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Conspiracy theories aren't 100% irrational. It's irrational to assume that they are all 100% wrong and don't contain any correct or at least useful information.

Conspiracy theories aren't 100% irrational. It's irrational to assume that they are all 100% wrong and don't contain any correct or at least useful information. People do make plans together and influential people do tend to hang out together... It's not illogical to assume that they hatch plans to maintain the social order in a way that works for them and that some of these plans will be at the expense of the general population. Of course saying this isn't mathematically rigorous but each person who reads this should know axiomatically from first hand observation that rich people do hang out together and that rich people are generally good at implementating their visions/plans (how else they got rich?). This kind of logic is acceptable because decisions about one's life can never be made on the basis of mathematically rigorous information because you very rarely come across such kind of information in your day to day life. To suggest that the mainstream consensus is always accurate is to deny past history and present reality. No matter your religion, you can always point to incredibly large groups of people who believe some facts that you perceive to be incorrect.

wongarsu 5y ago
People conspire all the time, so there's bound to be conspiracy theories that are true. I think it's telling that the author uses the moon landing as an example, which to me seems to be among the least likely (but somewhat popular) theories. All credible evidence points to the moon landing actually happening, making it a good candidate for this study. Simply labeling that "endorse conspiracy theories" is a bit thoughtless though.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  The "fake" moon landings is an interesting example; although the number of direct eye-witnesses is tiny, there are thousands of scientists and engineers at NASA that will queue-up to testify they really happened, and nobody who actually knows anything will deny it. But the affirmers are all people in white lab-coats, and many people automatically distrust anyone in a white lab-coat. No "ordinary people" went to the moon and witnessed it themselves. I believe you could pick out the lunar lander from Earth, using a BIG telescope, as a small dot. But no amateur stargazer could do that. So all the affirmative testimony comes from a group of people who were all working for the same team. So if you don't trust that team, there's no reliable evidence against the CT. (There's no evidence for it either; but if you don't trust the people who know, then to doubt seems rational)
  - wongarsu 5y ago
    Yes, the level of evidence kind of depends on your world-view. I would have said that the fact that both the US and the USSR both claimed it happened, with the USSR seemingly only losing from that, is already strongly in support of the moon landing being real. But some people divide the world differently, to them it's politicians and mainstream media, and scientists employed by them, who are making that claim, which makes that group look much less diverse. I imagine you could just as easily make a study "people who look at fewer partitions of datasets reach wrong conclusions more often". Just as you can sample more fish from a lake and see if there's a pattern in their color, you can try to look at more perspectives and see if there's a pattern one way or the other.
denton-scratch 5y ago
> Conspiracy theories aren't 100% irrational. The term is often used to refer to implausible "theories" that make very strong claims, but have zero supporting evidence and make zero testable predictions. Of course, it's true that people conspire all the time. Implausible "theories" that make strong claims are exciting and entertaining. They're fun to play with. They become a problem when they go viral, among groups of people with limited critical thinking skills. The internet has been responsible for this, by democratising information. Anyone who failed at school can still look up shifty research papers online, misunderstand them, and not not know how to evaluate the evidence. This is a social pandemic, and I have no idea what the cure is. But I'm certain the cure isn't more censorship. > you can always point to incredibly large groups of people who believe some facts that you perceive to be incorrect. Hardly any propositions about the world are "mathematically rigorous" - there's nearly always a big chunk of judgement needed to decide the truth of a proposition. That doesn't mean that all judgements have equal value; some beliefs are "wronger" than others. There seem to be large groups of people with opinions that are screamingly, obviously, completely wrong, and as close to 100% irrational as makes no difference. Some "conspiracy theories" lack adequate supporting evidence, but are at least arguable. For example, it's a fact that in the past, groups of people have been given vaccines that were deliberately contaminated by the manufacturer. It's therefore not unreasonable to ask for evidence that this hasn't happened in the case of e.g. COVID vaccines. I prefer to reserve the term "conspiracy theory" for that class of opinions that is obviously completely batshit.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  > They become a problem when they go viral, among groups of people with limited critical thinking skills. Agreed, and to expand on this: I believe another problem is that these conspiracy theorists also believe that they have secret knowledge that the man doesn’t want you to have. Finally, they are smarter about something than those folks with education and success. This makes them an easy target for real conspiracies, conspiracies by folks that merely want to take their money. See, for example, the anti-GMO movement and specifically the anti-GMO seed packs you can buy.
  - 5y ago
2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
I think the problem is that people don’t follow through their thinking or double check their facts, leading to flights of fancy. This is why Occam’s razor is such a useful tool. Suppose your conspiracy is correct. Now how many things do you have to explain to make this conspiracy work? If it’s too many, maybe your ideas are wrong and you need a simpler answer.
Gunax 5y ago
There are degrees of conspiracy theory, and as a term it's been highly undermined and politicized, sort of like 'fake news'. I think that it's easy to fall into a false dichotomy between 'believing that everything conventional is true' and 'conapiracy theories are real'. Sometimes conspiracy theorists defend themselves by asking things like 'do you trust the government/corporations/church...?' as if I must either trust everything a government has ever said or (eg.) believe it's harbouring secret ET bases. Or that no doctor has ever lied or they are hiding the secret cancer cure. And yea, maybe I am missing something that's real. The issue is that there is such a deluge of crap, that no one can possibly know every theory. You could spend months or years just researching one of (9/11, crisis actor, qanon, moon landing, telepathy, etc). We may just be talking about different types of conspiracy theories though, as mentioned by the other responder.

wongarsu 5y ago

People conspire all the time, so there's bound to be conspiracy theories that are true. I think it's telling that the author uses the moon landing as an example, which to me seems to be among the least likely (but somewhat popular) theories. All credible evidence points to the moon landing actually happening, making it a good candidate for this study. Simply labeling that "endorse conspiracy theories" is a bit thoughtless though.

denton-scratch 5y ago
The "fake" moon landings is an interesting example; although the number of direct eye-witnesses is tiny, there are thousands of scientists and engineers at NASA that will queue-up to testify they really happened, and nobody who actually knows anything will deny it. But the affirmers are all people in white lab-coats, and many people automatically distrust anyone in a white lab-coat. No "ordinary people" went to the moon and witnessed it themselves. I believe you could pick out the lunar lander from Earth, using a BIG telescope, as a small dot. But no amateur stargazer could do that. So all the affirmative testimony comes from a group of people who were all working for the same team. So if you don't trust that team, there's no reliable evidence against the CT. (There's no evidence for it either; but if you don't trust the people who know, then to doubt seems rational)
- wongarsu 5y ago
  Yes, the level of evidence kind of depends on your world-view. I would have said that the fact that both the US and the USSR both claimed it happened, with the USSR seemingly only losing from that, is already strongly in support of the moon landing being real. But some people divide the world differently, to them it's politicians and mainstream media, and scientists employed by them, who are making that claim, which makes that group look much less diverse. I imagine you could just as easily make a study "people who look at fewer partitions of datasets reach wrong conclusions more often". Just as you can sample more fish from a lake and see if there's a pattern in their color, you can try to look at more perspectives and see if there's a pattern one way or the other.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> Conspiracy theories aren't 100% irrational. The term is often used to refer to implausible "theories" that make very strong claims, but have zero supporting evidence and make zero testable predictions. Of course, it's true that people conspire all the time. Implausible "theories" that make strong claims are exciting and entertaining. They're fun to play with. They become a problem when they go viral, among groups of people with limited critical thinking skills. The internet has been responsible for this, by democratising information. Anyone who failed at school can still look up shifty research papers online, misunderstand them, and not not know how to evaluate the evidence. This is a social pandemic, and I have no idea what the cure is. But I'm certain the cure isn't more censorship. > you can always point to incredibly large groups of people who believe some facts that you perceive to be incorrect. Hardly any propositions about the world are "mathematically rigorous" - there's nearly always a big chunk of judgement needed to decide the truth of a proposition. That doesn't mean that all judgements have equal value; some beliefs are "wronger" than others. There seem to be large groups of people with opinions that are screamingly, obviously, completely wrong, and as close to 100% irrational as makes no difference. Some "conspiracy theories" lack adequate supporting evidence, but are at least arguable. For example, it's a fact that in the past, groups of people have been given vaccines that were deliberately contaminated by the manufacturer. It's therefore not unreasonable to ask for evidence that this hasn't happened in the case of e.g. COVID vaccines. I prefer to reserve the term "conspiracy theory" for that class of opinions that is obviously completely batshit.

notreallyserio 5y ago
> They become a problem when they go viral, among groups of people with limited critical thinking skills. Agreed, and to expand on this: I believe another problem is that these conspiracy theorists also believe that they have secret knowledge that the man doesn’t want you to have. Finally, they are smarter about something than those folks with education and success. This makes them an easy target for real conspiracies, conspiracies by folks that merely want to take their money. See, for example, the anti-GMO movement and specifically the anti-GMO seed packs you can buy.
- 5y ago

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago

I think the problem is that people don’t follow through their thinking or double check their facts, leading to flights of fancy. This is why Occam’s razor is such a useful tool. Suppose your conspiracy is correct. Now how many things do you have to explain to make this conspiracy work? If it’s too many, maybe your ideas are wrong and you need a simpler answer.

Gunax 5y ago

There are degrees of conspiracy theory, and as a term it's been highly undermined and politicized, sort of like 'fake news'. I think that it's easy to fall into a false dichotomy between 'believing that everything conventional is true' and 'conapiracy theories are real'. Sometimes conspiracy theorists defend themselves by asking things like 'do you trust the government/corporations/church...?' as if I must either trust everything a government has ever said or (eg.) believe it's harbouring secret ET bases. Or that no doctor has ever lied or they are hiding the secret cancer cure. And yea, maybe I am missing something that's real. The issue is that there is such a deluge of crap, that no one can possibly know every theory. You could spend months or years just researching one of (9/11, crisis actor, qanon, moon landing, telepathy, etc). We may just be talking about different types of conspiracy theories though, as mentioned by the other responder.