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I've noticed people treat conspiracy theories with the same level of validity or non-validity regardless of the facts or details. Things like flat earth conspi

I've noticed people treat conspiracy theories with the same level of validity or non-validity regardless of the facts or details. Things like flat earth conspiracies have now inexplicably been lumped into the likes of those who believe in things like. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-que... Or just question in general the motivation behind the decisions made by those in charge. There are some very obviously dumb conspiracies that have no basis in reality, there are some possibly far out there conspiracies that could have some merit and then there's conspiracies that seemed ridiculous but actually turned out to be true. The world is not black and white...it's very grey. Again, I find it odd these things tend to all be labeled under one giant 'conspiracy theory' label. Much like any theories, some are possibly valid, others very obviously not. Categorizing these things together as has been done in recent years makes no sense.

Swizec 5y ago
My favorite example of this is the tinfoil hat conspiracy of the early 2000’s. An open joke in the tech community that the government is always listening and knows what you do online. then Snowden happened
- hammock 5y ago
  Echelon[1] and Room 641A[2] (and others) were well known among niche circles a long time before Snowden. These "conspiracies" were the kind of thing that people would call you a crackpot for if you told normies though. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
  - angrais 5y ago
    A reason others may refer to conspiracy theory supporters as "crackpots" could be attributed to the fact that there's now so many wild theories out there (UFOs, aliens, 9/11 inside job, etc). So if you support a few, then you'd be more likely to be considered a crackpot. In other words, while those two examples were true, many are likely not.
    - atatatat 5y ago
      Just because you see them all presented as equals on /r/conspiracy doesn't mean that every conspiracy researcher considers them all equal. I hope everyone here can internalize that. We need engineers in these communities.
- DevKoala 5y ago
  Yes I do remember opening the news that day and my reality completely changing. Up until then the “party van” parked outside your house taping your conversations was a joke perpetuated by schizos. Turns out they didn’t need a “party van” parked outside of your house.
soheil 5y ago
That is because we have another word for it. Probability. If something crosses a threshold of being highly improbable yet people still believe it we call it a conspiracy theory. You can think of it as humid weather vs rain. That’s just a spectrum too. And yes the world is grey but when it rains I’ll be damned not to know the difference.
- grawprog 5y ago
  Yet we get things like the mass surveillance conspiracy mentioned by other commenters, the Iran Contra scandal, Things like MK-Ultra, where, even up here in Canada, a friend of my dad's mother was actually put through experimentation on the CIA's behest and wasn't acknowleged by the Canadian government for decades. https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/brainwashed-mkultra https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/brainwashed-mkultra I mean, just do a quick search about conspiracy theories that turned out to be true and you'll quickly see the kinds of things that have actually occurred throughout history, and how many times the crazy conspiracy theorists were right.
  - soheil 5y ago
    By using this word you already presumed the likelihood of it being true is very low, so why do you at the same insist the likelihood of it must be high? If you believe there are conspiracy theories that turned out to be true then maybe they weren’t actually conspiracy theories but instead theories held by a group of people based on evidence (evident possibly just to them) that turned out to be true. If your question is how do we discern between the two without the benefit of hindsight I’m afraid the answer is in the negative, we can’t, unless you want to just give undue probability of events occurring based on how you feel on one day instead of what evidence you have been provided.
    - colordrops 5y ago
      > If you believe there are conspiracy theories that turned out to be true then maybe they weren’t actually conspiracy theories but instead theories held by a group of people based on evidence Where do you get this idea that conspiracy theories can't be based on evidence? It seems like you've preemptively defined "conspiracy theory" to mean ungrounded bullshit. Some conspiracy theories have plenty of evidence, and some don't.
galaxyLogic 5y ago
I think the purpose of many conspiracy theories is simply to reduce trust in media. If you doubt everything then any theory is as good as any other. So you might as well trust the people who speak most loudly and convincingly.
skindoe 5y ago
The term conspiracy theorist was designed for this purpose...
somethingAlex 5y ago
Personally, I have a tendency to lump them together because they always seem to be propagated by people with certain characteristics. - They think "questioning everything" makes them smart even though many questions are answered to a point where being contrarian is irrational. - They're generally just anti-intellectual. They enjoy talking about stuff without introducing any rigor. - Probably the most interesting to me; they tend to have rather isolated jobs. I suppose they haven't been exposed to incompetence at scale. You're right, it's not correct to just lump everything into one bucket. But when they seem to be pushed by a different incarnation of the same person every time, I get desensitized. Especially because, when I do bite and ask some follow up questions, I never seem to get any answers.
- hammock 5y ago
  >when I do bite and ask some follow up questions, I never seem to get any answers. You may be asking the wrong people.
- grawprog 5y ago
  It does make you wonder about some of those louder people spouting the most bullshit and where their funding comes from though...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- onetimeusename 5y ago
  It depends on which conspiracy theories you mean. I probably agree with Snowden on his last point that people make an identity out of which conspiracy theory they believe. Groups base their membership on which conspiracies are believed. I just always felt that way so he didn't give me that idea. I wonder if we label the irrational or maybe unverifiable beliefs of unfavorable groups as conspiracy theories but we label similarly unverifiable beliefs in a conspiracy as 'lived experiences' or 'perspectives' when they likewise have no evidence. The only difference in how we treat the beliefs is based on the racial/religious/political preferential status of the group that has the beliefs. So conspiracy theories are probably pretty common and uniform and not confined to certain groups.
txxxxxa 5y ago
YouTubers, TV shows, hollywood, newspapers make fun of conspiracy theorists every day for millions of views. That's how peoples opinions are formed. There's also an amplifying effect where only unpopular people voice unpopular ideas - either they don't pick up on the social cues, or lack a sense of shame, or simply aren't very bright. Its a feedback loop adding to the stigma.
- sjg007 5y ago
  Umm there is at least an equal number or more of conspiracy theorists on youtube as well. Qanon qed.
  - txxxxxa 5y ago
    There are conspiracy theory vids with millions of views? Can you show me one? Not sure what qanon qed is supposed to mean.. Qanon wasn't on YouTube and I don't think he ever had as large a following as the media made out. I've never met one or seen a qanon post, and I don't think his supposed demographic could actually navigate 8chan.
- fjrueosjdksn 5y ago
  no some of us actually care about the truth and actively despise being lied to, being gaslit, and being encouraged to do that to others to fit in with the social consensus.
mistermann 5y ago
> Categorizing these things together as has been done in recent years makes no sense. I think it not only makes sense, but it was a brilliant strategy, the results of which can be seen on Reddit and even here, if the topic is other than a direct abstract discussion of conspiracy theories that is: it is a powerful subconscious heuristic, it has been very widely deployed, and can be activated when necessary.
- grawprog 5y ago
  I agree, but stating such things is essentially a conspiracy theory...
  - mistermann 5y ago
    Which has zero epistemological value, but extremely high persuasive value, which is the point.
atatatat 5y ago
> There are some very obviously dumb conspiracies that have no basis in reality Many of which are psyops.
cdstyh 5y ago
>The world is not black and white...it's very grey. The more I read about any topic, the more I realize how true this is. I used to think in absolutes but now I realize how nuanced everything is.

Swizec 5y ago

My favorite example of this is the tinfoil hat conspiracy of the early 2000’s. An open joke in the tech community that the government is always listening and knows what you do online. then Snowden happened

hammock 5y ago
Echelon[1] and Room 641A[2] (and others) were well known among niche circles a long time before Snowden. These "conspiracies" were the kind of thing that people would call you a crackpot for if you told normies though. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
- angrais 5y ago
  A reason others may refer to conspiracy theory supporters as "crackpots" could be attributed to the fact that there's now so many wild theories out there (UFOs, aliens, 9/11 inside job, etc). So if you support a few, then you'd be more likely to be considered a crackpot. In other words, while those two examples were true, many are likely not.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Just because you see them all presented as equals on /r/conspiracy doesn't mean that every conspiracy researcher considers them all equal. I hope everyone here can internalize that. We need engineers in these communities.
DevKoala 5y ago
Yes I do remember opening the news that day and my reality completely changing. Up until then the “party van” parked outside your house taping your conversations was a joke perpetuated by schizos. Turns out they didn’t need a “party van” parked outside of your house.

soheil 5y ago

That is because we have another word for it. Probability. If something crosses a threshold of being highly improbable yet people still believe it we call it a conspiracy theory. You can think of it as humid weather vs rain. That’s just a spectrum too. And yes the world is grey but when it rains I’ll be damned not to know the difference.

grawprog 5y ago
Yet we get things like the mass surveillance conspiracy mentioned by other commenters, the Iran Contra scandal, Things like MK-Ultra, where, even up here in Canada, a friend of my dad's mother was actually put through experimentation on the CIA's behest and wasn't acknowleged by the Canadian government for decades. https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/brainwashed-mkultra https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/brainwashed-mkultra I mean, just do a quick search about conspiracy theories that turned out to be true and you'll quickly see the kinds of things that have actually occurred throughout history, and how many times the crazy conspiracy theorists were right.
- soheil 5y ago
  By using this word you already presumed the likelihood of it being true is very low, so why do you at the same insist the likelihood of it must be high? If you believe there are conspiracy theories that turned out to be true then maybe they weren’t actually conspiracy theories but instead theories held by a group of people based on evidence (evident possibly just to them) that turned out to be true. If your question is how do we discern between the two without the benefit of hindsight I’m afraid the answer is in the negative, we can’t, unless you want to just give undue probability of events occurring based on how you feel on one day instead of what evidence you have been provided.
  - colordrops 5y ago
    > If you believe there are conspiracy theories that turned out to be true then maybe they weren’t actually conspiracy theories but instead theories held by a group of people based on evidence Where do you get this idea that conspiracy theories can't be based on evidence? It seems like you've preemptively defined "conspiracy theory" to mean ungrounded bullshit. Some conspiracy theories have plenty of evidence, and some don't.

galaxyLogic 5y ago

I think the purpose of many conspiracy theories is simply to reduce trust in media. If you doubt everything then any theory is as good as any other. So you might as well trust the people who speak most loudly and convincingly.

skindoe 5y ago

The term conspiracy theorist was designed for this purpose...

somethingAlex 5y ago

Personally, I have a tendency to lump them together because they always seem to be propagated by people with certain characteristics. - They think "questioning everything" makes them smart even though many questions are answered to a point where being contrarian is irrational. - They're generally just anti-intellectual. They enjoy talking about stuff without introducing any rigor. - Probably the most interesting to me; they tend to have rather isolated jobs. I suppose they haven't been exposed to incompetence at scale. You're right, it's not correct to just lump everything into one bucket. But when they seem to be pushed by a different incarnation of the same person every time, I get desensitized. Especially because, when I do bite and ask some follow up questions, I never seem to get any answers.

hammock 5y ago
>when I do bite and ask some follow up questions, I never seem to get any answers. You may be asking the wrong people.
grawprog 5y ago
It does make you wonder about some of those louder people spouting the most bullshit and where their funding comes from though...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
onetimeusename 5y ago
It depends on which conspiracy theories you mean. I probably agree with Snowden on his last point that people make an identity out of which conspiracy theory they believe. Groups base their membership on which conspiracies are believed. I just always felt that way so he didn't give me that idea. I wonder if we label the irrational or maybe unverifiable beliefs of unfavorable groups as conspiracy theories but we label similarly unverifiable beliefs in a conspiracy as 'lived experiences' or 'perspectives' when they likewise have no evidence. The only difference in how we treat the beliefs is based on the racial/religious/political preferential status of the group that has the beliefs. So conspiracy theories are probably pretty common and uniform and not confined to certain groups.

txxxxxa 5y ago

YouTubers, TV shows, hollywood, newspapers make fun of conspiracy theorists every day for millions of views. That's how peoples opinions are formed. There's also an amplifying effect where only unpopular people voice unpopular ideas - either they don't pick up on the social cues, or lack a sense of shame, or simply aren't very bright. Its a feedback loop adding to the stigma.

sjg007 5y ago
Umm there is at least an equal number or more of conspiracy theorists on youtube as well. Qanon qed.
- txxxxxa 5y ago
  There are conspiracy theory vids with millions of views? Can you show me one? Not sure what qanon qed is supposed to mean.. Qanon wasn't on YouTube and I don't think he ever had as large a following as the media made out. I've never met one or seen a qanon post, and I don't think his supposed demographic could actually navigate 8chan.
fjrueosjdksn 5y ago
no some of us actually care about the truth and actively despise being lied to, being gaslit, and being encouraged to do that to others to fit in with the social consensus.

mistermann 5y ago

> Categorizing these things together as has been done in recent years makes no sense. I think it not only makes sense, but it was a brilliant strategy, the results of which can be seen on Reddit and even here, if the topic is other than a direct abstract discussion of conspiracy theories that is: it is a powerful subconscious heuristic, it has been very widely deployed, and can be activated when necessary.

grawprog 5y ago
I agree, but stating such things is essentially a conspiracy theory...
- mistermann 5y ago
  Which has zero epistemological value, but extremely high persuasive value, which is the point.

atatatat 5y ago

> There are some very obviously dumb conspiracies that have no basis in reality Many of which are psyops.

cdstyh 5y ago

>The world is not black and white...it's very grey. The more I read about any topic, the more I realize how true this is. I used to think in absolutes but now I realize how nuanced everything is.