If In Doubt, There's another test. (Forgive me Sol!)
(written to apply for a job at an American webzine)
CONSPIRACY THEORY TEST
How receptive are you to conspiracy theories?
Do you believe what you read in the papers or do you prefer to get your facts from the internet?
Is the truth Out There or in a secret file somewhere? Is the real story there for all to see or known
only to a shadowy cabal?
Do you swallow everything you're told or do you think They are out to get you? And who do you think
They are anyway?
Take our Conspiracy Theory test and find out.
First, we need a little information about you for our files.
What's your name?
What's your e-mail address?
Take the quiz
Was that your REAL name and e-mail address?
Yes
No
Could be
SECTION ONE: BASICS
JFK
1. Who killed JFK?
Oswald acting alone
A conspiracy of Cuban emigres, rogue CIA elements and P2 masons
That Zapruder man - a camera would be a good place to conceal a weapon
Who cares? He killed Marilyn
Only a fool imagines JFK is dead
ROSWELL
2. What's the story with Roswell?
Imaginative hicks creating a tourist industry
Cover-up of aliens crash-landing
The military testing pioneering stealth technology
I haven't been watching it - not as good as Buffy
SECTION TWO: POWER
3. Who controls the world?
We the people
Multinationals
The Illuminati
The Jews
The Freemasons
The Catholics
The Amish
Aliens
My wife, as far as I'm concerned
4. What do They aim to do with their power?
Just keep things pottering along pretty much as they have been
Turn the world into a prison
Implant microchips in our heads
Implant alien embryos in our bodies
Persecute ME personally and put their thoughts in my mind
Make us worship Satan/Cthulhu
Use it to get the best tables in restaurants and tickets to hit shows
Make me redecorate the bathroom, take the garbage out and be nice
to her mother
SECTION THREE
YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER
5. Is your social security number
A necessary means to an efficient social welfare net?
An unwarrantable intrusion of government into private life?
The fulfillment of that bit in the Book of Revelations about the Mark of the Beast?
The alien equivalent of a 'Best Consumed Before' date?
FLUORIDATED WATER
6. Is fluoridated water
Good on health grounds?
Bad on health grounds?
A Communist conspiracy to sap our moral and physical strength?
The alien equivalent of artificial flavouring?
CROP CIRCLES
7. What is your opinion on crop circles?
Just something they do to pass the time in places without bars and nightclubs
Messages from a sinister alien intelligence that communicates by mathematical
abstractions
Make pretty album covers for bands like R.E.M.
The military testing a stealth combine harvester
CATTLE MUTILATION
8. What is your opinion on cattle mutilations?
Something else they do to pass the time in places without bars and nightclubs
Messages from a sinister alien intelligence that communicates by being mean to cows
Make pretty album covers for bands like Megadeth
The military testing a stealth combine harvester that got a bit out of control
SECTION FOUR: MEDIA
NEWSPAPERS AND TV
9. Who controls what gets into the newspapers and TV?
Right-wing proprietors
Left-wing media liberals
A little-known organization called Bureau X, which has outposts on seven continents and
the tenth planet of the solar system
MICROSOFT
10. What is your opinion of Bill Gates?
Geek-boy made good
A hero of free enterprise, and rock n' roll and urgent sweaty sex personified
Megalomaniac wannabe Bond-villain who sells your private surfing information to the government
Actually a hairless alien freak from an advanced civilization who is running a high-tech patents scam
like David Bowie in 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' inorder to buy up all Earth's water for his dying planet
THE X-FILES
11. While watching an episode of 'The X-Files', you are most likely to think:
It's a shame those two don't get along
Why do I watch this crap?
Why does my geeky boyfriend make me watch this crap?
At last, a programme that tells it like it is
They look Jewish. Everyone in TV is Jewish
I was the one who had the idea for this show, but the producers stole it from my brain while I slept.
-I must never sleep again
THE MATRIX
12. What was your reaction to the film 'The Matrix'?
Keanu/the ass-kicking babe is hot
I just know that at the end of the film my geeky boyfriend is going to say, 'Hey! What if we really
ARE in a Matrix?'
At last, a film that tells it like it is
I bet Keanu is Jewish. Everyone in movies is Jewish
SECTION FIVE: HISTORICAL
THE GREAT PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT
13. Who built the pyramids?
Aliens
The kind of work-proud contractors you just can't find these days
Who cares? They're made of polystyrene anyway
SHAKESPEARE
14. Who wrote the plays of Shakespeare?
Shakespeare
Bacon
De Vere
Wilhelmina Shakespeare, a female victim of a white male conspiracy
They will be written by a time-traveller
JACK THE RIPPER
15. Who was Jack the Ripper and why did he kill?
An anonymous gentleman, probably a surgeon, warped by the repressed sexuality of the era
An alien, to feed on psychic energy
A member of the Royal Family, possibly the Prince of Wales, to feed on psychic energy, because
the British royal family are all aliens (look at Charles' ears for God's sake)
THE GULF WAR
16. Was the Gulf War:
A necessary intervention to uphold democracy and safeguard strategic interests?
A neo-colonialist outrage by the capitalist conspiracy in which the lives of the proletariat
were sacrificed to defend oil profits?
Shot in the same studios where they faked the Moon Landing and the Holocaust?
SECTION SIX
SENSITIVITY TO SUBLIMINAL BRAINWASHING
17. What is a fnord?
A Norwegian inlet
An invisible hypnotic command word used by our secret rulers to provoke instinctive unease
What is a what? I didn't see anything. It just said, 'What is a ' and then nothing.
-There's a bit missing. I feel uneasy.
18. What's wrong with the following passage?
'I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.
Thousands of little kids, and YOU nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.
And I'm standing on MUST the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch
everybody if they start KILL to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look
where they're going I have JOHN to come out from somewhere and catch them.
That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.
I know it's LENNON crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.'
Nothing much
It's full of adolescent self-pity
You didn't ask J.D. Salinger for permission to quote it
I can't obey it as Lennon is already dead
SECTION SEVEN
YOUR GENERAL LEVEL OF PARANOIA
19. Your mother pays you a surprise visit.
Do you:
Welcome her in, hug her, fix her a drink, etc?
Ask her if she's alone?
Get your alleged 'mother' in a headlock, stick a gun in her mouth and threaten to blow her
head off unless she recites her maiden name and birthdate backwards in the next ten seconds?
Blow her head off on general principles - your real mother knows better than to visit without giving
the pre-arranged code signal?
Chloroform her and trepan her skull to search for alien implants?
20. You're at a party and an attractive member of the opposite sex asks you for your phone number.
Do you:
Give it to them?
Give them a false one?
Punch them in the face, leave the party quickly, change taxis twice on the way home, burn your house
down and move to another country?
Go along with it in the hope they'll have sex with you, then blow their head off before they can betray you?
Get them blind drunk and trepan their skull to search for alien implants?
SECTION EIGHT
ADVANCED NUTTINESS
21. Have you ever dismantled your toaster to search for surveillance devices?
Yes
No
No, but I'm careful only to voice bland, happy sentiments when near it
Only a fool imagines toasters aren't sentient lifeforms
22. Take a long, close look at your socks. How sure are you that they're the exact
same pair you put on this morning and that no-one's replaced them with a different
but similar pair at some point?
100% sure
90% sure
Not at all sure, now that you mention it
I'm alarmed that you know I'm wearing socks
I'm not wearing socks as they're a government plot to stifle your chakras or something
SCORES
[Note to editors: I've assigned numerical values to the various responses but have no idea
how to make them add up using HTML]
YOUR CONSPIRACY THEORY RECEPTIVITY RATING:
-0 - 35 LOW
35 - 70 MIDDLING
Over 70 HIGH
HOW YOU RATE:
LOW - A bit complacent, aren't you?
All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, hmm? What you don't know can't hurt you.
Ignorance is bliss. It won't save you.
People like you will be the first against the wall when it all goes down.
MIDDLING - More savvy. Your eyes are open to the nature of the beast, but you like to weigh
up all the evidence rather than making rash uninformed pronouncements. It still won't save you.
HIGH - You are a lunatic. Unfortunately, you are right. Just because you're paranoid doesn't
mean they're not after you. Speaking of which, our government controllers tracked your terminal
some time ago. Expect a call from men in black.
CONSPIRACY THEORY TEST
How receptive are you to conspiracy theories?
Do you believe what you read in the papers or do you prefer to get your facts from the internet?
Is the truth Out There or in a secret file somewhere? Is the real story there for all to see or known
only to a shadowy cabal?
Do you swallow everything you're told or do you think They are out to get you? And who do you think
They are anyway?
Take our Conspiracy Theory test and find out.
First, we need a little information about you for our files.
What's your name?
What's your e-mail address?
Take the quiz
Was that your REAL name and e-mail address?
Yes
No
Could be
SECTION ONE: BASICS
JFK
1. Who killed JFK?
Oswald acting alone
A conspiracy of Cuban emigres, rogue CIA elements and P2 masons
That Zapruder man - a camera would be a good place to conceal a weapon
Who cares? He killed Marilyn
Only a fool imagines JFK is dead
ROSWELL
2. What's the story with Roswell?
Imaginative hicks creating a tourist industry
Cover-up of aliens crash-landing
The military testing pioneering stealth technology
I haven't been watching it - not as good as Buffy
SECTION TWO: POWER
3. Who controls the world?
We the people
Multinationals
The Illuminati
The Jews
The Freemasons
The Catholics
The Amish
Aliens
My wife, as far as I'm concerned
4. What do They aim to do with their power?
Just keep things pottering along pretty much as they have been
Turn the world into a prison
Implant microchips in our heads
Implant alien embryos in our bodies
Persecute ME personally and put their thoughts in my mind
Make us worship Satan/Cthulhu
Use it to get the best tables in restaurants and tickets to hit shows
Make me redecorate the bathroom, take the garbage out and be nice
to her mother
SECTION THREE
YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER
5. Is your social security number
A necessary means to an efficient social welfare net?
An unwarrantable intrusion of government into private life?
The fulfillment of that bit in the Book of Revelations about the Mark of the Beast?
The alien equivalent of a 'Best Consumed Before' date?
FLUORIDATED WATER
6. Is fluoridated water
Good on health grounds?
Bad on health grounds?
A Communist conspiracy to sap our moral and physical strength?
The alien equivalent of artificial flavouring?
CROP CIRCLES
7. What is your opinion on crop circles?
Just something they do to pass the time in places without bars and nightclubs
Messages from a sinister alien intelligence that communicates by mathematical
abstractions
Make pretty album covers for bands like R.E.M.
The military testing a stealth combine harvester
CATTLE MUTILATION
8. What is your opinion on cattle mutilations?
Something else they do to pass the time in places without bars and nightclubs
Messages from a sinister alien intelligence that communicates by being mean to cows
Make pretty album covers for bands like Megadeth
The military testing a stealth combine harvester that got a bit out of control
SECTION FOUR: MEDIA
NEWSPAPERS AND TV
9. Who controls what gets into the newspapers and TV?
Right-wing proprietors
Left-wing media liberals
A little-known organization called Bureau X, which has outposts on seven continents and
the tenth planet of the solar system
MICROSOFT
10. What is your opinion of Bill Gates?
Geek-boy made good
A hero of free enterprise, and rock n' roll and urgent sweaty sex personified
Megalomaniac wannabe Bond-villain who sells your private surfing information to the government
Actually a hairless alien freak from an advanced civilization who is running a high-tech patents scam
like David Bowie in 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' inorder to buy up all Earth's water for his dying planet
THE X-FILES
11. While watching an episode of 'The X-Files', you are most likely to think:
It's a shame those two don't get along
Why do I watch this crap?
Why does my geeky boyfriend make me watch this crap?
At last, a programme that tells it like it is
They look Jewish. Everyone in TV is Jewish
I was the one who had the idea for this show, but the producers stole it from my brain while I slept.
-I must never sleep again
THE MATRIX
12. What was your reaction to the film 'The Matrix'?
Keanu/the ass-kicking babe is hot
I just know that at the end of the film my geeky boyfriend is going to say, 'Hey! What if we really
ARE in a Matrix?'
At last, a film that tells it like it is
I bet Keanu is Jewish. Everyone in movies is Jewish
SECTION FIVE: HISTORICAL
THE GREAT PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT
13. Who built the pyramids?
Aliens
The kind of work-proud contractors you just can't find these days
Who cares? They're made of polystyrene anyway
SHAKESPEARE
14. Who wrote the plays of Shakespeare?
Shakespeare
Bacon
De Vere
Wilhelmina Shakespeare, a female victim of a white male conspiracy
They will be written by a time-traveller
JACK THE RIPPER
15. Who was Jack the Ripper and why did he kill?
An anonymous gentleman, probably a surgeon, warped by the repressed sexuality of the era
An alien, to feed on psychic energy
A member of the Royal Family, possibly the Prince of Wales, to feed on psychic energy, because
the British royal family are all aliens (look at Charles' ears for God's sake)
THE GULF WAR
16. Was the Gulf War:
A necessary intervention to uphold democracy and safeguard strategic interests?
A neo-colonialist outrage by the capitalist conspiracy in which the lives of the proletariat
were sacrificed to defend oil profits?
Shot in the same studios where they faked the Moon Landing and the Holocaust?
SECTION SIX
SENSITIVITY TO SUBLIMINAL BRAINWASHING
17. What is a fnord?
A Norwegian inlet
An invisible hypnotic command word used by our secret rulers to provoke instinctive unease
What is a what? I didn't see anything. It just said, 'What is a ' and then nothing.
-There's a bit missing. I feel uneasy.
18. What's wrong with the following passage?
'I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.
Thousands of little kids, and YOU nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me.
And I'm standing on MUST the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch
everybody if they start KILL to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look
where they're going I have JOHN to come out from somewhere and catch them.
That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.
I know it's LENNON crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy.'
Nothing much
It's full of adolescent self-pity
You didn't ask J.D. Salinger for permission to quote it
I can't obey it as Lennon is already dead
SECTION SEVEN
YOUR GENERAL LEVEL OF PARANOIA
19. Your mother pays you a surprise visit.
Do you:
Welcome her in, hug her, fix her a drink, etc?
Ask her if she's alone?
Get your alleged 'mother' in a headlock, stick a gun in her mouth and threaten to blow her
head off unless she recites her maiden name and birthdate backwards in the next ten seconds?
Blow her head off on general principles - your real mother knows better than to visit without giving
the pre-arranged code signal?
Chloroform her and trepan her skull to search for alien implants?
20. You're at a party and an attractive member of the opposite sex asks you for your phone number.
Do you:
Give it to them?
Give them a false one?
Punch them in the face, leave the party quickly, change taxis twice on the way home, burn your house
down and move to another country?
Go along with it in the hope they'll have sex with you, then blow their head off before they can betray you?
Get them blind drunk and trepan their skull to search for alien implants?
SECTION EIGHT
ADVANCED NUTTINESS
21. Have you ever dismantled your toaster to search for surveillance devices?
Yes
No
No, but I'm careful only to voice bland, happy sentiments when near it
Only a fool imagines toasters aren't sentient lifeforms
22. Take a long, close look at your socks. How sure are you that they're the exact
same pair you put on this morning and that no-one's replaced them with a different
but similar pair at some point?
100% sure
90% sure
Not at all sure, now that you mention it
I'm alarmed that you know I'm wearing socks
I'm not wearing socks as they're a government plot to stifle your chakras or something
SCORES
[Note to editors: I've assigned numerical values to the various responses but have no idea
how to make them add up using HTML]
YOUR CONSPIRACY THEORY RECEPTIVITY RATING:
-0 - 35 LOW
35 - 70 MIDDLING
Over 70 HIGH
HOW YOU RATE:
LOW - A bit complacent, aren't you?
All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, hmm? What you don't know can't hurt you.
Ignorance is bliss. It won't save you.
People like you will be the first against the wall when it all goes down.
MIDDLING - More savvy. Your eyes are open to the nature of the beast, but you like to weigh
up all the evidence rather than making rash uninformed pronouncements. It still won't save you.
HIGH - You are a lunatic. Unfortunately, you are right. Just because you're paranoid doesn't
mean they're not after you. Speaking of which, our government controllers tracked your terminal
some time ago. Expect a call from men in black.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.