4 ms·

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 o

by 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...
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  The canary doesn't trigger the response: This is definitely a conspiracy and so I should dismiss it. The canary should trigger the response: This seems too fantastical, what other evidence is there to back this up? It's a heuristic, it will be wrong on occasion. But if it tends to be right more often, then it's a useful heuristic for gauging how skeptical we should be about a claim.
- js8 9y ago
  Use whatever numbers that suit you for your own canary; I think it's more important to have one rather than to get an exact number right. The point is, if the issue is important enough, you meet enough people who you will not be able to classify as a part of the conspiracy. That's why you should put an upper bound to it. And this will (I hope) make you think about the theory.
- vonmoltke 9y ago
  No. Simply hiding the existence of something does not make a conspiracy.
JohnStrange 9y ago
I believe I've had some success with ridiculizing conspiracy theorists and displaying outrage, but only among people who already respect me as a peer and with whom I've had long and fruitful conversations about other topics before. Also, these people were supposedly trained in critical thinking, which might have helped a bit. With strangers, this is almost impossible. Most conspiracy theories are designed to be hard to debunk, and people who believe them are unable to distinguish good testimony from bad testimony when direct evidence is not available. You end up fighting about the credentials of experts, and although it's in reality very easy to distinguish real experts from fake experts or real experts with fringe opinions, in the end all testimony will have become somewhat doubtful to the conspiracy theorist after a long discussion, which in turn makes them fall back to their default position rather than at least turning agnostic. As for conspiracy theories, in my experience almost all genuine conspiracy theories fail with explaining the motives. Like in good detective story, if there is something fishy with the motive or explaining it requires complicated and unsubstantiated background stories, then that's probably because there is something wrong with the explanation in the first place.
splintercell 9y ago
In philosophy terms it can be described as leaving the epistemological connection with the real world. The way we think is by creating mental model of the world around us. This model allows us to separate noise from signal. For instance, your cat jumping on your head, is just cat jumping on your head, you don't take it as your cat is trying to kill you. Now of course, it's not impossible for you to believe that your cat is trying to kill you, but for that, you'd need to believe in a lot of other things, for instance, you must believe cognition and rational ability in your cat. Or at least begin with believing that cat hates you, or that there are humans who have learned to brainwash your cat. When you drop the epistemic connection with the world, any noise can be signal. I remember once Alex Jones was releasing some 'documents' on his site, but his site kept on going down, so he started claiming that hackers are trying to bring his site down in order to attempt to stop releasing the documents. Now, anyone who has launched a new server or trying to bring a site up, knows that it can easily be some glitches or noob web developer unable to bring the site up properly, but in the world Alex Jones lives, any noise can be interpreted as signal and any signal can be interpreted into the conspiracy signal. Since anything which you can believe can be faked, it's not possible for anyone to convince you about anything other than what you already believe.

by js8 9y ago

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...
Jtsummers 9y ago
The canary doesn't trigger the response: This is definitely a conspiracy and so I should dismiss it. The canary should trigger the response: This seems too fantastical, what other evidence is there to back this up? It's a heuristic, it will be wrong on occasion. But if it tends to be right more often, then it's a useful heuristic for gauging how skeptical we should be about a claim.
js8 9y ago
Use whatever numbers that suit you for your own canary; I think it's more important to have one rather than to get an exact number right. The point is, if the issue is important enough, you meet enough people who you will not be able to classify as a part of the conspiracy. That's why you should put an upper bound to it. And this will (I hope) make you think about the theory.
vonmoltke 9y ago
No. Simply hiding the existence of something does not make a conspiracy.

JohnStrange 9y ago

I believe I've had some success with ridiculizing conspiracy theorists and displaying outrage, but only among people who already respect me as a peer and with whom I've had long and fruitful conversations about other topics before. Also, these people were supposedly trained in critical thinking, which might have helped a bit. With strangers, this is almost impossible. Most conspiracy theories are designed to be hard to debunk, and people who believe them are unable to distinguish good testimony from bad testimony when direct evidence is not available. You end up fighting about the credentials of experts, and although it's in reality very easy to distinguish real experts from fake experts or real experts with fringe opinions, in the end all testimony will have become somewhat doubtful to the conspiracy theorist after a long discussion, which in turn makes them fall back to their default position rather than at least turning agnostic. As for conspiracy theories, in my experience almost all genuine conspiracy theories fail with explaining the motives. Like in good detective story, if there is something fishy with the motive or explaining it requires complicated and unsubstantiated background stories, then that's probably because there is something wrong with the explanation in the first place.

splintercell 9y ago

In philosophy terms it can be described as leaving the epistemological connection with the real world. The way we think is by creating mental model of the world around us. This model allows us to separate noise from signal. For instance, your cat jumping on your head, is just cat jumping on your head, you don't take it as your cat is trying to kill you. Now of course, it's not impossible for you to believe that your cat is trying to kill you, but for that, you'd need to believe in a lot of other things, for instance, you must believe cognition and rational ability in your cat. Or at least begin with believing that cat hates you, or that there are humans who have learned to brainwash your cat. When you drop the epistemic connection with the world, any noise can be signal. I remember once Alex Jones was releasing some 'documents' on his site, but his site kept on going down, so he started claiming that hackers are trying to bring his site down in order to attempt to stop releasing the documents. Now, anyone who has launched a new server or trying to bring a site up, knows that it can easily be some glitches or noob web developer unable to bring the site up properly, but in the world Alex Jones lives, any noise can be interpreted as signal and any signal can be interpreted into the conspiracy signal. Since anything which you can believe can be faked, it's not possible for anyone to convince you about anything other than what you already believe.