I'm still having trouble drawing a line in the sand between "healthy skepticism" and "overriding suspicion".
When someone like michael moore does "bowling for columbine", people didn't accuse him of being a conspiracy theory advocate.
Yet, if he were to do a documentary today on the influence of pharmaceutical lobbying on the way the world handled covid (or the influence of china), he would surely be suspected.
I don't think this category is useful in any way to think about a given issue / theory.
Bowling for columbine never suggested any type of conspiracy. Lobbying for guns and interest group cooperation is not a conspiracy in that sense. Propaganda, PR and political influencing is not conspiracy in the conspiracy theory sense.
School shootings are not part of anyone's plan (except the shooters).
Moore tried to reveal the extend of influence and manipulation, not to reveal some new sinister group with secret plot or "everything is connected" in some completely new way that explains shootings. Advancing ones own interest and that having a negative side effect of school shootings is not a conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theories have the belief that certain events or situations are secretly manipulated behind the scenes by powerful forces with negative intent.
Unproven theories that threaten someone's worldview are typically met with the same reaction as an opposing political opinions, and for similar reasons. Rarely is it based in logic and consideration, since adjusting one's worldview takes a lot of energy.
My advice is to foster a worldview in which you accept that the world is poorly understood and many things are possible, and then you won't have to do significant reorganization (or denial and attack) every time an interesting new idea comes your way.
There have been a lot of posts about conspiracies lately, but they have all been pretty tame (or things that were previously considered conspiracies and later proven true). Here are a few more that show that the USA is and has been capable of horrific things since it became a superpower. Now imagine what an autocracy might be doing. Or what things we might be doing that haven't been proven yet/the government actually makes an effort to cover up.
No matter what Snowden uncovered, people who believe the CIA is controlling their thoughts with orbital lasers are wrong, even when they cite Snowden or MKULTRA as "proof." Adopting a worldview that accepts every claim, however absurd, as equally valid to all others is foolish. The world isn't flat, nor hollow. COVID isn't part of a New World Order plot to harvest your adrenochrome, we did on the moon, Hillary Clinton doesn't bathe in the blood of child sex slaves to maintain her human form, Sandy Hook was not a false flag, there are no FEMA death camps, no aliens at Area 51, HAARP doesn't control the weather, CERN didn't hack the Matrix, "cultural marxism" doesn't really exist, and neither does the "Deep State."
You can accept that the world is more complex than you understand, and that conspiracies exist, while still having a standard for obvious bullshit. Or at the very least, while being dubious of extraordinary claims presented without extraordinary proof.
Of course, no one suggests that you accept every claim, but instead that you truly evaluate them, especially those with compelling arguments and evidence. Most people struggle to distinguish between ridiculous and taboo. There is a difference.
Your reaction is the reaction I described -- it sounds like you have some work to do on being more open-minded. Being more open minded has helped me across many facets of my life, and I still have plenty of room for improvement. I highly recommend it.
There is a kernel of truth to almost all of them, and what's concerning is when the most extreme bullshit is used to discredit this kernel of truth (and guess who benefits from this..). I think the cool kids call it "motte and bailey" nowadays. Most obviously, although indeed "Hillary Clinton doesn't bathe in the blood of child sex slaves to maintain her human form", there is now conclusive evidence of child sex slavery in the highest echelons of society.
This: it's transparent and embarrassing when someone uses hyperbole to misrepresent and discredit someone else's opinion. Yet it's one of the most common forms of "debate" on the internet.
I've found it's probably a futile exercise trying to have a productive discussion with someone who is set in their ways online. I have had much more success in person, because there is more mutual respect, which breeds open-mindedness, even when it challenges a worldview.
Disclaimer: I haven't personally seen any compelling arguments for any of the conspiracies he listed save one, though I doubt anyone would phrase their opinions the way the original poster did.
I think it's just the nature of online discussions. You pop in and out of them scrolling down the links on the front page of this site, or even less time for attention when scrolling twitter posts.
Memes are an evolution of this. Shorter and shorter methods of conveying thought and expressions.
I wouldn’t call that a kernel of truth so much as having a tenuous connection to some pre existing collective schema.
Companies lobby the government to get laws passed that positively impact their bottom line. However I would not consider this some kernel of truth supporting the theory that “big seatbelt” is trying to take away your freedom, and seatbelt laws are part of a boiling the frog approach to turn the US into a totalitarian state.
Another class of BS “conspiracy” theories are simply contested political issues. Here the wacko conspiracy part usually comes into play as some erroneous motive ascribed to one of the parties.
Now I'm really intrested in which ones there are kernels of truth - FEMA death camps, hollow Earth, false-flag Sandy Hook?
The problem I have with "kernel of truth" is that every loosely connected scandal becomes proof of conspiracy theory being "real" when in reality the shady actions are made elsewhere and no one is really intrested, or worse, conspiracy is more intresting than truth. For example, when USA spend milions of dollars during satanic panic trying to prove conspiracy theory true (and ruined innocent people lives), the Catholic church was doing it's thing freely (in my country we have hundreds of people fighting with sex-ed because it's "child abuse and LGBT indoctrination plan", when information about Church officials hiding cases of abuse is just another Monday). We have people scared to death by toothpaste and fluor in water or vaccines (another example of innocent people being in risk of harm due to conspiracies), when opium crisis and dubious antidepresants are basically ignored. I really doubt that looking for children hidden by Hilary Clinton is not going to help with finding another pedophile circle.
It's a valid point that when something real is uncovered, nothing is really done about it. I think that's really the same kind of powerlessness that the article gives as a motivation for "conspiratorial thinking".
btw, at the risk of sounding exceedingly cranky, here's some little kernels of truth I can see if I squint at the ridiculousness we started with:
- CIA is keenly interested in mind control
- Globalist ideals harmed the response to COVID (e.g. by insisting on continued air traffic)
- Weather modification is real (e.g. cloud seeding)
- The possibility of high-energy physics experiments doing some fundamental damage to our little corner of the milky way should at least not be completely dismissed out of hand. Which nuclear bomb was it, where they calculated beforehand whether it would not set the whole atmosphere on fire?
- Political influence is absolutely being exerted through universities
- Don't know about sandy hook but false flags have happened and oppressive regimes have taken people's guns away before oppressing them a bit more
- Can you really read the wikipedia article on "deep state" and say none of that is happening in the US?
I don't think Krapp was really arguing against any of these things, but it just annoys me to no end that all you hear is "bill gates 5g vaccine nanobots" when there are legitimate issues to be discussed.
Ridiculous conspiracies are a real problem, and certainly exacerbated by social media, but are not as significant as closed-mindedness, in my opinion. Not that closed-mindedness as a human trait is really a solvable problem (nor is paranoid conspiratorial thinking), but still. Closed-mindedness as a general human phenomenon holds back progress and keeps bad actors in power. It's the reason we have had more VC money invested into bike sharing companies than into aerospace, defense, chemical, and materials startups combined over the same period [0]. It's the reason Galileo had to suspend his work lest he end up facing serious punishment. It's the reason the NSA is still reading this comment.
I think we have different scale in mind. You see closed-minded VC capital (which I personally believe works this way due to focus on sure, short-term gain), I see amygdalin sold in pharmacies. You don't need flat Earth level of conspiracy to have victims, and bad actors can emerge from every background and attack people opened to new ideas as easily as old bad actors will still have their following.
The "kernel of truth" isn't the problem - of course sex slavery exists in the highest echelons of society, that's always been the case. The extreme bullshit that leads from there to QAnon is the problem. That the former exists doesn't mean the latter serves some kind of useful purpose or that they're at least half-right. In fact, QAnon does more harm than good to the legitimate causes fighting child abuse and exploitation.
Yet here I am being attacked and called closed-minded for even pointing things like this out.
It's the tone, hyperbole, and dishonesty that is earning you ire. You are arguing against a point no one made to claim something obvious that goes without saying on a place like HN, and using hyperbole to make your imagined opponents seem ridiculous.
"Unproven theories that threaten someone's worldview are typically met with the same reaction as an opposing political opinions, and for similar reasons. Rarely is it based in logic and consideration, since adjusting one's worldview takes a lot of energy."
I disagree that most opposition to conspiracy theories comes from fear of having to adjust one's worldview, or that logic and consideration are rare. This statement makes critics of conspiracy theories out to be closed-minded and unreasonable, which is a common argument made by proponents of conspiracy theories to justify not having their worldview threatened by criticism.
Rather, logic and consideration are the reason most conspiracy theories are rejected, because most such theories are not rational, nor do they present compelling evidence.
"My advice is to foster a worldview in which you accept that the world is poorly understood and many things are possible, and then you won't have to do significant reorganization (or denial and attack) every time an interesting new idea comes your way."
Speaking of something obvious that goes without saying, most people already accept that the world is poorly understood and many things are possible. I believe that. That has nothing to do with the credibility of any particular conspiracy theory, and it does seem as if you're arguing against either accepting or rejecting any particular one under the implication that because the world is poorly understood, anything could be possible.
The most charitable interpretation I can make is that you're just arguing against rejecting conspiracy theories for purely emotional reasons... but my reply to you didn't contradict that premise at all, yet you and everyone else here assumes I'm simply closed minded and irrational.
I believe your point of view contributes to the problem. Even if that's not your intent, that is the result.
I do apologize for singling you out personally. That was unnecessary, and you did nothing to deserve it.
> I disagree that most opposition to conspiracy theories comes from fear of having to adjust one's worldview, or that logic and consideration are rare. This statement makes critics of conspiracy theories out to be closed-minded and unreasonable, which is a common argument made by proponents of conspiracy theories to justify not having their worldview threatened by criticism.
This is the crux of the disagreement then. Many of the prominent critics of conspiracy theories, especially ones who becomes full-time skeptics, are indeed closed-minded, in my opinion. But you describe it as a conscious activity (experiencing a fear of adjusting one's worldview) when really it's subconscious and most people are unaware of the mental gymnastics they are doing to shoot down an idea. Or for the more dedicated ones, they are playing debate rather than caring about the issue at hand, which can also be seen by groups such as the flat Earth-ers (if you think most of them actually think the Earth is flat, you have been memed).
I think you are in the minority in that most people agree this phenomenon exists, but very few can apply that knowledge to themselves. I can mostly only do so in hindsight, but entertaining ideas is definitely a practice-able skill.
> Speaking of something obvious that goes without saying, most people already accept that the world is poorly understood and many things are possible.
Perhaps among the average populous, but amongst people who are often the smartest in the room, especially the people perusing HN, this is definitely NOT true. A decade ago, I was certainly one of these people. I felt I could understand any technology from first principles rather easily, and no one around me seemed to be provoking any questions I couldn't answer. It was arrogance, and now I see it in others, too. Far more so in educated and scientifically minded circles.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. It is deeply concerning that there isn't a general consensus that you are correct.
It makes me think the great filter theory is true and we are going to destroy ourselves because a very significant number of people are incapable of basic reasoning, and the number seems to be growing...
> Unproven theories that threaten someone's worldview are typically met with the same reaction as an opposing political opinions, and for similar reasons. Rarely is it based in logic and consideration, since adjusting one's worldview takes a lot of energy.
This is the proverbial two-way street: unproven theories that reinforce someone's worldview are typically met with the same reaction as supporting political opinions and for similar reasons. Rarely is it based in logic and consideration, since adjusting one's worldview takes a lot of energy.
While paranoid conspiratorial thinking does definitely exist, accusing others of conspiratorial thinking is a very handy way to dismiss other points of view. And as you rightly point out, what you consider to be a conspiracy theory depends often on your opinions on a subject.
Climate change activists have claimed for a long time that our failure to address climate change is partly due to conspiratorial behaviour by oil companies- but this is of course perfectly fine.
There are plenty who would accuse him of being part of the conspiracy theory to take away their guns, but the reason he wasn't accused broadly of being a conspiracy advocate then is that he advocated something that the media broadly wanted, whereas an expose of the failures of handling COVID will be attacking in part the media and in a great part the FDA which is not something the media is interested in, hence it would be labeled a conspiracy theory.
Writing endless books and articles about how you’re engaging in wrongthink by questioning official narratives isn’t the solution, never has been, and never will be. For as many words that are written about the rise of conspiracy theories, I haven’t read a single one that tries to explain their appeal and origin in a neutral way, without having a condescending tone throughout. At some point you have to ask yourself: is your goal to actually persuade people, or is it to make them feel stupid?
To me it seems like a basic failing of psychology. If you want to stop people believing in fringe theories, then understand how they arrived at their position, engage them on their own terms, and acknowledge that (usually) there is a kernel of (often metaphorical) truth at the center, even if it’s been warped beyond recognition into a bizarre conspiracy theory.
About 13 months ago, there was this conspiracy theory about a pandemic in China. Conspiracy theorists and untrustworthy alternative news outlets were trying to sow dangerous misinformation about the Chinese government doing mass lockdowns and roundups of its own citizens. Even if this pandemic does exist, it isn't transmissible human to human. And wanting to close our borders and prepare is just xenophobic alarmism. The tens of thousands of Chinese people pouring into our airports are just tourists. The preponderance of video evidence of Chinese soldiers in hazmat suits rounding people up was just created by Russians in a sound stage somewhere, and can be dismissed without watching them.
There was even more elaborate fake news, like expat Facebook groups in China coordinating getting foreign citizens out of the country -- all carefully choreographed lies.
Luckily, I was banned in late January for telling people that they should wear masks as a precaution. Facebook and Twitter protected you.
In all seriousness, I am actually sure that a year ago there were smug academics and journalists having meetings about how they could counter these "lies".
Maybe I inhabit a different world from others, but this was not a conspiracy theory - at least if you had at least one friend from mainland China.
However, I think that people were right to push back against strong claims about a novel virus. At the time it was unclear whether this was another SARS or MERS, not quite as bad, or something worse. We didn’t even know for sure whether it bound ACE2 or DPP4 before mid February.
Hindsight is 2020 and I am very skeptical of anybody who claims they knew anything about the SARS-CoV-2 virus with any degree of certainty back in January.
The fact that the Chinese government was reacting to is so severely was all the evidence required.
And all I wanted was temporary travel moratorium while data could be gathered, and some temporary mask mandates.
We ended up doing it anyway, but we did it the hard way, after it was far too late.
I had no real idea of the nature of the virus, but I knew full well in December 2019 that we should be closing the borders and stockpiling supplies. Things would surely have turned out better for all of us if we hadn't tolerated big tech interfering in the news.
But sadly, for so many people, they trusted the debunkers and really believed it was all fake news. I can't imagine what a shock it must have been for them.
>Writing endless books and articles about how you’re engaging in wrongthink by questioning official narratives isn’t the solution, never has been, and never will be. For as many words that are written about the rise of conspiracy theories, I haven’t read a single one that tries to explain their appeal and origin in a neutral way, without having a condescending tone throughout. At some point you have to ask yourself: is your goal to actually persuade people, or is it to make them feel stupid?
I'm unsure if you meant this to be read as a criticism of the book, or a general statement. The book seems to embrace the ideas that you're suggesting are missing. E.g.:
>Show empathy. Approaches should be empathic and seek to build understanding with the other party. Because the goal is to develop the conspiracy theorist’s open-mindedness, communicators must lead by example.
> Avoid ridicule. Aggressively deconstructing or ridiculing a conspiracy theory, or focusing on “winning” an argument, runs the risk of being automatically rejected. Note, however, that ridicule has been shown to work with general audiences.
One book that took on the subject in a neutral way was Des hommes, des dieux et des extraterrestres: Ethnologie d'une croyance moderne by Stoczkowski, Wiktor (I'm not sure if it was published in english). Unfortunately I can't recall much of the book - I've read it ages ago.
It was an anthropologist's study of groups who believed people originated in outer space.
the point isn't to understand conspiracy theorists -- the point is to crush and humiliate them such that the owners of society can safely continue engaging in hostile endeavors without criticism or awareness.
This is a conspiracy theory, you know? Who would these mysterious owners of society be? Are they spreading conspiracy theories themselves maybe, for personal benefit?
Rich people. The people who own controlling interests in fossil fuel infrastructure. It isn't really a "theory" so much as public knowledge. Fossil fuel industry has been funding disinformation campaigns about climate change for decades.
One tactic I've found that works (with people I know): From the outset, insist on
1. answers and not questions.
2. positive evidence, and not hypotheses.
For the first, that means that statements like "Don't you think it's strange...?" statements are not permitted. Generally, conspiracy theorists won't provide answers, they will merely provide doubt to demonstrate a gap in your understanding, and then will happily try to fill the gap with a plausible (but usually wrong) theory.
It will start with "Don't you think it's strange/unlikely...?" regarding some aspect of the official narrative, and then follow with statements like "The only way it could make sense is if ..."
I point out that while he may have a compelling hypothesis, he didn't point to any proof of his hypothesis whatsoever. They are much more likely to point out absence of proof in parts of the official narratives, so use this same strategy with them. Positive proof means something actually demonstrated, not inferred.
It works really well. Most of them will fail right at step 1: "You've asked a lot of reasonable questions, but have not provided any proof for your theory."
Providing proof is hard. Coming up with ideas is easy.
Not sure if it'll work with random people though. It may have worked only because I know these people personally.
Edit: One more important tactic. Most of them rely on the "If you're wrong I must be right!" strategy[0] (or rather, they fall for it). So be very open to accepting that the official narrative is wrong. Say (sincerely) "I can believe the official narrative is problematic or even wrong, but I'm not sure I see a reason your narrative is correct. It's quite possible the true explanation is something else entirely."
[0] See the movie Thank You For Smoking for a good reference to this.
This does not work when one with the slightest bit of discomfort in arguing wants to cease and put an end to further discussion.
A lot of conspiracy theorists are fundamentalists. It's like faith. You can't muscle through it with logic, reasoning and data. Answers and positive evidence will lead you nowhere.
Public embarassment, mockery and comedy are the society's ways of dealing with this. Not saying this is a good idea as it bolsters them even further, but this is all we've got.
> This does not work when one with the slightest bit of discomfort in arguing wants to cease and put an end to further discussion.
I find that to be a positive outcome :-)
Of course, if your goal is to change their mind, then my strategy won't work well (or at least is not sufficient on its own). However, paradoxically, the first rule in influencing people is You cannot change people. You'll see this in most communications and negotiations books. The more they sense you are trying to change them, the greater the walls they'll put up. Change almost always comes from within, and you can only help them be making it easier for them to change.[1] Instead, you have to bring down their defenses, which includes accepting them as they are, whatever their perverse beliefs. That itself will be a major step towards change. The sort of person who cannot stomach a climate change denier is the sort of person who should exit the conversation first - their prejudices will usually do more harm than good.
> You can't muscle through it with logic, reasoning and data.
In that sense, they are merely ordinary people. If you've studied the discipline of influence, you'll find that changing people via logic, reason and data is the exception, not the rule. From my time in academia, I can tell you that even amongst highly respected academics, it tends to work only within their narrow discipline, and mostly not in other areas of their life. It's not hard to find someone who is in the top of their field adhering to weird beliefs. And my former academic self who knew little about influence in those days can assure you that logic, reasoning and data almost never swayed top scientists from conspiracy theories. I know because I tried, as did many of their colleagues.
> Public embarassment, mockery and comedy are the society's ways of dealing with this. Not saying this is a good idea as it bolsters them even further, but this is all we've got.
It may be all you've got, but it's a really ineffective way, and simply closes them off to you. If you read the handbook, they too caution not to use this. Not only that, it alienates even those who are on your side. As an exercise, go find people who used to believe in a conspiracy theory and changed their mind. I'd wager at least 80% of them did not change their mind through mockery and embarrassment. For bonus points, ask them what they think about that strategy.
[1] Ridiculing does the exact opposite - it makes change more difficult in their minds.
I really like this breakdown, and I’ve employed it (to some extent) with various people. In my experience, however, it’s not so much that it worked with them; rather, they found the discussion frustrating and became despondent only within the conversation between myself and them. In other words, I didn’t so much change their mind as help them decide to not engage me on whatever particular topic.
I find that incredibly frustrating. Maybe I’ve rubber-ducked myself into realizing I’m not doing something right.
In my experience, it works if people accept the two conditions as reasonable before the discussion starts. At the outset, the conditions are fairly reasonable. Yes, it's a trap, but a reasonable trap.
BTW, I'm not claiming this changes their mind in the long run. It does provide for a good conversation in the moment, though.
Or just admit that you don’t know enough to be confident in any explanation.
Maybe you try listening and maybe they will too.
Maybe realize that it’s more important to understand the person in front of you than score points in your own head.
Maybe start with establishing some common values rather than convince them that you’ll never agree on anything.
Maybe realize that some of the things that you are most concerned about are the things you are least rational about, and this may be that thing for them.
But the thing is that these people are the ones whose main prerogative is to score points. They are largely uneducated and disinterested, the world around them is complex and they feel inadequate. So they read something that tells them all the scientists and educated people in the world are either evil or sheeple and with the blink of an eye they have found superiority to you, when in reality, deep down, they know they don't have a position with regards to the big conversations of the world.
Rather than putting work in to maybe get to a point where they still have to be corrected by those they feel jealous of, those they resent for their cultural capital, they instantaneously put themselves above and beyond all of them.
Reasoning with and understanding them is impossible for two reasons. Everything I've said above and also how infuriating they are. There is only so much going around in circles listening to complete and utter tripe that the most patient of us can deal with. And that is what you'll spend your time doing, because reasoning and explanation is precisely what these people resent about you and it is precisely the driver of their beliefs.
The problem, I believe, is that the ridicule just isn't enough. They have each other as a force field. If they all of a sudden came up with a new piece of half-baked tripe which was ridiculed in their own circles, they would backtrack faster than they've ever adopted any of their views. The ridicule needs to be drilled in.
From a disinterested third-party perspective, this reads like it could be applied exactly in the reverse. Would it be any less correct if they were to say the same about you? Are there differences in intelligence between people? Should less-intelligent people have a voice on issues? Is there anybody more intelligent than you? How do you know that you are smarter than someone else? Do they know that you are smarter than them? How would you know that someone is smarter than you? If you are certain that you are right, is someone that disagrees with you certainly wrong? How would you know if you were wrong? If you were to ridicule someone for a belief that turned out to be correct, what is your proper response? Have authorities always been correct for all of human history? Is there any authority figure that you disagree with today? What is the difference between authority figures that you agree with, and those that you don’t?
Let’s take a perspective from statistical theory. Suppose there is a coin that comes up heads 1% of the time. Person A observes it 10 times and concludes that it always comes up tails. Person B does not observe at all and guesses 50/50. Who is more correct? Let’s see what happens when they start betting with 100. Person A is certain that they will win, so always bets everything. Person B expects no gain, so will not bet anything. After 1000 games, what is the probability that person A will have more money than person B? For a more theoretical treatment of why person B is more correct, see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullback–Leibler_divergence
I hope that you can understand that, just like epistemology, statistics, and stock trading, civics is not a domain where self-righteousness leads to good outcomes.
> The problem, I believe, is that the ridicule just isn't enough.
The comment you responded to did not suggest ridicule as a tactic. More than that, I can almost guarantee the commenter would abhor ridiculing as a strategy. The problem isn't that ridicule isn't enough. Ridiculing is part of the problem.
I note this focuses on climate change, and doesn't really stray beyond that. I'd be more interested in something that also addressed conspiracies that turned out to be true, like 'government surveilance' conspiracies from pre-snowden times, and could identify the difference.
It's important to note that often, suspicions of malfeasance by people in authority turn out to be wrong; but sometimes they are not. Claiming that people in power never conspire to do wrong - as this article seems to do - is pretty hard to back up.
The opening and closing lines are "real conspiracies do exist". Because of that, I didn't feel like the article claims that "people in power never do wrong".
Theories about conspiracies that turned out to be true are not conspiracy theories. The main characteristic of a conspiracy theory is that it cannot be disproved.
(It is unfortunate that the term "conspiracy theory" adds another meaning to the already confusing word "theory".)
> The main characteristic of a conspiracy theory is that it cannot be disproved.
Then my government surveilance example fits your definition. "If there's no evidence, then it's well hidden."
However, I would also say that in practice your definition leads to fallacy. In general use, what I've noticed is that literal 'theories about a conspiracy' are labeled as "conspiracy theory", and then dismissed because "conspiracy theories can't be disproven and are therefore crazytalk." (I think there's a term for that fallacy, but I can't find it.)
I would change the definition - the main characteristic of a conspiracy theory is that it is believed despite a lack of evidence, or even evidence to the contrary.
Believing Epstein could have been killed, because the circumstances around his death seem extremely suspicious, isn't a conspiracy theory.
Believing that the Clintons sent a hit squad to kill him in order to cover up Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory.
People who believe the former also likely hold some doubt, because the actual evidence leaves room for doubt. It is after all possible that he did kill himself, stranger things have happened.
Whereas, no one who believes the latter will likely be convinced otherwise, because belief is obviously a matter of faith in that case, not reason.
You have a strange definition of conspiracy theory, and your intended use of the phrase is stranger. My criticism of a non-literal use of the word still stands - by your usage, anything that isn't proven yet is labeled conspiracy theory, which is also automatically crazytalk.
Government surveilance, and even COVID-19 (as mentioned elsewhere on the thread) were both by your definition crazyperson conspiracy theories until someone went out and proved it.
To me, it's unintellectual. New theories are dismissed out of hand, since they lack evidence and are considered tantamount to flat-earth theory; any investigation is therefore unwarrented.
Edit: in your example, you're confusing 'belief that something could have happened' with 'belief that something did happen'. Is that all you're trying to say?
>My criticism of a non-literal use of the word still stands - by your usage, anything that isn't proven yet is labeled conspiracy theory, which is also automatically crazytalk.
I never claimed that any unproven theory is automatically crazy talk. I even provided two examples to show the difference between belief in the likelihood of an unproven conspiracy, and conspiracy theory, and nowhere did I use the word "crazy."
>Government surveilance, and even COVID-19 (as mentioned elsewhere on the thread) were both by your definition crazyperson conspiracy theories until someone went out and proved it.
Again, nothing in my definition implied "crazyperson." And none of those were conspiracy theories. People knew about government surveillance, and people knew about COVID. Conspiracy theories by definition don't have proof.
And yes, until they are proven, they are conspiracy theories.
>To me, it's unintellectual. New theories are dismissed out of hand, since they lack evidence and are considered tantamount to flat-earth theory; any investigation is therefore unwarrented.
Let me explain the scientific process for you, basically. You come up with a hypothesis, you test that hypothesis, you judge the likely truth of that hypothesis based on the evidence.
Yes, new theories without evidence are dismissed without of hand. They should be. Nothing about that implies that investigation is unwarranted, rather, it implies that investigation is necessary to provide evidence to validate the claim.
Conspiracy theorists, however, do not attempt to validate their claims, or provide evidence, or consider evidence to the contrary. They simply believe as an article of faith. That is not intellectualism, that is the nonintellectual position. The intellectual position is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. And if the best evidence you have for your claims are Youtube videos or Gematria, you deserve to be ridiculed.
>Edit: in your example, you're confusing 'belief that something could have happened' with 'belief that something did happen'. Is that all you're trying to say?
Sorry, you used up your opportunity to be taken on good faith, so good night.
A seemingly mysterious (but probably trivial) feature of our universe is that there's only one kind of reasoning. There's no special 'anti-conspiracy' method of reasoning, nor any other special-puprose method.
Likewise, there's only one way a theory can be wrong. No theory has ever been wrong because it was a conspiracy theory.
What's actually being discussed here is how to make other people believe (or claim to believe) something. That's fine, as long as it's not muddled with how the truth is discerned.
I agree that calling something a "Conspiracy Theory" is basically name-calling. Calling something conspiracy theory doesn't tell us much if anything about what is true or not.
But many times it's justified name calling. Because it's not the conspiracy in the theory that is the issue but the lack of evidence in proportion to the strength of their beliefs. And in place of evidence their is paranoia. The problem is conspiracies by their nature are very hard to prove so your evidence for them will likely be weak
Another feature of the universe is that the truth can never actually be discerned.
At any point in time a new observation can be found that actually invalidates a previous hypothesis. Every single hypothesis ever made by mankind has the potential to be invalidated this way and therefore no hypothesis has ever been proven to be definitively true. Thus nothing can be proved to be true in science and by extension nothing can be proved to be true in reality as we know it.
The scientific method is based on two axiomatic foundations which we can only assume to be true: Logic and Probability. When you apply these axioms to an arena with an unverifiable amount of entities/primitives the result is a universe where nothing can be proven.
Perhaps no hypothesis has ever been proven to be definitively true, but it is possible to proof that at hypothesis is false, e.g. the moon is not made of cheese, the earth is not flat. Also you can estimate the likelihood that a hypothesis is true or false, e.g. hypothesis that Covid-19 is caused by a virus is extremely likely to be true, that is is caused by 5G signals extremely likely to be false.
I'm not arguing for a flat earth or against global warming. Far from it. Why does everyone have to politicize everything? I am arguing for the true nature of reality. Don't read into this, I'm not saying anything about those topics or conspiracy theories. I am simply adding an addendum to the post above mine... that IS all.
This isn't some philosophical conjecture either. There are many examples of my point in science. For example: Newtons laws of motion.
Newtons laws of physics are now to our knowledge ultimately wrong. These laws were once fundamental to science and part of our common sense. We now know that these laws were never actually proven to be true. Subsequent observations have verified that Newton was in fact ultimately wrong and that relativity is ultimately the more accurate theory.
Yet relativity has not yet been proven to be true. Nor can we ever prove it to be true. It will always be and shall always be open to disproof. Scientists are fully aware of this that's why a good number of theoretical physicists are trying to work out an alternative theory.
This is literally what the scientific method is, I'm not pulling this out my ass. How facts like this applies to a conspiracy is not something I remarked about.
"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." -Albert Einstien
The way to counter and shed light on conspiracy theories is to construct an alternative similar theory and then ask, why do you believe this instead of this?
Say you believe that Hillary is a pedophile. Why don't you believe that Donald Trump is?
You're just questioning your own biases. Your own bias has nothing to do with whether or not someone is a pedophile.
Wherever you bias lies, if someone obtained pictures of Hillary conducting pedophilic actions your bias will be irrelevant against the content of those pictures.
I'm thinking more of the case where there is clear evidence but there also are people who refuse to believe the evidence. I may produce some evidence but you say it is manufactured. In such case how can I convince you you should open your mind to the possibility that the evidence is real?
I think one way might be to get the person to question their reasons for why they believe them, why not as well believe something else?
In such a case an honest and open-minded person might say hey maybe I believe what I have believed so far because that is what I WANT to believe. Say I believe Trump won the election. Maybe I believe so because I want to believe it is true.
Conspiracy theories thrive when true information is suppressed for political purposes. If you want to stamp out conspiracies stop lying to people about things they obviously know are false and they will be more willing to believe you when there is more uncertainty.
What makes you confident that is the reason? Are all people equipped to work out what is obviously false?
It is one thing to be distrustful of official sources and another to believe that Bill Gates is injecting nano particles into vegetables based on a video you saw on YouTube.
People don't just start believing Bill Gates is injecting nano particles though. They get there through a gradual process.
Edit: And I am confident this is the reason because I have observed people go down this process. People who are intelligent, and not the caricatures they are made out to be.
You're right - the Bill Gates injecting nano-particles into COVID vaccine has its basis in several pre-existing conspiracy theories, such as anti-vaxx, fears of RFID/"Mark of the Beast" tagging, Satanic/ritualistic activities by elites (see: Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones, etc.) which themselves are derived from (albeit not always directly indicative of) anti-Semitic conspiracies.
Even with QAnon, the pieces were already there among the right-wing and extremist Christianity, they were just assembled into a single, somewhat coherent narrative.
This. When information is suppressed, people fill in the gaps. Some people do it with wilder and wilder ideas, but there _is_ a gap, and those who think the information suppression is totally benign are naive, considering both historical precedent and the obvious question of, "what are they hiding that they don't want people to know about?" If it was benign, a government by the people and for the people would be transparent to the people. Lack of transparency hints that it is neither by nor for the benefit of the people.
No conspiracy theories thrive when the truth nuanced and complex, and takes more than two sentences to explain.
For example, rare and unforeseeable side effects from vaccines. They exist. Information is not being suppressed. However, the risk-benefit calculation from both a personal and societal standpoint is just complex and muddy enough to be exploited by some snake oil salesman hawking nutritional supplements that boost “natural immunity”.
Conspiratorial thinking is often an in-kind response. For instance, the theory that the virus came from a lab was common, but had no particularly strong conviction to it until every authority source became 100% certain that it did not. If they had just accepted the lab origin story as a possibility, it wouldn’t be a conspiracy theory, it would just be a theory. But what you saw was a well-dressed layman spokesperson on every major news channel telling you that only stupid and evil people disagree with them, and they are all plotting against you. This handbook reads like a guide to script writing in the popular media. Everything that ever happens is always a conspiracy that is far more widespread an nefarious than anybody would have assumed from normal experience. It’s never just one random accident that affects only a few people in billions. Until there actually is an event that affects billions of people, and then it’s just a random accident, until election time, and then it’s a conspiracy again. And if you question any of this, you’re an extremist. And I don’t think anybody cares if it came from a lab or not. That’s not the conspiracy part of the theory.
Conspiracy is the rule, not the exception.
To think otherwise is being ignorant of history, reality, and good reasoning.
(See: every government ever run in the history of the world)
some conspiracy theorists are actually mentally ill -- suffering from delusions or psychotic symptoms.
it's really easy to see this if you just go to the conspiracy regions of social media -- people providing "evidence" consisting of strange numerology, pointing to nonexistent patterns in photos and texts, claiming that random events are coded messages or evidence they are being monitored, etc.
i think these people are relatively small in number but have outsized influence in conspiracy communities, because they are much more vocal than average online.
attempts like this document makes to explain conspiracy in terms of emotional needs, personality, and cognitive habits are not without merit, but I think they will never provide a complete explanation.
none of these recommendations will work for someone who is not currently capable of normal cognition due to mental illness.
of course it's doubly irresponsible for laypeople to try to diagnose specific strangers. and history shows that "my political enemies are mentally ill" is a very dangerous idea.
still, I think communication strategies around conspiracy theories should take into account that the community they want to reach includes these people, and research into conspiratorial thinking also ought to take it into account.
There is difference between conspiracies and conspiracy theories - this list shows mostly information about conspiracies, and less information about people and theories that predicted them before official uncovering (this would make them conspiracy theories proven true). I think a lot of conspiracies about which we learned post-factum prove mostly that they are really hard to spot.
I think it depends on scale. A lot of proven conspiracies are goverment cover-ups about some exact events (like killing certain people or medical tests) or something closed for one industry (like oil companies hiding data about global warming). Conspiracy theories often create much bigger visions, spanning across multiple goverments (often opposing each other) e.x Moon landing hoax, flat/hollow Earth or thousands of unconnected people (chemtrails, some medical theories).
I think we've learned from the Trump era that you don't need to try to keep things secret. Even if you explicitly try to bring to light things like poor handling of Covid by the Trump administration large portions of people will not believe that.
So I think something similar may happen inside governments, most government employees believe and accept the official truth, and don't try to spread a counter-narrative, or be critical about the official truth. Truth is what benefits the person telling the truth and it usually does not benefit you to be critical of the official version.
If we all believe it is the truth then who's gonna say it is not, except crackpots and people we label as such. Who wants to be labeled crackpot?
"conspiracy theory" is literally a theory that people are conspiring in some way. I think we'd have to be daft to think that politicians don't conspire all the time. History is full of cloak and dagger intrigue, if our society is somehow enlightened beyond it, then great, but I truly doubt it. We are, in many ways, just more naive than previous generations.
Given the comically poor quality of Stephen Lewandosky's best-known research on the topic [1], I doubt that this "handbook" deserves any serious consideration.
[1] Lewandosky et al. "NASA faked the moon landing, Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science"
I don't see why the standard procedure can't be applied here. E.g. we have no proof to either a conspiracy or to its opposite, so let us live peacefully, while having different opinions. Also, let's not force anything on each other - because there's no evidence on any of the sides.
Except the example they use is climate change... some people claim that all the scientists are in on a conspiracy and that climate change isn't real.
You can't respond to this by saying "fine, we will each believe what we want and won't force anything on each other", because if climate change is real, we HAVE to take collective action to stop it.
This is the case for a lot of conspiracy theories... Covid, climate change, etc. There exist real problems in the world that requires everyone to take action. We can't just throw up our hands and do nothing just because some people refuse to believe reality.
If we can agree to that, that will be fine. The problem with that is when one side will not agree to no first use of force - then game theory says you HAVE to hit back with force.
I'll leave this here for posterity. It's coming to the end of the line for Q predictions. In the next month we should see mass arrests of elite, take down of corrupt world politicians, judges and so on. Otherwise all this was just a grand lie.
I really doubt the inevitable failure of all of these predictions will be the "end of the line." Messianic cults and movements are surprisingly resilient to unmet expectations. "When Prophecy Fails", etc.
This is more of a psychology text on conspiracy theories as a component of a psychological concern. What I hoped it would be was an encyclopedia of conspiracy theories. I'm surprised no one has attempted to collect many of them into a volume.
The problem is, conspiracy theories tend to be fluid and interconnected, and new ones pop up all the time, so it's all but impossible to compile an exhaustive list.
When someone like michael moore does "bowling for columbine", people didn't accuse him of being a conspiracy theory advocate.
Yet, if he were to do a documentary today on the influence of pharmaceutical lobbying on the way the world handled covid (or the influence of china), he would surely be suspected.
I don't think this category is useful in any way to think about a given issue / theory.