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How can anyone discount so called 'conspiracies theories' so quickly when accounts of such atrocities are now mainstream knowledge? I am not saying one should s

How can anyone discount so called 'conspiracies theories' so quickly when accounts of such atrocities are now mainstream knowledge? I am not saying one should suspend critical thinking and logic to accept anything they are told, but clearly there are some instances where history has proven such conspiracies have taken place and harmed many innocent lives.

Splendor 9y ago
Because many conspiracy theorists are more interested in selling brain vitamins than finding the truth.
- lawlessone 9y ago
  take your brain force!
wallace_f 9y ago
I used to be of the mind that ideas within the conspiracy theory realm were most likely utter nonsense. After Snowden and the DNC scandal, I've opened up the possibility for a lot more critical thought. If you take a look at the conspiracy sub on reddit, which became popular after the DNC Scandal, while there is some nonsense, the most-upvoted stuff are often quite interesting. In fact, I find the userbase there in some ways more sane and rational than your typical political online forum, often being even quite the opposite of the identity politics seen in those places, ie the #3 most upvoted post this year is exactly that.(1) 1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6twr5k/the_only_power_that_scares_the_establishment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6twr5k/the_only...
- lostgame 9y ago
  Not sure why this is downvoted. Upvoted for being pretty on point.
- shostack 9y ago
  >" In fact, I find the userbase there in some ways more sane and rational than your typical political online forum" I'm confused by this statement. /r/conspiracy has been shown to have been heavily used by Russian bots/trolls to spread propaganda and truly fake news.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Can you elaborate, or give an example? What about my example/observation screams 'Russian propoganda?' Russians want us to throw away identity politics and work together to fight against the abuses of the plutocracy?
    - seppin 9y ago
      No they want everyone to distrust one another, and tear down instead of reform.
      - saiya-jin 9y ago
        while this statement would generally fit the Russian (and not only) approach to foreign politics, you need to back it up with some proper facts. Otherwise you are just degrading whole discussion into crazy conspiracy mud
  - mistermann 9y ago
    Maybe you should do some investigation into your confusion to determine which of your preconceptions are incorrect.
  - la_oveja 9y ago
    i find amusing how people can fit "russian bots" in almost every sentence they dont agree with.
  - arca_vorago 9y ago
    Hey long time /r/conspiracy user here, and there are indeed some "Russian bots", but the real bots got started around 2011 ish when the gov started putting out bids in sock puppetry as a service aka persona management, so I'd say there is about an even distribution of bots between all the actors at play, be they Russian, TD, share blue, etc.
- rhcom2 9y ago
  That post re enforces my view of /r/conspiracy posters as people who believe their ideas are "deep" but they really just remove all nuance and context.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    Well on this site as well I guess, as this turned out to be one of my most up-voted posts on this site.
vkou 9y ago
Because people would rather believe that terrible things happen because of unhappy accidents, as opposed to deliberate, willful, secret misbehavior. They'd rather trust, and not verify.
- pasquinelli 9y ago
  funny, i think people swallow a lot of nonsense because it's nicer to believe the world is orderly and under control -- even if the order is bad and the ones in control are malevolent -- rather than a chain reaction of accidents that no one is in control of.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    A lot of people in the world are thought to identify with their nationality and believe their society to have good ethical and moral qualities. In an us-versus-them worldview that means somebody else has to be the bad guy. Not surprisingly, the mere though of your government kidnapping and torturing innocents or taking part of genocides is deeply traumatizing. Denial, distrust or anger directed to people exposing terrible facts is to be expected. (I'm not referring to the US specifically. This patterns of denial seemed to be common under nazism in Germany where a lot of people refused to believe the magnitude of atrocities committed by their government)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rhizome 9y ago
How can anyone discount so called 'conspiracies theories' so quickly when accounts of such atrocities are now mainstream knowledge? Conspiracy theories are the sum total of everything that could be true, so consequently the "theory" parts are a dime a dozen.
2bitencryption 9y ago
> accounts of such atrocities are now mainstream knowledge? you think of you stopped a random person on the street and asked them about MKULTRA, they would know?
arca_vorago 9y ago
If only places like HN listened to us conspiracy theorists. I'm sure people will use this to talk about how illogical we are or how Hanlons razor is their favorite thing (a logical fallacy on its face), but in the end the red pill is a choice. Now the main problem too many take the red pill but don't have the rational/logical training to approach such deep subjects correctly, and therefor many have given up one half-truth or lie for another. Not to mention active forum tactics are frequently used against conspiracy forums and websites, for example the flat earth movement is a known grass-man used to discredit conspiracy theories in general. The reality of history is that it is filled with page upon page of conspiracy, and IMHO the conspiratorial view of the world is the correct one. Of course that doesn't mean every presented hypothesis is true either, each case must be weighed with the evidence. That said, the number one issue otherwise intelligent people have with conspiracy theory is the inability to use the inductive logical approach instead of the deductive one. When we don't have evidence due to coverup, etc, inductive logic is the only tool left in many cases. In most of the well thought out criticisms I see its generally due to the fact that so many expect and want the deductive approach and don't even know there is another. So to answer your main question, people don't listen to conspiracy theorists because: many conspiracy theorists have week rational skills and adopt views without proper scrutiny, various government and corporate shills actively monitor and attack conspiracy forums, and due to the tribal mentality of desiring superiority, and other factors, people dismiss conspiracy because they have been trained to do so. Of course there is a lot of plain crazy talk in these types of forums, but oh the diamonds in the rough that can be found. That's just the meta discussion.

Splendor 9y ago

Because many conspiracy theorists are more interested in selling brain vitamins than finding the truth.

lawlessone 9y ago
take your brain force!

wallace_f 9y ago

I used to be of the mind that ideas within the conspiracy theory realm were most likely utter nonsense. After Snowden and the DNC scandal, I've opened up the possibility for a lot more critical thought. If you take a look at the conspiracy sub on reddit, which became popular after the DNC Scandal, while there is some nonsense, the most-upvoted stuff are often quite interesting. In fact, I find the userbase there in some ways more sane and rational than your typical political online forum, often being even quite the opposite of the identity politics seen in those places, ie the #3 most upvoted post this year is exactly that.(1) 1 - https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6twr5k/the_only_power_that_scares_the_establishment/ https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/6twr5k/the_only...

lostgame 9y ago
Not sure why this is downvoted. Upvoted for being pretty on point.
shostack 9y ago
>" In fact, I find the userbase there in some ways more sane and rational than your typical political online forum" I'm confused by this statement. /r/conspiracy has been shown to have been heavily used by Russian bots/trolls to spread propaganda and truly fake news.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Can you elaborate, or give an example? What about my example/observation screams 'Russian propoganda?' Russians want us to throw away identity politics and work together to fight against the abuses of the plutocracy?
  - seppin 9y ago
    No they want everyone to distrust one another, and tear down instead of reform.
    - saiya-jin 9y ago
      while this statement would generally fit the Russian (and not only) approach to foreign politics, you need to back it up with some proper facts. Otherwise you are just degrading whole discussion into crazy conspiracy mud
- mistermann 9y ago
  Maybe you should do some investigation into your confusion to determine which of your preconceptions are incorrect.
- la_oveja 9y ago
  i find amusing how people can fit "russian bots" in almost every sentence they dont agree with.
- arca_vorago 9y ago
  Hey long time /r/conspiracy user here, and there are indeed some "Russian bots", but the real bots got started around 2011 ish when the gov started putting out bids in sock puppetry as a service aka persona management, so I'd say there is about an even distribution of bots between all the actors at play, be they Russian, TD, share blue, etc.
rhcom2 9y ago
That post re enforces my view of /r/conspiracy posters as people who believe their ideas are "deep" but they really just remove all nuance and context.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  Well on this site as well I guess, as this turned out to be one of my most up-voted posts on this site.

vkou 9y ago

Because people would rather believe that terrible things happen because of unhappy accidents, as opposed to deliberate, willful, secret misbehavior. They'd rather trust, and not verify.

pasquinelli 9y ago
funny, i think people swallow a lot of nonsense because it's nicer to believe the world is orderly and under control -- even if the order is bad and the ones in control are malevolent -- rather than a chain reaction of accidents that no one is in control of.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  A lot of people in the world are thought to identify with their nationality and believe their society to have good ethical and moral qualities. In an us-versus-them worldview that means somebody else has to be the bad guy. Not surprisingly, the mere though of your government kidnapping and torturing innocents or taking part of genocides is deeply traumatizing. Denial, distrust or anger directed to people exposing terrible facts is to be expected. (I'm not referring to the US specifically. This patterns of denial seemed to be common under nazism in Germany where a lot of people refused to believe the magnitude of atrocities committed by their government)

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rhizome 9y ago

How can anyone discount so called 'conspiracies theories' so quickly when accounts of such atrocities are now mainstream knowledge? Conspiracy theories are the sum total of everything that could be true, so consequently the "theory" parts are a dime a dozen.

2bitencryption 9y ago

> accounts of such atrocities are now mainstream knowledge? you think of you stopped a random person on the street and asked them about MKULTRA, they would know?

arca_vorago 9y ago

If only places like HN listened to us conspiracy theorists. I'm sure people will use this to talk about how illogical we are or how Hanlons razor is their favorite thing (a logical fallacy on its face), but in the end the red pill is a choice. Now the main problem too many take the red pill but don't have the rational/logical training to approach such deep subjects correctly, and therefor many have given up one half-truth or lie for another. Not to mention active forum tactics are frequently used against conspiracy forums and websites, for example the flat earth movement is a known grass-man used to discredit conspiracy theories in general. The reality of history is that it is filled with page upon page of conspiracy, and IMHO the conspiratorial view of the world is the correct one. Of course that doesn't mean every presented hypothesis is true either, each case must be weighed with the evidence. That said, the number one issue otherwise intelligent people have with conspiracy theory is the inability to use the inductive logical approach instead of the deductive one. When we don't have evidence due to coverup, etc, inductive logic is the only tool left in many cases. In most of the well thought out criticisms I see its generally due to the fact that so many expect and want the deductive approach and don't even know there is another. So to answer your main question, people don't listen to conspiracy theorists because: many conspiracy theorists have week rational skills and adopt views without proper scrutiny, various government and corporate shills actively monitor and attack conspiracy forums, and due to the tribal mentality of desiring superiority, and other factors, people dismiss conspiracy because they have been trained to do so. Of course there is a lot of plain crazy talk in these types of forums, but oh the diamonds in the rough that can be found. That's just the meta discussion.