Stingray writing at Atomic Nerds totally nails the troofer movement - conspiracy theories, etc...
Truther@home
The last time LabRat let bitey off the leash, it prompted Tam to ponderCommenter MarkHB opined in replyThis ties in nicely with one of my favorite questions I ponder while chewing pencils to splinters, which is "Why do fuckwits love conspiracy theories?"Well, not quite so much, I suspect. Now, take all of the following with a large pillar of salt. LabRat is the bio-geek of the household, so calling anything I'm about to say an oversimplified generalization is a bit like saying a man struck by lightning is feeling a bit under the weather, but the problem as I see it is that they can't help but think.Glib answer: It saves them having to think.
When your computer doesn't have anything to do, the processor can throttle down. It doesn't need to be grinding away very hard just to run a screen saver. The brain, however, is not like this. When the brain has unallocated processing capacity, it pretty much has to find something to do. It finds a book to read. It loads Halo and tosses sticky grenades onto Brutes. It writes a web browser plugin to make thumbnailing images easier. It writes a blog. It follows TV shows obsessively and creates fandoms. No matter what it is with that free time, it does something. Since you can't just install seti@home on the wetware between your ears, that means it's up to the individual to find some way to use those spare brain cycles. Some people try to just throttle down the processor, trying to achieve a perfectly empty mind through meditation, but about the point where the mind is good and empty, some stray thought pops in. Probably something along the lines of "Wow, that cow looks like I feel right now all the time. I bet there isn't a stray thought in there messing up his day. That cow has it all figured out!" And then that leads to silliness like the notion that you had lived before and since you once ate a cow you were cosmically screwed until you atone for having lunch off the critter that's got it all figured out, and then -- sorry, kinda got off on a tangent there*.
There are plenty of great outlets for these spare cycles, too. Smart folks redefine physics, or write best-selling novels. Then there are not so great outlets, like gay incestuous male-pregnancy Harry Potter fanfic, or more to the current point, conspiracy theories.
What follows is wonderful. Nails it -- totally nails it!
