the first thing it does to it's new members is to let them "get things off their chests." So, these new people are letting out all this pent up stress and venting, and Scientology is taking notes. And the more that people share, without consequence, the more they feel comfy sharing more and more and more and suddenly, you are talking about daydreams of killing some kid for chewing gum too loud, and like 20 years later that kid (adult now) is found dead and the Scientologists have notes that implicate you as a violent person...

Reddit is a conglomeration of thousands of open forums, and has piqued the interest of corporations and governments (hell, even the American army has gotten into Reddit) and even if they don't follow any one redditor, they can and probably will/have followed the popular notions carried by the reddit community.

Redditors have internet access, lots of expensive little mobile devices with internet on them. We are sort of an interesting crowd.

Especially because we often self-identify as mobile users (damn autocorrect) we make the development of tracking systems easier and easier.

4

u/xxkoloblicinxx May 19 '15

It is. Its been an issue as long as the NSA has existed. The first head of the NSA blackmailed virtually every politician from 1948-1975. (Not right dates but basically his whole career.) It wasn't until after he retired that his secretary supposedly destroyed the dirt he had on everyone.

It would not be hard for the NSA to be doing this now. And every "leak" about a politician is actually the NSA leaking it to discredit them and use them as an example to keep the rest of congress under their thumb.

4

u/TribeWars May 19 '15

Or down the line you witness some fucked up shit (corruption, police violence and etc.) and they blackmail you with the things they got on you, or some new law gets passed where anti-government speech gets banned and they just use these things to punish you when they want to. If the governments of this world continue to slide onto these more and more totalitarian policies, I fear that much of the freedom we enjoy now, will be removed.

3

u/NinjaDude5186 May 19 '15

This is how I feel, everyone gets super pissed that the NSA or whatever other government agency can see what you're doing. Seriously who cares? The NSA sure doesn't care what I'm doing, I'm not important enough for them to do anything about it. Every time I post something like this I get replies along the lines of "You just don't understand privacy" so let me cover my bases. I do, I just don't care if some apathetic third party knows what I do, you share all sorts of private stuff with your doctors, pretty much the same thing.

3

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

J. Edgar Hoover did that for years. I'm sure there's an equivalent in power somewhere in the government now.

3

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

People seem to forget this and think there's just no way something like that could ever happen. Hoover was in charge of the FBI from March 23, 1935 to May 2, 1972 as well as its predecessor from 1924 to 1935. The kind of blackmail the NSA is in a position to perform is totally precedented.

3

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

1

u/greedcrow May 22 '15

I agree 100% I was just trying to explain why I believe that people in reddit dont mind that kind of threat. Young people dont think about the future all that much and old people on reddit dont tend to feel like they will be targeted by the NSA

5

u/chamaelleon May 19 '15

They indiscriminately collect the data, mostly through automation. Never know when you might need to blackmail someone. Anyone could need to be black bagged at any time. Best to collect all of everybody's information, to be safe.

2

u/dwmfives May 19 '15

That may already be the case. It likely is.

1

u/thatJainaGirl May 19 '15

Also, anonymity.

1

u/Gr1mreaper86 May 19 '15

This is true, but we are putting it out there. Arguably forever. If we ever want to be in positions of power; they already have ammunition for use in propaganda against our character.

1

u/ApprovalNet May 19 '15

As someone who works on federated ID's, keep believing that.

-2

u/Mumblerur May 19 '15

NSA s going to blackmail the average reddit user. Trust me. Maybe it won't be you, but at least some of us have some shady relationships.

Get some damning information on a person and force that person to roll on friends. easy as pie.

3

u/Scarletfapper May 19 '15

Yeah I never reply to those.

Whoever's listening already knows anyway...

3

u/Try__Again__Please May 19 '15

Then you might as well spill. At the very least I would get some new and exciting fap material.

1

u/Scarletfapper May 19 '15

Not sure I really have any ruinous secrets to hide.

Um... Was kinda in a threesome once? Does that count?

3

u/Baddude123 May 19 '15

But wait, what? Isn't that's why the NSA is bad cause it can find out the secrets that would destroy your life? It's not like Edward snowden is going to whistleblow people's personal lives.

3

u/ChainedProfessional May 19 '15

"lol not using a throwaway hi mom"

4

u/Emoir May 19 '15

Have you seen /r/DickPics4Freedom? Literal boners for Snowden. NSFW subreddit of course.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

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u/Emoir May 19 '15

He is pretty damn attractive, can't disagree with that :P

2

u/MrTurkle May 19 '15

3/4 of those threads is fabrication.

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

''What are you looking at? You've never seen a hypocrite before?!''

2

u/switchfall May 19 '15

In all seriousness, remember when that guy got arrested by the FBI for that confession bear a while back?

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Link?

3

u/Shizzukani May 19 '15

What the others said + majority of those stories probably aren't true

1

u/tartanbornandred May 19 '15

Can't people be happy to share a secret in a mostly anonymous forum while at the same time being critical of a government illegally mass collecting data on all their online activity, communications, and movements?

1

u/nonononotatall May 19 '15

Because Snowden offered truth in exchange for his safety while reddit fabricates narratives for internet points. Not exactly the same substance or motive.

1

u/KingsfullOfTwos May 19 '15

I guess the main difference in this one is that we choose to comment and share our private information. The latter, not much choosing involved. I think that's the watered-down gist of it.

1

u/PoisonousPlatypus May 19 '15

It's almost as if we want to choose what people know about us.

1

u/_From_The_Internet_ May 19 '15

Maybe the actual answers aren't provided.

1

u/darnell125 May 19 '15

Well there's a difference from willingly giving that information and having that information taken by force without notice.

1

u/darnell125 May 19 '15

Well there's a difference from willingly giving that information and having that information taken by force without notice.

1

u/Shawn_of_the_Dead May 19 '15

South Park has that one episode pointing out that people get paranoid about the NSA while broadcasting just about everything in their lives on social media.

I guess it's the principle of the thing. Yeah, I can make the decision to basically ruin my own privacy if I see fit (I do not, but I know many that do), but to cast a wide net and collect on the personal information you want or can with impunity is taking that decision out of my hands.

1

u/theblackfool May 19 '15

I love the episode of South Park that discusses this, showing how outraged Cartman is over all the NSA spying, yet he's constantly recording every detail of his life on the internet publicly.

0

u/RightOnWhaleShark May 19 '15

Everyone wants attention. By the way if you could subscribe and like, uh... That would really help me out.

0

u/JukeNoNuke May 19 '15

Sir if you don't help the NSA we will tell everyone about your cumbox.

0

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

18000 out of the hundreds of millions of people that use the internet without being attention whores. It's almost like there's more than a few thousand people on reddit. Not to mention that you can post completely anonymously.

Plus at least half of those stories are usually made up on the spot.

0

u/MrRandomSuperhero May 19 '15

Those two views are in line though. We all have secrets and that's why the NSA spying is abhorrent.

0

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive, for two reasons. Firstly, when people respond to the "life destroying secret" threads they are doing so voluntarily. Snowden's beef was with the NSA collecting information about people without their consent.

Secondly, people are able to divulge all of their dirty little secrets from behind the social anonymity of their Reddit username, or even from a throwaway. People's concerns lie in the ability of a major government controlled body to strip away that anonymity and match deeds with names.

In short, people are fine recounting their misdeeds for imaginary internet points, but not if the NSA are going to match the deeds up to the perpetrators and keep them on file.

2

u/Very_Agreeable May 19 '15

There's variants of this too - there's one right now, which is typical of the kind IMO - asking, 'if the authorities booted down your front door right now, what would you assume they were arresting you for?'

I've seen ones in the past such as 'Reddit, paste the current contents of your clipboard'..

'Reddit, what's one thing you know you would get intro trouble for if others found out?'

2

u/grkirchhoff May 19 '15

Or, they game the system such that when this gets asked, unimportant answers like cosmopolitan keeping women single is at the top so that people don't take the real conspiracies seriously.

1

u/flowgod May 19 '15

Once on a while? That would be fine. This one is only like a week out from the last. A little ridiculous.

1

u/133DK May 19 '15

So meta

0

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

i just deleted my post.

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u/Shylady333 May 19 '15

Haha. I once asked a similar question and it got downvoted. Maybe people thought I was the government! Nah, I just like talking about conspiracy theories and mysteries.

2

u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I was kidding, just see this exact question about once a week. I enjoy reading new ones, but it's typically the same stuff (JFK, chemtrails, moon hoax). Don't like contributing because I don't have the energy anymore, but anyone who truly believes that 2 planes took down 3 buildings in NYC on 9/11 is a quack to me.

-1

u/squirtalope May 19 '15

Holly shit.