New manufacturing processes for alternative energy capture

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Well conspiracies DO exist and many have been exposed. Until they are exposed of course, they are just conspiracy theories and many of them probably are not true.

I think the logic is even more flawed than that. The claimed conspiracy theories are usually very disconnected from actual revealed conspiracies, e.g. no tinfoil hats ever claimed, AFAIK, "Nixon is trying to sabotage his competitors." Nobody ever claims that a conspiracy exists, gets laughed at, and then proven right.

[Human No More]

Exactly.

Do 'conspiracies' exist by a dictionary definition of the term? Yes.

Are they even worthy of that word in comparison to the ones tinfoil hats claim exist? No.

Is the [New World Order/Illuminati/Masons/Jews/Reptilians/Greys/Martians/Xenu/UN/Kenyan Barack Obama/Bankers/whatever] trying to take over the world yet somehow unable to kill or pay off people who rant on and on about it? No.

[Moco Loco]

[auroraglacialis]

Well no of course these global mega-conspiracies are probably not true. But there were people who claimed to know about conspiracies in the past and they were ridiculed and later they were proven right, so I think it is worth to at least think for a moment if a conspiracy theory is possible and what it would take to make it possible, who would gain and then evaluate this. Tinfoil hats against mind reading machines using the HAARP are quite ludicrous etc. Other things have some credibility, though no clear explanation can be proven. For example pharmaceutical companies. There are a number of "scientists conspiracies" going on there when it comes to pharmaceuticals and their negative effects. Some years later then some reports will pop up that show that the company knew about the negative effects of a drug or the lack of proof of effectiveness all along, but since they were making good money, they did put this info in a vault. Or the German nuclear waste repository. People in the anti nuclear movement claimed for years that the site chosen was not suitable and seemed to be a rather political decision, placing it near the eastern border of the country. They were told to be conspiracy theorists and ridiculed. Now documentation exists and is accepted that shows that the site chosen was actually added with handwriting to the end of a list that geologists provided to the government, and then was chosen by politicians against the suggestion of scientists. Those scientists that spoke out about this earlier were ridiculed as well. Only after Fukushima and the 180° turn of the conservative government to suddenly become anti-nuclear, these facts were exposed. To determine if a conspiracy theory is in some way credible or not is far from easy in some cases, though I usually take the rule that if it needs several thousands of people to shut up or if no scientific explanation for some "secret technology" is thinkable by any stretch, I am careful ("induced Earthquakes", "mind reading",...). If it involves only a few diplomats, scientists, politicians or economists to shut up and maybe intimidate a couple of more people and the motives are reasonable and the mechanisms are possible, then I would not take it off the list of possible candidates (sending spies and economic hitmen to some country to destabilize the leftist government to install pro-"free trade" governments or even dictatorships, lock up data on medical drugs or other technologies that could reduce sales,...).