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Weak evidence is not the same as a shaky assumption, which is not evidence at all. > Conspiracies happen As do coincidences. This isn’t about conspiracies but

Weak evidence is not the same as a shaky assumption, which is not evidence at all. > Conspiracies happen As do coincidences. This isn’t about conspiracies but about conspiracy theories. A provable conspiracy is two or more agents coming together, even without their awareness of alignment, to achieve a single specific secretive goal as qualified with evidence. Qualified evidence is any single or series of provable facts that directly links each participating agent to the secretive goal with intent. The most important part of that is proving intent. A conspiracy theory is a belief there should be a conspiracy but without the necessary qualified evidence. Coincidence - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence Conspiracy theory (nonsense) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory Conspiracy - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy Intention - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention Given the terms I find it’s not at all far fetched to conclude there exists some common mental health defect that allows conspiracy theories to flourish amongst some people and not others.

arminiusreturns 6y ago
Like all those who spouted the evidence free Russia-gate conspiracy theory? Thats a lot of mental health defects. I'm obviously being hyperbolic but you should get the point. On a more serious note, it's important to remember the power of inductive logic in places where we lack evidence, such as in the conspiracy theory realm. Not everything has to be deductive, though of course it is preferred.
- austincheney 6y ago
  > Thats a lot of mental health defects. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23329867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23329867
ColanR 6y ago
Conspiracy theory often happens when coincidence becomes unbelievable. (I like the phrase someone else coined in this thread, 'coincidence theory', when we hold onto the coincidence explanation too long.) NSA spying was believed by many long before snowden, because the coincidences were piling up even though intent was not proven. I don't think it's fair to conclude there's a mental health defect in people more skeptical of the status quo (If we want to go that route, perhaps there is a similar mental health defect that allows belief in improbable coincidence to flourish among some people and not others?).
- JoeSmithson 6y ago
  > NSA spying was believed by many long before snowden, because the coincidences were piling up even though intent was not proven What were the inexpiable coincidences that were piling up?
  - philipkglass 6y ago
    I wouldn't say so much "coincidences" as "significant prior evidence." Here's what led me to believe that the NSA was engaged in large sale interception of communications years before the Snowden disclosures: "The Puzzle Palace," published in 1982: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puzzle_Palace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puzzle_Palace Report from the EU's investigation of ECHELON in 2001: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Committee_on_the_ECHELON_Interception_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Committee_on_the_ECH... Disclosures around room 641A in 2006 (discussed yesterday on HN): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A The NSA's capabilities were correctly speculated upon by technically adept civil libertarians before the Snowden disclosures. The details were certainly fuzzier before 2013. But mass surveillance capabilities were no more in doubt than the existence of Israel's nuclear weapons program. In both cases there was plenty of concrete evidence despite official denial and/or stonewalling.
    - JoeSmithson 6y ago
      Yes, I agree with you completely that there was significant prior evidence. I would go as far to say as a very large amount of what Snowden revealed was in fact already known. This seems to be the opposite of it being a conspiracy theory - that's why I asked specifically about these "coincidences piling up".
      - ColanR 6y ago
        You're changing the definition of "conspiracy theory" in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample you were given of NSA spying.
acituan 6y ago
> A conspiracy theory is a belief there should be a conspiracy but without the necessary qualified evidence. That is an arbitrarily high standard. Just because the subject of a hypothesis is that there is a conspiracy doesn't automatically make lack of evidence problematic. Even for natural phenomena there can go decades before a hypothesis is backed with evidence if ever (e.g. Einstein), human interactions and particularly intent is much more unlikely to leave a trail of evidence so I don't get how being even more strict with it helps with our knowledge gathering process. All conspiracies that turned out to be true were conspiracy hypotheses before they were proven and this defense could have been (and was, and is) used to stifle the process of evidence gathering. This doesn't mean most of the conspiracy hypotheses aren't far fetched, emotional and poorly argued, nor that all is entitled to public attention equally, but we can't apply different epistemological standards between conspiracies or natural phenomena (science) when we are faced with unknowns. > Given the terms I find it’s not at all far fetched to conclude there exists some common mental health defect If we judged this premise by the standard you've posited, it would be equally problematic. In fact, we know in the past, states have abused psychiatry to discredit dissenters. Check out Soviet Union and their "creative" diagnostic labels used against political dissenters as an example.
- austincheney 6y ago
  > That is an arbitrarily high standard. Which likely explains why conspiracy theories proliferate.
  - acituan 6y ago
    > Which likely explains why conspiracy theories proliferate. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but setting an arbitrarily high standard is problematic. Human life is complex, interactions are combinatorially so. Just because uncertainty makes us uncomfortable doesn't mean we should move the bar higher to only deal with the comfortable territory (those with readily available evidence). History is full of atrocities that didn't immediately produced evidence, and even in the face of evidence we denied it could be happening for a long while. Even evidence is no panacea for our biased knowledge-seeking machinery. Not all beliefs are bad. Not all truths are comfortable. Therefore it is imperative we be careful with what we ignore and what we don't.
pmachinery 6y ago
Writing off people with dissenting/anti-establishment viewpoints as mentally ill is at best extremely pedestrian; potentially extremely sinister. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatr...
- austincheney 6y ago
  It is not about agreement/disagreement. It is only about the inability to separate belief systems from evidence.
noxer 6y ago
I would say it's the Dunning–Kruger effect that makes some people fall for such things but not others. At lest at the beginning. If someone once went down the rabbit hole they will start to question absolutely everything but that the fact that they could be wrong. And where you can't help them anymore with logic arguments. Logic build on what everyone agrees on like math, physics etc. But if you try to explain why the earth atmosphere isn't sucked away by the vacuum of space if there is no ceiling dome, you are lost if the other person questions gravity because that was invent by the Jews or whatever to [insert evil plan here].

arminiusreturns 6y ago

Like all those who spouted the evidence free Russia-gate conspiracy theory? Thats a lot of mental health defects. I'm obviously being hyperbolic but you should get the point. On a more serious note, it's important to remember the power of inductive logic in places where we lack evidence, such as in the conspiracy theory realm. Not everything has to be deductive, though of course it is preferred.

austincheney 6y ago
> Thats a lot of mental health defects. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23329867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23329867

ColanR 6y ago

Conspiracy theory often happens when coincidence becomes unbelievable. (I like the phrase someone else coined in this thread, 'coincidence theory', when we hold onto the coincidence explanation too long.) NSA spying was believed by many long before snowden, because the coincidences were piling up even though intent was not proven. I don't think it's fair to conclude there's a mental health defect in people more skeptical of the status quo (If we want to go that route, perhaps there is a similar mental health defect that allows belief in improbable coincidence to flourish among some people and not others?).

JoeSmithson 6y ago
> NSA spying was believed by many long before snowden, because the coincidences were piling up even though intent was not proven What were the inexpiable coincidences that were piling up?
- philipkglass 6y ago
  I wouldn't say so much "coincidences" as "significant prior evidence." Here's what led me to believe that the NSA was engaged in large sale interception of communications years before the Snowden disclosures: "The Puzzle Palace," published in 1982: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puzzle_Palace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puzzle_Palace Report from the EU's investigation of ECHELON in 2001: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Committee_on_the_ECHELON_Interception_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Committee_on_the_ECH... Disclosures around room 641A in 2006 (discussed yesterday on HN): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A The NSA's capabilities were correctly speculated upon by technically adept civil libertarians before the Snowden disclosures. The details were certainly fuzzier before 2013. But mass surveillance capabilities were no more in doubt than the existence of Israel's nuclear weapons program. In both cases there was plenty of concrete evidence despite official denial and/or stonewalling.
  - JoeSmithson 6y ago
    Yes, I agree with you completely that there was significant prior evidence. I would go as far to say as a very large amount of what Snowden revealed was in fact already known. This seems to be the opposite of it being a conspiracy theory - that's why I asked specifically about these "coincidences piling up".
    - ColanR 6y ago
      You're changing the definition of "conspiracy theory" in an ad hoc fashion to exclude the counterexample you were given of NSA spying.

acituan 6y ago

> A conspiracy theory is a belief there should be a conspiracy but without the necessary qualified evidence. That is an arbitrarily high standard. Just because the subject of a hypothesis is that there is a conspiracy doesn't automatically make lack of evidence problematic. Even for natural phenomena there can go decades before a hypothesis is backed with evidence if ever (e.g. Einstein), human interactions and particularly intent is much more unlikely to leave a trail of evidence so I don't get how being even more strict with it helps with our knowledge gathering process. All conspiracies that turned out to be true were conspiracy hypotheses before they were proven and this defense could have been (and was, and is) used to stifle the process of evidence gathering. This doesn't mean most of the conspiracy hypotheses aren't far fetched, emotional and poorly argued, nor that all is entitled to public attention equally, but we can't apply different epistemological standards between conspiracies or natural phenomena (science) when we are faced with unknowns. > Given the terms I find it’s not at all far fetched to conclude there exists some common mental health defect If we judged this premise by the standard you've posited, it would be equally problematic. In fact, we know in the past, states have abused psychiatry to discredit dissenters. Check out Soviet Union and their "creative" diagnostic labels used against political dissenters as an example.

austincheney 6y ago
> That is an arbitrarily high standard. Which likely explains why conspiracy theories proliferate.
- acituan 6y ago
  > Which likely explains why conspiracy theories proliferate. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but setting an arbitrarily high standard is problematic. Human life is complex, interactions are combinatorially so. Just because uncertainty makes us uncomfortable doesn't mean we should move the bar higher to only deal with the comfortable territory (those with readily available evidence). History is full of atrocities that didn't immediately produced evidence, and even in the face of evidence we denied it could be happening for a long while. Even evidence is no panacea for our biased knowledge-seeking machinery. Not all beliefs are bad. Not all truths are comfortable. Therefore it is imperative we be careful with what we ignore and what we don't.

pmachinery 6y ago

Writing off people with dissenting/anti-establishment viewpoints as mentally ill is at best extremely pedestrian; potentially extremely sinister. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatr...

austincheney 6y ago
It is not about agreement/disagreement. It is only about the inability to separate belief systems from evidence.

noxer 6y ago

I would say it's the Dunning–Kruger effect that makes some people fall for such things but not others. At lest at the beginning. If someone once went down the rabbit hole they will start to question absolutely everything but that the fact that they could be wrong. And where you can't help them anymore with logic arguments. Logic build on what everyone agrees on like math, physics etc. But if you try to explain why the earth atmosphere isn't sucked away by the vacuum of space if there is no ceiling dome, you are lost if the other person questions gravity because that was invent by the Jews or whatever to [insert evil plan here].