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TheRoadsMustRoll t1_ixe1kje wrote

Reply to comment by gimboarretino in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | November 21, 2022 by BernardJOrtcutt

>statistically, out of 1000 conspiracy theories, it is simply impossible for all 1000 of them to be totally wrong.

what specific statistics support that view? because a person could make up millions of imaginary scenarios and none of them might be true.

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gimboarretino t1_ixgpg0x wrote

because they are not imaginary scenarios. They are scenarios based on known facts, however distorted and misinterpreted.

Exactly like in a criminal trial, whare you have to put together pieces, fragments of facts: no matter how hard you try to do it in the most rational and methodical way possible, there will always be the suspect for whom 90% of the evidence seems to lean towards his innocence, who is actually guilty, and vice versa.

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slickwombat t1_ixhs86s wrote

I think /u/TheRoadsMustRoll's point is that there's a potentially infinite number of patently false claims one could make. Like, I could say "housecats did 9/11," "your great-great-grandma did 9/11," "marine gastropod molluscs did 9/11," and so on forever; given enough time we could easily make 1000 such claims. The sheer volume of claims or the fact that they reference known events doesn't confer likelihood that any of them are true.

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gimboarretino t1_ixhyjxq wrote

but I'm talking about actual, main-stream theories, with at least a vague verisimilitude, clues and evidence, however potentially misleading and misinterpreted.The US government did 9/11, Covid is a lab virus, the government knows about UFOs, moon landing is fake etc.

Not "every high-fantasy/sci-fi setting that you might imagine"

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