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Another important point-- once you get into the conspiracy theory mindset, it's not so much that a conspiracy or some conspiracies happen. There's a tendency t

Another important point-- once you get into the conspiracy theory mindset, it's not so much that a conspiracy or some conspiracies happen. There's a tendency to believe that all conspiracies are true, even the contradictory ones. Your average conspiracy theorist doesn't just believe the NSA is spying on Americans [they better be spying on non-Americans; we taxpayers are paying them a lot of money to do so] or that Putin has had a few guys killed. Your average conspiracy theorist believes that the Moon landing was faked, JFK was assassinated by a coordinated effort of at least three different groups, there are cures to cancer and all other diseases being kept secret by corporations and/or the gov'ment, Hitler is still alive, aliens have visited the Earth, are living here, and have secret treaties with various states, the UN has real power, various diseases [eg, HIV] are man-made, and various biblical artifacts have been found and kept secret. You rarely find a conspiracy theorist who believes one crazy thing, it's almost all or nothing. It's this weird credulity veiled as skepticism for the establishment

ConfuciusSay02 11y ago
You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what people believe. Do you have any evidence to show that people believe all or nothing? Over 80% of Americans think that the official 9/11 story is bunk, are you suggesting that all of those people also believe aliens have visited Earth?
- anon1385 11y ago
  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-believe-conspiracy-theoies/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-believe... >Such examples, along with others in my years on the conspiracy beat, are emblematic of a trend I have detected that people who believe in one such theory tend to believe in many other equally improbable and often contradictory cabals. This observation has recently been confirmed empirically by University of Kent psychologists Michael J. Wood, Karen M. Douglas and Robbie M. Sutton in a paper entitled “Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories,” published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science this past January. The authors begin by defining a conspiracy theory as “a proposed plot by powerful people or organizations working together in secret to accomplish some (usually sinister) goal” that is “notoriously resistant to falsification … with new layers of conspiracy being added to rationalize each new piece of disconfirming evidence.” Once you believe that “one massive, sinister conspiracy could be successfully executed in near-perfect secrecy, [it] suggests that many such plots are possible.” With this cabalistic paradigm in place, conspiracies can become “the default explanation for any given event—a unitary, closed-off worldview in which beliefs come together in a mutually supportive network known as a monological belief system.” >This monological belief system explains the significant correlations between different conspiracy theories in the study. For example, “a belief that a rogue cell of MI6 was responsible for [Princess] Diana's death was correlated with belief in theories that HIV was created in a laboratory … that the moon landing was a hoax … and that governments are covering up the existence of aliens.” The effect continues even when the conspiracies contradict one another: the more participants believed that Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered.
alva 11y ago
> You rarely find a conspiracy theorist who believes one crazy thing, it's almost all or nothing Not sure how true this is. There are certainly a lot of vocal conspiracy theorists online who match your description. Unfortunately these are lumped together to discredit genuine conspiracy theories ( market manipulation, Hillsborough etc ) when they exist. It is a powerful tool to diminish investigation.
- krapp 11y ago
  >Unfortunately these are lumped together to discredit genuine conspiracy theories ( market manipulation, Hillsborough etc ) when they exist. It is a powerful tool to diminish investigation. You make it seem as if this association between "rational" and "irrational" conspiracy theorists is itself a conspiracy to discredit the former with the latter, which probably happens, but it's also the case that the conspiracy theorist community (or communities) and conspiracy sites often choose not to discriminate between rational and irrational theory themselves. Conspiracists tend to interpret skepticism or attempts to debunk (read, actually prove) their theories as attempts to "silence the truth," making it difficult to clean house. Although it also doesn't help that the more outlandish conspiracy theories are the ones that enter public consciousness through the media. But those outlandish conspiracy theories are also the most fun - would anyone watch an X Files about normal, boring conspiracies - tax evasion, surveillance and occasional human experimentation, rather than aliens and the Illuminati?

ConfuciusSay02 11y ago

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about what people believe. Do you have any evidence to show that people believe all or nothing? Over 80% of Americans think that the official 9/11 story is bunk, are you suggesting that all of those people also believe aliens have visited Earth?

anon1385 11y ago
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-believe-conspiracy-theoies/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-believe... >Such examples, along with others in my years on the conspiracy beat, are emblematic of a trend I have detected that people who believe in one such theory tend to believe in many other equally improbable and often contradictory cabals. This observation has recently been confirmed empirically by University of Kent psychologists Michael J. Wood, Karen M. Douglas and Robbie M. Sutton in a paper entitled “Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories,” published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science this past January. The authors begin by defining a conspiracy theory as “a proposed plot by powerful people or organizations working together in secret to accomplish some (usually sinister) goal” that is “notoriously resistant to falsification … with new layers of conspiracy being added to rationalize each new piece of disconfirming evidence.” Once you believe that “one massive, sinister conspiracy could be successfully executed in near-perfect secrecy, [it] suggests that many such plots are possible.” With this cabalistic paradigm in place, conspiracies can become “the default explanation for any given event—a unitary, closed-off worldview in which beliefs come together in a mutually supportive network known as a monological belief system.” >This monological belief system explains the significant correlations between different conspiracy theories in the study. For example, “a belief that a rogue cell of MI6 was responsible for [Princess] Diana's death was correlated with belief in theories that HIV was created in a laboratory … that the moon landing was a hoax … and that governments are covering up the existence of aliens.” The effect continues even when the conspiracies contradict one another: the more participants believed that Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered.

alva 11y ago

> You rarely find a conspiracy theorist who believes one crazy thing, it's almost all or nothing Not sure how true this is. There are certainly a lot of vocal conspiracy theorists online who match your description. Unfortunately these are lumped together to discredit genuine conspiracy theories ( market manipulation, Hillsborough etc ) when they exist. It is a powerful tool to diminish investigation.

krapp 11y ago
>Unfortunately these are lumped together to discredit genuine conspiracy theories ( market manipulation, Hillsborough etc ) when they exist. It is a powerful tool to diminish investigation. You make it seem as if this association between "rational" and "irrational" conspiracy theorists is itself a conspiracy to discredit the former with the latter, which probably happens, but it's also the case that the conspiracy theorist community (or communities) and conspiracy sites often choose not to discriminate between rational and irrational theory themselves. Conspiracists tend to interpret skepticism or attempts to debunk (read, actually prove) their theories as attempts to "silence the truth," making it difficult to clean house. Although it also doesn't help that the more outlandish conspiracy theories are the ones that enter public consciousness through the media. But those outlandish conspiracy theories are also the most fun - would anyone watch an X Files about normal, boring conspiracies - tax evasion, surveillance and occasional human experimentation, rather than aliens and the Illuminati?