I pulled this off of Foreign Policy, where it’s explained that Hamas has accused Israel of tampering with chewing gum and allowing it to cross the border into Gaza in a diabolical scheme to enhance the sex drives of the locals.
And this is why I keep a box in my head marked “Stupid Things Said in the 3rd World”. Into this box I toss the propositions that the AIDS pandemic is a Western plot to prevent us from having sex, and that the WHO polio vaccine is designed to make us sterile… Because then I can compartmentalise my brain and I needn’t spent time trying to make sense of things that probably never will make sense. In my spare time (spare thinking time, that is, because so much of my time is spare time), I open up the box and ponder its contents, transporting myself into a wonderful world of intrigue and guile. Very exciting – very exciting – to consider that it’s all possible. The West could indeed be fighting a pervasive Fourth Generation War against key political targets, using novel and outlandish means to create paranoia, dissonance and social instability. The powers that be would maintain global hegemony by winning the war of ideas, while simultaneously disabling poor societies from pulling themselves out of the gutter. So where can I sign up?! I’m full of nefarious plots to compete for world domination! Sigh. Then I close the box, realising that if something’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.
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Stupid conspiracy theories are by no means limited to the third world. e.g.
…Have you heard Obama is a Kenyan/Indonesian/Muslim who won’t produce his birth certificate…
…The Moon landings were faked…
… C- Augustus was competent enough to have organised & executed 9/11
etc, etc.
People tend to believe what they are told, which is why I have a box labeled “Stupid things people say”. It is a big box.