Random thought.

I wonder if the psychological mechanism underlying belief in conspiracy theories is related to the causes of compulsive gambling? The odds against any one particular conspiracy theory are pretty long, but just barely enough of them turn out to be _true_, that a certain personality type will find themselves looking at _all_ such theories as plausible, no matter how many other theories are debunked. Just like a complusive gambler will win just often enough to encourage him to keep throwing his money down, no matter how many bets he loses. There's probably a research paper for someone there...

edit: And of course, what provoked that thought was that the Pentagon is releasing security camera footage showing the impact of Flight 77. IMO, they should have done this years ago, because now the whackjobs will just claim that it took the government that long to fake up convincing footage. Then they'll claim that the footage isn't really convincing at all. Ah, the wonderous mind of the wingnut. It gives me great solace to think that in the not too distant future ("... Next Sunday A.D.") we will live in a panapticon where all such information will be readily available for the masses, and secrecy will be nearly impossible, even for the rich and powerful. What a wonderful world it will be.

OLD memes...

They never die, they just get stale. Ganked from kakiphony

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