3 ms·

has anyone else noticed that increasingly in recent years, it seems as though any interpretation of reality that sits outside of the general "accepted" media co

has anyone else noticed that increasingly in recent years, it seems as though any interpretation of reality that sits outside of the general "accepted" media consensus is deemed a "conspiracy theory"? and then it seems like, for many people, once they've been instructed through media consumption to "learn" that various ideas should be filed away under the "conspiracy theory" label in one's mind, then whenever anyone tries to discuss any possibility of any alternate explanation for world events outside of generally-accepted media coverage relating to the subject, it seems to trigger "CONSPIRACY THEORY" alarms in their head, causing them to refuse to even entertain any possible alternate explanation for said world events outside of said generally-accepted media coverage. anyone know what I'm talking about? it's like people get programmed to internally respond to any and all skepticism with a throw new ConspiracyTheoryException(); that breaks any attempt at internal logical control flow for even casually entertaining the possibility that any aspect of reality that is portrayed as the Official, Generally-Accepted Media Narrative has any chance of being different in reality compared to its Official, Generally-Accepted Media Portrayal. basically we've got to the point where showing any signs of skepticism is considered more or less offensive in most public discourse. "conspiracy theories" may "bypass people's rationality," but it's also pretty clear that, these days, the term "conspiracy theory" also "bypasses people's rationality." (this is difficult to explain generally but bringing up specific contentious examples would not lead to productive discussion.)

Hokusai 5y ago
> any interpretation of reality that sits outside of the general "accepted" media consensus is deemed a "conspiracy theory" Do you think that in the past people were more acceptant of non-mainstream ideas? Because that sounds quite false, from atheist to homosexuals people was institutionalized for being different. Persecution of communists was a witch hund. Why do you think that "the past was better"?
- adamrezich 5y ago
  > Why do you think that "the past was better"? I quite literally never said that. this is not my thesis, but you quoted the main part of my thesis, so it's confusing to me why you would quote me saying $X, and then ask me why I believe $Y.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    > I quite literally never said that. Demonstrating the validity of your theory. The human mind (and therefore, significant portions of itself) is fairly easily programmable, and while this programming does not work with super high precision, in the aggregate it works wonderfully.
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
    You said increasingly in recent years and with the context of the rest of what you said I read that as implying that it’s getting worse, meaning it used to be better.
    - adamrezich 5y ago
      I asked if anyone else noticed the phenomenon I outlined becoming increasingly pervasive. the comment I was replying to drew a correlation between the phenomenon becoming increasingly pervasive as per my allegation and the increasing societal acceptance of homosexuals and atheists, and then asked that, given this, why I preferred the past to the present. this rhetoric is nonsensical. "man it sucks how the US space program isn't as good as it used to be a few decades ago." "well ok but a few decades ago people were more racist and homophobic than they are today, why do you think the past was better?" this is a pretty insulting and non-sequitur response that's very easy to make about just about anything that compares any point in the past to any point in the present, I don't see what it has to do with anything I wrote above, and in fact it seems to sidestep my entire thesis by reframing my argument as "remember the good ol' days when we were more homophobic and religiously intolerant, and also not everything was deemed a 'conspiracy theory'?"
      - alphabettsy 5y ago
        I’m telling you how I read your comment, as was the other person. You’re arguing about how other people understood it instead of trying to clarify your point.
        adamrezich 5y ago
tarboreus 5y ago
Yes, I've noticed this with friends. Even obvious questioning of motives based on incentives (saying Apple is removing ports to make more money or whatever) seems to trigger this response for some people. People like simple narratives. The MSM is the approved simple narrative. The idea that there are conspiracies, but also that in most cases you'll never know about them, is unsatisfying for people.

Hokusai 5y ago

> any interpretation of reality that sits outside of the general "accepted" media consensus is deemed a "conspiracy theory" Do you think that in the past people were more acceptant of non-mainstream ideas? Because that sounds quite false, from atheist to homosexuals people was institutionalized for being different. Persecution of communists was a witch hund. Why do you think that "the past was better"?

adamrezich 5y ago
> Why do you think that "the past was better"? I quite literally never said that. this is not my thesis, but you quoted the main part of my thesis, so it's confusing to me why you would quote me saying $X, and then ask me why I believe $Y.
- mistermann 5y ago
  > I quite literally never said that. Demonstrating the validity of your theory. The human mind (and therefore, significant portions of itself) is fairly easily programmable, and while this programming does not work with super high precision, in the aggregate it works wonderfully.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  You said increasingly in recent years and with the context of the rest of what you said I read that as implying that it’s getting worse, meaning it used to be better.
  - adamrezich 5y ago
    I asked if anyone else noticed the phenomenon I outlined becoming increasingly pervasive. the comment I was replying to drew a correlation between the phenomenon becoming increasingly pervasive as per my allegation and the increasing societal acceptance of homosexuals and atheists, and then asked that, given this, why I preferred the past to the present. this rhetoric is nonsensical. "man it sucks how the US space program isn't as good as it used to be a few decades ago." "well ok but a few decades ago people were more racist and homophobic than they are today, why do you think the past was better?" this is a pretty insulting and non-sequitur response that's very easy to make about just about anything that compares any point in the past to any point in the present, I don't see what it has to do with anything I wrote above, and in fact it seems to sidestep my entire thesis by reframing my argument as "remember the good ol' days when we were more homophobic and religiously intolerant, and also not everything was deemed a 'conspiracy theory'?"
    - alphabettsy 5y ago
      I’m telling you how I read your comment, as was the other person. You’re arguing about how other people understood it instead of trying to clarify your point.
      - adamrezich 5y ago

tarboreus 5y ago

Yes, I've noticed this with friends. Even obvious questioning of motives based on incentives (saying Apple is removing ports to make more money or whatever) seems to trigger this response for some people. People like simple narratives. The MSM is the approved simple narrative. The idea that there are conspiracies, but also that in most cases you'll never know about them, is unsatisfying for people.