9 ms·

Why people believe in conspiracy theories – and how to change their minds

39 points by CarolineW 9y ago

basicplus2 9y ago
Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get me..
- krapp 9y ago
  On balance, even if "they" are out to get someone, chances are you're not someone worth getting.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    If you have an identity, a credit card number, or a SSN, then you're a target.
    - krapp 9y ago
      You're claiming that literally every identifiable person in the world is a "target," but that's a nonsensical claim. A target of whom, and of what?
      - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
        Hackers, thieves, social engineers. Identity theft is at an all time high, affecting 1 in 16 US adults every year and costs almost twice as much as all other property thefts.[2] [1]https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/02/06/identity-theft-hit-all-time-high-2016/97398548/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/02... [2]http://www.businessinsider.com/bureau-of-justice-statistics-identity-theft-report-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/bureau-of-justice-statistics-...
        krapp 9y ago
        Fair enough, but that's not really conspiracy theory, that's just regular criminal conspiracy.
        wu-ikkyu 9y ago
        What is the difference between the two? It seems to me both of those things are the same, except for maybe the former being of the future tense, and the latter the present/past tense.
        krapp 9y ago
        Obviously, given the nature of the article, we're not talking about easily provable, verifiable criminal conspiracies. "Criminals exist" is not a conspiracy theory.
        wu-ikkyu 9y ago
        Indeed, I just wanted to point out the fallacy of the commonly held sentiment "you're not someone worth getting"
ForRealsies 9y ago
How to Know You're in a Mass Hysteria Bubble http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-in-a-mass-hysteria-bubble http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- igravious 9y ago
  Thank you for that timely link ForRealsies. Scott Adams has brilliantly put into words what has been floating disconnected around my brain since the realities of Brexit and the inauguration of the current POTUS. I visited the UK for a conference at a university just before the Brexit vote. Practically every "ordinary" person I talked to told me they were going to vote leave. On campus it was a totally different story, like night and day. Now, where the polarisation stems from is a different matter – same as in the States – not being able to see it ahead of time is one thing, but thinking your ideological opposite is stupid/racist/crazy/… after the fact is something else entirely. For a perfect demonstration of this head over to YouTube. Choose two media outlets that differ in their attitude towards the current POTUS. (There are no shortages on both sides.) Watch the coverage of the Veterans' Bill speech, read the comments. On the pro-side there's "Seems reasonable to me." On the anti-side there's nasty vitriol, ad hominem, and vilification. For the record I am indifferent. Same applies to UK media outlets and articles about Brexit. I'm aware my comment hasn't addressed the original article which offers very good advice. I once spent an hour pointlessly debating a Scotsman who turned out to be a Truther (I'd never met one). After reading this article my tactics will definitely change.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - DonHopkins 9y ago
    >"For the record I am indifferent." For the record: If you're indifferent about Trump at this point, it's because you believe conspiracy theories and fake news and blatant lies. Do you actually believe that there really were "some very fine people" marching with the Alt-Right, Nazis and KKK in Charlottesville, and that the anti-fascist protestors deserve some of the blame for Heather Heyer being mowed down and murdered by a White Supremacist, or are you actually indifferent about the Alt-Right, Nazis and the KKK? And do you also believe PlannedChaos's claim that Scott Adams is a certified genius? "Just sayin'." http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppet/ http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppe... >"I once spent an hour pointlessly debating a Scotsman who turned out to be a Truther (I'd never met one)." No Truther Scotsman would pointlessly debate you for an hour. He must have had a point. ;)
js8 9y ago
It's incredibly hard. I don't think you can convince strangers, you have to get them interested a little bit and let their own curiosity work it out, at their own pace. I call conspiracy theories a "cancer of the mind". Anybody with opposing evidence is classified either as a liar (co-conspirator) or a person being manipulated by the conspiracy. Effectively, people who do that shut down all the input, and so they can get any result they want. There is literally no way out. I think people should set up a "canary" in their minds against conspirational theorizing. If the thing you're thinking is true requires conspiracy of at least, say, 10K people, then a big red flag should come up, and you should re-evaluate all the evidence.
- igravious 9y ago
  Thumbs up for your conspiracy canary idea. Maybe "virus of the mind" or "parasite of the mind" works better though. The big C is a bit morbid :) What you point out is a very interesting aspect of conspiracy theories. The – but loads of people would have to be in on it and not a single one has blabbed – part. Mental.
- Feliks 9y ago
  "The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion (about $27 billion in 2016 dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons." Just to play devil's advocate, isn't this an example of tens of thousands of people employed in a massive conspiracy?
  - slededit 9y ago
    And the Russians had their moles all over it. And that was with the country at war and heavily motivated to keep secrets. I don't think it's a great example.
  - jackmott 9y ago
    they did not succeed in keeping it secret http://io9.gizmodo.com/secrets-of-the-manhattan-project-were-leaked-a-staggeri-1626524763 http://io9.gizmodo.com/secrets-of-the-manhattan-project-were...
tw1010 9y ago
There are conspiracy theories in history that did turn out to be valid though.
- 0xfeba 9y ago
  And how many that didn't?
  - tw1010 9y ago
    A lot more.
    - DarkKomunalec 9y ago
      That holds for all theories, not just conspiracy ones.
- js8 9y ago
  Terminological remark. Conspiracy theory cannot be falsified, it is an unwarranted belief in conspiracy that cannot be disproved, because all the evidence against it is considered to be a part of the conspiracy. There were though, historically, falsifiable theories about conspiracies (perhaps best would be to call them "conspiracy hypotheses") and they were shown to be true. These conspiracies reveal some interesting facts that can be used to disprove other theories about conspiracies, for example, how many leakers can an organization of given size expect in a certain period of time. But that's sadly not what the believers in "conspiracy theories" are doing. They are self-indulging in unfalsifiable beliefs.
  - dionian 9y ago
    Just because some crazy people reject falsification of some types of theories does not make all theories effectively be falsified
jspash 9y ago
I can honestly say that there isn't one popular conspiracy theory out there that I believe in. BUT... being a programmer we are taught to look at all the angles. All possibilities. Debugging is a series of discounting any and all theories as to the cause of the bug - starting from the most obvious, of course. So why are believers of conspiracies not allowed the same leeway? Haven't quite a few conspiracies ended up being true? Bilderberg, MK Ultra etc. Take the infamous "car allergic to ice cream" story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347852 It sounds preposterous in a somewhat tin-foil hat kind of way. But if the engineer hadn't followed up on it with an open mind, it the problem wouldn't have gotten solved so quickly.
- vanderZwan 9y ago
  The "car allergic to ice cream" is a little bit different than a conspiracy theory though, since the flavour of ice-cream wasn't the real cause. The conspiracy theory version of that would be more like the man denying that the cause was vapour lock, and continuing to insist that the problem was the flavour. A conspiracy theorist dismisses the alternative, correct explanation for the crazy one.
- empath75 9y ago
  The car allergic to ice cream story is an example of disproving a ridiculous theory, not confirming it. A conspiracy theory is someone who holds to a belief that their car is allergic to ice cream despite the fact that someone explained in detail that it's impossible and there must be some other explanation.
- mikeash 9y ago
  The problem with conspiracy theorists isn't that they consider forbidden ideas. It's that they dismiss better ones. For example, the idea that the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile on 9/11 is worth brief consideration. But when you dig into it, there's no support, while there's plenty of support for the airliner. To use your debugging analogy, it's like speculating that the bug happens because this particular variable holds 2 when it's supposed to hold 1. Then you check and it actually holds 1. But instead of moving on to the next idea, you decide that the CIA modified your debugger to lie about the value and proceed under the assumption that it really is 2.
Dolores12 9y ago
Why do you need change their minds?
- js8 9y ago
  It can be dangerous, both for the believers and other people. Many terrorists, for instance, are huge believers in various conspiracy theories.
  - TranceMan 9y ago
    And terrorism could be a conspiracy theory.
- seren 9y ago
  Even if I know this is pretty useless, I feel an urge to speak up if the belief is harmful for the person holding them. If you believe that homeopaty can cure cancer, and that every big pharma is trying to poison you, this can have quite big consequences. However, if you believe that moon landings are fake or the earth is flat, I have a harder time to find a scenario where it can harm you, so I don't bother. On a final note, in the 90's I was pretty convinced that Echelon was totally silly, and we know how it turned out. So I tend to be a bit more cautious on what is true or not.
empath75 9y ago
Conspiracy theories are fundamentally a religious idea and the result of revulsion at the possibility that things might not happen for a reason. It used to be that when an unexpected tragedy happened, people would look to supernatural forces as the cause, and some flavors of conspiracy theory still do this. You'll often find Satan used interchangeably with the illuminati or masons or Jews, etc, among conspiracy theorists of a fundamentalist mindset. But if you don't believe in supernatural forces, then you have to reach for dark and shadowy organizations, like CIA mind control experiments and Russian spies, or crisis actors or George Soros. Anything so you don't have to face the possibility that terrible things happened for no reason, or that worse, terrible things happened and your own country or politicians might even bear some responsibility for it. Fundamentally, people believe in conspiracy theories because they don't want to really understand reality and be forced to act on that understanding. The nature of the conspiracy theory itself is secondary to that, and arguing against the particulars of one will, at best, push them into the arms of another. If you want people to turn away from conspiracy, you need to provide a way of understanding and coming to terms with reality. I don't think there's one right way to do that-- after all we've been trying to figure it out for thousands of years.
- rangibaby 9y ago
  CIA mind control program was (is?) real though
  - soundwave106 9y ago
    One of the problems most conspiracy theories have is that they revolve around complex plotlines, that are executed in a flawless fashion. Very few things work out as neatly as a conspiracy theory in real life, and the CIA mind control attempts (eg MKUltra) is no execption. For all the awful details of that program, ironically one could argue that its most notable consequence was to help create 1960s counter-culture. (Without Project MKUltra, the life of Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter would have been very, very different.)
  - empath75 9y ago
    Sure. But is it to blame for all of societies ills? The freemasons and George Soros, and jewish people, and the pope, and the FSB and most other targets of conspiracy theories are all certainly real. The question isn't whether criminal conspiracies or secret socieities or various other organizations and people exist, but whether they're all-powerful forces that drive history or not. What drives a conspiracy theorist is the idea that there is some simple explanation for everything that happens. An all-powerful 'enemy' that is the cause of all of the world's ills. I'm personally a believer, for example, that Putin ordered the FSB to interfere in the election last year and that it had some impact on the outcome. But I think what happened in the election last year was the confluence of a lot of unrelated trends, and wasn't the result of some grand scheme hatched in the Kremlin. Compare that to some of the wilder corners of the twitter-sphere where everything that happened from Snowden to Charlottesville was the result of some FSB operation. At some point it just strains credulity. On the other side, you have, of course the Trump-ist idea that the entire mass media is engaged in a misinformation campaign backed by the 'deep state' who is attempting the overthrow the president an institute a "globalist" new world order. I think both sides are operating under the assumption that there is some natural order and stability in American society, and it would just continue indefinitely and peacefully if it weren't for outsiders and people who are otherwise 'un-American" attacking it. The reality is that there are underlying tensions and instabilities that have been festering for decades (or even centuries) and they are becoming harder and harder to ignore for a variety of reasons. The current crisis in America is one of those things that 'just happened', and people are having a hard time coming to terms with the new reality they're living with and want to find someone to blame.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
How is this not an appeal to authority hidden behind a strawman? Of course many people have wild beliefs about people wanting to harm them; many times they are wrong, sometimes they are right. It is the nature of fear to overcompensate. Does that mean we should go to the opposite end of the spectrum and condemn all those who have read of the countless proven conspiracies in history and are concerned with holding authorities accountable where little to no accountability exists?
- krapp 9y ago
  >Does that mean we should go to the opposite end of the spectrum and condemn all those who have read of the countless proven conspiracies in history and are concerned with holding authorities accountable where little to no accountability exists? No, and no one here is suggesting that, and neither is the article suggesting it. You're the one building the strawman.
  - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
    Does the author discern anywhere in the article on plausible theories/historical examples vs. the outlandish theories? If so I must have skimmed over it. If not, then how is it not implied?
    - Jtsummers 9y ago
      Conspiracy theories and conspiracies are separate things when people are discussing them like this. Someone claiming the moon landing is a hoax, conspiracy theory. Someone saying that Jack, Jim, and Bob conspired to rob a bank (perhaps without real evidence), is also technically a conspiracy theory, but it's more easily verified or dismissed. And depending on the people, may or may not be as outlandish as claiming that Kubrick filmed the Lunar Landing on a sound stage.
    - krapp 9y ago
      Do they need to? Why assume that, unless the author explicitly mentions the existence of plausible theories and add a caveat that not all conspiracy theories are absurd, they must be arguing for the condemnation of anyone who believes in a conspiracy? Why not discern the authors' intent from their actual words? Actual, verifiable conspiracies do exist, meanwhile everything the article claims about the nature of conspiracy theory is also true.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
durgiston 9y ago
One interesting thing about conspiracy theories that I've seen is that people with more education are more likely to believe them, and believe them strongly. One theory for why this might be true is that education teaches you to reason about and debate evidence, and with more education, you are able to convince yourself more effectively that the conspiracy is true and that countervailing evidence is false. This of course makes it difficult to convince believers that they are mistaken...
rangibaby 9y ago
Would you think your friend was telling you the truth if he told you his alarm clock had changed by itself? Someone had rearranged the things in his room?
- JohnStrange 9y ago
  I would believe him by default, especially if there was a possible credible cause or motive (e.g. your friend is a dissident in some less democratic country). The alarm clock seems harmless, mine has done that in the past due to faulty switches. As for things in the room, I'd advice him or her to use reliable and consistent tests to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis, for example by making pictures of the apartment, noting the position of objects in the apartment and keeping the notes with you, installing a camera at the entrance, etc. The East German Stasi did things like that to a few select regime critiques. For example: rearranging or removing towels, replacing freshly bought milk with spoiled one, making medical doctors give you the wrong medication. These incredibly evil practices were called Zersetzungsmaßnahmen and only used on a few hundred to thousands dissidents at maximum.
rogerthis 9y ago
Conspiracies are happening all the time. The problem is that most theories about them are wrong.
- progman 9y ago
  That's the point. You nailed it. Many theories are wrong due to lack of knowledge which is substituted with suspicions. That's the reason why conspiracy theorists are ridiculed so often. Some conspiracy theories however are true. If Pulitzer prize winners Woodward and Bernstein hadn't believed in conspiracies Watergate would never had been discovered. I am amazed that there are actually people right here who stubbornly reject the reality of conspiracies at all. Conspirators want people who don't believe in conspiracies since deceiving such people couldn't be easier.
ponderatul 9y ago
Why do you think about the incessant need for entertainment, as a source of the irrational discussions you overhear. Maybe the people there didn't even believe in what they were saying, they were just entertaining the idea of this conspiracy to drag themselves out of the quietness and worry free life that most of us live in the modern world.
trgv 9y ago
I just don't believe there are enough sinister, competent people available to carry out a large conspiracy while keeping it quiet.
almonj 9y ago
People believe in conspiracy because it is a real thing that happens. Human beings conspire, manipulate and lie. You can say that most popular examples of conspiracy theories are absurd but it does not make the concept itself invalid. Believing that people never work together for various nefarious and deceptive purposes is just as dumb as believing that everything is some kind of conspiracy.
workerIbe 9y ago
Conspiracies can be entertaining, one's own living "thriller". Some conspiracies are true. Obsessing on them can be negative, one should be honest when assessing probability. They should not affect the psyche at lower than some pretty high threshold. I read a lot of Patterson, the plots seem pretty fantastical, then a private sub Captain cuts a reporter into pieces and buries her at sea...
eutropia 9y ago
My favorite response to moon landing conspiracy theories is the counter point that we didn't have the technology to fake the live footage. It was actually easier to go to the Moon than it was to fake it, given the video technology at that time. There's a great YouTube video about this. https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs

39 points by CarolineW 9y ago

basicplus2 9y ago

Just because I am paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get me..

krapp 9y ago
On balance, even if "they" are out to get someone, chances are you're not someone worth getting.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  If you have an identity, a credit card number, or a SSN, then you're a target.
  - krapp 9y ago
    You're claiming that literally every identifiable person in the world is a "target," but that's a nonsensical claim. A target of whom, and of what?
    - wu-ikkyu 9y ago
      Hackers, thieves, social engineers. Identity theft is at an all time high, affecting 1 in 16 US adults every year and costs almost twice as much as all other property thefts.[2] [1]https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/02/06/identity-theft-hit-all-time-high-2016/97398548/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/02... [2]http://www.businessinsider.com/bureau-of-justice-statistics-identity-theft-report-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/bureau-of-justice-statistics-...
      - krapp 9y ago
        Fair enough, but that's not really conspiracy theory, that's just regular criminal conspiracy.
        wu-ikkyu 9y ago
        What is the difference between the two? It seems to me both of those things are the same, except for maybe the former being of the future tense, and the latter the present/past tense.
        krapp 9y ago
        Obviously, given the nature of the article, we're not talking about easily provable, verifiable criminal conspiracies. "Criminals exist" is not a conspiracy theory.
        wu-ikkyu 9y ago
        Indeed, I just wanted to point out the fallacy of the commonly held sentiment "you're not someone worth getting"

ForRealsies 9y ago

How to Know You're in a Mass Hysteria Bubble http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-in-a-mass-hysteria-bubble http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
igravious 9y ago
Thank you for that timely link ForRealsies. Scott Adams has brilliantly put into words what has been floating disconnected around my brain since the realities of Brexit and the inauguration of the current POTUS. I visited the UK for a conference at a university just before the Brexit vote. Practically every "ordinary" person I talked to told me they were going to vote leave. On campus it was a totally different story, like night and day. Now, where the polarisation stems from is a different matter – same as in the States – not being able to see it ahead of time is one thing, but thinking your ideological opposite is stupid/racist/crazy/… after the fact is something else entirely. For a perfect demonstration of this head over to YouTube. Choose two media outlets that differ in their attitude towards the current POTUS. (There are no shortages on both sides.) Watch the coverage of the Veterans' Bill speech, read the comments. On the pro-side there's "Seems reasonable to me." On the anti-side there's nasty vitriol, ad hominem, and vilification. For the record I am indifferent. Same applies to UK media outlets and articles about Brexit. I'm aware my comment hasn't addressed the original article which offers very good advice. I once spent an hour pointlessly debating a Scotsman who turned out to be a Truther (I'd never met one). After reading this article my tactics will definitely change.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  >"For the record I am indifferent." For the record: If you're indifferent about Trump at this point, it's because you believe conspiracy theories and fake news and blatant lies. Do you actually believe that there really were "some very fine people" marching with the Alt-Right, Nazis and KKK in Charlottesville, and that the anti-fascist protestors deserve some of the blame for Heather Heyer being mowed down and murdered by a White Supremacist, or are you actually indifferent about the Alt-Right, Nazis and the KKK? And do you also believe PlannedChaos's claim that Scott Adams is a certified genius? "Just sayin'." http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppet/ http://comicsalliance.com/scott-adams-plannedchaos-sockpuppe... >"I once spent an hour pointlessly debating a Scotsman who turned out to be a Truther (I'd never met one)." No Truther Scotsman would pointlessly debate you for an hour. He must have had a point. ;)

js8 9y ago

It's incredibly hard. I don't think you can convince strangers, you have to get them interested a little bit and let their own curiosity work it out, at their own pace. I call conspiracy theories a "cancer of the mind". Anybody with opposing evidence is classified either as a liar (co-conspirator) or a person being manipulated by the conspiracy. Effectively, people who do that shut down all the input, and so they can get any result they want. There is literally no way out. I think people should set up a "canary" in their minds against conspirational theorizing. If the thing you're thinking is true requires conspiracy of at least, say, 10K people, then a big red flag should come up, and you should re-evaluate all the evidence.

igravious 9y ago
Thumbs up for your conspiracy canary idea. Maybe "virus of the mind" or "parasite of the mind" works better though. The big C is a bit morbid :) What you point out is a very interesting aspect of conspiracy theories. The – but loads of people would have to be in on it and not a single one has blabbed – part. Mental.
Feliks 9y ago
"The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion (about $27 billion in 2016 dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons." Just to play devil's advocate, isn't this an example of tens of thousands of people employed in a massive conspiracy?
- slededit 9y ago
  And the Russians had their moles all over it. And that was with the country at war and heavily motivated to keep secrets. I don't think it's a great example.
- jackmott 9y ago
  they did not succeed in keeping it secret http://io9.gizmodo.com/secrets-of-the-manhattan-project-were-leaked-a-staggeri-1626524763 http://io9.gizmodo.com/secrets-of-the-manhattan-project-were...

tw1010 9y ago

There are conspiracy theories in history that did turn out to be valid though.

0xfeba 9y ago
And how many that didn't?
- tw1010 9y ago
  A lot more.
  - DarkKomunalec 9y ago
    That holds for all theories, not just conspiracy ones.
js8 9y ago
Terminological remark. Conspiracy theory cannot be falsified, it is an unwarranted belief in conspiracy that cannot be disproved, because all the evidence against it is considered to be a part of the conspiracy. There were though, historically, falsifiable theories about conspiracies (perhaps best would be to call them "conspiracy hypotheses") and they were shown to be true. These conspiracies reveal some interesting facts that can be used to disprove other theories about conspiracies, for example, how many leakers can an organization of given size expect in a certain period of time. But that's sadly not what the believers in "conspiracy theories" are doing. They are self-indulging in unfalsifiable beliefs.
- dionian 9y ago
  Just because some crazy people reject falsification of some types of theories does not make all theories effectively be falsified

jspash 9y ago

I can honestly say that there isn't one popular conspiracy theory out there that I believe in. BUT... being a programmer we are taught to look at all the angles. All possibilities. Debugging is a series of discounting any and all theories as to the cause of the bug - starting from the most obvious, of course. So why are believers of conspiracies not allowed the same leeway? Haven't quite a few conspiracies ended up being true? Bilderberg, MK Ultra etc. Take the infamous "car allergic to ice cream" story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347852 It sounds preposterous in a somewhat tin-foil hat kind of way. But if the engineer hadn't followed up on it with an open mind, it the problem wouldn't have gotten solved so quickly.

vanderZwan 9y ago
The "car allergic to ice cream" is a little bit different than a conspiracy theory though, since the flavour of ice-cream wasn't the real cause. The conspiracy theory version of that would be more like the man denying that the cause was vapour lock, and continuing to insist that the problem was the flavour. A conspiracy theorist dismisses the alternative, correct explanation for the crazy one.
empath75 9y ago
The car allergic to ice cream story is an example of disproving a ridiculous theory, not confirming it. A conspiracy theory is someone who holds to a belief that their car is allergic to ice cream despite the fact that someone explained in detail that it's impossible and there must be some other explanation.
mikeash 9y ago
The problem with conspiracy theorists isn't that they consider forbidden ideas. It's that they dismiss better ones. For example, the idea that the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile on 9/11 is worth brief consideration. But when you dig into it, there's no support, while there's plenty of support for the airliner. To use your debugging analogy, it's like speculating that the bug happens because this particular variable holds 2 when it's supposed to hold 1. Then you check and it actually holds 1. But instead of moving on to the next idea, you decide that the CIA modified your debugger to lie about the value and proceed under the assumption that it really is 2.

Dolores12 9y ago

Why do you need change their minds?

js8 9y ago
It can be dangerous, both for the believers and other people. Many terrorists, for instance, are huge believers in various conspiracy theories.
- TranceMan 9y ago
  And terrorism could be a conspiracy theory.
seren 9y ago
Even if I know this is pretty useless, I feel an urge to speak up if the belief is harmful for the person holding them. If you believe that homeopaty can cure cancer, and that every big pharma is trying to poison you, this can have quite big consequences. However, if you believe that moon landings are fake or the earth is flat, I have a harder time to find a scenario where it can harm you, so I don't bother. On a final note, in the 90's I was pretty convinced that Echelon was totally silly, and we know how it turned out. So I tend to be a bit more cautious on what is true or not.

empath75 9y ago

Conspiracy theories are fundamentally a religious idea and the result of revulsion at the possibility that things might not happen for a reason. It used to be that when an unexpected tragedy happened, people would look to supernatural forces as the cause, and some flavors of conspiracy theory still do this. You'll often find Satan used interchangeably with the illuminati or masons or Jews, etc, among conspiracy theorists of a fundamentalist mindset. But if you don't believe in supernatural forces, then you have to reach for dark and shadowy organizations, like CIA mind control experiments and Russian spies, or crisis actors or George Soros. Anything so you don't have to face the possibility that terrible things happened for no reason, or that worse, terrible things happened and your own country or politicians might even bear some responsibility for it. Fundamentally, people believe in conspiracy theories because they don't want to really understand reality and be forced to act on that understanding. The nature of the conspiracy theory itself is secondary to that, and arguing against the particulars of one will, at best, push them into the arms of another. If you want people to turn away from conspiracy, you need to provide a way of understanding and coming to terms with reality. I don't think there's one right way to do that-- after all we've been trying to figure it out for thousands of years.

rangibaby 9y ago
CIA mind control program was (is?) real though
- soundwave106 9y ago
  One of the problems most conspiracy theories have is that they revolve around complex plotlines, that are executed in a flawless fashion. Very few things work out as neatly as a conspiracy theory in real life, and the CIA mind control attempts (eg MKUltra) is no execption. For all the awful details of that program, ironically one could argue that its most notable consequence was to help create 1960s counter-culture. (Without Project MKUltra, the life of Ken Kesey and Robert Hunter would have been very, very different.)
- empath75 9y ago
  Sure. But is it to blame for all of societies ills? The freemasons and George Soros, and jewish people, and the pope, and the FSB and most other targets of conspiracy theories are all certainly real. The question isn't whether criminal conspiracies or secret socieities or various other organizations and people exist, but whether they're all-powerful forces that drive history or not. What drives a conspiracy theorist is the idea that there is some simple explanation for everything that happens. An all-powerful 'enemy' that is the cause of all of the world's ills. I'm personally a believer, for example, that Putin ordered the FSB to interfere in the election last year and that it had some impact on the outcome. But I think what happened in the election last year was the confluence of a lot of unrelated trends, and wasn't the result of some grand scheme hatched in the Kremlin. Compare that to some of the wilder corners of the twitter-sphere where everything that happened from Snowden to Charlottesville was the result of some FSB operation. At some point it just strains credulity. On the other side, you have, of course the Trump-ist idea that the entire mass media is engaged in a misinformation campaign backed by the 'deep state' who is attempting the overthrow the president an institute a "globalist" new world order. I think both sides are operating under the assumption that there is some natural order and stability in American society, and it would just continue indefinitely and peacefully if it weren't for outsiders and people who are otherwise 'un-American" attacking it. The reality is that there are underlying tensions and instabilities that have been festering for decades (or even centuries) and they are becoming harder and harder to ignore for a variety of reasons. The current crisis in America is one of those things that 'just happened', and people are having a hard time coming to terms with the new reality they're living with and want to find someone to blame.

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

How is this not an appeal to authority hidden behind a strawman? Of course many people have wild beliefs about people wanting to harm them; many times they are wrong, sometimes they are right. It is the nature of fear to overcompensate. Does that mean we should go to the opposite end of the spectrum and condemn all those who have read of the countless proven conspiracies in history and are concerned with holding authorities accountable where little to no accountability exists?

krapp 9y ago
>Does that mean we should go to the opposite end of the spectrum and condemn all those who have read of the countless proven conspiracies in history and are concerned with holding authorities accountable where little to no accountability exists? No, and no one here is suggesting that, and neither is the article suggesting it. You're the one building the strawman.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  Does the author discern anywhere in the article on plausible theories/historical examples vs. the outlandish theories? If so I must have skimmed over it. If not, then how is it not implied?
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    Conspiracy theories and conspiracies are separate things when people are discussing them like this. Someone claiming the moon landing is a hoax, conspiracy theory. Someone saying that Jack, Jim, and Bob conspired to rob a bank (perhaps without real evidence), is also technically a conspiracy theory, but it's more easily verified or dismissed. And depending on the people, may or may not be as outlandish as claiming that Kubrick filmed the Lunar Landing on a sound stage.
  - krapp 9y ago
    Do they need to? Why assume that, unless the author explicitly mentions the existence of plausible theories and add a caveat that not all conspiracy theories are absurd, they must be arguing for the condemnation of anyone who believes in a conspiracy? Why not discern the authors' intent from their actual words? Actual, verifiable conspiracies do exist, meanwhile everything the article claims about the nature of conspiracy theory is also true.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

durgiston 9y ago

One interesting thing about conspiracy theories that I've seen is that people with more education are more likely to believe them, and believe them strongly. One theory for why this might be true is that education teaches you to reason about and debate evidence, and with more education, you are able to convince yourself more effectively that the conspiracy is true and that countervailing evidence is false. This of course makes it difficult to convince believers that they are mistaken...

rangibaby 9y ago

Would you think your friend was telling you the truth if he told you his alarm clock had changed by itself? Someone had rearranged the things in his room?

JohnStrange 9y ago
I would believe him by default, especially if there was a possible credible cause or motive (e.g. your friend is a dissident in some less democratic country). The alarm clock seems harmless, mine has done that in the past due to faulty switches. As for things in the room, I'd advice him or her to use reliable and consistent tests to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis, for example by making pictures of the apartment, noting the position of objects in the apartment and keeping the notes with you, installing a camera at the entrance, etc. The East German Stasi did things like that to a few select regime critiques. For example: rearranging or removing towels, replacing freshly bought milk with spoiled one, making medical doctors give you the wrong medication. These incredibly evil practices were called Zersetzungsmaßnahmen and only used on a few hundred to thousands dissidents at maximum.

rogerthis 9y ago

Conspiracies are happening all the time. The problem is that most theories about them are wrong.

progman 9y ago
That's the point. You nailed it. Many theories are wrong due to lack of knowledge which is substituted with suspicions. That's the reason why conspiracy theorists are ridiculed so often. Some conspiracy theories however are true. If Pulitzer prize winners Woodward and Bernstein hadn't believed in conspiracies Watergate would never had been discovered. I am amazed that there are actually people right here who stubbornly reject the reality of conspiracies at all. Conspirators want people who don't believe in conspiracies since deceiving such people couldn't be easier.

ponderatul 9y ago

Why do you think about the incessant need for entertainment, as a source of the irrational discussions you overhear. Maybe the people there didn't even believe in what they were saying, they were just entertaining the idea of this conspiracy to drag themselves out of the quietness and worry free life that most of us live in the modern world.

trgv 9y ago

I just don't believe there are enough sinister, competent people available to carry out a large conspiracy while keeping it quiet.

almonj 9y ago

People believe in conspiracy because it is a real thing that happens. Human beings conspire, manipulate and lie. You can say that most popular examples of conspiracy theories are absurd but it does not make the concept itself invalid. Believing that people never work together for various nefarious and deceptive purposes is just as dumb as believing that everything is some kind of conspiracy.

workerIbe 9y ago

Conspiracies can be entertaining, one's own living "thriller". Some conspiracies are true. Obsessing on them can be negative, one should be honest when assessing probability. They should not affect the psyche at lower than some pretty high threshold. I read a lot of Patterson, the plots seem pretty fantastical, then a private sub Captain cuts a reporter into pieces and buries her at sea...

eutropia 9y ago

My favorite response to moon landing conspiracy theories is the counter point that we didn't have the technology to fake the live footage. It was actually easier to go to the Moon than it was to fake it, given the video technology at that time. There's a great YouTube video about this. https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs https://youtu.be/_loUDS4c3Cs