2 ms·

What's extraordinary about conspiracies?

• oxide 7y ago
  What is ordinary about them is a better question. The burden of proof is absolutely in your ballpark here. Can you prove these aren't just crackpot theories? Do you have any primary sources or tangible evidence to support your claims?
  • staticautomatic 7y ago
    Other way around. You're the one who said they were "extraordinary."
    • rmilejczz 7y ago
      In the absence of evidence of the extraordinary, it seems most prudent to fall back to the ordinary in the vein of Occam’s razor. If you see a bright flash and then a tree catches fire, do you assume it’s lightning or a deep state conspiracy?
  • nickpsecurity 7y ago
    I argued they're so ordinary and pervasive that considering that angle should be more common: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_psychology_7.html#c1503021 https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/06/the_psycholog...
• bsder 7y ago
  > What's extraordinary about conspiracies? 1) Humans suck at keeping their mouths shut 2) Most conspiracy theories posit excessive competence (itself extremely rare) that somehow defies all the weird things that reality can throw at you and make things fail. Most "conspiracies" had plenty of evidence even at the time--people chose to ignore it because it benefited them. See: Epstein, Weinstein, Cosby, etc. So, real conspiracies that people don't know about do exist--but they are tremendously rare.