Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

gizmodo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 65 posts

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#21

Post by roenxi »

rootusrootus wrote: post #10
ulfbert_inc wrote: post #8

>Wearing one signals to others that you’re unhinged, have a deep distrust of the government, or that you’re really worried about aliens. >have a deep distrust of the government sure Gizmodo, being distrustful of a massive power entity is a lunacy /s

Lunacy is seeing “deep state” conspiracies everywhere. That’s not healthy skepticism.

That is getting in to citation needed territory. The state in most countries controls between 30 and 60% of the GDP. It is a prime target for corruption and anyone who likes money or abusing power will be drawn to it like a magnet. Pretty much all of the major powers are spying on almost literally everything that happens on the internet and we know that reasonably stable societies can go full Nazi in less than 20 years which is a legitimately terrifying combination.

An entity with that level of power and reach deserves extreme scepticism. As we discovered through the noble sacrifice of a lot of Chinese and Russians the people in bureaucracies are quite comfortable with accidentally causing millions of needless deaths through sheer administrative efficiency in implementing bad policies.

The problem with deep state conspiracies isn't the level of scepticism, it is that the theories don't protect the people who hold them. Knowing that a bureaucrat is willing to disarm you then starve you to death ... does not help that much when the army or secret police gets involved.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#23

Post by gumby »

bee_rider wrote: post #9

These days, conspiracy theorists seem to be some of the most open to manipulation folks out there. > Even though “tin foil hat” is the expression, most people use aluminum foil these days. This is probably why, we’ve been duped! They replaced the tin with aluminum. Everyone knows aluminum has mind control enhancing, not reducing, powers.

I still mask (and wear a flo mask to boot!) -- now I wonder if people think I'm a conspiracy theorist?

I have a soft spot for conspiracy theorists: they have such a charitable view of humanity that they believe a large number of people can keep a secret.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#24

Post by bee_rider »

gumby wrote: post #23
bee_rider wrote: post #9

These days, conspiracy theorists seem to be some of the most open to manipulation folks out there. > Even though “tin foil hat” is the expression, most people use aluminum foil these days. This is probably why, we’ve been duped! They replaced the tin with aluminum. Everyone knows aluminum has mind control enhancing, not reducing, powers.

I still mask (and wear a flo mask to boot!) -- now I wonder if people think I'm a conspiracy theorist? I have a soft spot for conspiracy theorists: they have such a charitable view of humanity that they believe a large number of people can keep a secret.

I’d tend to assume you are immune compromised or were dealing with some other none-of-my-business thing like that.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#25

Post by tombert »

bee_rider wrote: post #18
throwup238 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that has always been the case. Dale Gribble predates the latest round of conspiracy madness by a few years and he was just as gullible. He’s the archetypal conspiracy theorist of the 90s.

But nowadays with TikTok and YouTube, Dale Gribble can become an influencer, and at home video editing is so good that he can have his own green-screened newsroom with all the accoutrements of respectability. Or he could just start a podcast.

Very tangential, but the voice actor of Dale (Johnny Hardwick, RIP) actually had YouTube videos playing Dale as Rust Shackleford in The Rusty Report. My head canon says that this is where Dale ended up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wiVDr-Pr5o

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#26

Post by dingnuts »

roenxi wrote: post #21
rootusrootus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunacy is seeing “deep state” conspiracies everywhere. That’s not healthy skepticism.

That is getting in to citation needed territory. The state in most countries controls between 30 and 60% of the GDP. It is a prime target for corruption and anyone who likes money or abusing power will be drawn to it like a magnet. Pretty much all of the major powers are spying on almost literally everything that happens on the internet and we know that reasonably stable societies can go full Nazi in less than 20 yea…

> the theories don't protect the people who hold them. Knowing that a bureaucrat is willing to disarm you then starve you to death ... does not help that much when the army or secret police gets involved.

the unelected bureaucrat branch of the US government, referred to as the "deep state" by some, is so large and powerful due to funding.

The people who use the term "deep state" unironically are engaged in political activism where they are arguing for dismantling, drawing down, and defunding bureaus that they feel are out of control.

it's ironic that these activists are dismissed by you as being mere "conspiracy theories". it's like calling BLM a conspiracy theory. people who are fighting the power of unelected bureaucrats are political activists. They're just defamed by the same machine that they're opposed to. What a shock! The people in power defame and attempt to discredit those who seek to remove them from power.

Truly, if you do not understand the complaints of those who decry the undeserved and overgrown power of the deep state, you are not thinking about the position of those who hold those views long enough to understand them. You don't have to AGREE with them, but they aren't touting a conspiracy theory. The administrative state exists, is large, has power, and these are activists who want to change that.

They want to stop it before there are secret police or the army is corrupted. Of course, the CIA is secret police, and they coined the epithet "conspiracy theory" that you repeat in order to discredit these activists. Coincidence?

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#28

Post by pessimizer »

rootusrootus wrote: post #10
ulfbert_inc wrote: post #8

>Wearing one signals to others that you’re unhinged, have a deep distrust of the government, or that you’re really worried about aliens. >have a deep distrust of the government sure Gizmodo, being distrustful of a massive power entity is a lunacy /s

Lunacy is seeing “deep state” conspiracies everywhere. That’s not healthy skepticism.

Unless you're talking about any of America's current enemies list, where not seeing state conspiracies everywhere is not healthy skepticism.

The real question is when will they start treating skepticism as a medical condition, and how can I invest now in the drugs that will be advertised to treat it?

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#29

Post by stetrain »

roenxi wrote: post #21
rootusrootus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lunacy is seeing “deep state” conspiracies everywhere. That’s not healthy skepticism.

That is getting in to citation needed territory. The state in most countries controls between 30 and 60% of the GDP. It is a prime target for corruption and anyone who likes money or abusing power will be drawn to it like a magnet. Pretty much all of the major powers are spying on almost literally everything that happens on the internet and we know that reasonably stable societies can go full Nazi in less than 20 yea…

Corruption, as in individuals working in their own interest in a way that best provides them power and/or lines their pockets, is different than a grand conspiracy that a large percentage of that state is working together on a secret project that they have guarded from the public.

The government is not "an entity", it is layers and levels of elected and unelected officials working towards their own personal goals.

The idea that many of them do things that they shouldn't for personal gain is fairly obvious.

Ideas that huge numbers of them are working together in secret across both public and private sector to execute a singular master plan, fake a moon landing, mess with the population via brain wave broadcasts, spread chemtrails via commercial aircraft, etc. with zero hard evidence are on an entirely different level.

Re: Where did the idea of the tin foil hat come from?

#30

Post by pessimizer »

drewcoo wrote: post #16
bee_rider wrote: post #9

These days, conspiracy theorists seem to be some of the most open to manipulation folks out there. > Even though “tin foil hat” is the expression, most people use aluminum foil these days. This is probably why, we’ve been duped! They replaced the tin with aluminum. Everyone knows aluminum has mind control enhancing, not reducing, powers.

> These days, conspiracy theorists seem to be some of the most open to manipulation folks out there. "Conspiracy theories" are narratives counter to the status quo. Arguably more people are "manipulated" into following the status quo. Thus, I would argue that "conspiracy theorists" may be the least likely folks to be "manipulated."

A popular theory a few years ago is that people who believe in extremely unlikely and sometimes nonsensical explanations of current events are actually too shrewd. They understand better than most that all of the information they receive is compromised for the benefit of powerful others, but in the desperation for information that isn't mercenary, they turn to random gurus who aren't connected to or knowledgeable about anything.

You see that impulse a lot on HN and other forums, when they decry some study as "biased" because the author of the study is well-known to believe that what the study shows is true. For them, the people who initiate studies would ideally be people with no knowledge about or interest in the subject that they are studying. Anything less than that is obviously an intentional manipulation.

Post reply on HN