There's an author, Robert Anton Wilson, who started writing an influential novel called the Illuminatus trilogy which is a pretty fun read but basically if the whole point of his work was anything it would be that if you aren't doing something of your own kind of conspiracy and you're instead obsessing over real or imagined conspiracies that other people are doing, you're wasting your time. It's a fun thing to tell someone who's ranting at you about something you've probably just heard before and already checked out as inanity if anything. The other fun thing to do is see if they accept that the moon is a hologram (You'd be surprised how many people agree to this notion)
He has a quote about belief as a whole:
"My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended."
> if you aren't doing something of your own kind of conspiracy and you're instead obsessing over real or imagined conspiracies that other people are doing, you're wasting your time
That's an incredibly practical insight IMO. It's true: the more you focus on achieving your own goals, the less you care about what else is going on in the world; the most that you care about is overcoming obstacles, but that's the case regardless of whether they're caused by other people's conspiracy plots or random accidents (at least that's the case for me).
There's an even more practical aspect to it-- conspiracies involve multiple parties. In trying to take one down, you have neither sovereignty nor numbers on your side. You have n opponents you have to indict through legal means, but they only have one...and have already proven they are willing to use illegal/unethical tactics to achieve their goals.
So even if you're absolutely right about whatever you think is going on, it's a losing proposition to take on someone else's conspiracy as a pet crusade.
For best effect, read the entire trilogy without sleeping, using whatever chemicals necessary to make that happen. And then start to see fnord the signs of conspiracy from the book everywhere in real life.
RAW made conspiracy into art.
I loved it but I also know (and have known) some folks pretty deep into provably untrue conspiracy thinking. Honestly, it seemed to be a way to self-medicate with conspiracies for them. I don't think that my Illuminatus experience compares with what they're thinking in any but the most trivial way.
Haven't read Illuminatus trilogy, but the first chapters of Prometheus Rising had an interesting framework for how you can view the world. Definitely recommend!
> Conspiracy theories can help people defend a fragile ego by exaggerating the importance of themselves and their groups;
So can identifying with the mainstream story: I'm not a crazy conspiracy theorist, I'm a serious person.
> Conspiracy theories can make people feel like legitimate actors by rationalizing their beliefs and behaviors;
So can identifying with the mainstream story: I'm listening to the experts, everyone is doing it.
> Believing in conspiracy theories entertains people by making them active participants in an exciting tale.
Most conspiracies are non-participatory. The federal reserve was created by a conspiracy[1]. I have no control over that or any ability to change the situation. It's simply depressing.
For whatever reason, identifying with the mainstream story isn't working for them. They feel left out and powerless.
Identifying with the conspiracy theory gives them a shortcut to power by inclusion with other conspiracy theorists. They can quickly become a large fish in a small pond. And even as the smallest fish in that pond they are already ahead of everybody who accepts the mainstream theory.
It's also useless. Conspiracy theories give one secret power that can't actually be applied. The best one could hope for is that one day everybody else will be forced to accept your conspiracy theory, which will somehow confer prestige on you. But they can live in hope of that sudden burst of importance, while simultaneously having a built-in excuse for having no importance now.
The difference between a conspiracy theory and something that is not a conspiracy theory is that objective reality consists of things we can corroborate and substantiate.
Of course there are conspiracy theories that are true, but some guy sitting on the Internet is never going to learn about them. He’ll be dead before he does. Backroom deals are cut all the time but the peasants aren’t going to know about them. So why sit around and theorize and things you’ll never know?
All it comes down to is attempting to comfort yourself in an unstable world, conspiracy theories are the result of a brain that failed to understand reality. It’s collapsing chaos and collapsing complexity into something that makes sense at least to you and your friends. As well, often an attempt of pretending one has secret knowledge that the real peasants don’t have access to. A cheap and easy way to becoming elite, but based on nothing. Only those digging into conspiracy websites know the truth hidden from the public.
A lot, but not all, of the mainstream news is indeed substantiated and corroborated. That’s how we know the truth. It’s the best way that we know of at least. Conspiracy theories that rely on every single western and eastern media outlet to falsify Russian atrocities in Ukraine for example, it’s simply not possible. We can’t create causal links without evidence. I mean we can, but it’s meaningless until you substantiate it. So what’s the point? Just operate off of the evidence.
It’s just a lot less fun. And that’s really what conspiracy theories derive from other than a brain that failed. Schizophrenia is a cause as well. Desire for easy elitism with “hidden knowledge”. Or merely someone seeking a cheap thrill.
The term 'conspiracy theory' is one of those words that has strong, inherent connotations. It's impossible to productively discuss conspiracy theories and theorists (IMO) because of those connotations. As with so many things, rational, objective discussion is critically dependent on appropriate words and wording. Nobody would deny that elite groups have agendas and get up to shady stuff, as we have concrete evidence of this happening all the time, and even both extremes of US political parties can be called "conspiracy theorists": extreme liberals think every white person is actively and consciously out to conspire against minorities, and extreme conservatives think covid vaccines are a way for the government to install nanochips or whatever. But nobody will respond constructively to being called a conspiracy theorist, they'll just get defensive and the discussion dies as soon as it starts.
> "There's an all-powerful, all-knowing entity watching everything you do and recording all your actions, and depending on that behavior you will be either rewarded with a post-life heavenly bliss, or a post-life eternal hellish punishment. A guaranteed way into heaven is absolute loyalty to your feudal lord and payment of a portion of your income to the church and its priests."
Yes, the original 'conspiracy theory' was religion. Just replace the supernatural entities with secret deep state cabals and black helicopters, or alien lizard-people and UFOs, it's basically the same kind of thinking.
Philosophically, there's no scientific way to disprove any of these theories, just as there's no way to disprove the notion that we're all living in a perfectly self-consistent VR simulation. Freedom of belief is also a human right, so whatever you want to imagine, go for it. (Note that believing that nothing exists until it is scientifically verified is also another of these belief systems, so don't start feeling superior, New Atheists).
That's an interesting way of looking at it. The theory you highlight was not of course the 'original' theory which may have been something more like.
> Why did something bad happen? I must have done something wrong.
> Why did something good happen? I must have done something right.
> There sure is a lot of cool stuff around. Someone must have made it.
Perhaps the original conspiracy theory is free-will, the idea that we have some control over anything that happens to us. No evidence, no proofs, just a hopeful thought that we can do something to make things better.
>Yes, the original 'conspiracy theory' was religion.
Not really.
The religious experience tends to operate differently than conspiracy in terms of the psychology and neuroscience at work.
As the article describes, conspiracy is mostly a defense mechanism for the ego. It gives people agency in a chaotic world. It rationalizes the chaos into a simple narrative. These serve to reinforce the current executive self as it currently is.
In contrast, the religious experience tends towards being a conduit for change in self. In general, religion serves to present potential ideal future self to model ones behavior on. Be like jesus/budda/serapis etc.
I don't doubt that religion and conspiracy share some mechanisms, and that one creeps into the other depending on where you look. However, my intuition is that religion at it's core is rooted in change of self to fit a cultural/moral ideal, while conspiracy is rooted in paranoia of harm to self or others.
The notion that religious stories provide models for decent human behavior is fairly solid, but then so do other forms of literature (be like Frodo, for example). This is called the 'utilitarian' argument, I believe.
As far as the nature of reality, I like this quote:
"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic."
― Frank Herbert, Dune
There are some religious traditions that take this view, perhaps Sufi mysticism, perhaps Zen Buddhism, and even some scientific concepts like quantum logic are analogous.
>The notion that religious stories provide models for decent human behavior is fairly solid, but then so do other forms of literature (be like Frodo, for example). This is called the 'utilitarian' argument, I believe.
There are other aspects to the religious experience that differentiate it from other external models for the self. Things like feeling an overwhelming sacredness, performing ritual, a feeling of mysticism.
I don't doubt people model themselves off of fictional stories, but few if any are going into ecstatic trances over Sam asking about po-tae-toes.
We nurture and spread the memes of the all seeing eye and the slow grinding gears of justice, not because they're literally true in all cases, but because if you get a critical mass of people to behave as if they are true and voluntarily act in compliance with the rules of this entity, then the much more limited power of the entity can focus itself on the tiny minority of detractors. That's also why detractors often spend time trying to get as many other people out of compliance as possible. It's easier to hide in a crowd when the entity you're hiding from can't arrest everybody.
The all-knowing-entity theory was popular. Belief was a simple matter of conformity. Conformity is the rule. Even for us.
The all-knowing-entity theory was conveyed by authority. In theory subject to scrutiny but in practice not really. Exactly like our "scientific facts".
So let's not succumb to the temptation to believe that we are special in our wisdom. (That's another belief shared by every culture.)
If you want to consider yourself wise then you'll probably want to stray from what's "modern and popular" first.
Would love to see your experiment design for testing with the null hypothesis "there is no god" ... personally, I'm an atheist, but that's still a belief-based position.
You don't need a "there is no God" experiment, at least if the only god that's actually on your hypothesis space is the abrahamic one
All other hypothesis win over an omnipotent god. That model has infinite complexity and allows every law of nature to be broken due to infinite power being an intrinsic part of that entity. You need infinite evidence to even start considering it over every other non infinitely complex hypothesis that doesn't imply everything we know about physics being wrong
And they don't even give it a good excuse unlike, for example, living in a simulation
As for the other gods... Well, whoever thinks they are likely will have to give at least some epistemologically valid argument for them. Which for the most part they don't, although I'm willing to be convinced otherwise
People require more evidence to believe a bench is wet than they do to believe in most religions. I'll convert once there's good arguments to convert, until then I'll chuck gods in the generic set of "unlikely stuff that needs more reason to be considered", which is quite the big set
I think for most world religions, belief that spiritualism is isolated as a purely metaphysical affair is a minority, nearly fringe belief. If you isolate spiritualism to the purely philosophical realm then religion loses its potency, and Richard Dawkins will metaphorically laugh as he places some pasta god next to the sacred.
Spiritualism is as much about this world as it is about concepts of afterlife.
I'm not sure it is. It isn't for me. I don't really believe there is no god, i am however certain that I am more likely to get the wrong one than not (statistically). Thus, rather than taking a belief and moral system from a book, i choose to act as if I don't have one and act following a consequentialism that suits me.
I use the phrase "God hole", introduced by TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, to refer to the phenomenon mentioned in the article. If you're familiar with the show it may seem crass to use that phrase to generalize incredibly complicated philosophy, but it succinctly allegorizes many peoples desire to attach to something greater than them that provides a sense of belonging, identity, and purpose. For example, having been raised with no religion or "greater power", I "filled" my God hole with learning to program as a kid and particularly studying math as an undergrad - math and the processes required to understand and "do" it made me feel as close to a higher power as I can imagine.
How and why the God hole is filled varies wildly per person, but the desire to do so does seem to be ubiquitous. I've struggled a lot with nihilistic thought in the past - e.g "why do anything? If you look at a big enough picture the sun will explode and nothing will ever matter or be remembered". I speculate that a major downside of higher levels of consciousness/awareness, like those found in humans, is knowing their own insignificance and normality relative to the grand scheme of the universe. I speculate filling the "God hole" and the aforementioned nihilistic perspective is a direct response to that awareness. It could even be argued that, from an evolutionary standpoint, it's important for most people to fill their God hole so they feel like they should be doing _something_ as the species would otherwise die.
tl;dr if something that fills a "God hole" is an interface in the programming sense, conspiracy is one of many implementations of the interface
I think not everybody is at struggle with their own insignificance. If nothing else, being aware of it frees you to do good things for yourself and those you care about, instead of pursuing imaginary higher-level goals. If one doesn't feel guilty for trespassing fantasy rules, they can work out what makes them and their loved ones happy in this very life - and I don't think that being an ass or criminal would be many people's choice anyway.
I see what you're saying and mostly agree. I should have worded my original comment better and to be careful with "awareness". I think the degree to which people understand, perceive, and struggle with their existentiality is a wide spectrum. What I really should have argued is that the desire to fill the God hole exists across this spectrum and drives a lot of human behavior regardless of how aware the person is of this effect. I'm reminded of people I grew up with who blindly grab on to, say, religion or patriotism - they may not be thinking in such a "meta" way about their existence, but have a primal desire to fill the God hole and enjoy the effects of their chosen filling. I think I'm more arguing that filling a God hole is a much more primal desire than we may realize.
I think the whole "movement" has been created from the fact that, scientifically speaking, earth is not round. At least not perfectly round like you see photos, because that's obviously water being pulled by gravity making it look like a soap bubble perfectly rounded.
First time I saw real photo of Earth I was somewhat shocked.
"real photo" - followed by a visualization that over-exaggerates the anomalies way more than thousandfold? (i.e. in the image earth is ~240 px high, given a polar diameter of ~12 000km we end up at ~50km per pixel. So even the difference between polar and equatorial diameter would be barely visible, and ~100m anomalies are 0.002px)
I'm not a flat-earther, but I'll daresay you couldn't prove that everyone who claims to have proof of a round earth is lying or deceived.
It's like some (alleged) variations of the young-earth creationist theory which posits that all the fossil evidence was deliberately planted by Satan to trick the gullible and only the true-believers can see though it. That's a pretty hard one to disprove.
I do enjoy the fact "conspiracy theory" is a pejorative, although it's how we interpret the world as humans. The term only started to become a pejorative because the news / government started pushing the idea as a pejorative in the 50's.
My favorite modern conspiracy that's true, not a theory. Is that there is a ring of elite pedophiles in washington and around the globe trafficking kids. We have confirmation of that with Epstein. Ghislaine Maxwell is currently in prison for the sex trafficking of minors... of course, they failed to prosecute or even mention to whom they were being trafficked; although there's a lot of politicians and wealthy business men who've been seen / visited their island (where the sex trafficking was taking place).
The point I'm making is that the negative connotation with this term comes directly because people in power want it that way; its a way to dismiss criticism and belittle those identifying failure. Identifying what's wrong with the world is good for us.Then sharing and discussing that belief builds a community and a shared identity. There's obviously a benefit to that.
The truth values of the narrative in question doesn't actually change the point the article makes, though I suspect this is because they're accidentally right rather than they went out of their way to make allowances for the fact that many conspiracy theories turn out to be true.
Believing that the greater social structure of your society is controlled by conspiring entities who tend to work in their mutual self interest and to support the status quo will almost necessarily be seen negatively by those who merely support the status quo, which is basically everybody. So yes, there are negative social cohesion consequences for being aware of that, just as there are negative social cohesion consequences of being aware the religious structure of theocracy is also the same kind of thing, or any other broadly accepted popular fiction, your government exists to serve you, your priest is a conduit to god, whatever.
Most humans just don't care and aren't capable of parsing the truth value of the questions raised, they're just interested in their status within those structures rather than the nature of them. They'll trade n percent of the total time in their lives for n million kudos bucks without spending a ten thousandth thereof pondering the nature of how kudos bucks enter into circulation or exit therefrom, nor who has their hands on the scales, and in what manner.
If you are not one of them though and you genuinely find the pursuit of truth and investigation into the actual state of reality behind the socially constructed fiction, then once again almost necessarily you're going to be the kind of person who finds meaning and a sense of purpose in that pursuit, if it's true, all the better because you will have fewer doubts about that sense of purpose and mission.
> Most humans just don't care and aren't capable of parsing the truth value of the questions raised, they're just interested in their status within those structures rather than the nature of them.
Good job, you've successfully identified the core belief of almost every conspiracy theorist. A big part of the reason conspiracy theories are so appealing is that it gives the theorist has the happy thought that they and they alone see the truth while everyone else is not 'capable of parsing the truth'.
Anybody who rejects the hypothesis that some tribal group to which they belong is how the truth is discovered and defined, and accepts the reality that it must be investigated without reference to the narratives and worldviews of said tribal groups including their own, is capable of parsing the truth. They might not arrive at the right result, but they're at least capable.
If a person can't do that though, then they're not even trying to parse the truth, they're just engaging in tribal in-group signalling with their peers, which as far as I can see is the vast majority of what humans do to the exclusion of all else. The supermajority of humanity waving red or blue flags and shouting their slogans hasn't sat down and actually analysed any of the underlying issues, that's not what their displays are about.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's always the way its seemed to me, I've never witnessed that tribal in-group signaling being subject to any kind of critical analysis whatsoever, and any attempt to engage in such isn't seen as an attempt to find out what's true, but an attack on their tribe.
This isn't even limited to the more popular tribal in-groups. I am certain that you could find an Alex Jones infowars type who, if you sat down and earnestly attempted to engage in a dialogue with them about some belief they held that you could prove outright empirically was false, they would not view that dialogue as a mechanism for finding the truth, but once again, an attack on their tribe. This just seems to be the way the vast majority of humans work, and it kind of makes sense in a context of collectives engaged in constant struggle against each other for dominance in brutal and messy ways.
Nuanced views are a luxury few can afford, and a neat way to end up outcast and subject to the depredations of any of the aforementioned dominant aggressive collectives. Before you know it, they're forcing you to drink Hemlock.
> Believing that the greater social structure of your society is controlled by conspiring entities who tend to work in their mutual self interest and to support the status quo will almost necessarily be seen negatively by those who merely support the status quo, which is basically everybody.
Lol… the founding documents of the United States are pretty explicit about not trusting government. Something like 80% of people don’t trust news media today.
I wouldn’t say everyone supports the status quo. In fact I think the vast majority of people don’t like the status quo. The discussion is always how to make it better.
All that said, “conspiracies” are real and everywhere. I have multiple active conspiracies with my friends to go on a trip this fall, wife doesn’t know yet. Lol
My point was actually that conspiracies are all around us. Being apart of them is common. That makes us apart of something and makes us happy. Social cohesion wasn’t exactly what I was discussing, but I don’t think cohesion is actually necessary - so long as everyone tolerates one another.
That said I do see your point. The search for truth is definitely key. But truth isn’t much different than faith. Imo believing truth is a willingness to accept constantly being wrong. You much always change your opinions.
> Lol… the founding documents of the United States are pretty explicit about not trusting government. Something like 80% of people don’t trust news media today.
Sure, but that's not what I mean by the status quo. Almost all humans support the status quo as defined by what they believe their tribal ingroup supports, they believe that those other people who are aligned with themselves are the only ones privy to "the real story" and the people in the other tribe are evil and/or stupid. They both support the status quo as "why can't everyone just be reasonable like me and my people", and "the government" or "the media" as expeditionary forces against them are viewed as enemies to their status quo.
By contrast, it is extremely rare you will find people who acknowledge the bounds of their certainty about what's actually going on, that they aren't so sure that what they think about how things should be done is the right way to go, that they're willing to subject their prescriptions to empirical analysis, that they think maybe there are things they don't know and indeed things nobody knows that significantly impact all of the above factors, and if on reflection and analysis the status quo can be shown to be deficient in a concrete way, they accept that it should be overhauled.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think there's enough of these people in the world that they actually could be a tribe, and when I see them musing to themselves in the obscure fringes in which they operate, they frequently make reference to the fact that they often feel like clowns that don't fit anywhere at all. It's true these people do tend to view government and media with suspicion, but the difference between them and their tribal counterparts is that they've always viewed government and media that way, and government and media have in turn always been opposed to them, as the glue that holds together the tribal factions that otherwise tend to dominate society and whose favor those entities are constantly trying to curry, frequently by casting aspersions on those outsiders.
People and entities conspire constantly to benefit themselves, having theories about that is healthy and shows a healthy level of distrust. The general rule of thumb should be proving the benefit of the people conspiring together and if there is no tangible/provable benefit then there is little to no reason to believe in the theory.
Why are people pushing a globe model? Who does this benefit?
At the end of the day though, a conspiracy theory is a way to rationalize a situation that you perceive as bad without having to really dig into it and see the other side that is benefiting from it. It's easier to believe that there are a group of people controlling the strings in any situation than it is that there are a ton of people who are all acting in self interest and collectively tugging the strings.
The problem with the concept of "conspiracy theories" is that it's essentially a label entirely controlled by the media. There are beliefs that (by any reasonable definition) should fit the label, and yet they are never referenced that way. There are other beliefs that have far more factual support and they immediately get slapped with the label. It's an inherently manipulative concept and I think any research that doesn't explicitly address is bogus.
I don't know why anyone would believe any of these crazy conspiracy theories... it's not as if the government, the media and the big corporations all work together or say the same things...not at all....
This is very consistent with my own theory about why people like conspiracy theories. A lot of people feel like they've been insufficiently recognized or rewarded for their intellect. They want to find some idea that allows them to be not only right but right before anyone else is. They want to be that theory's representative, to be associated with the theory in peers' minds when the theory itself is recognized as insightful. They want to feel (or at least seem) a little bit prescient.
There's no reward for being right when everyone else is too. There's little penalty for being wrong a few times either, so they'll latch onto a bunch of wild theories in hopes that just one will get them the validation they seek. Note that their own belief is hardly necessary. Often it's actually quite weak. If an idea is fully discredited it's swiftly disavowed, and hopefully forgotten.
It's easy to spot this behavior online, of course. Reddit is full of it, and this site isn't exactly immune either. Strident, even aggressive, evangelism about a "contrarian" theory is usually the big tell. Accusing others of being "sheep" is solid confirmation. People who are pursuing an unconventional theory for its own sake, out of pure intellectual curiosity, tend to be quieter about it. The loud ones are just playing Russian Roulette with their reputations and sometimes their friendships. It's the same impulse that has led more than a few Nobel prize winners to start issuing grand pronouncements in unrelated fields where they're still rank amateurs, just like sports or entertainers trying to get into the spotlight one more time and usually embarrassing themselves. Or Rudy Giuliani, but the less said about him the better.
A few quirky ideas might make you an oddball, but a hundred, month after month and year after year, makes you a laughingstock and/or a pain in the ass. My father-in-law alienated most people around him by going this route. So did another of my own friends. I feel the temptation myself, and have to consciously reject that path. Some might say I've failed, and this theory itself is evidence of that failure. :shrug: In any case, there it is FWIW.
> Accusing others of being "sheep" is solid confirmation
I absolutely LOVE when they do this.
Think about it for just one second.
Labeling someone a "sheep" because they were vaccinated, but someone who refuses to get vaccinated, like many others are not "sheep"? Perspective is everything?
Your point is spot on, once labels like "sheep" are used there is no point trying to further the conversation. They have taken their conspiracy theory views to religious heights and no amount of evidence can remove a religious view.
There is reason people use statements like "take it on faith".
Should one interpret from this article that a healthier mind believes, a) it is unimportant and it is not a part of a group that is important, b) doubts its legitimacy, and c) should be a passive particpant in the narratives around it?
You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that some ideas are specifically designed to be pacifying and neutralizing, and concern about conspiracy theories seems to be one of them. Delegitimizing opposition is a standard propaganda tool.
If were to accuse you as a reader of being a propagandized zombie incapable of reason, divorced from reality, operating as an ideological automaton in a bubble of insidiously manufactured stimuli - I would suspect your response would be dismissive. Yet this is exactly what we accuse people of when we say they believe in conspiracy theories.
All ideologies are conspiracy theories, and the only thing that makes one more meaningful than another is their falsifiability and predictive power about reality - and not its post-hoc explanatory power. As a thinking person with intellectual and moral agency, you are capable of ascertaining whether one or more of your beliefs is the artifact of this one fallacy: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Affirmative_conclusion_from_a_... , and I'd argue that calling people conspiracy theorists is the most reliable indicator that someone has been fully atomized.
I can't defend all assertions of conspiracy, but to me the urge to articulate them at all is an indicator a person is not actuated by the much greater social danger of banal nihilism.
> Should one interpret from this article that a healthier mind believes...
No. That's a huge stretch, if not an outright strawman. There's equal textual support for the more charitable interpretation that many people aren't getting enough of these positive feelings in less Manichaean or conflict-inducing ways. Even as they accept the importance and legitimacy of climate change (for example) they don't get excited by participating in activism on that issue. Conspiracy theories are a way to jump-start those feelings, and often the discomfiture of others is part of the appeal. It enhances the rush. A healthier mind seeks out meaningful engagement without turning it into combat.
> All ideologies are conspiracy theories
> ...
> the only thing that makes one more meaningful than another is their falsifiability and predictive power
Perhaps you're unaware of the fact that, according to people who actually study these things, non-falsifiability is one of the defining characteristics of a conspiracy theory. So no, not all beliefs are conspiracy theories. "If you disagree you must be part of the conspiracy" is a well known trope, even among comedians. Which brings us to...
> I'd argue that calling people conspiracy theorists is the most reliable indicator that someone has been fully atomized.
Someone who studied those things would understand that an ideology and a belief are separate things, where one is, literally, artifacts of the iterated logic of an idea and possible conclusions, whereas a belief is an underlying premise or axiom.
Not all beliefs are ideological, and not all ideologies are beliefs, especially when they are just conclusions. Category errors are funny, but clearly not everyone is in on the joke.
I knew someone would focus on that irrelevant bit. If you think the distinction matters, note that OP was about ideas, not ideologies, and you were the one who conflated the two. The category error, if any, is not mine.
Hence what makes the views so irreconcilable. If words don't mean anything, nothing does. I can see the appeal of ruling out reality as irrelevant, but it's not consistent. My beef is with a common anti-belief, which is there is no truth, as it's the founding idea in a pernicious ideology that has produced this anti-conspiracy hysteria, which is the explicit effect of iterating affirmative conclusions from this negative premise.
The OP's entire problematization of conspiracy theories is insincere. Without a mutual understanding that originates from a belief in the possibility of both truth and meaning, we're just animals without humanity to one another. I acknowledge these distinctions because those stakes are too high to be so intellectually careless as to ignore them.
What a horribly written article. Not the content, just the structure and flow.
In other news, I’m a very big believer in what many would consider “conspiracy theories” and it’s been nothing but detrimental to my life. I wish I was like the rest of you and didn’t believe them.
Everybody probably believes in at least one or two. Do you believe in an above-average number of them, or are there one or two conspiracy theories that you think are specifically detrimental to your life?
I believe in an above average amount. Honestly, they used to all be pretty detrimental, but now that half the country has has lost trust in the ruling class, it’s become easier for me.
I’d like to mention I do not believe in obvious psyops like flat Earth or birds not being real or Q anon.
I'm not a conspiracy theory type of person but know a few people who are.
My advice to them is to practice "critical thinking". A fairly easy approach should be to recognize your "confirmation bias' and curiosity and feed that by actively looking for contradictory evidence.
Too often conspiracy theory types seek out evidence to further support their views, without looking at anything else.
I know it is easier said than done, but it is a start.
Not considering all the evidence, but only evidence which supports your view causes this. If you are unwilling/unable to debate the other side of an issue, you haven't looked into it enough.
Personally I think the COVID19 vax is the correct action to take, i have also read at least one of the "anti-vax bibles" to get an idea of their views (I found it mostly misinformation)
You mention you are not a "flat earther", why is that? What made you decide that this "theory" was wrong, yet you support others?
Lets look at an example of serous conversations people have had with me: "Flat earth theory."
OK, do you believe in gravity? Given gravity is uniform, this generally should lead to round objects in space. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
So they argue about Gravity... and if it is "real"..
Go to the sink, get water, pour it slowly, what shape is formed.. explain in scientific terms why it is round, but the earth is not....(surface tension, minimum surface area). Could this force impact planets as well absent "Gravity"?
What other planet in the universe is "flat" besides the earth?...
This gets me thinking of a recent example I was going "down the rabbit hole" reading about, which is the supposed existence and subsequent coverup of a mid-90's movie starring Sinbad and a kid, possibly Jonathan Brandis.
Long story short, the comedian Sinbad hosted a Sinbad the Sailor movie (or movies) on some cable channel, and for the skit he was dressed in clothes similar to those a stereotypical genie might wear. IIRC there was one segment where a kid came on board his ship, and very well could have been Jonathan Brandis trying to cross-promote a show he was also on.
But "the internet" took this memory, combined with a vague similarity to the old Shazzan cartoon, and a vaguer similarity of that to the movie Kazaam, and decided there was a movie called "Shazam" starring Sinbad which explained everyone's vague memory of these sketches. I myself had this vague memory, so at first I found the idea of such a movie very plausible. Searching for evidence, however, turns up nothing, and then you find two prevailing schools of thought: One, that there was a movie, but it was so bad it tanked Sinbad's career, and because of that and/or Jonathan Brandis's death was completely removed from circulation and scrubbed from internet references. Or two, that the movie was real and pretty good, but only existed in a parallel universe, and some of us mysteriously got our consciousness transplanted from bodies in that universe to identical ones in this universe which has merely a few banal differences like that.
The second is not too unlike a lot of internet philosophy discussions, but the first is a good example of a conspiracy theory. The idea of a movie being so bad it's scrapped and all copies destroyed isn't too far fetched, so it takes a little bit of research to uncover a complete lack of any corroborating evidence, and the denial of those involved, to see that the theory falls apart.
When facing doubts about your own memory and experience, it can be tempting to accept an explanation that a prominent group in the community is giving you rather than doing your own research and forming your own opinions. I would not be surprised if it were a naturally evolved mechanism.
If you really wanted to give that conspiracy theory some legs, you could tie it to Sinbad (during the 2008 Democratic primaries) debunking Senator Clinton's claims about the alleged action they saw during a fateful 1996 USO tour to Bosnia-
It's funny how even the slightest bit of uncertainty can make ideas so compelling. It is still by far my favorite "Mandela Effect" example, possibly due to my having been personally affected [or afflicted?].
Edit: Funnily enough, one of the linked articles you provided contains a link which goes to the interview with Sinbad in which he first cast doubt about the conditions in Bosnia, but it just redirects to the WaPo homepage. As does the result when I search for the article in Google. Google's cached version still works, however.
"This reasoning, however, only emphasizes how conspiracy theories helped ancestors survive in a Pleistocene environment, and does not hold implications for possible psychological benefits in present-day society [20]. If anything, the evolutionary perspective implies macro-level societal benefits, by explaining why people possess mental systems that make them sensitive to signals suggesting possible collusion. Consistent with this perspective, citizens display stronger conspiracy beliefs in high-corruption than low-corruption countries [21,22]."
It is human nature, but there is a lot to talk about here. Our inability to distinguish reality from fiction and propaganda is being weaponized to pry systematically at the cracks of or society and destabilize it from within.
As AI becomes even more omnipresent, mysterious, and godlike, we may find that an organized defense of our sanity becomes essential.
Another psychological benefit not mentioned in the article, is that a conspiracy theory alleviates the anxiety of uncertainty and allows one to feel safe due to understanding one’s environment.
While the Roswell stuff is a dumb conspiracy, life has taught me that when money is available, and there is a goal of any kind among a group of people, that a conspiracy often follows.
Well this explains the election deniers crazy batshit approach to ‘Stop the Steal’. It helps rationalize their belief that Trump flags and MAGA hats make an election. 60 rejected lawsuits doesn’t seem to break the fever. Why don’t we admit it’s a cult? This is how cults work, and they are dangerous.
Certainly when you get the QAnon people it looks like a cult. The unusual thing is that in a typical cult, the leader is very involved in peoples lives. Trump doesn't directly get involved, but they still put him on a pedestal and think that he's secretly on their side and sending them messages.
He has a quote about belief as a whole:
"My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended."