Conspiracy theorists unaware their beliefs are on the fringe
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/06/conspiracy-theorists-unaware-their-beliefs-are-fringe

Conspiracy theorists unaware their beliefs are on the fringe
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/06/conspiracy-theorists-unaware-their-beliefs-are-fringe
#ThoughtExperiment: Many #Worldlets?
or in other words, fractions of #World, not the whole World. #TimeTraveler #theories often involve splitting or multiplying #universes … But if we think this through further, its scope might not be quite so universal as it is typically presented …
https://aus.social/@KronoMoon_TotalLunarEclipse/114462733797499137
#TimeTravelTuesday #ThoughtExperiment: Many #Worldlets?
or in other words, fractions of #World, not the whole World. #TimeTraveler #theories often involve splitting or multiplying #universes. Time Travel events divide #spacetime into two near-identical clones. Grandfather lived or did not, you did not meet yourself or you did. But if we think this through further, its scope might not be quite so universal as typically presented.
Take 3 heavenly bodies: Mother #Earth, the #AlphaCentauri triple star system (at 4+ light years away), and #Polaris, the #NorthStar (at 400+ light years away).
Now we program our #TimeMachine to take us back one year (#retrograde) where we meet ourselves. Hi selves! This all takes place in one year. There's the original us, there's us leaving the present, and there's us meeting our past/original selves a year earlier — standard #boilerplate #scifi #movie #script.
Alpha Centauri will have to wait another 3 years before any of this information can get to there. This is related to the concept of a #lightcone which expands at the speed of light. This doesn't sound quite so much like birthing a twin universe, does it? Now what about the North Star? It will have to wait 433 years for news of our Time Travel event(s). And that's still pretty much in our tiny #celestial neighborhood.
The point is that the effects of such events are largely localized and rapidly diluted as we move farther away. This still has its paradoxical problems, but it doesn't quite feel like the whole universe dividing into two — maybe part of it (a universelet? a subuniverse?) Possibilities are that in moving further out in space-time, the effects of a Time Travel incident may be 'blurred out', as are anomalous numerical samples in the law of large #numbers. If one pours a cup of coffee into a lake, it doesn't change the color of the lake. There is a brief chaotic #glitch before it is no longer measurable.
It is tempting to imagine space-time as "stitching" itself back together. (Glitch & stitch?) Such speculations are related to #StephenHawking's "chronology protection conjecture" of 1992. And along with #blackholes, #entanglement, and other #quantum phenomena, if Time Travel is possible, then we should be looking for it at every scale. We could be surrounded by time-traveling particles everywhere all the #Time.
https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation … #ManyWorlds
https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_paradox#Consistency_paradox … #GrandfatherParadox
https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_cone … #LightCone
https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel#Absence_of_time_travelers_from_the_future … #TimeTravelTheory
https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers … #LawOfLargeNumbers
https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_protection_conjecture … #ChronologyProtectionConjecture
https://evonomics.com/curing-economics-addiction-to-unreal-theories/
Curing #Economics’ Addiction to Unreal #Theories
..."Thomas Piketty, writing in his 2014 book #Capital in the 21st Century: “To put it bluntly, the discipline of economics has yet to get over its childish passion for #mathematics and for purely theoretical and often highly ideological speculation, at the expense of historical research…This obsession with mathematics is an easy way of acquiring the appearance of scientificity without having t."...
#TimeTravelAuthors & #SciFi fans know that various styles of #gyrosocopic devices have stood in for #TimeMachines going all the way back to #HGWells's original 'The Time Machine' of 1895 (see 'Contact' movie of 1997). #Quantum #physicists have proposed colossal rotating #cylinders, and other #theories employing #wormholes — macro to micro — again, #spinning #mechanical #systems. @KronoMoon remains open to all manner of #TimeTravel approaches, including via #quantum #signals or #consciousness.
Mythology of #KashPatel - an #insurrectionist - now a savior - ‘A Day of Love’: How #Trump Inverted the Violent History of #Jan6. #Trump & allies have spent 4yrs #reinventing the #Capitol attack spreading #conspiracy #theories and weaving a tale of #martyrdom to their ultimate political gain. What began as a strained attempt to absolve Mr. Trump of responsibility for Jan. 6 gradually took hold..violent rioters prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned, now #patriotic #martyrs https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/05/us/politics/january-6-capitol-riot-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.m04.Bau7.PKFnFK8BJjxA
❛❛ If #tachyons are real, they [could] revolutionize fields such #telecommunications, #energy, and even #Time #Travel #theories. ❜❜
9-min. #narration with dazzling #SpaceTime #graphics.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=-GPrriSdHm0 2024 Jul 13
https://Arxiv.org/abs/2403.1385 2024 Mar 19
https://Wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon … #Tachyon
So, Eyes on You ... I have some vague, but reasonable theories. The song is a love song, but the mv is a more complex exploration of all different ways we/they are bonded to each other - lovers, friends, partners in crime, survivors, confidants, family etc ... "Tell me more about yourself, Give me your very first scar."
Republicans have unleashed a flurry of lawsuits challenging voting rules and practices
ahead of the November elections,
setting the stage for what could be a far larger and more contentious legal battle over the White House after Election Day.
The onslaught of litigation,
much of it landing in recent weeks,
includes nearly 90 lawsuits filed across the country by Republican groups this year.
The legal push is ️already more than three times the number of lawsuits filed before Election Day in 2020,
according to Democracy Docket, a Democratically aligned group that tracks election cases.
Voting rights experts say the legal campaign appears to be an
effort to prepare to #contest #the #results of the presidential election after Election Day should Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, lose and
refuse to accept his defeat as he did four years ago.
The lawsuits are concentrated in swing states
— and key counties
— likely to determine the race.
Several embrace #debunked #theories about voter fraud and so-called stolen elections that Mr. Trump has promoted since 2020.
In Montgomery County, Pa., the state’s third-largest county, the party is seeking to force local officials to count ballots by hand, evoking debunked conspiracy theories about corrupted voting machines.
A case filed by the Republican National Committee in Nevada this month #falsely asserts that nearly 4,000 noncitizens voted in the state in 2020,
a claim that was rejected at the time by the state’s top election official, a Republican.
Trump and his campaign enter turbulent phase in final weeks
With just 45 days left until the election,
the past three weeks reveal whatever control and self-restraint helped launch Trump’s third presidential campaign has largely disappeared in the crucial final stretch.
On the Monday before Trump’s first debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, his running mate shared on social media, without evidence, the claim that #Haitian #immigrants were abducting and eating their neighbors’ pets
— one Trump repeated the following night on the debate stage, in a moment that instantly went viral.
Trump’s #chaotic and widely criticized #debate #performance coincided with an already tumultuous period for the former president.
He had recently welcomed back into his orbit Corey #Lewandowski
— his former 2016 campaign manager who was exiled after allegations of #sexual #assault by a donor
— and had begun traveling around the country with Laura #Loomer, a far-right ally who has spread #conspiracy #theories.
Two failed apparent #assassination attempts,
as well as additional #threats against him,
have also left the freewheeling presidential candidate constrained by a mushrooming #security presence and has made staging campaign events more challenging.
Meanwhile, after #Taylor #Swift endorsed Harris following the debate, Trump picked a fight with the international icon, posting last Sunday on social media,
“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
— the sort of impulsive, #impetuous display that has become increasingly common in recent weeks.
️In a single 24-hour span at the end of last month, for example,
he amplified a crude joke about Harris performing a sex act;
falsely accused her of staging a coup against President Joe Biden;
promoted tributes to the QAnon conspiracy theory;
hawked digital trading cards; and became embroiled in a public feud with staff and officials at Arlington National Cemetery.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/09/21/trump-turbulence-campaign-election/
That point #2 is huge. Some examples:
- #Beauty bias. We judge attractive people to be smarter, more altruistic, etc. How many socialist/communist/democratic idols have been good-looking and/or charismatic? Does that not set off any alarms?
- Shifting to peripheral thinking when under cognitive load: Every time I see a political ad (and these truly are on both "sides") with jargon/gobledygook then a feel-good "easy solution" phrase at the end, I want to vomit. This is manipulation.
- Representativeness (and/or availability) heuristic: we make judgments based on how easy it is to bring examples to mind, not how rational the arguments are. All the political ads with Joe America etc. in them.
- Familiarity effect: Repeat something enough and the people hearing it will, on average, eventually come to like it.
- Sunk Cost effects: This one is really hard, but no less a fucked-up thing embedded in our system.
- Halo effect (nuff said)
- More about the self-serving bias: We just like people who look and talk like us. This is part of how racism, etc. keep going. When was the last time you voted for someone who wasn't like you?
- Primacy and recency effects: Our memories of events are heavily biased in favor of the last and first parts of the experience. How many of Trump's anti-American atrocities do you remember from the "middle" part of his presidency?
- Framing effects: complex to get into, but the people who figured this out got a Nobel Prize. Essentially, you can manipulate people's view of how good a deal is by presenting the same deal in a different way.
- Loss aversion and the Loss Curve: more of that Nobel Prize stuff. Losing hurts more than winning helps. Avoidance of the possibility of loss can impair rational thinking. Add to that the fact that loss hurts disproportionately, and the fearmongering we hear from political messages starts to make a sinister sense.
There are more. Our brains didn't evolve to be rational or truthful; they evolved to help us survive, by hook or by crook. #Theories of human nature that assume otherwise are bound to get us killed in large numbers and to perpetuate #injustice.
More bomb threats hit Springfield, Ohio, after Trump elevates false claims about Haitians
Hospitals were sent into lockdown, government buildings shut down and local schools evacuated
Two hospitals in #Springfield, Ohio, were sent into #lockdown after #bomb #threats, police said on Saturday,
marking the fourth such case in as many days that appears
linked to false claims circulating among the far right that Haitian #immigrants there are #eating domestic #pets and wildlife.
Saturday’s threats came even after the woman who started the rumors acknowledged to NBC News that they were #unfounded and publicly apologized.
#Kettering Health Springfield was one of the medical facilities targeted, with officials later saying they found nothing suspicious during a search. Another hospital, #Mercy Health’s Springfield regional medical center, received a similar threat.
A spokesperson with Mercy Health said the hospital had continued to operate and thanked Springfield police as well as hospital staff “for their swift, efficient and caring response”.
The bomb threats on Saturday came after others had been called in to #government #buildings Thursday, forcing their closure and causing local #schools to be #evacuated.
“We recognize that the past few days have been particularly challenging for everyone in our community,” Springfield police said in a statement. Police added “we remain fully committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of each and every person”.
On Friday, a Springfield woman, #Erika #Lee, #apologized for rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets that resulted from a post she wrote on Facebook claiming that the friend of a neighbor’s daughter lost her cat – and then found the animal strung up outside the home of a Haitian family.
Lee now says she had no firsthand knowledge of the claim. The neighbor referenced in the post, Kimberly Newton, revealed that she also had heard the story from an acquaintance and not her daughter.
Lee said she was filled with regret and insists she never intended to put a target on the backs of the Haitian community.
“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Lee told NBC News on Friday.Local authorities in Springfield had already debunked the lies even
before #Donald #Trump made the allegation that Haitian immigrants were eating pets during the debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday.
Lee told the outlet she never imagined her social media post would become fodder for #conspiracy #theories and #hate aimed at the Haitian community in Springfield.
Donald Trump on Friday promised, if elected, to carry out #mass #deportations of undocumented immigrants, starting in Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado.
Why it matters:
Trump's announcement comes as he continues to push #baseless #conspiracy #theories about immigrants,
including during Tuesday night's presidential debate with Vice President Harris.
What he's saying: "We're going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country," Trump said at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.
"And we're going to start with Springfield and Aurora."
Trump also said he may hold campaign events in one or both cities.
Catch up quick:
During Tuesday's debate, Trump echoed unfounded narratives that #Haitian #immigrants were #eating family #pets in Springfield.
He also referenced exaggerated claims about #Venezuelan #gang activity in Aurora,
claiming migrants are "taking over the town, taking over buildings ... they're destroying our country."
The other side:
Law enforcement officials and local leaders in both cities have countered the claims.
"The prison gang Tren de Aragua "has not 'taken over' [Aurora]," Mayor Mike Coffman and Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky said in a joint statement Wednesday.
"There have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community," a Springfield police spokesperson said in a statementTuesday.
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/13/trump-deportation-immigrants-springfield-ohio-aurora-colorado
John Roberts is well aware of the Supreme Court's credibility problems, but he doesn't want to fix it by a code of conduct -- he wants to fix it by cosy interviews with journalists
Three of our Supreme Court Justices had worked on Bush v Gore in 2000 -- and those are the "moderates" on this court
- David Daley
Equal parts "Dark Money" and "Democracy in Chains",
Minority Rule is a riveting yet disturbing history of the fifty-year Republican plot to hijack #voting #rights in America,
its profound implications for the 2024 #presidential #election,
and the crucial role that Chief Justice #John #Roberts has played in determining how we vote.
In 1981, a young lawyer, fresh out of Harvard law school, joined the Reagan administration's Department of Justice,
taking up a cause that had been fomenting in Republican circles for over a decade by that point.
From his perch inside the Reagan DOJ,
this lawyer would attempt to bring down one of the defining pieces of 20th century legislation
— the Voting Rights Act.
His name was John Roberts.
Over thirty years later in 2013, these efforts by John Roberts and the conservative legal establishment culminated when Roberts,
now Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
wrote #Shelby #County vs. Holder,
one of the most consequential decisions of modern jurisprudence.
A dramatic move that gutted the Voting Rights Act,
Roberts's decision
— dangerously premised on the flawed notion that racism was a thing of the past
— emboldened right-wing, #antidemocratic #voting #laws around the country immediately.
No modern court decision has done more to hand elections to Republicans than Shelby.
Now lauded investigative reporter #David #Daley reveals the urgent story of this fifty-year Republican plot to end the Voting Rights Act and encourage minority rule in their party's favor.
From the bowels of Reagan's DOJ to the walls of the conservative #Federalist #Society to the moneyed Republican resources #bankrolling restrictive voting laws today,
Daley reveals a hidden history as sweeping as it is troubling.
Through careful research and exhaustive reporting, he connects Shelby to a well-funded, highly-coordinated right-wing effort to erode the power of minority voters and Democrats at the ballot box
— an effort that has grown stronger with each election cycle.
In the process Roberts and his conservative allies have enabled #fringe conservative #theories about our elections with the potential to shape the 2024 election and topple the foundations of our democracy.
Timely and alarming, Daley offers a powerful message that, while Shelby was the misguided end of the Voting Rights Act, it was also the beginning of something far darker.
Conspiracy Theorist Clay Clark Is Working to Place a ‘Prophet’ in Trump’s Cabinet
In 2021, far-right conspiracy theorist and self-proclaimed
“alpha toxic male” #Clay #Clark
organized a “Reopen America” event in Oklahoma that was designed to protest restrictions that had been put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That event was such a success that Clark quickly rechristened it “ReAwaken America”
and launched a nationwide tour, holding similar events all over the country.
Convinced that a vague 2013 prophecy from the late self-declared “prophet” #Kim #Clement about “a man by the name of Mr. Clark and … another man by the name of Donald”
was a prophecy about himself and former President Donald Trump, Clark’s events quickly became a nonstop cavalcade of outlandish #conspiracy #theories and explicitly #violent #rhetoric mixed with aggressive #Christian #nationalism.
Eventually, members of the Trump family began to participate in Clark’s event,
leading Clark to form a particularly close friendship with #Eric and #Lara #Trump, whom he credited with “legitimizing what we are doing in the minds of many people.”
In 2023, Clark bragged that through his tour, he had managed to establish direct connections to the Trump family and campaign,
and was working to ensure that Trump would be “surrounded by both prophets and pastors”
in his run for president.
On Monday, Clark appeared on a program hosted by self-proclaimed “prophet” #Julie #Green,
where he revealed that his current plan is to leverage the access he has gained to place a “prophet” in Trump’s cabinet if the former president returns to the White House.
After bragging that Eric Trump had personally invited him to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week,
Clark recalled how Eric had asked him to organize a right-wing prayer call for the Trump family earlier this year.
“For the president’s son to ask [us] to organize a night of prayer,
that’s just not normal of what you would expect, and it shows that God is moving on him,” Clark said.
“I feel like the purpose of the ReAawaken Tour is to flip the [organization] chart [so] you have God at the top, prophets second, and then the politicians third.”
“You’d have God, and then you’d have the prophets, and then you would have President Trump listening to them and treating them in the same way that he might talk to the Secretary of Defense,
or the same way that he might talk to the head of Homeland Security,” Clark continued.
“I would like to see President Trump have a prophet in his cabinet.”
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/conspiracy-theorist-clay-clark-is-working-to-place-a-prophet-in-trumps-cabinet/
Ngl #antisemitism is a skeleton key that opens up a lot of #conspiratorial #rightwing thinking, it is at least vacuous and at worst irresponsible to explore most #reactionary #conspiracy #theories without understanding how deep the Protocols of the Elders of Zion #brainrot truly goes
Is there life after death?
Is there an afterlife or is this the only life we get? Most believe science says there is no afterlife. But this view, while common, is wrong.
It required thousands of years of careful study of the natural world. Today, modern science offers answers to this age-old mystery.
Contrary to popular wisdom, the existence of an afterlife is an inescapable conclusion of many of today’s scientific theories.