[pjc50]

It's a bad day for anti-conspiracy theorists when there's a dump of Epstein emails which are basically all "hey guys any news on the conspiracy? would you like some underage girls to go with that?"

I would note that the public conspiracy theorists tend to be "exactly wrong", though. Claiming that everything is a conspiracy, without evidence, except the things that have documentary evidence about the conspiracy.

[toyg]

> Claiming that everything is a conspiracy, without evidence, except the things that have documentary evidence

Because where is the fun in that? If something is documented, your brain is not doing any work; it's where the canvas is clean, that you get a sense of satisfaction by firing synapses in original ways.

Conspiracy-theorism, at its core, is fundamentally a creative endeavour. It's not a coincidence that, in the '90s, that world overlapped pretty hard with fandoms of open-world franchises like Star Trek, where it's easy to expand and enrich the original content with your own productions.

[lo_zamoyski]

Conspiracy theories appeal to people for various reasons.

1. It's something for bored people to do and to believe.

2. It's something that offers supposed explanations for various real or imaginary events or states of affairs at a lower cost than actual explanation.

3. It gives people something more satisfying than "shit happens", and in this way, gives people a feeling of the possibility of control over the unpredictable (superstitions like astrology and fortune telling have the same motive).

4. It allows people to rationalize their misfortunes, dissatisfaction, and grievances, and to deflect responsibility from themselves, or to give their envies the appearance of a moral basis.

[matthewdgreen]

Of course there are conspiracies in the world. The problem with “conspiracy theorists” is not that they’re wrong about the existence of organized conspiracies, it’s that they’re so routinely, 180 degrees wrong about the specifics, and so easily mislead into being useful idiots.

For example, the loudest Epstein conspiracy theorists have spent the past ten years screaming about a conspiracy of pedophiles in their specific outgroup, while ignoring every hint of evidence that indicated their preferred leader was somehow tied to the mess (remember when Trump appointed Epstein’s sweetheart-deal prosecutor to his cabinet during his first term. Wtf!) They were led by the nose to a conclusion that anyone could have seen was highly questionable, because their reasoning and judgement absolutely sucks.

[krapp]

>It's a bad day for anti-conspiracy theorists when there's a dump of Epstein emails which are basically all "hey guys any news on the conspiracy? would you like some underage girls to go with that?"

"anti-conspiracy theorists" aren't claiming that conspiracies don't exist, so no. I don't think anyone is actually "debunking" Epstein other than conspiracy-minded Trumpists who were laser-focused on the Pizzagate/satanic cabal/Monarch deprogramming bullshit until for some reason they decided Epstein was a cool guy who did nothing wrong. Many such cases.