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Remember when JFK conspiracy talk meant a beat-up paperback, not a 50-part YouTube series?

I dug out my dad's old copy of "Rush to Judgment" from 1966 last week and it hit me how the whole vibe shifted from people sitting around a kitchen table debating to algorithms feeding you rabbit holes in 4K with 10 ads per video, anyone else miss when a good conspiracy theory felt like a secret you stumbled into instead of a product?
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the_andrew
the_andrew16d ago
That old paperback era had more charm because you had to work for it, tracking down the weirdos and misfits who knew the back alleys of the story. Turning my own little rabbit hole into a shared kitchen table debate was way more rewarding than clicking through some slickly produced playlist.
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anna_green48
Oh man, this brings back hunting for a dog-eared copy of "A Canticle for Leibowitz" at a flea market in 2011, and then spending two hours arguing about the cyclical nature of history with a guy selling vinyl records out of his trunk. @the_andrew, you're totally right about that kitchen table debate energy. There's something about actually having to defend your weird obsession to a stranger in person that makes the whole discovery feel earned, you know? Finding a beat-up paperback with someone else's notes in the margins was half the fun, like you were solving a little mystery before you even got to the story itself.
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