this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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This drives me nuts.
When I was in grad school, we had our weekly seminar. A student in our group had to go give a review-presentation on a topic of their choosing each week for our brown bag lunch meetings. People would usually present on topics related or adjacent to their actual work, because doing the reading and research for their presentation was part of their larger knowledge gain and broadening related to their own field.
But this one guy presented about how the world was going to end in 2012. He was serious -- some how he had made it into grad school, fooling everyone. We all thought it was some sort of Andy Kaufmann-esque prank he was playing on it, holding a straight face while presenting -- complete with references to conspiracy websites.
He lost his funding shortly thereafter.
The weird thing is, losing his funding probably reinforced his belief in the conspiracy. Persecution complexes can be very powerful things.
That's the insidious thing about conspiracy theories once they latch onto the brain. Any consequences or conflicting information just become "them" trying to subdue or mislead you.
He can't be too upset. The world didn't end in 2012 so his hypothesis was wrong.
I wonder what all those 2012 people say today?
Same thing all numerologists will say: ah, something was wrong with the calculation. The world will actually end (insert some new date in the near future, so the grift can continue).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events
History is full of this stuff :)
Was one of them, many of us coped by saying something subtle "changed" that will become noticeable later.