Our picksInside the Flat Earth Conference; U.S. water security falls short; adapting to survive future fires, and more

Published 19 November 2018

·  Inside the Flat Earth Conference, where the world’s oldest conspiracy theory is hot again

·  California’s wildfires have spawned a truly weird new conspiracy theory

·  Former Trump official pushes conspiracy theory that ISIS and Antifa were involved in Las Vegas shooting

·  How the media should respond to Trump’s lies

·  How U.S. gun laws allow mass shooters to slip through

·  Pentagon, DHS spell out how they’ll cooperate on cyber defense

·  How would U.S. prosecutors go after Assange?

·  U.S. water security falls short

·  How extreme weather is shrinking the planet

·  How California needs to adapt to survive future fires

Inside the Flat Earth Conference, where the world’s oldest conspiracy theory is hot again (Kelly Weill, Daily Beast)
Thanks to YouTube, an idea discredited thousands of years ago attracts die-hards, grifters, and trolls. They even have their own convention.

California’s wildfires have spawned a truly weird new conspiracy theory (Anna Merlan, Gizmodo)
This month, California has been gripped by three devastating wildfires: Northern California’s Camp Fire, which recently became the deadliest in the state’s history, and, in Southern California, the Woolsey and Hill Fires. An emerging, deeply weird conspiracy theory holds that those fires aren’t caused by wind patterns, brutally dry conditions, the worsening effects of climate change, or possible downed power lines, but by a sinister scheme directed by nefarious elements within the government.
The claim, being taken up by an increasing number of people in QAnon circles, is that the fires are caused by “directed energy weapons”—that is, government-directed lasers bent on destroying homes, property, and lives. And if recent history is any judge, there’s a chance the country’s biggest conspiracy-peddlers, up to and including the one who lives in the White House, will take up the cause.
Directed energy weapons, or DEWs, have an interesting place in conspiratorial circles. DEWs are, to begin with, a real technology, but one still in its infancy: a report produced for Congress describes that term as an umbrella to refer to technologies “that produce concentrated electromagnetic energy and atomic or subatomic particles.” The consensus is that there are a number of logistical issues to work out before that the U.S. government will be able to build a laser system that would actually be workable on a battlefield, but that the Department of Defense and private contractors are eager to leverage laser power towards killing people and/or destroying enemy missiles, aircrafts, or satellites.
If you ask people in the deep end of the conspiracy theory pool, though, DEWs are here already. There’s a small body of people who believe themselves to be “targeted individuals”—stalked, harassed, and attacked by the government or other shadowy groups—and at least some of them believe those attacks are being carried out by DEWs. Now, through a strange confluence of forces, the paranoia over DEWs is making its way into the discussion about natural disasters.