4 ms·

> 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

> 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...
zozbot234 5y ago
> 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. What if I told you that all governments are similarly corrupt, and that the USG (arguably, Western governments in general) is one of the least corrupt by reasonably objective measures. Let's not fall for this trite divisive propaganda dating back to old KGB psyops, that has now taken a zombie life of its own (like in the best Hollywood stinker movies).
- nebulous_two 5y ago
  What is the objective in saying that the USG is the shiniest turd of the bunch? What is you told you that the USG has, over the course of its relatively short history, destabilized and created power vacuums and installed puppet governments in countless countries? There's no divisiveness to fall for. The public's loss of trust is legitimate and if anything, calling it KGB psyops propaganda is rich.. I suppose you think America doesn't engage in the exact same tactics?
  - yywwbbn 5y ago
    That maybe true, but I deeply believe that currently western governments are generally least corrupt that they have ever been historically. In the 1920s the US army was basically a mercenary force for hire by large banks and corporations. In Latin America whenever the Citi bank wanted to extract unpaid debts or the United Fruit wanted to suppress labor rights movements they just had to call the state department. The largely forgotten occupation of Haiti more resembles the Belgian Congo than the 2003 war in Iraq. Let’s not even get in into wtf was happening in Europe or European colonies. While the road itself might be quite bumpy, the general situation now is much better than it was in the 1980’s, 50’s, 30’s etc. And I don’t see any reasons to believe this trend will change significantly in the future.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      America is not less corrupt than before. It has concentrated its corruption upward, making it more wholesale and less retail, and more inward-facing, and more resistant to correction. The US is today rivalled only by China in its degree and depth of corruption. "Wholesale" means tied into institutions, and not mainly exercised by individuals. Other countries, like Russia, India, Brazil, or Nigeria, might like to be more corrupt than those, but just can't swing it. There is not enough money in play in their spheres.
PaulRobinson 5y ago
The American collective psyche has a history of mistrust long preceding the events you identify. In the colonial and early republic there was huge mistrust of Catholics, Jews, Masons, Native Americans and African Americans - many thought they were plotting against them. Why? Because at least some of them - say Native Americans - may well have been in order to stop their land being taken away and their families being slaughtered. In the nineteenth century, "International Bankers" (shorthand for rich Jews), and other rich businessmen - Carnegie, Morgan, Mellon, Rockefeller - all joined the ranks. There is substance in the idea that they literally conspired to create cartels in some circumstances, so this is not unfounded. And then we get to the 20th century. If I told you that 10 servicemen who were serving in Roswell in 1947 have come forward and said "yeah, there was a cover up, I didn't want to say anything earlier because I was worried about prosecution and losing my pension", and all their individual testimonies mostly collaborate you might think there was some evidence of a cover up. What if I then told you the actual number was higher? How many ex-USAAF service personnel would need to say "that was not a weather balloon, there was a cover up" would it take for you to re-think whether there was indeed a conspiracy? 50? 100? The actual number is... over 600. 600 people with no reason to lie are basically going around thinking "wow, my government is really keen on lying". Perhaps telling their families that there are dark, secret forces in this World. Then a couple of decades later, we have the assassination of JFK. For you to accept the official government explanation of what happened on that day in Dallas, you have to believe in magic bullets and a small entry wound to the front of the head and a large exit wound to the rear of the head is caused by a bullet fired from the rear. All this sits swirling around people's heads and then _actual_ conspiracies are proved completely true: CIA assassination plots, Watergate, and Iran-Contra. If somebody tells you that the CIA would "never" do something shady, there is ample evidence that they can, do and will. The reason Americans believe in conspiracies is because at various points in time there has been ample evidence of them and some of them are actually true. Some of them are just racism, or anti-semitism, or shock, but some of them _are actual conspiracies_. As to your last sentence, and the wonder what it would take to restore trust. Well, quite simply, the true conspiracies need to stop happening, and that means governments need to stop needing reason to form them. In short, nothing less than total revolution, then.
- cjbgkagh 5y ago
fit2rule 5y ago
goodpoint 5y ago
> That some agencies in the world deliberately fanning the flames of mistrust and division Plus, since WW1 misinformation and conspiracy theories has been routinely used as a weapon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare Disseminating (true or false) information is still one of the main tasks of secret services around the world. > 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? The medicine is called healthy democracy. It requires free press, informed citizenship, schools to teach critical thinking... (Unsurprisingly many conspiracy theories are undemocratic or spread in undemocratic environments)
macinjosh 5y ago
Going into WW2 the depression was still affecting a lot of people. Winning that war put the US on top. While the country reaped the post-victory rewards our government changed. The intelligence community was established. They began to see the US as top dog on the world stage. The the foreign interventions began, starting with Korea, then Vietnam, Central America, The Middle East, and so on. Eisenhower warned of this new complex of US power in his farewell speech. Kennedy was going to do something about it and severely curtail the CIA. Then, IMO, they killed him for it. True US democracy died with Kennedy. Ever since then the American people have been pushed out of the picture more and more by the military-industrial-academic complex. Today we often refer to these people as the "elites". They are the ones that know better, they know who we should get to vote for, who we should send our sons to go fight for vague "national interests". We are the boiled frogs and our democracy is a dystopian nightmare and they are getting away with it because of petty politics.
- paulryanrogers 5y ago
  Pardon my ignorance, what's the evidence for the CIA assassinating JFK? As opposed to a lone, albeit lucky, gunman and secret service incompetence.
  - macinjosh 5y ago
    It’s circumstantial which is why I caveated it as my own opinion. Oliver Stone’s work talks about this a lot and outlines the problems with the official story and why the CIA could be the culprit. It just makes the most sense to me overall.

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...

zozbot234 5y ago

> 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. What if I told you that all governments are similarly corrupt, and that the USG (arguably, Western governments in general) is one of the least corrupt by reasonably objective measures. Let's not fall for this trite divisive propaganda dating back to old KGB psyops, that has now taken a zombie life of its own (like in the best Hollywood stinker movies).

nebulous_two 5y ago
What is the objective in saying that the USG is the shiniest turd of the bunch? What is you told you that the USG has, over the course of its relatively short history, destabilized and created power vacuums and installed puppet governments in countless countries? There's no divisiveness to fall for. The public's loss of trust is legitimate and if anything, calling it KGB psyops propaganda is rich.. I suppose you think America doesn't engage in the exact same tactics?
- yywwbbn 5y ago
  That maybe true, but I deeply believe that currently western governments are generally least corrupt that they have ever been historically. In the 1920s the US army was basically a mercenary force for hire by large banks and corporations. In Latin America whenever the Citi bank wanted to extract unpaid debts or the United Fruit wanted to suppress labor rights movements they just had to call the state department. The largely forgotten occupation of Haiti more resembles the Belgian Congo than the 2003 war in Iraq. Let’s not even get in into wtf was happening in Europe or European colonies. While the road itself might be quite bumpy, the general situation now is much better than it was in the 1980’s, 50’s, 30’s etc. And I don’t see any reasons to believe this trend will change significantly in the future.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    America is not less corrupt than before. It has concentrated its corruption upward, making it more wholesale and less retail, and more inward-facing, and more resistant to correction. The US is today rivalled only by China in its degree and depth of corruption. "Wholesale" means tied into institutions, and not mainly exercised by individuals. Other countries, like Russia, India, Brazil, or Nigeria, might like to be more corrupt than those, but just can't swing it. There is not enough money in play in their spheres.

PaulRobinson 5y ago

The American collective psyche has a history of mistrust long preceding the events you identify. In the colonial and early republic there was huge mistrust of Catholics, Jews, Masons, Native Americans and African Americans - many thought they were plotting against them. Why? Because at least some of them - say Native Americans - may well have been in order to stop their land being taken away and their families being slaughtered. In the nineteenth century, "International Bankers" (shorthand for rich Jews), and other rich businessmen - Carnegie, Morgan, Mellon, Rockefeller - all joined the ranks. There is substance in the idea that they literally conspired to create cartels in some circumstances, so this is not unfounded. And then we get to the 20th century. If I told you that 10 servicemen who were serving in Roswell in 1947 have come forward and said "yeah, there was a cover up, I didn't want to say anything earlier because I was worried about prosecution and losing my pension", and all their individual testimonies mostly collaborate you might think there was some evidence of a cover up. What if I then told you the actual number was higher? How many ex-USAAF service personnel would need to say "that was not a weather balloon, there was a cover up" would it take for you to re-think whether there was indeed a conspiracy? 50? 100? The actual number is... over 600. 600 people with no reason to lie are basically going around thinking "wow, my government is really keen on lying". Perhaps telling their families that there are dark, secret forces in this World. Then a couple of decades later, we have the assassination of JFK. For you to accept the official government explanation of what happened on that day in Dallas, you have to believe in magic bullets and a small entry wound to the front of the head and a large exit wound to the rear of the head is caused by a bullet fired from the rear. All this sits swirling around people's heads and then _actual_ conspiracies are proved completely true: CIA assassination plots, Watergate, and Iran-Contra. If somebody tells you that the CIA would "never" do something shady, there is ample evidence that they can, do and will. The reason Americans believe in conspiracies is because at various points in time there has been ample evidence of them and some of them are actually true. Some of them are just racism, or anti-semitism, or shock, but some of them _are actual conspiracies_. As to your last sentence, and the wonder what it would take to restore trust. Well, quite simply, the true conspiracies need to stop happening, and that means governments need to stop needing reason to form them. In short, nothing less than total revolution, then.

cjbgkagh 5y ago

fit2rule 5y ago

goodpoint 5y ago

> That some agencies in the world deliberately fanning the flames of mistrust and division Plus, since WW1 misinformation and conspiracy theories has been routinely used as a weapon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_warfare Disseminating (true or false) information is still one of the main tasks of secret services around the world. > 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? The medicine is called healthy democracy. It requires free press, informed citizenship, schools to teach critical thinking... (Unsurprisingly many conspiracy theories are undemocratic or spread in undemocratic environments)

macinjosh 5y ago

Going into WW2 the depression was still affecting a lot of people. Winning that war put the US on top. While the country reaped the post-victory rewards our government changed. The intelligence community was established. They began to see the US as top dog on the world stage. The the foreign interventions began, starting with Korea, then Vietnam, Central America, The Middle East, and so on. Eisenhower warned of this new complex of US power in his farewell speech. Kennedy was going to do something about it and severely curtail the CIA. Then, IMO, they killed him for it. True US democracy died with Kennedy. Ever since then the American people have been pushed out of the picture more and more by the military-industrial-academic complex. Today we often refer to these people as the "elites". They are the ones that know better, they know who we should get to vote for, who we should send our sons to go fight for vague "national interests". We are the boiled frogs and our democracy is a dystopian nightmare and they are getting away with it because of petty politics.

paulryanrogers 5y ago
Pardon my ignorance, what's the evidence for the CIA assassinating JFK? As opposed to a lone, albeit lucky, gunman and secret service incompetence.
- macinjosh 5y ago
  It’s circumstantial which is why I caveated it as my own opinion. Oliver Stone’s work talks about this a lot and outlines the problems with the official story and why the CIA could be the culprit. It just makes the most sense to me overall.