• Doug@piefed.social
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    11 days ago

    I discovered recently my normally-quiet uncle is neck deep in believing the most convoluted alien conspiracy theory I’d ever heard. For ten breathless minutes he went on about believing aliens are real (which I’m open minded about), children who exhibit esp (extra sensory perception) in public schools are abducted by some shady group (with the teacher’s permission/doing) and hired by the CIA to takeover people’s minds and bodies without their say so. Also sold into sex slavery used by billionaires (which… I mean when I heard that part I was like “bud, THAT part might be true, but the how probably isn’t”), also were not on earth right now, we’re going somewhere else? In an earth simulation? TBH I tuned him out or didn’t commit a lot of it to memory.

    Anyways, ye gods, what rabbit holes there are lying out there for people to fall into.

      • Doug@piefed.social
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        11 days ago

        I literally asked zero follow up questions and kept trying to signal to him I was not interested. My spouse, on the other hand, was fascinated when I came home and told them about it, so maybe I’ll have answers for you another time.

        He did send me a YouTube link via text, which I have not clicked, and said I could learn more on Gaia, which I have no idea what that is.

        • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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          11 days ago

          Gaia is the classic Greek goddess of the earth, but there are lots of insane new age theories that use the same name.

          usually they are talking about like some unified spirit of all nature or something that we all have to get back to, that sort of shit.

    • The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 days ago

      Since we aren’t capable of gaining absolute knowledge, we’re cursed with having to each set our personal threshold for skepticism/credulity. Setting it too low like your quiet uncle seems like it would be a confusing nightmare.

      I tend to be skeptical, but I still went down a rabbit hole the other day re: aliens after indirectly reading about “sightings” in Europe in the 1600s. This one was fascinating:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1665_celestial_phenomenon_over_Stralsund