Conspiracy theories

Toothache

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Scaremongering perhaps. But doesn't that concern you, the fact that food and water has all the dangerous substances? And the fact that they are added to the food and water. Naturally occuring trace chemicals are a different story. Perhaps there's a good reason there is scaremongering around this issue - if a government wanted to control a population, what's the easiest way they could do it? By controlling the food and water supply. They add flouride (which is not one chemical, might I add, but dozens of different chemicals under the brand name of flouride) to water and we shouldn't be concerned, according to cantab.

I'm trying to keep this in context as best I can. If you're not concerned about what you eat or drink, then there's something wrong with you, as I see it. And I'm not just playing devil's advocate as I have been for the majority of this thread, this is something to be concerned about. Can you really say, with 100% certainty that you trust the government or the water suppliers to have the nations best interests at heart when adding all these chemicals and poisons and toxins into the water supply?
 

cim

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Simple question, though.

Why would the government contaminate their own food and water supplies? Is their any evidence to indicate that government officials get special separated supplies of food and water?

From that point, you'd probably assume government officials also want to protect their families from these known poisons they put in their food and water - so there's supplies for their families as well. Once you get to that large of a scale, there clearly has to be some kind of provider of "clean" food and water - and there's not exactly many ways such sources could be kept completely secret and out of any single member of the public's hands.

If all it takes is simple baking and / or filtration to remove these chemicals for personal consumption, then it would be a pretty dramatically ineffective conspiracy, huh.
 
Scaremongering perhaps. But doesn't that concern you, the fact that food and water has all the dangerous substances?
I've heard enough "this causes cancer", "that increases the risk of such-and-such disease", "this is an anti-cancer superfood" in the media that I've learnt to ignore such claims. So no, it doesn't concern me.

if a government wanted to control a population, what's the easiest way they could do it? By controlling the food and water supply.
Any good evidence that would work, or that it's been tried by ANY government? Governments that want to control their populations control the media, along with using the police and military.

Can you really say, with 100% certainty that you trust the government or the water suppliers to have the nations best interests at heart when adding all these chemicals and poisons and toxins into the water supply?
Fluoridation costs money. The water companies would probably rather not do it. Governments mandate it because they think it will help public health. They may be right or wrong on this, and it may not be justified even if it does help public health. But while I don't think the government is particularly honest - they've proven time and time again they're a bunch of liars - I don't believe they're "out to get us" either.
 

Toothache

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Flouridation costs money, sure. But if you look into the chemicals used in flouridation, much of which are waste byproducts of industrial processes, there are international regulations on how they can be safely disposed. To begin with, they used to flush it into the sea, before there was the risk of 3 eyes fish or whatever. After the international regulations were brought in, it was much more expensive to dump these chemicals in the way the regulations stipulate. However, it is much cheaper to repackage these as flouride, and put it in the drinking water.

As for why the governments would do this, you have to ask yourself a few simple questions - how many government workers are there compared to the rest of the population? How much easier would it be to manage a population if the ratio was smaller?
 

cim

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Chemicals don't get "repackaged", that's an absolutely ridiculous notion. If they're changed from one name to another, they're a different chemical, which quite obviously has different effects on the human body.

Toothache: You may have noticed the lack of a mass increase in the death rate in the last forty years. Wouldn't it be FAR easier to just socialize all of health care, then deny treatment for almost any medical condition? Or any number of ideas? A "kill everyone" theory would need to kill enough people to work (difficult in itself), yet somehow kill few enough people that no one notices a steady increase in the death rate. These goals perfectly conflict. You can't seriously think the government is trying to kill everyone through the water supply.
 

Toothache

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Honestly, I'm not sure what to believe. As I've stated before, I'm playing devil's advocate in this topic a lot, compounded by my own concerns about what I eat and drink.

Chemicals certainly get repackaged and rebranded. Once again, you're not doing the research. I've been doing a lot of investigating for this discussion, some of the things are just idle speculation, but there's a lot of things to be genuinely concerned about. However much of it is true or not is hard to say, there are things which are just scare mongering and interpreting things in the most negative way possible to scare the population - the media is especially fond of this - and there are things which aren't brought to attention that really should be. Is there a concerted conspiracy? Its certainly not easy to say, and with questionable sources on both the government side, and the side of the conspiracy peddlers, its good to debate about but hard to prove anything.
 

cim

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Flouride is an element, not a brand name. If you call something Flouride, it basically has to be sodium flouride (that's what's in water too)
 
I personally think that everything the government says, AND every conspiracy theory is wrong. First off, a government can not be entirely truthful without revealing too much important information. Second, most theories ignore counter-arguments.
Take the Pearl Harbor theory. The government was pushing for it to happen more than they will admit too, and a code was deciphered that could have made the attack less one-sided, and let the US withdraw the carriers.
HOWEVER: Japan attacked British colonies, Guam, and Hong Kong on the same day, making an insider Pearl Harbor much less likely.
Just some thoughts...
 

Toothache

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Fluorine is an element. Fluoride is the compond name that contains flourine, not necessarily the sodium fluoride you would assume is the only thing added to water.

http://fluoridealert.org/f-testing.htm

Fluoridation Chemicals Have Not Been Safety Tested - Here's the Proof

Recent NPWA investigations revealed that the chemicals used to fluoridate drinking water had "FAILED FORMAL VOTE" in Europe. In January 2002, we exchanged several emails, extracted below, with UK and EU people responsible for setting Standards for water chemicals.

We wrote to Dr Guy Franklin of the Water Research Centre, whose website states that they are equipped to test and approve to European Standards (EN), British Standards (BS), International Standards (ISO), UK Water Industry Specifications (WIS) and a host of others.

We wrote: "Will you please let us have all the details of the testing which your agency or any other has done on disodium fluoro-silicate and Hexafluorosilicic acid on which these chemicals have been adopted in the UK?"

Dr Franklin replied, copied to Peter Jackson of WRc-NSF:

"I can not disclose any testing information of disodium fluoro-silicate or hexafluorosilicic acid because any data generated is the property of the commis-sioning body. This is not an attempt to hide data. In the past data was submitted to the Drinking Water Inspectorate for product approval under Regula-tion 25 of the Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations. Once approval was given the products were added to a list published by the DWI. However, under EC procurement rules, any product with a European Standard can not be subject to equivalent National Regulations. These products are now the subject to first party certification and have been removed for the DWI list."

We wrote again to Dr Franklin, cc'd to Peter Jackson:

" I am sure that you will appreciate our increasing concern when relevant information on chemicals which are added to the British public water supply with the intention of treating people are not freely available.

If you will please furnish the name of the commissioning body for whom the testing of these chemicals was done . . . "

Here is an extract from Peter Jackson's lengthy reply:

"WRc-NSF recognises that it has a reputation as a professional organisation which can be relied on to maintain confidentiality regarding sensitive and confi-dential information and will not act in any way which might prejudice that reputation. The importance of confidentiality between WRc-NSF and its various clients is a topic of high priority within the company

However, I can inform you categorically that WRc-NSF has never tested any samples of disodium hexafluorosilicate or hexafluorosilicic acid. Therefore in this case we have no test data to release nor names of clients - these simply do not exist.

Disodium hexafluorosilicate and hexafluorosilicic acid are classified by DWI as "Traditional Chemicals" for which there is no requirement to gain DWI appro-val for particular commercial products. Therefore individual commercial brands of these chemicals have never been listed or tested by DWI. We have done tests . . . but not in the case of these particular chemicals.

The quality of disodium hexafluorosilicate and hexa-fluorosilicic acid suitable for the treatment of drinking water is specified in BS ENs 12174 and 12175 respectively. These standards do not contain any requirement for third-party testing. It is up to the manufac-turer to ensure that their product meets the requirements . . .This would be done through in-house quality assurance procedures.

ENs 12174 and 12175 were produced by CEN TC164/WG9 in which I participate as Principal UK Expert. I am also the Chairman of BSI Committee CII/59 that provides the UK input to this CEN Committee and receives draft standards for comment. I am therefore in a good position to state categori-cally that no product testing was undertaken in the development of these ENs. No manufacturers of fluoridation chemicals partici-pated in WG9, or in its sub-committee Task Group 4. The specifications in ENs 12174 and 12175 were developed on the basis of existing standards . . . and codes of practice . . .

In only a very few cases have CEN TC164/WG9 Task Groups undertaken product testing . . not to determine the purity of products per se. In the case of disodium hexafluorosilicate and hexafluorosilicic acid, no testing at all would have been carried out since no manufacturer of these products participated in the work of WG9 or TG4. As noted above, it is the manufac-turer's responsibility to ensure that a product sold as confor-ming to a BS EN does in fact meet the specification. TG4 has now been disbanded since its work is complete and all of its members have now retired from their companies."

HE ADDED:

"To summarise:
1. WRc-NSF has not tested these chemicals. WRc-NSF does not have access to any information that NSF International may hold.
2. No approval or testing by DWI is required or has been carried out.
3. The BS ENs for these chemicals do not specify any third party test requirements. Quality assurance is provided by manufacturers who operate externally-assessed quality control systems.
4. No product testing was done in the course of developing the BS ENs."
 
The above sounds a bit bad, but I would bear in mind one thing - the resultant fluoridated water almost certainly is required to be tested. Even so, that's a crappy regulatory model.

Some more on the chemistry, that may be relevant. Sodium fluoride was the "original" compound used for water fluoridation, with positive sodium ions and negative fluoride ions. By contrast, the nowadays more commonly used fluorosilicic acid or sodium fluorosilicate contain hexafluorosilicate negative ions. I don't know how similarly or differently these behave in the body to "ordinary" fluoride items, or whether any testing has been done on the matter. (Sodium fluoride is easily handled and so probably used in most studies on fluoridation.)
 

Toothache

Let the music play!
is a Community Leader Alumnus
Dr Russell Blaylock, retired neurosurgeon, gives his knowledge and insight on the conspiracy surrounding fluoride, and how it is related to eugenics and population control. Its a long set of videos, but worth the viewing. Feel free to take things with a pinch of salt, I generally do, but then I did my own research and found much of the same things brought up in these videos. Its not scaremongering if the science proves things, bear in mind.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie6gJHqkSgc
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P3G_5u8aug
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvNNpv0_OQc
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzWreYp1qHA
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu63c02qG_Y
 
Why did the U.S. burn down all of the newly produced trains that connected each city when oil was discovered?
Why are the cities in the U.S. so god damn far from each other, and impossible to get around on eco friendly vehicles. i.e. bicycles.
Why is it that the only way to get around is by something with a gasoline engine?
 
Why did the U.S. burn down all of the newly produced trains that connected each city when oil was discovered?
Why are the cities in the U.S. so god damn far from each other, and impossible to get around on eco friendly vehicles. i.e. bicycles.
Why is it that the only way to get around is by something with a gasoline engine?
We were concentrating on the issue at present which was getting from one place to another as quick as possible, and allowing multiple people to get to multiple places on their own free will. And then we procrastinated a good amount so here we are with about 2 mass-produced-in-America electric vehicles (Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt) which are both not very useful at all when it comes to unpredictable variables like weather or the fact that your daily commute is as much as or more than the capacity by the very limited electric batteries
 
The above poster is mostly correct. A combination of dealing with the issue at hand, America's large size, and procrastination in going electric did help create the current situation. However, in a few Midwestern cities, car companies did help to block measures to build public transport, bicycle lanes, etc. In that light, you could call it a conspiracy, but it is what is naturally expected; a corporation acting in thier best interests, and nothing was really covered up.

Oh, and to day that railroad tycoons and car manufacturerd were conspiring is absurd, as it badly crippled the railroad buisiness. Have a nice day.
 

Toothache

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLyoFu_I1Us

Latest episode of 'Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura', covering conspiracies around the BP Oil Disaster. I've only come across this show recently, and I'm in catch up mode atm, but it does make for fascinating viewing.

Naturally, the secretive nature of the oil spill clean up has caused all sorts of fanciful stories to come up. The dispersant, Corexit, which the US government turned around and said 'stop using it, its dangerous', is apparently still being used, and doesn't even destroy the oil, it just makes it sink to the sea floor and gather there. Corexit was also used in the Exon Valdez disaster, and apparently almost everyone who was involved in the clean up is dead. Jesse reads out a list of some of the chemicals used in Corexit, and its pretty shocking.

Apparently, the conspiracy doesn't end there - the ultimate goal is to depopulate the entire Gulf area and turn it into a corporate playground. There is some suggestion that the disaster was deliberate, and admittedly some of the stock market moves before the oil spill are highly suspicious, including Halliburton's purchase of Boots and Coots, the world's biggest clean up company, 11 days before the disaster.

The doctor near the end of the episode is perhaps the most telling - apparently $40 bn is promised to help move people out of the area. Of course, the area is dangerous, partly from the oil, partly from the dispersant, but the suggestion is the spill is deliberate.

These are just the main points covered in the episode.
 

Toothache

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is a Community Leader Alumnus
Foundation X in House of Lords: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaA-5_IjkeE
Sky News interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbLEFrg5ZMI

Lord James of Blackheath, a peer in the House of Lords, puts forward a surprising proposal, apparently coming from a secretive 'Foundation X', offering to put money towards infrastructure in the UK.

Something to be concerned about, or something that will be beneficial? At this time, the UK is recovering slowly, but lack of jobs is still a huge issue. Apparently, according to the interview on Sky News, the idea is to improve the UK infrastructure, which will generate more jobs and aid the economy as a whole. Of course, a huge corporation will invest for the long term, so this is not a really altrustic gesture. The timing is interesting however, at a time when the UK is short, money is being offered, apparently free of strings, in the order of several billion pounds.

What's most interesting is the Vatican connection, and apparently the source of Foundation's X backing is covered by the gold standard; and gold is seeing a huge rise lately (incidentally, more as a weakening of the US dollar rather than a huge gold inflation).

So, who actually is this Foundation X, and what are their real agenda?
 
It all stems from paranoia and belief, two very malignant parts of the human consciousness if you ask me. Paranoia is a part of many psychosocial issues and is often linked with anxiety and depression.

Sadly, Dale Gribble on King of the Hill is a pretty good representation of the portion of the population that gets REALLY into things.

I view this a bit like Cryptozoology. Sometimes, as with the largest gecko known, it turns out that these cryptids exist (note: Cryptid =/= Lazarus taxa). That is a rare occurrence though, 99.99% of the time the ideas are full of shit. That said, I'm sure one or two of the conspiracy ideas floating around out there are true or trueish.

ALSO: It is not a theory. This drives me nanners. It is a guess or hypothesis at best. A theory is a praised and well backed up idea.
 

Toothache

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vyBYmv3bwY

Another episode of 'Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura', this one focusing on the events at the Pentagon in 9/11. 9/11 itself has a huge number of unanswered questions. It wasn't until last year that I realised there was a third building that collapsed at the WTC complex in 9/11. The least talked about aspect of 9/11 is the Pentagon impact.

The episode looks at whether a plane actually hit the Pentagon, or whether it was something like a bomb or a missile. Apparently, Donald Rumsfeld, who was Secretary of State at the time, gave a public address and stated that the government could not account for $2.3 trillion, the day before 9/11. Either by a quirk of fate, or by design, the records for all these transactions were the main focus of the impact into the side of the Pentagon building. The lack of wreckage is also a huge question mark.

The calls made from the flight were also brought into question, as one person showed how voices can be morphed to sound like someone completely different, even turning Jesse's own voice into that of a woman.

The episode wraps up with Jesse confronting a lawyer who was also a member of the 9/11 Commission. She says some pretty interesting stuff to be sure.
 
Conspiracies..

One question to you all. What are the reasons for the terrorists, wanting/desiring to destroy America. And don't throw me "because they are evil." They obviously have a good damn reason to excuse themselves to kill some innocent people. Also, I already know this answer to the question, and see what you people think
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
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One question to you all. What are the reasons for the terrorists, wanting/desiring to destroy America. And don't throw me "because they are evil." They obviously have a good damn reason to excuse themselves to kill some innocent people. Also, I already know this answer to the question, and see what you people think
Man, it's almost as if they have stated mission statements and their entire goal as an organization drives what they do!!!!

(but seriously you're not the sole enlightened wise man in a field of sheep, please don't be condescendingly holier-than-thou)

---
@Toothache I really hope you don't take that show even remotely seriously... Do I have to break it down bit by bit for you or do you have a really keen sense of irony?
 

Toothache

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I just post these as something to talk about. Of course I take everything with a pinch of salt, but I don't dismiss it out of hand either because of the subject matter. Besides, something like this has to be researched and sources backed up, so this show presents conspiracies with a grain of truth running through them. Once again, you can't prove or disprove either way, which is what makes them interesting debating points.

Also, the federal government did have one episode pulled from being reshown on network television, so maybe there is something they didn't want the general public to know about. The episode concerns something called 'FEMA camps', which the conspiracy peddlers make out to be concentration camps for the US citizens. I'll post a link for the episode when I find it, so people can decide for themselves what they want to believe.
 

cim

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The entire premise of the show is flawed.

First, it's aimed at entertaining. For that reason, boring or usual explanations will not be accepted. Secondoly, the show's name is Conspiracy Theory. They're promising to their viewers every week one big, blown up conspiracy. Because that's what they're getting paid to do (duh), it is in the show's best interest to drum up any and all potential conspiracies as much as possible. It's the same reason Glenn Beck calls everyone a terrorist every other week; anything less would mean people would not care to tune in.

If you build a show around conspiracies, you're inevitably going to fight to make sure there are conspiracies in every single show.

The irony of the show is that conspiracy theorists encourage looking past what's presented to you to find the real answer, yet the vast majority of the show is exactly that; things that can be disproven with a modicum of research.
 
Man, it's almost as if they have stated mission statements and their entire goal as an organization drives what they do!!!!

(but seriously you're not the sole enlightened wise man in a field of sheep, please don't be condescendingly holier-than-thou)


The terrorists are attacking for their sanity is gone. They were forced out of their homes, and their family members were killed. Other people heard of this and was enraged. "An eye for an eye," was enforced by the Muslims. When their sanity was gone, they took it as a mission to destroy whoever took their land and their relative's lives. Bin Laden himself is not the leader but another person.
This person's family's lives were taken and enraged by the thought that the Americans helped Israel take their holy land, and lives. Pretty much this is the main reason why terrorists are doing what they are doing. Also factor in that Western Colonization is being thrown in the Middle East, yet they have no right to do so.

Please correct me, if I am wrong
 

cim

happiness is such hard work
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My post was meant to be taken literally.

Though what makes you feel that you, and you alone, are the expert on terrorism more than anyone else on Smogon?
 
I am no expert on Middle East relations, but I will throw my two cents in. The point Network makes is legitimate; America was a big spearhead for the creation of Israel. What happened to Palestine would be considered an invasion if it wasn't UN sanctioned. The implementation was horrid and destined to fail from the beginning, and Israel didn't increase its good will in the region by taking most of the remaining Palestinian territory by claiming it needed it for self defense against future Muslim attacks (whether those claims are legitimate or not is for a different discussion). The US has also had its hands in other places in in the Middle East. It supported the overthrow of a legitimate regime in Iran, which eventually resulted in a backlash that led to the current theocratic Iran of today, and is still a major source of the bad blood between Iran and the US. I think the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq speak for themselves, though the one in Afghanistan was justified in my opinion.

HOWEVER, I'd argue that while these are all contributing factors to Middle East Islamic terrorism, they are no means the primary cause. While the US has indeed done some questionable things in the middle east, they have also done some positive things as well. The US helped overthrow the oppressive Soviet regime in Afghanistan (sure, it was a political move, but "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as they say). We came to Kuwait's aid when it was invaded by Iraq (also politically motivated to an extent, and the end result on Middle East opinion of the US is debatable, but still). Also, less directly related to the middle east, the US played a major role in stopping violence in Bosnia and Kosovo. While they are in Eastern Europe, they are indeed primarily Islamic countries.

I think the biggest cause of the rise in Middle Eastern Terrorism, or at least in regard to how its affects the US, is not some direct action by the US but a result of the globalization of Western culture. Conservative religious leaders see Western society as immoral and unethical, and as globalization spreads, they became increasingly scared of this culture corrupting their religious values. Thus a religion based backlash formed against Western culture. And who is the #1 symbol of western culture? The US of A.

Again, I'm sure this isn't comprehensive, this isn't a field I major in, and I haven't studied the topic in a while, so I hope I got all my facts straight. Just my two cents.

Oh yeah, conspiracy theories, they're ok i guess.
 

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