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Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 16, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What is the most enjoyable conspiracy / new age belief to hold? I don’t mean convincing or beneficial, but just pure fun. Like, if beliefs were games or desserts, which belief would you buy to enjoy for an overindulgent weekend?

Enclosed Earth—the planet is not just flat, it's entirely contained within an artificial dome that displays a fake universe. Neatly gets around some of the problems with a simple flat Earth. Plus you get an entirely new boogeyman, the Dome-builders, and the various space agencies and militaries of the world may be in contact with them or may just be terrified of them. The best part is, what's outside the dome could be literally anything, you can go any direction you want, since all our evidence about the universe is faked.

Similarly, the Inverse Hollow Earth. We live on the hollow inside of a sphere. When we look up into space, we're looking into the interior of the sphere. Distances are inversed or light naturally curves or something like that to make it look like there's a vast universe within this hollow sphere. But since we live on the inside surface, the "underground" rocks are actually the outside of the sphere, which just extends outward forever, like scientists claim "space" does.

The US government maintains a time travel base on Mars. They bring future Presidents to the base to show them their future to guide and/or control them.

Inverse hollow Earth is the best one because, as a simple coordinate transformation, it's 100% correct.

If you take conspiracy theories seriously, there is nothing "enjoyable" there. Who is supposed to enjoy that they (whoever "they" are) are deceiving the mankind for decades and centuries with no end in sight for nefarious gains and getting away with it?

World where conspiracy theorists are right is nightmare fuel.

(Exceptions might be various "forbidden technology" conspiracies, claiming that free energy is kept secret by Big Oil and miracle cures for all diseases are suppressed by Big Pharma. This universe, if real, would be awesome - just break into these secret vaults and Star Trek utopia is here.)

This explains the temporary success of Qanon - this was rare conspiracy that claimed that good guys are out there fighting the good fight.

  1. Tartaria
  2. The existence of tulpas

Tartaria

Tartaria is the perfect product of late Soviet and post-Soviet decay and disappointment.

"No, we are not decrepit shithole that is laughingstock of the world! We wuz khans, and tsars, and sultans, and pharaohs, the whole world once belonged to Great Russian Tartarian Horde!"

The fact it is, beyond all expectations, gaining fans in the West, is significant.

tulpas

Nothing mysterious about self induced schizophrenia, and, seen from the outside, nothing particularly enjoyable either.

edit: link