Why I have no patience for conspiracy theories

I have little to no patience with conspiracy theory stuff. It is all such a collosal waste of time and effort. My basic response is always. So what? So there are secret alien moon bases that NASA knows about and are hiding the fact from us, and that is why they stopped going to the moon cause the aliens told them to back off, (oh, wait, did they actually go to the moon?). Even if any of this is real, what the hell am I or anyone else supposed to do about it? Why the hell would anyone waste a nano-second of their time on this rubbish? I can do something about my community, I can help out my local councillors election campaign, I can talk to city committees about traffic isssues, or let the cops know about something that isn’t copacetic, etc. What the hell am I supposed to do about the “secret world government”? I have no power to control those sorts of things, so why fret about it.

It just boils down to this pathological need to believe something, no matter how outlandish, to be “in on the secret.” Alex Dice and Alex Jones and their ilk...they’re charlatans. They can make up the most outlandish nonsense, and gullible fools with the part of the brain that I’m apparently missing that allows them to fall for it, buy into it. No proof needed of course. Just outlandish conjecture and supposition. And people waste untold amounts of their lives on it. Sit around in a big internet circle jerk telling each other how enlightened they are cause they’re “in on the secret.” Not sure exactly what the hell any of them think they’re going to do about it, but anyway. Getting involved in their local community to affect change likely doesn’t have as much appeal. Not as sexy or as easy as endlessly discussing how JESUS WAS AN ALIEN WHO WAS IN CAHOOTS WITH THE FREEMASONS WHO HAD PRINCESS DIANA MURDERED AFTER BILL GATES IMPLANTED A MIND CONTROL CHIP IN HER BRAIN BECAUSE THE CIA MANIPULATE THE WORLD BANK TO HELP THE ZIONISTS SUPRESS THE INCANS WHO SACRIFICED ILLUMINATI AFTER THEY EXPOSED EVIDENCE OF MI6 EFFORTS TO HIDE UFOS UNDER THE PYRAMIDS WHICH ARE REALLY THE SECRET HEADQUARTERS OF THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION THAT IS THE TRUE FACE OF THE VATICAN WHO USE SAS SOLDIERS TO ENSURE THE SWISS CARRY BIO-METRIC IDENTIFICATION CARDS TO HELP THE BILDERBER GROUP FORCE MOZAMBIQUAN CHILDREN TO DIG FOR UNOBTANIUM THAT IS USED FOR COVERT ANTI-MUSLIM PSY-OPS IN THE TUNNELS UNDER TOKYO WHERE CANISTERS ARE FILLED WITH BIO-WEAPONS AND FLOWN VIA RUSSIAN PLANES TO HIDDEN SOUTH PACIFIC ISLAND BASES WHERE NEO-NAZIS EXPERIMENT ON SOMALI PIRATES WHOSE TRUE AIM IS TO REVEAL EVIDENCE OF CHINESE EFFORTS TO CONTROL THE WORLD PHARMACEUTICAL MARKET SO MOSSAD CAN ASSASSINATE MICHAEL MOORE BECAUSE HE'S ABOUT TO REVEAL HOW NASA FAKED THE MOON LANDINGS SO BUSH AND THE NEO-CONS COULD PULL OFF 9-11!!!!!!!!!

Came across something I wrote a few years ago in response to a conspiracy kook I know who posted a video on Facebook showing a “doctor”, Tulio Simoncini, discussing how cancer is really a fungus. And his treatment? Infusions of baking soda. Wow, this just reeks of a conspiracy, so he’s all over it. ‘Big pharmaceutical companies are keeping this guy down, maaaaan!’ Well, this of course got a response from me.

I think there is a duck outside my window because all I’m hearing is “quack! quack! quack!”

The most cursory Google search on his name reveals that he’s been convicted of fraud and manslaughter in Italy, and he’s also being investigated for similar accusations in other jurisdictions in Europe. His license to practice medicine has been revoked in Italy. Doctors are a valuable commodity. Their licenses aren’t revoked because his tie wasn’t this seasons style. It takes something really damn serious for that to happen. That’s what a detective would call a clue.

This man is a shill and a charlatan. He preys on the most vulnerable people. The 35 year old mother, who has been told her cancer will kill her in a few months, whose oldest daughter just went into grade 2 and who desperately wants to continue being a mother to her 3 children. With no where else to turn, all other avenues exhausted, she turns to this smooth talking snake oil salesman. He promises her hope, and desperate, she falls for it. And of course the only person who benefits is him. He is despicable on a whole other level of despicable.

It’s such a damn cliché, you could use a checklist for these cranks.
[√] Global cross-specialty conspiracy
[√] I’m the only one who knows the obvious truth
[√] Here is my treatment, BigPharma can’t patent it or make money off it, so I will
[√] Why publish in scientific journals if you can publish books that are sold in health food stores
[√] Deaths are coincidental or because of the illness, recovery is due to my treatment

To which he replied with “Yeah, but what did you think of the video?” (The video was Simoncini giving a talk to a rapturous audience of about a hundred or so, and interviews with three acolytes “cured” by him.)

I thought it was little more than a Peter Popoff faith healer sermon. A hundred true believers doesn’t really constitute incontrovertible proof. Three people claiming that he cured them doesn’t really confer iron clad evidence.

If two dozen oncologists were interviewed and they all claimed that this man was on to something, that he may well have the cure to cancer rather than a bogus scam that he stood to profit from, then, then, I might be somewhat swayed.

I’ve said it before, but let me say it again. Proof. Where is the proof?

Let me explain to you how science works. You have a theory, you design a study to investigate this theory, you have carefully laid down parameters, and you conduct your experiment. You very carefully record your results. If the theory is borne out, you publish your findings in a peer reviewed journal. Others in your field of study analyze your findings, and critique it or applaud it. Other scientists set out to reproduce your results, possibly in a larger test group, and if they have success they publish their findings, then others study their findings in peer reviewed journals and present it at lectures in front of other experts in the field.

Please show me this “doctors” peer reviewed studies? Oh, he doesn’t actually have any? Oh, he published a book that is sold in health food stores between the macrobiotic recipe book and the latest fad diet book?

Maybe this guys “findings” are the breakthrough everyone has been looking for. Maybe baking soda really is the cure for cancer. Then prove it! Prove it in a quantifiable way, do double blind studies, solicit the opinions of your peers in the field, have others reproduce your results. If it’s real, you can reproduce the results.

But this? This is vague wishy washy nonsense, that appeals to crackpots railing against Big-Pharma-Business-Corporate-Cartels, and desperate, terrified people who are clutching at straws to stay alive a little longer.

Until he publishes satisfactory findings in scientific journals, he’s nothing more than a quack and a fraud, who is giving people false hope and causing harm.

In case you can’t tell, I really loathe conspiracy theory bullshit.