this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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askchapo
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The conspiracy dredge that the files attract is far more harmful to the seriousness of the situation/Epstein's crimes than off colour humour. It's almost impossible to know what's real or not with regards to the files now (unless you're prepared to read for hours about his crimes, which I have zero desire to) with conspiracy theorists blowing every single thing up.
can you justify your position here?
I tend to follow parapolitics/"conspiracy" stuff - i am seeing a lot of people who were being actively gaslit about it, completely validated.
not all conspiracy is "anunaki blood rituals to disguise the flat earth".
Sometimes it's having a mountain of evidence some group did something that never quite coalesces into a sure thing.
You spend some time looking at that material but maintaining skepticism, you notice two patterns - fantasy conspiracies - these are often emotionally driven affairs, with strong narrative throughlines, and obvious conclusions you can draw. There are more tells, but this is something like Pizzagate, for example.
A pizzagate type narrative would be a shitcoat. You take a true thing - there is a massive pedophile conspiracy involving powerful people. Then you make it ridiculous.
This sucks all the air out of the room. It kinda is the exact thing that whips you up into being mad about conspiracies.
But then there's like, "The CIA has clearly done something, they have oblique documented references, there are witnesses in the right time and place, there is some amount of material evidence..." - there's usually no story. No narrative. Nothing juicy - just this powerfully nasty outcome that's implied but not quite confirmed.
And I know a lot of people who follow the latter kind of conspiracy who are extremely validated right now.
They're probably talking more about right wing conspiracy than vindicated leftists. Parapolitics is not synonymous with (capital letters) Conspiracy Theorists
i'm really used to their conflation, sorry
It happens everywhere else, just not usually in these circles. I am saying probably though, can't speak for the OP