7 ms·

I've come to be disgusted by the term "conspiracy theory" in ways I used to not be. It's overused now and seems now to serve mainly as a sort of rhetorical powe

I've come to be disgusted by the term "conspiracy theory" in ways I used to not be. It's overused now and seems now to serve mainly as a sort of rhetorical power or status assertion. Someone's fears or beliefs are labeled "conspiracy" if they contradict some normative belief held by a dominant group with which the speaker identifies. I've noticed this on the conservative as well as liberal spectrum. What's changed my mind is realizing how often things that might be labeled as conspiracy theory actually happen. Even if something didn't happen, many of the fears are actually well grounded and labeling them as such in my opinion reflects a certain amount of lack of empathy on the part of the labeler. I'm not saying certain beliefs aren't absurd or physically implausible etc. But if they are plausible they're often coming from somewhere reasonable. Widespread conspiracy theories tell you that a large segment of the population doesn't trust something, and the appropriate response is to figure out why that thing might be untrustworthy. I agree with the linked article, and understand that they are writing to a specific audience. But it has a patronizing tone that I think just reinforces the problems involved. If there's a widespread conspiracy belief, it's not enough to say to have "empathy" for someone who holds it, as that casts the problem as being with the person rather than the things that caused them to lose trust to begin with. You need to be asking why such large parts of the population distrust the subject of the conspiracy and address that.

aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
> Someone's fears or beliefs are labeled "conspiracy" if the labeler doesn't understand the difference between conspiracy and conspiracy theory.
nonrandomstring 5y ago
> If there's a widespread conspiracy belief, it's not enough to say to have "empathy" for someone who holds it, as that casts the problem as being with the person rather than the things that caused them to lose trust to begin with. I much agree with the article on how to deal with individuals arguing from a mistrustful position, but your insight that this doesn't deal with a problem on a societal level makes sense. What has caused so much mistrust on a broad nebulous scale? Civil war and slavery are not unique of course, and every nation carries its traumas of war and disaster. But the American collective psyche is unique in relation to a series of events starting in the late 60s that seem somehow connected - Kennedy, Watergate, Vietnam, Chile, Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, 911, Snowden... What links these is a strong perception of betrayal by government that has failed in its duty through corruption and preference for private power interests. It is to the credit of American people that they have courage for sceptical introspection and aim to hold government to account. But something else has happened. Now, because the US plays such a big role in replication of culture, a paranoia, which is practically dyed into Hollywood output (X-Files, Enemy of the State, JFK etc) reaches around the world. Somehow this needs treating separately from there being, in reality, in actual fact, both an increase in corruption due to global financialisation and technology, as well as a much greater awareness of extant, quiescent skulduggery due to the internet. And there is one more layer to add now. That some agencies in the world, deliberately fanning the flames of mistrust and division for political gain, have their power amplified by digital technology. One has to wonder, what event would restore trust in competent and benign government? Is there such a thing as therapy for a whole culture?
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  It is a process and you can't get people to trust you unless you're willing to make some fundamental changes. Private prisons, marijuana criminalization, spying, qualified immunity, etc. are just a few of the reasons people don't trust their government.
  - somenameforme 5y ago
    The things you are mentioning are bad decisions that favor the government and there are likely be ulterior motives, but there is no overt deception. What's driving distrust IMO is overt deception which is becoming increasingly normalized and regular. One of the most extreme examples was the death of Officer Brian Sicknick [1] during the January 6th riots. The media ran a nonstop narrative (for months) that he had been brutally killed after being attacked by a rioter with a fire extinguisher: a visceral and discomforting image that helped to frame the riots. Politicians, up to and including the president, exploited this by having an honorary ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda historically used to honor the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, and RBG. The problem is that not only was he not killed by a fire extinguisher, he wasn't killed at all. He died of a completely unrelated and preexisting medical condition (blood clot in the brain leading to stroke) well after the riots had ended. He texted his brother long after the riots stating he was feeling fine and had no problems except getting pepper sprayed twice. The media tried to pivot to claiming that he died of an allergic reaction to the pepper spray, but there was no basis in reality for that whatsoever and it was also completely dismissed by the medical examiner whose report was publicly released only months after its completion. Events like this emphasize that the argument of scale against conspiracy theories simply doesn't hold. His family knew what happened, the examiner's office knew what happened, many politicians exploiting his death knew what happened, and I expect there's no doubt much of the media also knew. Yet they all ran with the same story because it helped advance the desired narrative. Efforts at countering it were effectively squished by a mixture of censorship and labels (such as conspiracy theory). And of course this event also emphasizes that the political establishment are more than happy to carry out amoral conspiracies even over such absurdly petty things, and that our media is now more of a tool for political manipulation of society than a balance against it. So after events like this, what reason do I ever have to now believe the media or politicians on pretty much anything? Even science is now starting to go down the exact same myopic path with things like the famous open letter published by the Lancet [2] declaring any consideration that COVID may have come from a lab leak as being an unjustifiable conspiracy theory. Most of the scientists who signed that letter had direct ties to the Wuhan Lab. They declared no competing interests in the letter, and the Lancet editor who chose to publish it clearly didn't see it as a conflict of interest either. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Sicknick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Sicknick [2] - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
cycomanic 5y ago
> I've come to be disgusted by the term "conspiracy theory" in ways I used to not be. It's overused now and seems now to serve mainly as a sort of rhetorical power or status assertion. Someone's fears or beliefs are labeled "conspiracy" if they contradict some normative belief held by a dominant group with which the speaker identifies. I've noticed this on the conservative as well as liberal spectrum. > What's changed my mind is realizing how often things that might be labeled as conspiracy theory actually happen. Even if something didn't happen, many of the fears are actually well grounded and labeling them as such in my opinion reflects a certain amount of lack of empathy on the part of the labeler. > I'm not saying certain beliefs aren't absurd or physically implausible etc. But if they are plausible they're often coming from somewhere reasonable. Widespread conspiracy theories tell you that a large segment of the population doesn't trust something, and the appropriate response is to figure out why that thing might be untrustworthy. > I agree with the linked article, and understand that they are writing to a specific audience. But it has a patronizing tone that I think just reinforces the problems involved. If there's a widespread conspiracy belief, it's not enough to say to have "empathy" for someone who holds it, as that casts the problem as being with the person rather than the things that caused them to lose trust to begin with. You need to be asking why such large parts of the population distrust the subject of the conspiracy and address that. I don't know if you have any "conspiracy theorists" in your close circles. One of my former friends has really gone done the deep end, and why you could argue that some of the arguments are funded in reasonable doubts, the whole world view is not. It is absolutely impossible to have any discussion with him, every argument is countered with "you can not trust mainstream, science media, people..." while at the same time those same sources get used easily for their own arguments. And it usually is not just one, there is 9/11, vaccinations being used by Bill Gates to steralize people, free vacuum energy, covid. At the same time he sees himself at the forefront of defending against a new emergence of nazism while supporting people who have literally been filmed doing a Hitler salute (supposedly that was "out of context"). It is true that these people are victims, but they are victims of propaganda who pull people toward more and more outrageous claims, and a social media machine which develops the most addictive media techniques and no care for the overall affect on society.
- vasuki 5y ago
  I can relate to that very much. Your former friend sounds exactly like one of my friends with whom I am trying to not end friendship and be as empathetic and helpful as I can be. > while at the same time those same sources get used easily for their own arguments 100% this! Telegram channels and Substack seem to be super popular for this sort of propaganda. I also did a technical analysis of many of the websites shared in these channels and found: - they use very heavy trackers - keylogging for webpages is common - they all use privacy shields for `whois` info - third party cookies You can find some of these if you want to take a look in https://github.com/Langer81/Summer-REU-Research https://github.com/Langer81/Summer-REU-Research
ekianjo 5y ago
Official propaganda by news networks is called information, and everything that derives from it is called disinformation, malinformation or conspiracy theories, no matter the validity of the points raised. Its pure information control by using etiquettes to discredit everything else.
_teyd 5y ago
For me, conspiracy theorists are the ones who believe easily falsifiable things. Flat earth, microchips in vaccines, lizard people, pedophile rings in the basement of buildings with no basement.. that sort of thing. Stuff you can prove or disprove with an easy to get ahold of apparatus or two and some basic math or logic, or even just your own eyes. There is almost always a strong element of motivated reasoning going on in these cases. I find it hard personally even to have empathy for those people, even though I do try, because there is this weird mix of self-righteousness and laziness that I have a hard time having sympathy for. I do at least recognize that’s my own biases in play. Calling someone who is doing actual research that doesn’t go with the grain of consensus a conspiracy theorist is surely wrong, but I see a lot more of the former (Surprising thing X must be true because it somehow advantages my tribe or makes me special) on the internet than the latter (Surprising thing X must be true because I did research and the data is not matching up as you’d expect).
- andi999 5y ago
  I agree. Just wondering, would chemtrails classify as easily falsifiable?
  - j4yav 5y ago
    I don’t know enough about it to say, really. That’s the thing where airplanes don’t have condensation trails, but whenever you see clouds behind one they are crop dusting chemicals on people? You’d think by now someone who works on airplanes would have noticed the chemical tanks/sprayers, or sampled where the contrails landed for unexpected chemicals. Someone who believes in it with just a bit of money could surely fly up and sample the air inside of one of the trails, for example.
  - jl6 5y ago
    Aside from flat Earth, I don’t think the other examples are actually all that easy to disprove. What, for example, would constitute a disproof of lizard people? Genetic testing of every human? Most conspiracy theories are poorly defined, and this provides substantial insulation from reason. A purported disproof might be countered by declaring “ah, but that’s not the real lizard people theory - you see, they have anti-genetic-testing technology”. I think this is part of the trap that believers fall into: the idea that if you can’t disprove it, then it might be true, and if it might be true, then a fun game of connect-the-dots begins. Of course, an infinite number of things might be true, so the actual conspiracy theories that people choose to believe in start to be driven by their personality and social network. That’s why we hear about lizard-people but not, say, the equally plausible echidna-people.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I would guess that in a startling number of cases the answer is "because rich and powerful people want them to be suspicious". What were the jews targetted by the Protocol of the Elder of Zion a threat to? Monarchy. What did the real illuminati want? Democracy. What does George Soros fund that makes him a target? Democracy. What was the evil EU up to that caused Brexit. Democracy. Why don't QAnon vote for democrats? Why did birthers need a made up excuse to target a Black American president swept in on a massive uptick of voting? Why is shutting down an economy to save human lives in a pandemic so scary to certain groups? Because poor people's lives shouldn't have the same worth as the rich. Why is dealing with climate change so hard when everyone agrees it's the cheap and obvious thing to do? Generally speaking, why do certain types of politician have to lie so much? Possibly because they're doing stuff that isn't actually popular? A conspiracy theory is either something true the powerful don't want you to know, or something false the powerful do want you to believe and weird echoes of those two things. edit: a 'related article' at the bottom endorses this view: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00257-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00257-y > Conspiracy theories are fundamentally a form of political propaganda,” says Quassim Cassam
- jstanley 5y ago
  Isn't this position itself just another conspiracy theory?
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Yes, it's true, but uncomfortable for people in power to talk about, so that fits my definition above. Other true things like slavery being bad, the reasons for the civil war, rich people getting away with terrible crimes while poor people were killed for minor infractions, Nazis targeting trade unions, kings being dictators, royal families often being foreign parasites, human races not actually existing and so on fall into this weird realm as well.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    No, there is clear evidence and the proliferation of conspiracy theories to promote specific political goals has been studied and documented by sociologists.
bsedlm 5y ago
> You need to be asking why such large parts of the population distrust the subject of the conspiracy and address that. In my own experience, an important source (among others) for my own loss of trust is the impossibility of being (and/or feeling like I'm) part of that which I distrust. for example, a false democracy (like in my own country) may fuel this. another (better) example is the impossibility of being able to contribute (feel as a part of) to some scholarly field (these circles are riddled with authority appeals if only as a way to cope with the vast amounts of time required to wade through content).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
saul_goodman 5y ago
Here here. On one hand, she makes an attempt to "Sam Harris" the issue of conspiracy by recognizing that a persons circumstances lead them to their beliefs. It's obvious some segment of "the establishment" was lying to us over certain parts of covid. The problem is that people can't tell why they are lying and then fill in that part of the narrative in their head with conspiracy. With a 0.5% death rate, why the mind job to all of society over this thing? Is there something else you guys know about covid that we don't about yet? Is long covid the reason? But anyone who at least thinks a little bit can see the stench and coverup about the origins of sars-cov2 and gets derailed right there. Then we have massive censoring of social media about any discussion of covid which again forces people into their conspiracy narratives. The establishment is its own worst enemy. Another issue is that the establishment tries to put vaccines in a separate box from the rest of modern human inventions and its a total disaster. Sure, vaccines are well tested, but look at what happened with the advent of PCB's, Agent Orange, Asbestos, Benzine, etc. The last 100 years has trained everyone to expect modern chemistry to be a disaster. You can't separate that knowledge from vaccines and say "this time it's different". Of course, none of those other chemicals were tested in the context of being injected into the human body, but that's just details at this point for most people. Combined with reducing a testing regiment that should run over a decade to 1 year and you no longer get to stand on your high-ground and say "your vaccine fears are misplaced". No, the onus is on the system to be 100% transparent and honest. But we didn't get any of that, in fact the stench of rot continues to linger: https://denvergazette.com/news/judge-scraps-75-year-fda-timeline-to-release-pfizer-vaccine-safety-data-giving-agency-eight/article_f007b8b4-ad66-59b4-a270-4709bc3e4814.html https://denvergazette.com/news/judge-scraps-75-year-fda-time...
- TacticalCoder 5y ago
  > No, the onus is on the system to be 100% transparent and honest. But we didn't get any of that, in fact the stench of rot continues to linger: https://denvergazette.com/news/judge-scraps-75-year-fda-time https://denvergazette.com/news/judge-scraps-75-year-fda-time... I got both shots but I totally agree. That the FDA even tried to help Pfizer not release all the data before 2097 is beyond belief. All hope is not lost though: the very reason they'll have eight months (not 75 years) before releasing it all is precisely because otherwise it undermines the public's confidence in the government.
mannykannot 5y ago
The term is probably being used too freely, but that would hardly distinguish it from a dozen other concepts in current political discourse, and we will not understand the phenomenon if we insist on it being rooted in rational distrust, and also ignore how useful they may be for people with ulterior motives. We are not rational beings; we are still mostly creatures of instinct, with the ability to be rational. The latter brings with it the ability to rationalize. We all, to some extent, prefer to hold beliefs that imply outcomes we prefer (or, equivalently, dispel undesirable outcomes), and that can lead us to take positions on that basis, rather than on what the evidence supports. That, in itself, would not be a conspiracy theory, as there are many cases where the evidence is inconclusive. The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is, firstly, the doubling-down on a belief despite evidence to the contrary or a lack of supporting evidence that should be there, and secondly, a particular form of rationalization for doing so, which says the evidence must be fabricated or suppressed, as necessary. All considerations are subordinated to the goal of preserving the initial belief. Anyone with a passing familiarity with 20th-century history has enough evidence to see how promulgating conspiracy theories can help nefarious actors, and also how they work.
jjj123 5y ago
If you really want to make yourself mad, take the Washington Post’s quiz on conspiracy theories [1]. All of the options are carefully worded to minimize the actual conspiracies (ex: they say the FBI “kept tabs on” MLK which doesn’t begin to describe what they did) and disqualify others (ex: one “incorrect” option is “Republicans cheated their way to win the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections” when it’s not inaccurate to say they cheated in 2000). It’s a pretty blatant propaganda piece, intentional or not. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2021/conspiracy-theory-quiz/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2021/con...

aaaaaaaaata 5y ago

> Someone's fears or beliefs are labeled "conspiracy" if the labeler doesn't understand the difference between conspiracy and conspiracy theory.

nonrandomstring 5y ago

> If there's a widespread conspiracy belief, it's not enough to say to have "empathy" for someone who holds it, as that casts the problem as being with the person rather than the things that caused them to lose trust to begin with. I much agree with the article on how to deal with individuals arguing from a mistrustful position, but your insight that this doesn't deal with a problem on a societal level makes sense. What has caused so much mistrust on a broad nebulous scale? Civil war and slavery are not unique of course, and every nation carries its traumas of war and disaster. But the American collective psyche is unique in relation to a series of events starting in the late 60s that seem somehow connected - Kennedy, Watergate, Vietnam, Chile, Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, 911, Snowden... What links these is a strong perception of betrayal by government that has failed in its duty through corruption and preference for private power interests. It is to the credit of American people that they have courage for sceptical introspection and aim to hold government to account. But something else has happened. Now, because the US plays such a big role in replication of culture, a paranoia, which is practically dyed into Hollywood output (X-Files, Enemy of the State, JFK etc) reaches around the world. Somehow this needs treating separately from there being, in reality, in actual fact, both an increase in corruption due to global financialisation and technology, as well as a much greater awareness of extant, quiescent skulduggery due to the internet. And there is one more layer to add now. That some agencies in the world, deliberately fanning the flames of mistrust and division for political gain, have their power amplified by digital technology. One has to wonder, what event would restore trust in competent and benign government? Is there such a thing as therapy for a whole culture?

encryptluks2 5y ago
It is a process and you can't get people to trust you unless you're willing to make some fundamental changes. Private prisons, marijuana criminalization, spying, qualified immunity, etc. are just a few of the reasons people don't trust their government.
- somenameforme 5y ago
  The things you are mentioning are bad decisions that favor the government and there are likely be ulterior motives, but there is no overt deception. What's driving distrust IMO is overt deception which is becoming increasingly normalized and regular. One of the most extreme examples was the death of Officer Brian Sicknick [1] during the January 6th riots. The media ran a nonstop narrative (for months) that he had been brutally killed after being attacked by a rioter with a fire extinguisher: a visceral and discomforting image that helped to frame the riots. Politicians, up to and including the president, exploited this by having an honorary ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda historically used to honor the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, and RBG. The problem is that not only was he not killed by a fire extinguisher, he wasn't killed at all. He died of a completely unrelated and preexisting medical condition (blood clot in the brain leading to stroke) well after the riots had ended. He texted his brother long after the riots stating he was feeling fine and had no problems except getting pepper sprayed twice. The media tried to pivot to claiming that he died of an allergic reaction to the pepper spray, but there was no basis in reality for that whatsoever and it was also completely dismissed by the medical examiner whose report was publicly released only months after its completion. Events like this emphasize that the argument of scale against conspiracy theories simply doesn't hold. His family knew what happened, the examiner's office knew what happened, many politicians exploiting his death knew what happened, and I expect there's no doubt much of the media also knew. Yet they all ran with the same story because it helped advance the desired narrative. Efforts at countering it were effectively squished by a mixture of censorship and labels (such as conspiracy theory). And of course this event also emphasizes that the political establishment are more than happy to carry out amoral conspiracies even over such absurdly petty things, and that our media is now more of a tool for political manipulation of society than a balance against it. So after events like this, what reason do I ever have to now believe the media or politicians on pretty much anything? Even science is now starting to go down the exact same myopic path with things like the famous open letter published by the Lancet [2] declaring any consideration that COVID may have come from a lab leak as being an unjustifiable conspiracy theory. Most of the scientists who signed that letter had direct ties to the Wuhan Lab. They declared no competing interests in the letter, and the Lancet editor who chose to publish it clearly didn't see it as a conflict of interest either. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Sicknick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Sicknick [2] - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30418-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

cycomanic 5y ago

> I've come to be disgusted by the term "conspiracy theory" in ways I used to not be. It's overused now and seems now to serve mainly as a sort of rhetorical power or status assertion. Someone's fears or beliefs are labeled "conspiracy" if they contradict some normative belief held by a dominant group with which the speaker identifies. I've noticed this on the conservative as well as liberal spectrum. > What's changed my mind is realizing how often things that might be labeled as conspiracy theory actually happen. Even if something didn't happen, many of the fears are actually well grounded and labeling them as such in my opinion reflects a certain amount of lack of empathy on the part of the labeler. > I'm not saying certain beliefs aren't absurd or physically implausible etc. But if they are plausible they're often coming from somewhere reasonable. Widespread conspiracy theories tell you that a large segment of the population doesn't trust something, and the appropriate response is to figure out why that thing might be untrustworthy. > I agree with the linked article, and understand that they are writing to a specific audience. But it has a patronizing tone that I think just reinforces the problems involved. If there's a widespread conspiracy belief, it's not enough to say to have "empathy" for someone who holds it, as that casts the problem as being with the person rather than the things that caused them to lose trust to begin with. You need to be asking why such large parts of the population distrust the subject of the conspiracy and address that. I don't know if you have any "conspiracy theorists" in your close circles. One of my former friends has really gone done the deep end, and why you could argue that some of the arguments are funded in reasonable doubts, the whole world view is not. It is absolutely impossible to have any discussion with him, every argument is countered with "you can not trust mainstream, science media, people..." while at the same time those same sources get used easily for their own arguments. And it usually is not just one, there is 9/11, vaccinations being used by Bill Gates to steralize people, free vacuum energy, covid. At the same time he sees himself at the forefront of defending against a new emergence of nazism while supporting people who have literally been filmed doing a Hitler salute (supposedly that was "out of context"). It is true that these people are victims, but they are victims of propaganda who pull people toward more and more outrageous claims, and a social media machine which develops the most addictive media techniques and no care for the overall affect on society.

vasuki 5y ago
I can relate to that very much. Your former friend sounds exactly like one of my friends with whom I am trying to not end friendship and be as empathetic and helpful as I can be. > while at the same time those same sources get used easily for their own arguments 100% this! Telegram channels and Substack seem to be super popular for this sort of propaganda. I also did a technical analysis of many of the websites shared in these channels and found: - they use very heavy trackers - keylogging for webpages is common - they all use privacy shields for `whois` info - third party cookies You can find some of these if you want to take a look in https://github.com/Langer81/Summer-REU-Research https://github.com/Langer81/Summer-REU-Research

ekianjo 5y ago

Official propaganda by news networks is called information, and everything that derives from it is called disinformation, malinformation or conspiracy theories, no matter the validity of the points raised. Its pure information control by using etiquettes to discredit everything else.

_teyd 5y ago

For me, conspiracy theorists are the ones who believe easily falsifiable things. Flat earth, microchips in vaccines, lizard people, pedophile rings in the basement of buildings with no basement.. that sort of thing. Stuff you can prove or disprove with an easy to get ahold of apparatus or two and some basic math or logic, or even just your own eyes. There is almost always a strong element of motivated reasoning going on in these cases. I find it hard personally even to have empathy for those people, even though I do try, because there is this weird mix of self-righteousness and laziness that I have a hard time having sympathy for. I do at least recognize that’s my own biases in play. Calling someone who is doing actual research that doesn’t go with the grain of consensus a conspiracy theorist is surely wrong, but I see a lot more of the former (Surprising thing X must be true because it somehow advantages my tribe or makes me special) on the internet than the latter (Surprising thing X must be true because I did research and the data is not matching up as you’d expect).

andi999 5y ago
I agree. Just wondering, would chemtrails classify as easily falsifiable?
- j4yav 5y ago
  I don’t know enough about it to say, really. That’s the thing where airplanes don’t have condensation trails, but whenever you see clouds behind one they are crop dusting chemicals on people? You’d think by now someone who works on airplanes would have noticed the chemical tanks/sprayers, or sampled where the contrails landed for unexpected chemicals. Someone who believes in it with just a bit of money could surely fly up and sample the air inside of one of the trails, for example.
- jl6 5y ago
  Aside from flat Earth, I don’t think the other examples are actually all that easy to disprove. What, for example, would constitute a disproof of lizard people? Genetic testing of every human? Most conspiracy theories are poorly defined, and this provides substantial insulation from reason. A purported disproof might be countered by declaring “ah, but that’s not the real lizard people theory - you see, they have anti-genetic-testing technology”. I think this is part of the trap that believers fall into: the idea that if you can’t disprove it, then it might be true, and if it might be true, then a fun game of connect-the-dots begins. Of course, an infinite number of things might be true, so the actual conspiracy theories that people choose to believe in start to be driven by their personality and social network. That’s why we hear about lizard-people but not, say, the equally plausible echidna-people.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

I would guess that in a startling number of cases the answer is "because rich and powerful people want them to be suspicious". What were the jews targetted by the Protocol of the Elder of Zion a threat to? Monarchy. What did the real illuminati want? Democracy. What does George Soros fund that makes him a target? Democracy. What was the evil EU up to that caused Brexit. Democracy. Why don't QAnon vote for democrats? Why did birthers need a made up excuse to target a Black American president swept in on a massive uptick of voting? Why is shutting down an economy to save human lives in a pandemic so scary to certain groups? Because poor people's lives shouldn't have the same worth as the rich. Why is dealing with climate change so hard when everyone agrees it's the cheap and obvious thing to do? Generally speaking, why do certain types of politician have to lie so much? Possibly because they're doing stuff that isn't actually popular? A conspiracy theory is either something true the powerful don't want you to know, or something false the powerful do want you to believe and weird echoes of those two things. edit: a 'related article' at the bottom endorses this view: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00257-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00257-y > Conspiracy theories are fundamentally a form of political propaganda,” says Quassim Cassam

jstanley 5y ago
Isn't this position itself just another conspiracy theory?
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Yes, it's true, but uncomfortable for people in power to talk about, so that fits my definition above. Other true things like slavery being bad, the reasons for the civil war, rich people getting away with terrible crimes while poor people were killed for minor infractions, Nazis targeting trade unions, kings being dictators, royal families often being foreign parasites, human races not actually existing and so on fall into this weird realm as well.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  No, there is clear evidence and the proliferation of conspiracy theories to promote specific political goals has been studied and documented by sociologists.

bsedlm 5y ago

> You need to be asking why such large parts of the population distrust the subject of the conspiracy and address that. In my own experience, an important source (among others) for my own loss of trust is the impossibility of being (and/or feeling like I'm) part of that which I distrust. for example, a false democracy (like in my own country) may fuel this. another (better) example is the impossibility of being able to contribute (feel as a part of) to some scholarly field (these circles are riddled with authority appeals if only as a way to cope with the vast amounts of time required to wade through content).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

saul_goodman 5y ago

Here here. On one hand, she makes an attempt to "Sam Harris" the issue of conspiracy by recognizing that a persons circumstances lead them to their beliefs. It's obvious some segment of "the establishment" was lying to us over certain parts of covid. The problem is that people can't tell why they are lying and then fill in that part of the narrative in their head with conspiracy. With a 0.5% death rate, why the mind job to all of society over this thing? Is there something else you guys know about covid that we don't about yet? Is long covid the reason? But anyone who at least thinks a little bit can see the stench and coverup about the origins of sars-cov2 and gets derailed right there. Then we have massive censoring of social media about any discussion of covid which again forces people into their conspiracy narratives. The establishment is its own worst enemy. Another issue is that the establishment tries to put vaccines in a separate box from the rest of modern human inventions and its a total disaster. Sure, vaccines are well tested, but look at what happened with the advent of PCB's, Agent Orange, Asbestos, Benzine, etc. The last 100 years has trained everyone to expect modern chemistry to be a disaster. You can't separate that knowledge from vaccines and say "this time it's different". Of course, none of those other chemicals were tested in the context of being injected into the human body, but that's just details at this point for most people. Combined with reducing a testing regiment that should run over a decade to 1 year and you no longer get to stand on your high-ground and say "your vaccine fears are misplaced". No, the onus is on the system to be 100% transparent and honest. But we didn't get any of that, in fact the stench of rot continues to linger: https://denvergazette.com/news/judge-scraps-75-year-fda-timeline-to-release-pfizer-vaccine-safety-data-giving-agency-eight/article_f007b8b4-ad66-59b4-a270-4709bc3e4814.html https://denvergazette.com/news/judge-scraps-75-year-fda-time...

TacticalCoder 5y ago
> No, the onus is on the system to be 100% transparent and honest. But we didn't get any of that, in fact the stench of rot continues to linger: https://denvergazette.com/news/judge-scraps-75-year-fda-time https://denvergazette.com/news/judge-scraps-75-year-fda-time... I got both shots but I totally agree. That the FDA even tried to help Pfizer not release all the data before 2097 is beyond belief. All hope is not lost though: the very reason they'll have eight months (not 75 years) before releasing it all is precisely because otherwise it undermines the public's confidence in the government.

mannykannot 5y ago

The term is probably being used too freely, but that would hardly distinguish it from a dozen other concepts in current political discourse, and we will not understand the phenomenon if we insist on it being rooted in rational distrust, and also ignore how useful they may be for people with ulterior motives. We are not rational beings; we are still mostly creatures of instinct, with the ability to be rational. The latter brings with it the ability to rationalize. We all, to some extent, prefer to hold beliefs that imply outcomes we prefer (or, equivalently, dispel undesirable outcomes), and that can lead us to take positions on that basis, rather than on what the evidence supports. That, in itself, would not be a conspiracy theory, as there are many cases where the evidence is inconclusive. The hallmark of a conspiracy theory is, firstly, the doubling-down on a belief despite evidence to the contrary or a lack of supporting evidence that should be there, and secondly, a particular form of rationalization for doing so, which says the evidence must be fabricated or suppressed, as necessary. All considerations are subordinated to the goal of preserving the initial belief. Anyone with a passing familiarity with 20th-century history has enough evidence to see how promulgating conspiracy theories can help nefarious actors, and also how they work.

jjj123 5y ago

If you really want to make yourself mad, take the Washington Post’s quiz on conspiracy theories [1]. All of the options are carefully worded to minimize the actual conspiracies (ex: they say the FBI “kept tabs on” MLK which doesn’t begin to describe what they did) and disqualify others (ex: one “incorrect” option is “Republicans cheated their way to win the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections” when it’s not inaccurate to say they cheated in 2000). It’s a pretty blatant propaganda piece, intentional or not. 1: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2021/conspiracy-theory-quiz/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2021/con...