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Most of us, hearing words like “secret,” “CIA” and “coverup” tend to immediately imagine tinfoil-hat wearing conspiracy theorists. More often than not then not, this is the case, but to paraphrase the old saying, truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. So the more facts you learn about different parts of history, science and technology, the more unusual you realize the world really is.
Someone asked “What’s something that sounds like a conspiracy theory but is actually true?” and people shared the best examples that they knew. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to comment your own examples below.

#1

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True That corporations openly bribe politicians to get what they want

They call it lobbying to get away with it.

Naughty07Rose , August de Richelieu/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#2

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True In the 60s and 70s, thousands of Native American women were sterilized without their consent as part of a practice to sterilize poor and minority women to "help their financial situation and their family's quality of life" by preventing unwanted pregnancies in poor communities.

Some were not informed at all and had it done to them completely without their knowledge, others were threatened with having their healthcare taken away if they did not agree to have it done to them. Some studies estimate that as many as 25-50% of Native American women were sterilized in the 1970s, representing tens of thousands of victims.

This is essentially a modern day genocide in the United States.

Dreamy21Lady , Karolina Kaboompics/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#3

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The McDonalds PR machine tried to ruin Stella Liebeck’s life. That coffee was so hot it melted her clothing to her genitals. People still believe she was at fault. I turn it around and ask how they’d feel if a parent accidentally spilled coffee on their child that was so hot it melted the child’s clothes to her/his body. Somehow it usually wakes people up.

SensuallDoll , Lisa Fotios/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#4

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True In 2016 a former reality tv show host vying for political office began working to convince citizens of the United States that the election he was participating in was rigged, only to learn that he had actually won the election. 4 years later in 2020, when seeking re-election, this same politician attempted to again convince the citizens of the United States that the very same election process that had given him his then current position was rigged... this time of course he lost the election. This time however he had in fact convinced a large number of people that the election was rigged.

...**And now I can't have a normal family dinner because its apparently a conspiracy that the United States of America has a voting system that works.**.

jppope , cottonbro studio/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#5

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True In 2002 a cable technician named Mark Klein working for AT&T in San Francisco was sitting at his desk when he received an email from his bosses that a representative from the National Security Agency (NSA) would be coming to visit for some unspecified reason. He was to give this NSA technician access to a cable substation for him to perform some work. The tech did his thing and Mark moved on without thinking anything of it.

A year later in 2003, Mark was transferred to that cable substation and by chance was assigned to monitor the “Internet Room”. This was the room where all the fiber optic ocean cables that carry the countries internet traffic terminate. While he was reviewing engineering drawings, he realized that the schematics revealed a secret room. More importantly, the plans showed cabinets filled with fiber optic splitters coming off every cable and feeding into the secret room. And to make it even crazier, neither he nor anyone on his team had access to the secret room.

Through his investigation, he discovered that the NSA representative he had escorted the previous year had worked to install this system which was sending a copy of all the internet traffic that passed through the substation straight to the NSA. In other words, he had proof that the federal government had the capacity to tap into all internet traffic in the country. And I mean all of it. Every email, instant message, electronic sale, medical or criminal records, research databases. Everything. Complete unrestricted access.

Like any sane person, he was extremely disturbed by this discovery. He went to his higher ups but was essentially told to just keep it quiet. After retiring in 2004, he linked up with a group called Electronic Frontier Foundation and essentially blew the whistle. He did interviews and handed over all his evidence to reporters.

I watched one of these interviews in 2006 which is how I know about this story. I remember thinking it was so obvious once he explained it. Why wouldn’t the NSA tap into the internet traffic in the age of the war on terror? I’d watched Enemy of the State. But nothing happened. No one I spoke to seemed to believe it and Mark Klein’s story eventually seemed to just fade away.

7 years later, in 2013, Edward Snowden leaked documents essentially confirming EVERYTHING and then some. But to this day everyone looks at me like a crazy person when I talk about knowing about it as early as 2006.

FriendlyEngineer , Democracy Now! Report

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#6

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The chemicals in the water are turning the frogs gay.

Atrazine, a chemical produced by the pesticide company Syngenta has been proven to mess with the endocrine system of frogs and turn them into hermaphrodites and can even cause them to display homosexual behavior, preferring the company of other male frogs rather than females ones.

It can also cause prostate cancer and birth defects and is in the drinking water of several states, so yeah, there's that too.

AlrightInsight , Pixabay/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#7

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True **”Big Tobacco Cover-Up”** is a prime example. For decades, tobacco companies knew about the harmful and addictive effects of smoking but actively suppressed research, manipulated data, and marketed cigarettes as safe. It wasn’t until the 1990s, after internal documents were leaked, that the truth about their deceitful practices was fully exposed.

TheNaughtyMare_ , Petar Starčević/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#8

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The US and the UK conspired to overthrow Iran's democratically-elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and restore the autocratic regime of the Pahlavi monarchy. They did this because Mosaddegh tried to nationalize Iran's oil industry.

JusticeFrankMurphy , fararu Report

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#9

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Nestle's baby formula scandal

Nestle aggressively marketed baby formula to mothers in developing countries by giving free samples to hospitals and buying up billboards. The mothers would use them instead of breast milk and eventually stop producing breast milk. Then they'd need to buy formula to continue feeding their babies. Formula needed to be mixed with water but because they often didn't have clean water, they'd put their babies at risk mixing the formula with unclean water. Also, literacy rates were lower in a lot of those places so the mothers didn't know how to clean the bottles and couldn't read the instructions on the packaging. Those that did often didn't have the means to carry them out. A lot of them being poorer also resorted to watering down the formula to try and make it last longer but then it wouldn't have enough nutrients for the baby.

Nestle downplayed all of this and said it wasn't their responsibility that people here didn't really have access to clean water and that they were just giving people the freedom of choice.

indianajoes , Sarah Chai/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#10

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Many prisons in the US are private, for-profit companies. They get paid by the head, and also employ the prisoners for pennies per hour to do work like telemarketing. You've probably talked to a prisoner on the phone without realizing.

sonic_tower , RDNE Stock project/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#11

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The Maxwell and Epstein stuff .. essentially the tip of the iceberg of high profile human trafficking and p*dophilia that goes virtually unmentioned.

78Anonymous , Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department Report

#12

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The Stolen Generation in Australia

Up until the f*****g 1950s the Australian government, euthanized, sterilised and ripped children from their parents in order to try to "civilise" the native Aboriginal people by educating the black out of them.

mountingconfusion , Hugo Heimendinger/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#13

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True That we know covid harms our brains, hearts, immune systems and that every infection does more harm
:(.

Renmarkable , Anna Shvets/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#14

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True I’m surprised that I haven’t seen Operation Paperclip yet. After defeating the N*zis, the US government gave 1600 of them government jobs here.

Mission_Reply_2326 , NASA Report

#15

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Operation Snow White

Basically, during the 70s the Church of Scientology was concerned with all the bad press surrounding them and all the other dirt on them that could be released. So they used a huge number of contacts that they had in various US government agencies to destroy all negative information about the church of Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard. The crazy thing is, they succeeded with much of the plan before they were caught. There was a s**t-ton of negative info on Scientology in the 70s, possibly enough to destroy the church, and it'll never see the light of day because they used their huge influence to have it destroyed.

GazelleSome6177 , Joshua Santos/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#16

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The fact that major social media platforms use algorithms specifically designed to keep you addicted. They analyze your behavior to show you more content that will keep you scrolling, even if it’s not good for your mental health. It sounds like a conspiracy, but it's a well-documented reality.

own_pleasure777 , Edmond Dantès/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#17

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True GM, IBM, and Ford played a major role in rearming Germany in the 1930s. George Bush's grandfather Senator Prescott Bush was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of the German forces.

Dreamy00Queen , Louis Fabian Bachrach Jr. Report

#18

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The U.S. Public Hearth “Service” chose not to treat 400 African-American with syphillis in Alabama so they could study the progress of the disease if untreated.

SeamusPM1 , Hazal Celik/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#19

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The war in Ukraine started in 2014 but the media reports that it started in 2022.

ElPeacePro , Mathias Reding Mathias Reding/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#20

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Around a month ago russian state media got caught spending millions on american YouTubers to ensure they are worried about immigration n s**t. Tim pool, dave Rubin. .

Impressive_Essay_622 , freestocks.org/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#21

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The CIA funded and organized the overturn of several south and Central American socialist governments.

Horny55Women , Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#22

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Your iPhone is designed to start getting worse as soon as the new models come out.

I remember this being a big deal like 7 or 8 years ago. Someone can fact check me as I'm hazy on the details, but I believe its related to the battery. Every year, the same week that the new iPhone comes out, the latest iOS becomes available for download. The new iOS is not optimized for your current device's battery, and as such the phone compromises performance in order to maintain a similar battery life. Coupled with the normal wear and tear on the battery, your phone will start sucking just so the battery can last a little longer.

srstone71 , Irina Iriser/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#23

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Operation Northwoods
I believe it was called, back in the day was WILD.
The US government tried to plan a false flag attack on US soil as justification to officially declare war on Cuba.
They tried to make people look crazy or make us think "the government would never do that to us" then it turned out they actually wanted to do it/became public knowledge.

dg0ss3 , National Archives Report

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#24

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The Greenbrier Bunker. People love conspiracies about huge underground complexes built for the rich and famous to survive nuclear fallouts (think Denver airport), and that's *exactly what Greenbrier is*. The bunker was built under the Greenbrier Resort for congresspeople to escape to, and was kept a secret for 30 years, even though people suspected ("why's there a 7,000 foot air strip for a town of 3,000 people?"). For the entire time it was functional, every congressperson was assigned a bunk. These days you can take tours, and I'm sure we'll hear about the next bunker once it's defunct.

Own_Possession_1769 , The A. W. Smith News Agency, Charleston, W. Va. "Tichnor Quality Views," Report

#25

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The pentagon has an insane number of bathrooms because as they were building it, the segregation of bathrooms ended.

Petite_0Doll , Pixabay/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#26

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Government Surveillance: Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was conducting mass surveillance on citizens, collecting data from internet communications, phone calls, and other sources.

SensualBabex , Kevin Ku/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#27

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Confirmed decades later by the ex secretary of defense as being entirely false, consequences of the incident were utterly appalling.

Quietdiver1979 , U.S. Navy Report

#28

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Amelia Earhart landed on an uninhabited Pacific island and died as a castaway, making distress calls for days that were initially acted upon, then later disavowed by the Navy as 'hoaxes' after their botched search failed to find the plane.

Three years later, bones were found by the British military on the island next to parts of a woman's shoe. The bones were misidentified as male by an unqualified examiner and then lost. Measurements of the bones were later unearthed from the British records and when run through modern forensics were proven to be Northern European female.

zigthis , Underwood & Underwood Report

#29

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True That the Ministry of Information in the UK spread misinformation that eating lots of carrots could improve night vision during WWII. They made this up to confuse the Germans. They had a new radar tech that allowed them to pinpoint German bombers from greater distances than before, and the carrot story was a ruse.

That said, I don't know what's true on the internet these days, so I'm half waiting for the comment that this story in itself was a ruse...

Kennadian , Markus Spiske/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#30

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True That the US Government actually had a Paranomal unit. That movie, "The Men Who Stare at Goats"? It was based on a true story - the US military was actively trying to see if they could find people with skills like stopping the heart of a goat, or dowsing, or psychic spying.

The whole thing pretty much fell apart when it was deemed that the people participating were not very effective (if you have to stare at a goat for hours in order to get it to fall over and die, how are they supposed to make use of it for assassinations?)

But, bottom line, it DID exist. Same with the Germans having a paranormal unit during the 40's. They believed in acquiring the Spear of Destiny because Mr. Mustache believed it would help him win the war, along with other Occult stuff. That's partly what the Wolfenstein games have made popular...

Sprzout , Aaron Kittredge/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#31

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The CIA fed unreasonable amounts of d***s to people to document the effects and search for new weapons

I can't imagine taking heroic doses of LSD and then getting grilled by government scientists for days.

Awesome_hospital , nited States Federal government Report

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#32

In the Tuskegee experiment, hundreds of African American men were purposely selected, deceived and intentionally given fake syphilis treatments. 102 of them died.

Waltz8 Report

#33

The government doesn’t let you accumulate assets when on welfare because they want you easily controlled and always poor.

Avocado-Toast-93 Report

#34

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The food pyramid was known to be wrong and detrimental to health but there was money to be made selling grain based products.

muskie71 , https://www.usda.gov/ Report

#35

Look up the MKUltra project.

HappyMatt12345 Report

#36

That your phone is listening to you. You talk about wanting a new pair of shoes, and suddenly every ad you see is for sneakers. It feels like a wild conspiracy... but algorithms and voice data collection are definitely a thing. Creepy, but real.

Solid-Blackberry7461 Report

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#37

The "Got Milk" campaign is a government funded psy-op to help prop up the American dairy industry.

thepackrat45 Report

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#38

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The UK government secretly tested biological weapons on its own coastal towns to see how far they could make it inland.

Lovely-1Angel , Lina Kivaka/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#39

Almost everything the CIA did in the 60s and 70s.

Captain-Memphis Report

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#40

Toss me any conspiracy theory about the government or corporations that doesn’t have to do with cryptids/aliens and I will generally agree with it at this point. I think you need to have a borderline mental handicap to trust the government or any corporation.

Gnight-Punpun Report

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#41

Look up a phone called ANOM

FBI basically sold prehacked phones to crime organizations.

thermal_shock Report

#42

Tiktok is a Chinese Trojan horse. In the future a lot of damage is going to happen to these young tiktokers when they try to run for political office, or try to work for a federal agency that requires secret clearance. If China sees them as a threat, they'll expose all their tiktok app Intel and all the data they've stolen in the background without the user's knowledge...and yes, I prefer a western company doing that to than a Chinese company....would you install a North Korean app? No? Well China is run exactly like north Korea. Companies answer to 1 person only.

nachumama0311 Report

#43

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The CIA has been kidnapping and torturing (“experimenting”) on people ever since it was formed, and is likely still doing so.

Blue_Rosebuds , Tobias Bjørkli/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#44

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True There are entire caves of cheese owned and operated by the US government.

KravenArk_Personal , Francesco Paggiaro/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#45

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The company that is making the super secure encrypted phone for international criminals is actually a front and is a backdoor to the us government.

Listen to the podcast called search engine (former reply all host pj vojt) to hear the story (sorry for spoiling it. ) “What’s the best phone to do crimes on?” is the name of the episode.

LionTigerWings , Adrienn/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#46

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True The Canadian government actually tried to fry peoples brains with ECT in order to fix their depression, thinking that the wiping of neurons that have a negative emotional event will fix their depression. Instead, people ended up losing their memory, suffered inconsistent, and forgot their name, all while still having depression.  

This was in part funded by the CIA in an effort to understand memory alteration. .

Ok_Pound_6842 , MART PRODUCTION/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#47

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Israel knew the USS Liberty was an American ship.

xanif , U.S. Navy Report

#48

Free school lunch programs are being pushed in many areas by the large multinational corporations that own the contracts.

Sodexo is a multinational French company worth over 17 billion.

Compass is actually owned by chartwells which is UK based.

I am all for making sure kids eat healthy food and they should not have to pay for it.

But these companies don’t promote the healthy part.

They also do a lot of jail contracts as well.

Next time you hear think of the children look for the company who will provide the items.

Edit: **I am pro free lunch for kids** I am just anti large corporations making money off our government. That is the point some people are not getting.

parabox1 Report

#49

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True A main ingredient in the flavor of Coca-cola still only comes from processing cocoa leaves into c*caine. The extract goes to the Coca-cola flavor profile, and the c*caine that is produced as a by-product gets sold to the health industry for medicinal use. There is only one company in the US authorized to do this that has had a special arrangement with the DEA for nearly 100 years - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Company.

wholenewguy , Olena Bohovyk/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

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#50

That the fbi are making all these damn posts to see what people believe .

jfel8737 Report

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#51

“Operation Paperclip”: 30 Things That Sound Like Conspiracy Theories, But Are Actually True Canada is attempting to increase its population to 100M by 2100 despite not even having enough homes for its current population look up the Century Initiative.

MegaYanm3ga , Vincent Albos/Pexels (not the actual photo) Report

#52

The Black Sox Scandal was a major sports controversy that rocked the baseball world in 1919. It involved members of the Chicago White Sox, one of the best teams in the League at the time, who were accused of throwing the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. The scandal involved eight players, including Shoeless Joe Jackson, who allegedly accepted bribes from gamblers to intentionally lose games.


At first, many people thought the scandal was just a conspiracy theory as the players denied any wrongdoing, The team was arguably in the top position, some of the accused were insanely popular, and some fans believed that the accusations were just a way to tarnish the team's reputation. However, an investigation uncovered evidence of a complex scheme involving gamblers, team owners, and players. The investigation revealed that the players had definitely accepted bribes The tune of a couple million today.

I'm not a huge sports fan at all but I am a history not and this was one of the most significant scandals in sports history and it changed a lot of things for the entire sport including getting a commissioner of baseball. Even though they were technically declared criminally innocent, all eight players involved were all banned for life and they will never be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame despite repeated attempts to do so over the decades.

llc4269 Report

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#53

10x more people died from supply chain/inflation jolts in countries that suffer extreme starvation (not merely hunger) because of economic consequences of covid than covid itself even if you use the highest estimated covid deaths.

cuteman Report

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#54

Legolas only ever says five words to Frodo: "And you have my bow.".

thedeejus Report

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#55

That most reddit mods are vindictive adult babies that shouldn't have any sort of 'power' whatsoever. They essentially slowly turn their subreddits into hugboxes due to social corruption and by virtue of being part of a niche community. Im not saying all, but I've definitely felt communities cave in on themselves as a result. Especially in esoteric nerd communities.

LukeSleepWalkerr Report

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