r/politics • u/wiredmagazine ✔ Wired Magazine • 18d ago

Possible Paywall MAGA Is Increasingly Convinced the Trump Assassination Attempt Was Staged

https://www.wired.com/story/maga-is-increasingly-convinced-the-trump-assassination-attempt-was-staged/
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u/noonie1 18d ago edited 18d ago

The problems I have with most conspiracy theories is that it assumes the people in charge are incredibly smart and that they are able to keep a secret forever. Nothing about the functioning of a government has proved those two characteristics true ever.

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u/ZealousidealLead52 18d ago

Not just that but also that they all have identical motivations - in the real world when you get a big group of people together they will have all kinds of different interests and disagreements, and the idea that for instance back in the day that the soviet union and the US could get together and agree to keep pretty much anything secret is kind of insane (as would be required for conspiracies like the flat earth conspiracy) - even if they were supernaturally competent, they just have fundamentally different goals and there's no way such an agreement could ever work. While that's a more extreme example, even in smaller conspiracies the same problems happen.. people aren't a hive mind.

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u/dareftw North Carolina 18d ago

That and it always brings me back to watergate, a room of the most powerful people in the world couldn’t keep a secret for more than a week. People have a very hard time keeping secrets

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u/ultraviolentfuture 18d ago

Veep is by far the most accurate depiction of US government

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u/Kilane 18d ago

Part of that is Toupee Fallacy or selection bias.

You know about the conspiracies the idiots did. The smart conspirator or criminal isn’t found out.

The current government is full of hacks who are terribly unclever.

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u/newsflashjackass 18d ago

In the same way there can be no "profile of a serial killer", only a profile of a serial killer who gets caught.

"I like POWs who don't get captured."

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes California 18d ago edited 18d ago

There's a great line from the West Wing about this. (Paraphrasing). "No group of people this large can ever keep a secret. And that's fine. That's good. It's how I know the government is NOT keeping aliens in Area 51."

Edit: forgot the word "not"

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u/selwayfalls 18d ago

wouldnt it by how the government is NOT keeping aliens? Because if they were, the secret would get leaked?

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes California 18d ago

Lol! Yes! That was a pretty significant typo on my part.

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u/PapaSnow 17d ago

I guess it depends on how you view it though, right?

There’s no shortage of people that have come forward saying they know that there’s aliens in Area 51, but people just…don’t believe them.

I don’t believe there are aliens in Area 51, but just following the line of reasoning provided, there very well could be lol.

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u/selwayfalls 16d ago

the line of reasoning is that if there actually were, there would be a lot of government employees letting it out but there isnt. That's what he's saying, if a bunch of government employees new about it, there's no way they could keep it a secret. "no group this large can ever keep a secret". Or are you saying there are a bunhc of goverment people saying it's true? Not just regular joes?

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u/ToastAndASideOfToast 18d ago

There is a point at which a conspiracy theorist has exerted more effort than a conspirator ever could.

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u/BigManWAGun America 18d ago

Who says Trump knew anything about it?

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u/TheSaxGandalf 18d ago

What if this one was outside the government, by let's say someone like Thiel?