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> 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.
by 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.