We’ve got a bunch of new people now so let’s bring back a classic post. What low stakes conspiracy theory do you believe that you cannot prove but feels right to you?

I’ll start: I believe that dating apps have made a concerted effort to smear in person meeting people and tie it to being “creepy” through social media so you are forced to meet people online(which was the creepy option just 15 years ago)

  • There is a small but self-sustaining breeding population of cougars living in the Adirondacks and possibly most of upstate New York, but this will never be officially confirmed by the various government environmental agencies because then they would have to take real action to protect them. Cougars have everything they need there and there’s really no reason to believe they’re just walking 1800 miles and not breeding.

    This is the case for a lot of other heavily forested places east of the Rockies as well.

      • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I think it’s more like they can’t acknowledge it or people start frothing at the mouth and organizing hunting parties, sorta like how we decimated the wolf populations across the country

        • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          We don’t really have that much livestock (the old joke is farming here is a great way to make a small fortune if you start with a big one) and it was mostly ranchers that wanted to kill wolves for having the audacity to kill cows the ranchers didn’t want to spend money to fence in.

      • FactuallyUnscrupulou [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Just had this discussion around a campfire in the Adirondacks. Nearly everyone agreed Wolves and Mountain Lions are in upstate NY except for the one person who said, “Well the DEC hasn’t said so, therefore they’re actually Coyotes and Bobcats”.

        • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          Even if it isn’t full blown wolves we’ve got coydogs which are a mix of coyotes and wolves which are just bigger meaner coyotes

    • Adkml [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      From the adirondacks, this is absolutely true. Every old timer that’s spent decades in the woods has a cougar story.

    • Mindfury [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      oh hey, it’s the Gippsland Panther but in America

      Also the Tasmanian Tiger still exists, and proclaiming it extinct was actually the best way to protect it