Origin of NWO and other conspiracy theories.

[SpaceMarine93]

With the 10th year anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks approaching, I have noted that to this very day, conspiracy theories of that event remained strong, especially those that suggests the WTC collapse and other stuff behind the attack were either part of an inside job or a step for the NWO to take over the world and destroy American freedoms and shit. Its all part of the greater total of conspiracy theories that circulates around fringe groups of society.

Anyone with enough reason could see through all the inconsistencies and flaws these conspiracy theories share, and yet as human nature dictates, some not only believe it, they would go so far to either spread awareness of these conspiracies or go and act in a way that would supposedly stop these plots they imagine from prevailing, often at the expense of innocent lives caught in between (Oklahoma bombing 1993, Holocaust WWII, Revolutions of 1840s etc.).

They are harmful in the fact they hold parts of society back from progress, such as preventing social programs from passing in government due to supposed communist agenda or preventing anti-Global Warming measures from passing due to being supposedly part of NWO conspiracy.

So here's the thing: beyond the Sept 11 attacks conspiracies, where the heck do all these conspiracy theories come from? Why do they remain alive in the fringe groups of the media and society?

Where do all these NWO, Jewish/Masonic, Christian apocalyptic Millennialistic, Bilderberg Group, globalist, 9/11 conspiracies, islamosocialist etc. conspiracies come from? Who made them? And when? How easy is it to make them? Any ideas?

[Number Theoretic]

Humans tend to search for explanations or patterns everywhere, even when there are no patterns, some people see them. Then, there is the tendency in human nature to look for an simple explanation, even for things that simply don't have a simple explanation or reason.

That, and the fact that conspiracy theories are "locked" can be an explanation of why they are so persistent: If you try to debunk any conspiracy theory, its fans will simply reply "See, how good they are? They fooled you into believing their 'official explanation".

Which brings me to another thought of why conspiracy theories are so popular: Nobody wants to be an idiot and any conspiracy theory claims that if you don't believe it, you are an idiot because you fall for the evil conspirator's scheme.

edit: corrected some spelling mistakes

[SpaceMarine93]

But where are they all coming from? What are their origins in general? Do they came out recently or since ancient times?

[Lord Zentei]

Which ones, specifically? Some people are just inclined to see patterns where none exist, especially when they're ignorant and afraid of the general situation, and/or wanting there to be some kind of meaning to it all. It also helps if there's a kernel of (very warped) truth in there somewhere, but it's really not necessary.

As for when you say "where do they all come from", you're not seriously asking us to provide a contrived explanation for people's penchant for providing contrived explanations?

[SpaceMarine93]

I would want to start with NWO conspiracies. I seriously don't think anyone could provide a contrived explanation for people's penchant for providing contrived explanations on a forum. An opinion would do.

[That NOS Guy]

I would want to start with NWO conspiracies. I seriously don't think anyone could provide a contrived explanation for people's penchant for providing contrived explanations on a forum. An opinion would do.

The idea that there's an insidious 5th column trying to subvert America into a "New World Order" goes back at least as far as the 1920s with the first Red Scare. That never quite died out, and really reemerged with organizations like the John Birch society as the Cold War went on. With the collapse of Communism, that ruthless paranoia had to be directed elsewhere.

/an opinion

[Sir Sirius]

See link below. Takes a fairly decent stab at explaining the birth and spread of conspiracy theories.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm? ... id=1084585

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Most of it goes back the the Eighteenth Century, when secret societies were actually very popular and lots of powerful people and influential intellectuals were involved in them. They largely functioned as something between social networking for powerful people, clubs, political discussion salons, and thinktanks. The most well-known and sturdiest was of course Freemasonry, whose influence on such things as Washington architecture and U.S. currency is very real, though the idea that Masonic puppeteers were pulling the strings of the world is just a fantasy. Their legacy survives today in such establishments as the Bilderberg Group and the Bohemian Grove - places where powerful men meet to network with each other away from the prying eyes of the public. Read up on those organisations to get a good grasp of them, but suffice it to say that for humans, who are naturally good at pattern analysis, it takes only a small leap to get from 'influential men are congregating in secret to their own ends' to get to 'influential men are in cahoots in the goal of taking over the world'.

The NWO idea itself comes partly from a speech George Bush Sr. made in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse where he coined the term, referring to the direction of the then-unipolar world, and also incorporates remnants of the Illuminati theory, positing that the rich and powerful are social engineering everything behind the scenes towards their own Brave New World, with the plans of these secret masters largely falling along the lines of the Georgia Guidestones, a set of megaliths which was built (supposedly) by Ted Turner and involves his ideas for a Utopic future world government where the human population is maintained at only 500,000,000 and a new universal language is invented. Naturally, sinister means are posited for arriving at this goal.

[Formless]

It depends a little bit on which conspiracy theory you are asking about-- there are a lot of them out there with their own histories and inspirations.

On that note, does anyone know where the Vast Zionist Conspiracy idea came from? I know an idiot who is so enamored with that one that he even thinks that Israel planted Nano-superthermite in the WTC (despite the patent coming from the US) and in spite of there being no obvious motive for doing such (at least, no motive that isn't hindsight bias).

[Number Theoretic]

In 1903, some troll published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Many years later, they were debunked as being fake, but the damage was done: they influenced several historical figures to embrace Nazism and Antisemitism.
Although it may not be the origin of Antisemitism in general, i guess that it fueled some antisemnite resentiments, which in turn spawned this kind of conspiracy theories.

[StarSword]

On that note, does anyone know where the Vast Zionist Conspiracy idea came from? I know an idiot who is so enamored with that one that he even thinks that Israel planted Nano-superthermite in the WTC (despite the patent coming from the US) and in spite of there being no obvious motive for doing such (at least, no motive that isn't hindsight bias).

A good percentage of these NWO conspiracy theories can be summed up as "OH NOES THE <insert faction> ARE TAKING OVER DA WORLD!"

The faction you insert is the one you don't like, and therefore you can maybe chalk the VZC up to anti-Semitism.

[Formless]

Actually, in his case its the other way around. He's not motivated to believe in the VZC because he's an anti-semite, but his belief can make him spout some apparently anti-semetic crap because, hey, any Jew in a position of power is a potential conspirator, right? Hence why I wish I could dispel the notion right out of his head.

The faction he hates is Israel, not Jews, but the two are pretty intricately entwined by design. That doesn't help things.

[Civil War Man]

In the case of some US-centric conspiracies, some of them come about due to an odd delusion of America's invincibility, and that the simple explanation makes America seem too vulnerable for comfort.

For example, it's not enough that a series of bureaucratic fuckups led to the Japanese military catching the US with its pants down, resulting in the destruction of a large portion of the Pacific fleet.

It's not enough that a disgruntled ex-marine was able to catch the Secret Service off-guard and shoot the President multiple times.

It's not enough that a dozen mostly Arabic men armed with boxcutters were able to demolish two of the most iconic New York buildings and do significant damage to one of the most iconic DC buildings.

In all three of these incidents, a lot of the conspiracies involve powerful people within the government being responsible for the death and destruction, because obviously the only thing powerful enough to defeat America is America.

[Purple]

The faction he hates is Israel, not Jews, but the two are pretty intricately entwined by design. That doesn't help things.

Not necessarily. You can completely legitimately and easily hate Israel for their policies against the Palestinians and the other evil things they do without hating Jews as a race/religion. It's the same as how you can hate Americans or anyone else for the evil that their government does but not the people since the people are not at fault.

The far more likely to occur problem is that most of those who claim to only hate one and not the other are actually hating Jews and use the "I hate Israel becouse they are evil" card to get some sort of cheap justification to make them look less bad before others.

[Formless]

The faction he hates is Israel, not Jews, but the two are pretty intricately entwined by design. That doesn't help things.

Not necessarily. You can completely legitimately and easily hate Israel for their policies against the Palestinians and the other evil things they do without hating Jews as a race/religion. It's the same as how you can hate Americans or anyone else for the evil that their government does but not the people since the people are not at fault.

The far more likely to occur problem is that most of those who claim to only hate one and not the other are actually hating Jews and use the "I hate Israel becouse they are evil" card to get some sort of cheap justification to make them look less bad before others.

I know that. He really is one of those people who hates Israel for legitimate reasons (not counting the VZC theory but only on the technicality that it fails the believability test) and not because he is trying to excuse an anti-semetic prejudice. I know this because I know the guy in real life, and not from hearing about him online secondhand. I know this because, for one thing, he has some pretty harsh things to say about most religions (Deist/New Age mystic, not atheist), and because he only says apparantly anti-semetic things about people in positions of political or economic power within the context of believing there is a vast conspiracy of theocratic Israeli Jews who control the USA (or at least parts of it) like a sockpuppet.

The suggestion that anyone who believes such theories must have always been an anti-semite or anti-whatever is both stupid and downplays the actual danger conspiracy theories can represent. That too is my point. After all, if there really was a New World Order trying to take over the world (or even just the USA) from behind the curtains, theocrats rank among the last people I would ever want succeed in such an endeavor. But I don't believe such conspiracies exist, and that is why I see them as potentially dangerous.

[Korgeta]

It's not just that some people refuse to believe in the simple facts, that basic oversight and confusion has lead to goverments being 'sucker punched' by a 'lone wolf' or terroist groups. in the case of 9/11 for example one person I know gets his evidence of a conspiracy website and a few articles from the pakistani media to claim America was behind 9/11 and that bin laden isn't dead otherwise they would had shown the body. And that it was Obama who setup the destruction of a helicopter in Afghanistan that carried troops that were part of the unit that killed bin laden so that no one would speak the truth of the ordeal.

You find a lot of these conspiracy theories have a anti Israel agenda behind it, the guy i mentioned above ties it to Israel and another person on DA who claims that pictures of Anders Behring with weapons were photomainpulated and was in fact a stooge for Mossad who did the actual killings.

[PainRack]

I would want to start with NWO conspiracies. I seriously don't think anyone could provide a contrived explanation for people's penchant for providing contrived explanations on a forum. An opinion would do.

There has always been such concerns, what with the Freemasons. As the millenium drew nearer, they simply echoed themselves out with the Illuminati and etc.

There are sources of inspiration of course. Revelations and the existence of a government led by the Beast has morphed itself into a World government that's led by a well liked politician.

[CaptHawkeye]

I'm not sure if anyone else has observed this but it seems to me a great number of Conspiracy Theorists are also anti-semetic.

[HMS Conqueror]

Some conspiracy theories have factual a basis that's just heavily distorted or blown out of proportion. For instance, to take your examples, there have been proposals for global government institutions in response to global warming. That doesn't mean that global warming doesn't exist, that said proposals are being pushed by a shadow cabal of bankers (or whatever) for evil ends, or even that they're particularly likely to happen.

Others are just assigning a lot of weight to motive without evidence, particularly in response to seemingly random events. People don't like the idea that a random guy could just decide to kill JFK for no particularly monumental reason. But who has motive to do such a thing? The Soviets who want to destabilise the US? The CIA who want rid of a left-wing President? The Republicans to eliminate a charismatic opponent? The Democrats to ride to re-election on a wave of popular sympathy? You can twist this sort of thing in any direction you want.

Usually the theorist was already opposed to whoever they choose before they heard about the event, and the theory serves both as a weapon to attack their bete-noir and as added justification for hating them to start with. Often it starts out as regular opposition, but when it become an obsession it can lead people to overreach.