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> But is ignorance really the root cause? Researchers found that Islamist radicals are disproportionately well educated, and frequently have an engineering back

by js8 10y ago

> But is ignorance really the root cause? Researchers found that Islamist radicals are disproportionately well educated, and frequently have an engineering background. Yes, ignorance is the root cause (well.. technically speaking there is never a "root cause" since you can always ask another round of whys). The problem is that smart and well-educated people can become ignorant. The studies of these people also found that they are typically big believers in conspiracy theories. And I think that's the crux. Conspiracy theory is like a cancer of the mind. When you believe in some conspiracy theory, then everything that other people are saying, or evidence they provide, is categorized as invalid, with reasoning that either those people are part of conspiracy itself or hapless masses brainwashed by the conspirators. So effectively, you decided to discount all external inputs on the matter (in other words, you chose to be ignorant). The ingenious part is that it's not strictly irrational. Even if you close your mind to external evidence, rationality can have its field day, you can still work things out through logic. (And for sure, external inputs can be confusing and look inconsistent too.) It's like in a logic system which is inconsistent - anything can be proven within it, and that limits seeing its own inconsistency. (Luckily, the diversity of possible opinions of conspiracy theorists significantly limits spread of their theories.) I have seen very smart and educated people fall prey on this. Libertarians, AGW deniers.. They tend to argue on rational/logic grounds rather than look out for the evidence. I think we should teach people, if your theory requires conspiracy of more than, say, 10k people, then it's a giant red flag and you should by all means reconsider the evidence.

peterkelly 10y ago
I agree with your comment, but I can think of one example, depicted in a recently-released Oliver Stone film, that is a counter-argument against your last statement. The most unfortunate thing about conspiracy theorists is that they can occasionally turn out to be right.
- js8 10y ago
  > The most unfortunate thing about conspiracy theorists is that they can occasionally turn out to be right. Well, them being correct from time to time doesn't justify the method they use (pure logic ignoring empirical evidence). What I call "conspiracy theory" is an unproven claim, or something for which there is contradictory evidence. Once proven, it's simply a "conspiracy", and there is nothing wrong with belief in existence of (proven) conspiracies.
- redblacktree 10y ago
  A broken clock is right twice a day.
klagermkii 10y ago
There is plenty of evidence that would put the US as the "bad guy" from a Muslim perspective, it doesn't need one to play logic games in a vacuum to create a conspiracy. The support of "friendly" dictators, oppressive monarchies, and military coups that align with US interests, and the absolute backing the US gives Israel over any other Middle Eastern country. The last thing you want is people getting educated about that. There's no crazy conspiracy needed to show that the US does not have the best interests of the Arab world citizenry at heart. And that figure of 10 000 people can't keep a conspiracy secret is predicated on the idea that it's some kind of active plot, when just having conflicting ideals and values can produce all the hallmarks of a conspiracy without any of the members necessarily being consciously aware. Cf studies on name blind hiring and diversity, where none of the recruiters would feel that they were racist/sexist/etc, but the end result would look very similar to there being a recruiter wide conspiracy against certain groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/is-blind-hiring-the-best-hiring.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/is-blind-hiring-t...
- sevenless 10y ago
  Yep. Unfortunately, in some respects, we are the bad guys, our foreign policy is unjust and evil, and billions of people, including a tiny fraction who turn to terrorism, do have quite understandable grievances. Is there a peaceful way for them to get us to change what we're doing? Not that I'm aware of.
- js8 10y ago
  This is true, but that's not what I call "conspiracy theory". To see the difference, take Chomsky (or Assange, to an extent) as a good example. They are very critical to U.S. foreign policy, yet they never claim something without evidence (they don't claim for example that 9/11 was inside job), and as such they are not conspiracy theorists. The problem with people that have conspiracy theories is that they ultimately defend same or worse atrocities, but done by some other party or even themselves. > And that figure of 10 000 people can't keep a conspiracy secret is predicated on the idea that it's some kind of active plot It's just a rule of thumb, where you should set a canary and deeply rethink your beliefs and evidence you have for them. You see, in order to maintain belief in conspiracy theory, you have to categorize all contradicting evidence as coming from either co-conspirators, or people who are "naive" and somehow manipulated. This means that over time, number of people that have to be involved in conspiracy will grow. Of course there can be conspiracies of 10k people or more (e.g. NSA), but they are very difficult to keep secret in practice (there was on average one whistle-blower per 2 years on NSA spy programs). There can also be situations that look like conspiracies on the surface, as you correctly state, but those don't have the property that they can actively suppress dissent (which is required to sustain belief in conspiracy theory, to reject the contradictory evidence).
eternalban 10y ago
> Conspiracy theory is like a cancer of the mind. Da, it's like a meme that multiplies and refuses to die and then cuts off oxygen to the acceptable thoughts. I'm not a physician, but I suppose a "cancer of the mind" is a sort of 'mental illness'? Thankfully there is a body of solid research into this phenomena -- Psychopathological mechanisms of dissent -- thanks to the good comrade doctors in Soviet Union [1]. I am sure we can come up with standardized tests to identify this type of mentally ill. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_...
- js8 10y ago
  > I'm not a physician, but I suppose a "cancer of the mind" is a sort of 'mental illness'? No, it's a metaphor. :-) I mean if unchecked, then conspiracy theory will consume all your rational thinking about some issue and maybe affect other issues. Nothing against irony, but you should first understand that "belief in conspiracy theory" is not about having a particular (contrarian) belief, it's solely about how you process evidence. As I explain above, Chomsky is a dissident (or contrarian), but not a conspiracy theorist. Edit: I should probably also point out that there can be conspiracy theorists within the government as well, that is, not dissenters. Near the end of the cold war, there were people in U.S. government who believed that Russians have invisible nuclear submarines in all oceans, and I am pretty sure there were similar nuts in the USSR as well.
xupybd 10y ago
Libertarians.... I'll agree that being a libertarian can sometimes be less than pragmatic, but I hardly think it's the same level as a conspiracy theorists or climate change deniers.
- js8 10y ago
  Probably not the best choice of word, but I have seen a friend (smart programmer coworker, he studied physics) going (over couple years) from relatively harmless libertarian beliefs through disagreement with U.S. foreign policy and agreement with Ron Paul to being 9/11 truther and eventually believing that U.S. army is causing global warming. Just because he didn't like the government... So, be careful, it can afflict lot of people, not just Muslims.

by js8 10y ago

peterkelly 10y ago

I agree with your comment, but I can think of one example, depicted in a recently-released Oliver Stone film, that is a counter-argument against your last statement. The most unfortunate thing about conspiracy theorists is that they can occasionally turn out to be right.

js8 10y ago
> The most unfortunate thing about conspiracy theorists is that they can occasionally turn out to be right. Well, them being correct from time to time doesn't justify the method they use (pure logic ignoring empirical evidence). What I call "conspiracy theory" is an unproven claim, or something for which there is contradictory evidence. Once proven, it's simply a "conspiracy", and there is nothing wrong with belief in existence of (proven) conspiracies.
redblacktree 10y ago
A broken clock is right twice a day.

klagermkii 10y ago

There is plenty of evidence that would put the US as the "bad guy" from a Muslim perspective, it doesn't need one to play logic games in a vacuum to create a conspiracy. The support of "friendly" dictators, oppressive monarchies, and military coups that align with US interests, and the absolute backing the US gives Israel over any other Middle Eastern country. The last thing you want is people getting educated about that. There's no crazy conspiracy needed to show that the US does not have the best interests of the Arab world citizenry at heart. And that figure of 10 000 people can't keep a conspiracy secret is predicated on the idea that it's some kind of active plot, when just having conflicting ideals and values can produce all the hallmarks of a conspiracy without any of the members necessarily being consciously aware. Cf studies on name blind hiring and diversity, where none of the recruiters would feel that they were racist/sexist/etc, but the end result would look very similar to there being a recruiter wide conspiracy against certain groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/is-blind-hiring-the-best-hiring.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/is-blind-hiring-t...

sevenless 10y ago
Yep. Unfortunately, in some respects, we are the bad guys, our foreign policy is unjust and evil, and billions of people, including a tiny fraction who turn to terrorism, do have quite understandable grievances. Is there a peaceful way for them to get us to change what we're doing? Not that I'm aware of.
js8 10y ago
This is true, but that's not what I call "conspiracy theory". To see the difference, take Chomsky (or Assange, to an extent) as a good example. They are very critical to U.S. foreign policy, yet they never claim something without evidence (they don't claim for example that 9/11 was inside job), and as such they are not conspiracy theorists. The problem with people that have conspiracy theories is that they ultimately defend same or worse atrocities, but done by some other party or even themselves. > And that figure of 10 000 people can't keep a conspiracy secret is predicated on the idea that it's some kind of active plot It's just a rule of thumb, where you should set a canary and deeply rethink your beliefs and evidence you have for them. You see, in order to maintain belief in conspiracy theory, you have to categorize all contradicting evidence as coming from either co-conspirators, or people who are "naive" and somehow manipulated. This means that over time, number of people that have to be involved in conspiracy will grow. Of course there can be conspiracies of 10k people or more (e.g. NSA), but they are very difficult to keep secret in practice (there was on average one whistle-blower per 2 years on NSA spy programs). There can also be situations that look like conspiracies on the surface, as you correctly state, but those don't have the property that they can actively suppress dissent (which is required to sustain belief in conspiracy theory, to reject the contradictory evidence).

eternalban 10y ago

> Conspiracy theory is like a cancer of the mind. Da, it's like a meme that multiplies and refuses to die and then cuts off oxygen to the acceptable thoughts. I'm not a physician, but I suppose a "cancer of the mind" is a sort of 'mental illness'? Thankfully there is a body of solid research into this phenomena -- Psychopathological mechanisms of dissent -- thanks to the good comrade doctors in Soviet Union [1]. I am sure we can come up with standardized tests to identify this type of mentally ill. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_...

js8 10y ago
> I'm not a physician, but I suppose a "cancer of the mind" is a sort of 'mental illness'? No, it's a metaphor. :-) I mean if unchecked, then conspiracy theory will consume all your rational thinking about some issue and maybe affect other issues. Nothing against irony, but you should first understand that "belief in conspiracy theory" is not about having a particular (contrarian) belief, it's solely about how you process evidence. As I explain above, Chomsky is a dissident (or contrarian), but not a conspiracy theorist. Edit: I should probably also point out that there can be conspiracy theorists within the government as well, that is, not dissenters. Near the end of the cold war, there were people in U.S. government who believed that Russians have invisible nuclear submarines in all oceans, and I am pretty sure there were similar nuts in the USSR as well.

xupybd 10y ago

Libertarians.... I'll agree that being a libertarian can sometimes be less than pragmatic, but I hardly think it's the same level as a conspiracy theorists or climate change deniers.

js8 10y ago
Probably not the best choice of word, but I have seen a friend (smart programmer coworker, he studied physics) going (over couple years) from relatively harmless libertarian beliefs through disagreement with U.S. foreign policy and agreement with Ron Paul to being 9/11 truther and eventually believing that U.S. army is causing global warming. Just because he didn't like the government... So, be careful, it can afflict lot of people, not just Muslims.