8 ms·

My biggest concern is how seemingly so many conservative people are becoming huge conspiracy theorists. I don't mean normal conspiracy theories like there being

• 23B1 6y ago
  In a sea of readily-available information with no way to qualify it, people gravitate towards concepts they can understand and that fit within their ideological framework. If we're in the Information Age, why is information literacy not as important as literacy itself?
• gimboland 6y ago
  Interestingly, it's not just conservatives. I'm in the UK, and some of the circles I move in are a bit "hippy" (and thus not conservative/right wing at all) and some of those folks are absolutely lapping it up. It is bewildering to see.
  • rattray 6y ago
    Fascinating. What kind of stuff? The whole qanon deal?
    • sampo 6y ago
      In Finland, QAnon is known to gain support in yoga studios and among people who are into wellness and alternative medicine. https://www.is.fi/menaiset/ilmiot/art-2000006672495.html https://www.is.fi/menaiset/ilmiot/art-2000006672495.html
    • gimboland 6y ago
      Not so much that (I think Q has thus far been mainly a US phenomenon, though it _is_ making inroads here apparently), but mainly I'm seeing stuff around covid being a hoax and/or a control ploy, forced vaccinations, tracking chip injections, Agenda 21, Bill Gates, etc. — all that stuff. It sort of makes sense in a group of people tending to favour "natural" stuff (some of whom were also antivax tbh) but it's been surprising how far it's gone, and how fast, with some of them.
      • CodeGlitch 6y ago
        Yes I'm in the UK too. I have family members who believe the whole Bill Gates mircochip injections, 5G causing COVID, anti-vax nonsence. My experience is people who loose control of their own lives (job lose, health, etc) seem to grip onto all these conspiracies, as if to try and explain their bad luck.
  • Aeolun 6y ago
    It’s interesting to see how it swings the same way again. I hear the ‘masks are bad’ mantra from both the most right, and most left wing components of people I know.
    • sampo 6y ago
      > I hear the ‘masks are bad’ mantra from both the most right, and most left wing components of people I know. "Masks are bad" was the official government policy in Nordic countries up until August. And still is in Sweden.
  • projektfu 6y ago
    Right, it's infected the anti-vax and supplements community.
  • HeyHoJoe 6y ago
    Of course. These conspiracies depend on how schizotypical people are. People who are more “fantasy prone” are more likely to believe in magic, the supernatural, aliens and various other kinds of woo. It’s hardly surprising that hippie types should be included - what is the fundamental difference between believing in crystal healing and laylines and believing qanon? There’s no rational basis for either.
• Austin_Conlon 6y ago
  It was baffling listening to an SF tech worker in 2016 try to convince me Pizzagate was real.
  • newfriend 6y ago
    I'm sure there's no end to the things you find baffling.
    • Austin_Conlon 6y ago
      Can you expand on why it’s dumb of me to dismiss Pizzagate?
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
• konjin 6y ago
  Not much different to the democrats after the last election and Russia. Turns out everyone reaches for conspiracies when they would rather not change their world view.
  • opportune 6y ago
    I agree the Russia thing was way overplayed (even though Russia did run a propaganda campaign, which all evidence does point to, actual American people were still voting for Trump). I don't think it really holds a candle to the batshit craziness of QAnon though.
    • konjin 6y ago
      Not my president people are everybit as unhinged as qanon people. They unironically said Trump was a kgb asset who Putin was controlling. Again, if we found out that some Democrat staffer had stuffed a ballot for their guy it wouldn't mean that the vicotry for Biden was fraudulent. It would mean that one single operative committed fraud and probably had no wider impact. I'd even go as far as saying that it would be far more dangerous than the fsb posting memes.
      • NationalPark 6y ago
        I'm sure you can point to individual wackos but what is there that has the same scale and impact as Qanon? It's a very unique thing, and it's almost exclusively affecting conservatives.
        • konjin 6y ago
          Russia gate, if anything its even more unhinged because it was on national news instead of blogs. It is one of those things that even a year later everyone involved is keeping really quiet about given how embarrassing it is to have believed it.
          • didibus 6y ago
• canadaduane 6y ago
  This is affecting me, too. I see immediate family members (especially older generation) unable to distinguish sources of truth. It makes me reconsider China's state-run propaganda system filtering what people are allowed to see/hear. Perhaps western civilization swings too far towards individualism when railing against the value of groups & institutions digesting information first.
  • datway 6y ago
    Chinese people cannot have a say on things like Xinjiang in their own country because of the influence of the party over their media ecosystem. We can improve ours significantly, undoubtedly, but I would look more towards Europe than China for alternatives. Germany spent years Nazi proofing their system and so far the results have been not bad.
    • sebmellen 6y ago
      You're right that in Germany the Nazi problem is now negligible, but the real problem we face is extreme Islamofascist groups (to use Macron's words). In France, Macron banned the Gray Wolves, a Turkish ultra-nationalist group. But Germany faces a very big problem with the Turkish-nationalist population. Probably more of a threat than France, given that the Turkish population in Germany is upwards of 9%. Even Turkish-German politicians are now calling for a ban on the Gray Wolves and other such extreme organizations (see https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/german-lawmakers-urge-ban-on-extreme-right-turkish-gray-wolves/ar-BB1aMRGu https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/other/german-lawmakers-urge-b...). While this ban may go through, the problem of radical Islam will remain a persistent threat in Europe. I don't know that there's any clear-cut way to avoid extremism while also preserving freedom.
  • nine_k 6y ago
    But don't state-run information filters exploit the gullibility flaw, not alleviate it? In other words, how do you tell?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• briga 6y ago
  Seems like a lot of these problems stem from a failing education system. Teach kids critical thinking and scientific literacy and about media bias. Seems more important ever to teach kids that they shouldn't believe everything the see at face value. Easier said than done I suppose
  • ianmobbs 6y ago
    Exactly this - but this is why conservatives routinely defund education.
  • fountainofage 6y ago
    I'm very inclined to believe, but I personally know a couple of medical doctors who are 100% into the theories. And I imagine lots of other people also know well-educated individuals with the same beliefs. I don't know if education is enough. People seem to decide at some point what they believe, and then back all evidence into either it supports their beliefs, or the evidence is fake.
    • dd36 6y ago
      Doctors have a very narrow area of training.
      • fountainofage 6y ago
        Are you saying we need even more education than what doctors currently attain? Or are you agreeing with my underlying point that education doesn't matter and won't help here?
        • saghm 6y ago
          I think GP is saying that we need _different_ education, not necessarily "more". It could be more if the new stuff was added in, or it could be the same amount if it replaces something else. The total amount of education isn't super relevant, and it's a bit misleading up claim that teaching anything other than what is already part of a medical school curriculum means you're requiring students to learn "more than a doctor". For a more concrete example, I have never gone to graduate school; my education ended after finishing my undergrad. By any reasonable measure, I received "less" education than a doctor, who presumably completed an undergrad like me but also medical school afterwards. However, I almost certainly learned certain things that most doctors didn't in my computer science education, like how a compiler or operating system is written. If instead of those computer science courses I took courses dealing with media literacy and how to recognize bias, I still would have "less" education than a doctor.
• TulliusCicero 6y ago
  Yeah, it's really weird. My dad is an old guard conservative, and he's flabbergasted at the embrace of Trump and all these conspiracy theories and people going, "MY FREEEEDOM!!" instead of wearing a mask.
• chrismcb 6y ago
  Where would you go? Conspiracy theories aren't unique to the us.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • opportune 6y ago
    I was thinking Switzerland. Other European countries are also enticing, and I'm actually completely fine with the higher taxes, but less fine with the substantially lower wages for software engineering. I am sure there are conspiracy theories everywhere but it feels like even some of the crazier ones are becoming mainstream in the US. I worry that staying here too long is playing chicken against the possibility of a crazy+competent person taking advantage of the conspiracy theories in ways Trump couldn't fully do.
    • toomim 6y ago
      You might check out this related comment before jumping ship: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25020778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25020778
      • opportune 6y ago
        Yeah, like I said surely there are conspiracy theorists everywhere and the "hippy granola" conspiracy theorists are a group I'm familiar with in the US (usually these are the "holistic medicine", anti-vaccine, unschooling, etc. people). I remember traveling through Germany and seeing tons of alternative medicine physician offices, and was surprised to learn in a lot of European countries you can actually use the socialized/public health systems to pay these "physicians", which I would find infuriating if it were my tax dollars going to that. But that's a bit of a digression. What's important to me is the scale and impact of the delusion moreso than the fact there are at least some deluded people.
        • cycomanic 6y ago
• addflip 6y ago
  What’s hilarious with your position is that your “side”, the liberals, is perceived to be immune the conspiracy theories. For example, like how QAnon is widely believed throughout the conservative community. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/30/qanons-conspiracy-theories-have-seeped-into-u-s-politics-but-most-dont-know-what-it-is/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/03/30/qanons-cons...
  • woah 6y ago
    OP is talking about their own family
  • opportune 6y ago
    I am not conservative.
  • cycomanic 6y ago
    Actually that study just shows that people have not heard about the term Qanon. I actually believe that left leaning voters are more familiar with the term. I suspect it hardly gets mentioned on fox news for example. The more interesting thing would have been to ask about some of the theories from Qanon and to scale them likely to unlikely similar to the other questions. The second difference between Qanon and some of the previous conspiracy theories (on both sides) is that we have several republicans quite openly supporting some of those theories, and even the president retweeting qanon theories. That's why people are saying it seems to becoming mainstream.
• aazaa 6y ago
  Did the president merely tap into this simmering sentiment, or did he inflame it? Recently, Glenn Greenwald wrote about the reluctance of large news organizations to even mention the Hunter Biden laptop story. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-intercept https://greenwald.substack.com/p/my-resignation-from-the-int... As someone who sees this story as hard to believe for a number of reasons, the broad resolve among large news organization to avoid that story raises some serious questions in my mind. This is not how the press is supposed to work. And it's definitely not how the press reacted to the Steele Dossier, which has similar problems with provenance of information and motivation. That kind of environment in which the press seems to take sides makes fertile ground for conspiracy theories. If you can't trust the press to be unbiased, then how can you believe anything they say? Along comes someone who claims to have all the answers and away you go, full speed to QAnon Station. A lot of people believe the Russia investigation was in fact its own form of conspiracy theory, cooked up by a party outraged that it lost an election it thought it had in the bag.
  • zamalek 6y ago
    The conspiracy theory for the conspiracy theory is that his campaign owns/runs Q. Q is responsible for many of the other conspiracy theories following that. In my opinion everyone needs to cool down. America is polarized over being correct, not being happy.
    • koboll 6y ago
      Q is Jim Watkins, or perhaps someone close to him. He's the one who owns the site that Q (now, after the Christchurch shooting) posts "drops" on. I seriously doubt anyone from Trump's orbit is involved. Qanon was a huge thorn in their side.
  • sagichmal 6y ago
    I'm confused as to your intent here. The Hunter Biden laptop story was one of those QAnon conspiracy theories.
    • 6y ago
• netsharc 6y ago
  It's not as if other countries are lands of gold and honey... I live in Europe, and there are also anti-lockdown Covid-skeptics around here screaming "The goverment has turned authoritarian and is slowly turning us into sheep!" (luckily they're in the minority). And surely they are or will be vaccine-skeptics. It seems truth has become subjective. I tried to talk to a QAnon-spouting girl and posted links to Snopes or The Guardian. She said, "Well, MSM is owned by the Rottschilds so you can't rely on them to tell the truth.". I never asked where she read this, but she probably would've replied she figured this out by reading some random Wordpress blog or watching some nutter on YouTube. I thought "So, you believe those sources and think my sources are lying?!?". But wait, from her point of view, this sentence is also true! One could try asking them to check the reputation of their sources or dig deeper, but it seems this is an exercise in futility. When there are actual doctors arguing against Covid restrictions or publishing flawed studies on hydroxychloroquine, how do we trust who is reputable? (I'm talking about Didier Raoult, who now also has conspiracy theorists championing him as someone the French government "ousted" because he wasn't towing the party line). Then again, there are utterly stupid conspiracy theories like the Wayfair one: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53416247 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53416247 ; the idea that secret cabals would use publicly accessible online shops to traffic children is laughable, but the people who believe this sort of thing doesn't get that the real human traffickers (is a sad fact that they're out there) probably knows how to communicate in secret.
  • tomp 6y ago
    > "The goverment has turned authoritarian and is slowly turning us into sheep!" You don't need to be "covid-skeptic" to say that, I say the same thing simply because I'm strongly libertarian. It also highly depends on the value system, e.g. if you're young and healthy you might think the marginally increased chance of complications because of this virus isn't worth delaying your life for months or years. Also, Snopes and the Guardian (along with most other MSM and fact-checking sites) have pushed enough biases, falsehoods and conspiracy theories to be completely untrustworthy.
    • totetsu 6y ago
      If you're young and healthy and have fast reaction times drive a large safe vehicle you might think the marginally increased chance of injury because of a crash is not worth delaying your journey by driving at a limited speed or obeying stop lights. but now everybody's driving fast and on the wrong side of the road and zooming through red lights and nobody gets anywhere faster safely because you have to slow down at every intersection and check if a car is coming. Lock down isn't delaying people's lives it's ensuring there's a society for those lives to continue in.
• analog31 6y ago
  I think we now have a propaganda apparatus that folks in the past could not even have dreamt of. I fear that this will take us to a very dark place.
• mcphilip 6y ago
  I do have some hope that the more extreme conspiracies pass in time and don’t permanently damage the psyche of those involved. Growing up in the Bible Belt during the Satanic Panic, I was legit afraid of being caught and sacrificed by satanists after a friend’s dad had us watch a movie about the “Pagan Invasion”. Satanists out to kidnap kids for ritual sacrifice was a Big Fucking Deal that many people actually believed —- Paradise Lost is a good documentary from that wave of hysteria. I know of very few people that are terrified of satanists any longer.
  • pavlov 6y ago
    Q seems to be a direct continuation of the satanist panic. Not only are the satanists real, but they control the government, rape children, drink their blood etc. etc.
    • lwhi 6y ago
      Communication has become weaponised. It either helps the cause, or hinders it. The content is irrelevant.
    • mcphilip 6y ago
      It actually is an interesting topic to look at the history of Blood Libel and see the Satanic Panic and QAnon as the evolved/remixed version with different actors. I think with the advent of the internet, things are shifting away from ritual murder to sexual exploitation of minors as the big fear, but “that group of people you don’t like is out to get your children” is quite the enduring narrative.
• chrchang523 6y ago
  "One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens." Someone who was e.g. raised as a Christian, and then concluded that some of the stories they were told in Sunday School were lies, is likely to treat an appeal to religious authority as evidence against a claim. Even in domains where Christian groups have been effective in practice. The same can be said about mainstream media or science. In the short term, it's practically impossible to reach such people without identifying somewhere they're actually right in their rejection of the mainstream narrative, and gaining their trust by recognizing that. Only with that trust do you have a shot of being listened to when you point out where they overcorrected against the mainstream narrative. In the longer term, it would really help if some key mainstream narratives became more accurate. Without that, "getting out of the country" may actually become the best option for an increasing number of people.
• Solvitieg 6y ago
  I think the size of these groups are greatly exaggerated by social media. Conspiracy theorists have always existed and are practically harmless. Sure there are incidents that occur, but likewise, 1000 people a month die from falling down the stairs. It's just not a problem in the grand scheme of things.
  • opportune 6y ago
    There are members of the US House of Representatives which believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory now (Marjorie Taylor Greene). Sure it's just one representative among hundreds, but that shows it's not a deal breaker and might even have widespread popular support.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• neverartful 6y ago
  Don't forget that Hillary Clinton complained about 'vast right-wing conspiracies' publicly on multiple occasions. The talk of conspiracies is not unique to one side.
• belorn 6y ago
  I see the conspiracy theories as substitutes for more concrete reasons why people feel so divided and under attack. Recalling back to research done on conflicts between groups, the most strongest way tensions and fear are created is when people displays different symbols representing difference in values, unclear and uncertain definitions of identities and groups, and large difference in social and economic status being highly visible and displayed. Get people afraid with a strong dose of us vs them and people will latch onto any theory that will explain that emotional state regardless if some are true and some are false. The best way to meet in the middle would be to do the opposite to those triggers and then talk to them.
• SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
  > How do you even begin to "meet in the middle" or have reasonable conversations with people who believe in that stuff? This is the Overton Window on steroids. I've struggled to put aside my partisanship in discussions with different opinions, I have trouble even when the other person is being rational and informed, but to go against flat-out-batshit-insanity? How did that happen? Did we just assume people always want to be smarter, and that was wrong?
• DesiLurker 6y ago
  My view is this is because at its core human brain has evolved to not reject reality however weird it may be (bear with me), The problem is that when 'facts' are presented in form of live media (audio, video) the chances of it being interpreted as 'reality' by our adaptive brain as reality is high.. because you just saw & heard it, there in very little space there to inject intellectual discretion there, and even if you do you still have to have a special case for 'that reality'. the best counter to fake news IMO is to not consume any news in a narrated form unless its from a really trusted source & I mean invite-home-and-fireside-chat trusted. I prefer reading news to this. the other benefit is that you can read at your own pace instead of the narrators pace so you have better chance of not missing crucial detail. Second is free is bad, my take away after last election cycle was we need to pay for the news. I got NYT & wapo sub and have not cancelled it since. Just these two things, paying for the news and reading it helps me keep this conspiracy BS at bay.
• arminiusreturns 6y ago
  You can have the bravery to understand that there are nuggets of truth in even what you may consider the crazier conspiracy theories, and then to follow up with researching and understanding psychological operations both the history and current extent therefor (of what we know), so that you can come to the table both with a) uncomfortable to you facts, and b) knowledge of how those psyops are used on the populace (which in particular gives one a better understanding/empathy with those who buy into xyz). The media told everyone not in the conspiracy realm about how pizzagate was false, and it likely is, but only to an extent. But wait, I can feel the recoil already, just a moment. For those of us in the conspiracy realm, who know about the real use of children for blackmail operations mostly by intelligence agencies but also by organized crime, pizzagate suddenly becomes much more plausible (note I didn't say real). It's not a popular position because most people simply don't want to know how dark the world really is. The framing of Epstein as some one off independent abuser is actually part of the coverup of just one middle manager in one of said blackmail rings. He ran girls, others run boys. Top level politicians and businessmen are targets for leverage. If you balk at even this assertion just because of the "crazy by association" to pizzagate, take the time to lookup: The Dutroux Affair, aka Belgiums X-Files, The Franklin Scandal, the Finders Scandal, Roy Cohn (Trumps mentor)... as just a start. Also note: wikipedia will not provide good information on these kinds of topics. If one were to look at the entry for the Franklin Scandal without digging further, one would probably walk away thinking it was a hoax, which isn't the truth at all. On the topic of psyops, one of the most used techniques is called the "limited hangout". I usually use the flat earth conspiracy as an example of this. Of course it is quite assinine, and should generally just be ignored as such, an analysis will show that those who talk about it (I would posit are often not organic), also talk about much more legitimate conspiracy theories. The intent is to make the more legitimate conspiracy theories discredited as crazy by association. Qanon is such an operation. It took what could have been a movement against the blackmail networks that have infiltrated and compromised huge amounts of business and politicians on both sides of the isle, and turned it into a partisan, quasi-religious outlet that goes nowhere, but always promises something is about to happen (keeping the partipants hopeful and distracted from more meaningful action) with the added side-bonus of being one of the best honeypots for metadata on those types in existence. The Bill Gates topic is another good example. It's easy to kneejerk dismiss those concerns as they sound quite outlandish... but again, there is at least a modicum of truth, or rather, a handful of reasons people should be much more skeptical of the intentions of Bill Gates on the topic. For example, Bill Gates had quite an extensive relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, something a cursory search on the topic from mainstream sources will give nothing more than a passing mention. He had a relatively sordid relationship with the pharma industry in India, one worth digging into. On the "microchip" thing, another great example. Gate's related foundations and companies have openly talked about the quantum dot system, which is just readable markers to identify who has had a particular vaccine, and have actively partnered with the pentagon and darpa, and the ID2020 program is being tested on newborns in Bangladesh and homelss people in Austin, TX already. Those kinds of assocation alone are enough to at least empathize and understand where those who then take that and buy into the microchips story are coming from. So while it's untrue that the Gate's linked programs intend to put microchips in, the talk of digital certificates linked to biometrics such as quantum dot scare people, and then combine that with the fact that DARPA and the pentagon have been investigating such microchips, along with a history of medically experimenting on humans without consent, it's easy to see the jump to conclusions being made. Given the huge amount of propaganda being heaped on the American public from all sides then, I think you should reconsider judging so harshly those who have fallen victim to that propaganda, and instead should focus on the purveyors and originators of that propaganda. To be frank, I also find this disproportionate judging of people in the current day to be very unprincipled also. We can invade countries illegally, murder hundreds of thousands of people abroad... and crickets... but talk about how the same engine that did that abroad is now turning it's eye of sauron back towards us, inward, and you must be a batshit crazy conspiracy theorist. To just now be losing faith in America/it's people is myopic at best. Try to judge a bit less, and exercise a bit more empathy and even sympathy for those who have fallen for the untrue (which is literally all of us, to some degree), and understand the outlandish might not be as unplausible as you might think, and you will be on a better path to engaging genuinely with such people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-GppBpUeYg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-GppBpUeYg
• grandridge 6y ago
  Russiagate you dumb mf?
• justin66 6y ago
  A well intentioned question: in your view, were the various conspiracy theories about Barack Obama that went variously unopposed, weakly opposed, or openly embraced by mainstream conservatives depending on who you asked, "normal" conspiracies or crazy conspiracies? People who believe Obama was born in Kenya, who believe George Soros funds every leftist cause on the planet, or... you know the stuff... are believing things that are both nutty and really obviously false. Is that stuff really any less nutty than the QAnon stuff? I guess I feel like that maximum level of craziness isn't really new.