I grew up in an entire family who had fallen down this slippery pipeline of magical thinking. For some of them, it cost them everything.
It’s almost entirely bullshit designed to prey on people who are desperate for something better in their lives, desperate to feel less alone, desperate to feel hope that the universe is bigger than it seems and that they won’t die or have to say goodbye to everyone someday.
That’s where it does the most harm, along with religious beliefs like the rapture or Armageddon fantasies, it’s just magical thinking that makes you feel like nothing on Earth here and now matters. No need to worry about the climate, Jesus/Aliens are coming. No need to get educated and invest in your future, Jesus/Aliens are coming. No need to value your every moment like it may be your last, because Jesus/Aliens are coming, you have all the time in the world to ignore the people and precious memories around you.
The most fucked-up part of it all is I think there may be something weird going on, but it’s not aliens or jesus, it’s not an escape, it may not even be an “objective” thing, but maybe some natural phenomenon that our brains are recontextualizing. But this kind of “maybe there’s something real” event seems to be exceedingly rare and without a way to study or replicate it, without valid, unambiguous evidence, it’s like any of our own subjective experiences, it takes place inside you and can’t impact the world around you. If you think it will, you will end up alone and disappointed.
I used to be a 9/11 Truther 😭 Turned out that I, too, was mentally unwell and socially isolated even worse than that hairy fella on the island with a face painted on a football. It’s crazy (if I can use that word in this context) how your brain can look at something and be 100% convinced of it, and the exact same information can look ludicrously and obviously bullshit a year later when your psychological well-being is in a better place.
Advice: don’t bother debating conspiracists on their ‘evidence’, but when they hopefully emerge from their pit of psychosis, welcome them back with open arms. And, perhaps most importantly, ensure they know that that non-judgemental welcome is there for them whenever they want it. The less social friction/cringe/embarrassment they feel is awaiting them, the easier and quicker they can transition into some sort of normality again. Debating the details of whatever conspiracist horseshit it happens to be is like trying to cure schizophrenia by proving the person’s hallucinated demons wrong with FACTS and LOGIC. You’ll just make it worse.
grifters exploiting the mentally ill
Reminds me of r/gangstalking.
I spent a few minutes there once and it’s the biggest mindfuck. Impossible to distinguish between schizophrenics, possible authentic level-headed victims, exploiters, and trolls.
😵💫
Don’t joke. I was at my wilderness cottage in northern Ontario about six years ago.
Bright blue sky, beautiful sun, warm air, no bugs … I was alone … the world was my own. Then a round white object the size of the full moon slowly drifted overhead. I thought maybe it was just some thing that was blowing by … a piece of garbage, plastic or even a party balloon. So I ignored it.
It stayed in place for an hour and I thought it was weird.
After hovering in place as clouds slowly started to move overhead … I became worried. It’s freaky to see an object stay in the same spot in the sky for eight hours and it isn’t the moon or the sun.
It stayed until sundown, then finally moved away.
I researched it and asked around about it days after.
Turns out it was a new experimental balloon system they launched from Timmins, Ontario. Some new system someone was developing to raise rockets into high altitude and launch them from there.
But for a few days I was really freaked out.
The entire “flying saucer” thing started when the US government spent most of a decade flying some dozens of saucer-shaped devices hanging from balloons all over its territory in secret.
I thought the ufo craze would subside a bit now that’s it’s become obvious it’s all just man made drones
But I severely underestimated the power of choosing to be paranoid psychotics.
It’s just too fun a subculture for these people I guess
How is this surprising when we have religion?
Religion is premised on invisible unprovable things so I’d expect them to never be convinced of anything
Flat earthers and UFO crap is premised on obviously disprovable stuff so it’s really the exact opposite of religion
I don’t really see it that way. Both are premised on magical thinking without proof, via sensory misinterpretation, resulting in unfounded conjecture and illogical leaps, conspiracy, and ultimately cult following. Both can be disproven given sufficient information, but one is obviously orders of magnitude easier to disapprove.
Both are ‘too fun to give up subcultures’ and can result in and from the same paranoid delusional base.
It’s like flat earthers, it’s just some group to be a part of because maybe they feel isolated elsewhere and nutjobs will take on anyone willing to listen to them.
Do they really really believe it? Maybe not. Would it be cool if it was real? Definitely.
Some of them are high altitude kites with LEDs attached. You can buy them for like 50 bucks or so.
This… Sounds fun, actually
Nice try, FBI
What do the grifters have to gain that way, though? Maybe it’s just mentally ill people all the way down.
Money, duh. You build up a following, repost some obviously fake CGI crap, at the end of the video plug your donation links like subscribe bell, and they eat it up. Mentally unwell people have a tenuous grasp on reality and more often than not believe whatever they want. Tell them what they already want to hear and your pockets can be easily lined. Also see religious cults and Bigfooters.
For a real example take oldie but goodie secureteam10. The guys been reposting fake footage for a decade. They’ve been in multiple controversies and proven to have created fake evidence for some of their own videos.
Yet despite the channels history and sketchyness, they still get hundreds of thousands of views a week. Because the UFO truther types simply do not care about real authenticity they just want a confirmation bias circle jerk. Read the comments in some of secureteam10s videos and you’ll understand the exact lack of sanity or intelligence in these communities.
Good documentary on them:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GRkwXphhv1E&pp=ygUSc2VjdXJldGVhbTEwIGRyYW1h
Book deals and podcast spots I think are the big two.
All those UFO conventions and meetups probably have registrations that cost money. And there’s merch booths. I’m sure some of their clubs have membership fees too.
People also just like commanding attention and having influence and perceived power within a community
It doesn’t have to be like monetarily profitable.
We see in all subcultures there are simply people who enjoy exercising control and power. It’s their distorted source of social gratification
There is no “Reddit.” You are delusional.
Is Reddit in the room with us right now?
nothing but grifters exploiting the mentally ill
You have an incomplete data set.
We’re at the point where you are a conspiracy theorist if you think there isn’t anything there but grifters/drones. People refuse to acknowledge because their brains can’t handle it or something, it’s wild.
Yeah, what have I stumbled upon here? Suddenly we’re not supposed to believe in UFOs/ UAPs anymore? I thought pretty much everybody accepted the high likelihood that we are not alone in the universe because the universe is so vast. And even in recent years such govt info has started to become unclassified. Reputable military officers & pilots have testified in depositions recounting every detail of UAPs they’ve encountered while on duty.
Now suddenly this Lemmy post is gaslighting us back into “aw they’ve always been government drones” mindset??
