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Just because you believe in one theory that doesn't adhere to the mainstream "theory" of history does not make you a complete crackpot that believes all conspir

Just because you believe in one theory that doesn't adhere to the mainstream "theory" of history does not make you a complete crackpot that believes all conspiracy theories. Come on.

vlunkr 4y ago
I would argue that believing in one conspiracy theory makes you much more susceptible to others, because they all require a flawed type of logic. Conspiracy theorists overlook large bodies of evidence and laser-focus on tiny contradictions and rely on their own intuition over research or listening to other experts.
- shiftpgdn 4y ago
  15 years ago believing in the NSA fiber taps made you an insane conspiracy theorist. Save your judgement for something else.
  - kurthr 4y ago
    Perhaps you could argue that in the 90s, but no it was already the opposite of a conspiracy theory by 2000. The idea that not a single element of the tens of thousands (many TLAs) dedicated to US national security and monitoring was doing fiber taps (in SF or elsewhere) would imply that not a single one who had means (they were known to be doing it in other countries) motive (because they wanted metadata if nothing else) and opportunity (National security letters were a thing even then) would do their jobs. I mean... maybe at Home Depot, but not in the Federal Government where you take an oath to the constitution! Snowden changed a few people's minds, but not the elite.
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      > no it was already the opposite of a conspiracy theory by 2000. No, it wasn't, as someone who had dozens of knock-down, drag-out arguments well after this time period.
      - teawrecks 4y ago
        You can have a "knock down drag out" argument about climate change today, doesn't change the fact that we have had rock solid evidence of it for decades. X-Files in the 90s was basically a meme about three letter agencies that everyone knew had been spying on everything they could since before the cold war. You were only a conspiracy theorist if you thought they had alien tech or controlled the weather.
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Some echelon incidents such as the Airbus controversy were reported as far back as 1995 in mainstream media.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lend000 4y ago
  In my opinion, people who reject any "conspiracy theory" across the board are just as cognitively deficient as those who accept any controversial idea that challenges some conventional narrative. Conspiracies exist. Cover-ups exist. Propaganda is always in play. People act surprised when human behavior that has played out throughout written history is revealed, again, in the news as some sort of big scandal (surveillance leaks, MK Ultra, Operation Sea Spray, Operation Northwoods, Panama Papers, etc.). If you were a Russian citizen today, so much of your conventional information would be wrong and someone with that personality type would seem to us an absolute fool with a completely distorted reality. And apparently that is exactly what's happening, as a recent Reuters article reported: Putin's approval rating is doing pretty well since the Ukraine conflict began. In the western world, we have much more freedom of information, but we certainly don't have ubiquitous, objective information. Everyone wants an easy, lazy solution (only accept information from a preferred news source or the opposite: accept anything that challenges the mainstream), but if you want to have the most accurate reality possible, you have to continuously apply some thought to your available information yourself.
  - vlunkr 4y ago
    I guess it depends on what level of conspiracy we're talking about. The parent comment referred to the Mandela effect, so that's what I was thinking about. Mandela effect, flat earth, anti-vax, Q-anon, reptilians, bigfoot, there's a reason these groups tend to cross over.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >I would argue that believing in one conspiracy theory makes you much more susceptible to others, because they all require a flawed type of logic. Do you believe that 9/11 happened? By any definition, that was a conspiracy among hijackers. We have the government's theory of how that conspiracy unfolded, as well as a variety of other theories about how that conspiracy unfolded (some extremely unhinged). If you do believe that 9/11 happened, then you believe in at least one conspiracy theory. Does that make you "susceptible" to others? The fact is that any time two (or more) people get together and make a plan that isn't public, that is a conspiracy. This happens every day, millions of times per day. This happens in every board room, every statehouse, every hall of power. Every one of these is a "conspiracy" that people may or may not have theories about. The fact that there are many mentally ill people out there who have unhinged ideas about absurd conspiracies doesn't make the fact that there are many actual conspiracies unfolding around us every day.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Technically those are all conspiracy theories yes. However colloquially a conspiracy theorist is a person who believes in the further-fetched conspiracies on the spectrum. The term is pretty exclusive to that kind of "Bill Gates invented COVID so he could inject us with tracking and mind control chips" person :)
krapp 4y ago
If you believe in one conspiracy theory, it is more likely that you will believe others, yes. It's just a matter of how "out there" the conspiracy you believe in is. That forms the baseline for what you consider by default to be plausible.
- postingposts 4y ago
  That’s awful logic. I believe X, therefore I also believe Y and Z because some people who believe in Y believe in Z. See how that doesn’t make any sense?
  - krapp 4y ago
    That's exactly how it works, though. You believe X, and you're more likely to be convinced of Y and Z if Y and Z correlate with a worldview that already accepts X as normal. If you believe JFK was assassinated by the CIA, for instance, you're more likely to accept that 9/11 was an inside job, because a government capable of one is capable of the other. If you're already anti-vaxx, you're more likely to believe in COVID conspiracy theories, because you already believe vaccines are poison and the medical establishment is lying to everyone. People are emotional beings, not rational. Even most people who think they're as coldly logical and passionless as a compiler are driven primarily by a need to preserve their ego and reinforce their existing biases. Why do you think so many conspiracy theories spread across social media as well as they do? It's precisely because of that effect.
    - postingposts 4y ago
      That’s not how it works. Not even remotely. That’s how your brain has decided things function and your explanation has merely been good or functional for you. It’s not logical.
      - krapp 4y ago
        Logic has little to do with human behavior, much less belief in conspiracy theories.

Just because you believe in one theory that doesn't adhere to the mainstream "theory" of history does not make you a complete crackpot that believes all conspiracy theories. Come on.

vlunkr 4y ago

I would argue that believing in one conspiracy theory makes you much more susceptible to others, because they all require a flawed type of logic. Conspiracy theorists overlook large bodies of evidence and laser-focus on tiny contradictions and rely on their own intuition over research or listening to other experts.

shiftpgdn 4y ago
15 years ago believing in the NSA fiber taps made you an insane conspiracy theorist. Save your judgement for something else.
- kurthr 4y ago
  Perhaps you could argue that in the 90s, but no it was already the opposite of a conspiracy theory by 2000. The idea that not a single element of the tens of thousands (many TLAs) dedicated to US national security and monitoring was doing fiber taps (in SF or elsewhere) would imply that not a single one who had means (they were known to be doing it in other countries) motive (because they wanted metadata if nothing else) and opportunity (National security letters were a thing even then) would do their jobs. I mean... maybe at Home Depot, but not in the Federal Government where you take an oath to the constitution! Snowden changed a few people's minds, but not the elite.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    > no it was already the opposite of a conspiracy theory by 2000. No, it wasn't, as someone who had dozens of knock-down, drag-out arguments well after this time period.
    - teawrecks 4y ago
      You can have a "knock down drag out" argument about climate change today, doesn't change the fact that we have had rock solid evidence of it for decades. X-Files in the 90s was basically a meme about three letter agencies that everyone knew had been spying on everything they could since before the cold war. You were only a conspiracy theorist if you thought they had alien tech or controlled the weather.
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      Some echelon incidents such as the Airbus controversy were reported as far back as 1995 in mainstream media.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lend000 4y ago
In my opinion, people who reject any "conspiracy theory" across the board are just as cognitively deficient as those who accept any controversial idea that challenges some conventional narrative. Conspiracies exist. Cover-ups exist. Propaganda is always in play. People act surprised when human behavior that has played out throughout written history is revealed, again, in the news as some sort of big scandal (surveillance leaks, MK Ultra, Operation Sea Spray, Operation Northwoods, Panama Papers, etc.). If you were a Russian citizen today, so much of your conventional information would be wrong and someone with that personality type would seem to us an absolute fool with a completely distorted reality. And apparently that is exactly what's happening, as a recent Reuters article reported: Putin's approval rating is doing pretty well since the Ukraine conflict began. In the western world, we have much more freedom of information, but we certainly don't have ubiquitous, objective information. Everyone wants an easy, lazy solution (only accept information from a preferred news source or the opposite: accept anything that challenges the mainstream), but if you want to have the most accurate reality possible, you have to continuously apply some thought to your available information yourself.
- vlunkr 4y ago
  I guess it depends on what level of conspiracy we're talking about. The parent comment referred to the Mandela effect, so that's what I was thinking about. Mandela effect, flat earth, anti-vax, Q-anon, reptilians, bigfoot, there's a reason these groups tend to cross over.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>I would argue that believing in one conspiracy theory makes you much more susceptible to others, because they all require a flawed type of logic. Do you believe that 9/11 happened? By any definition, that was a conspiracy among hijackers. We have the government's theory of how that conspiracy unfolded, as well as a variety of other theories about how that conspiracy unfolded (some extremely unhinged). If you do believe that 9/11 happened, then you believe in at least one conspiracy theory. Does that make you "susceptible" to others? The fact is that any time two (or more) people get together and make a plan that isn't public, that is a conspiracy. This happens every day, millions of times per day. This happens in every board room, every statehouse, every hall of power. Every one of these is a "conspiracy" that people may or may not have theories about. The fact that there are many mentally ill people out there who have unhinged ideas about absurd conspiracies doesn't make the fact that there are many actual conspiracies unfolding around us every day.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Technically those are all conspiracy theories yes. However colloquially a conspiracy theorist is a person who believes in the further-fetched conspiracies on the spectrum. The term is pretty exclusive to that kind of "Bill Gates invented COVID so he could inject us with tracking and mind control chips" person :)

krapp 4y ago

If you believe in one conspiracy theory, it is more likely that you will believe others, yes. It's just a matter of how "out there" the conspiracy you believe in is. That forms the baseline for what you consider by default to be plausible.

postingposts 4y ago
That’s awful logic. I believe X, therefore I also believe Y and Z because some people who believe in Y believe in Z. See how that doesn’t make any sense?
- krapp 4y ago
  That's exactly how it works, though. You believe X, and you're more likely to be convinced of Y and Z if Y and Z correlate with a worldview that already accepts X as normal. If you believe JFK was assassinated by the CIA, for instance, you're more likely to accept that 9/11 was an inside job, because a government capable of one is capable of the other. If you're already anti-vaxx, you're more likely to believe in COVID conspiracy theories, because you already believe vaccines are poison and the medical establishment is lying to everyone. People are emotional beings, not rational. Even most people who think they're as coldly logical and passionless as a compiler are driven primarily by a need to preserve their ego and reinforce their existing biases. Why do you think so many conspiracy theories spread across social media as well as they do? It's precisely because of that effect.
  - postingposts 4y ago
    That’s not how it works. Not even remotely. That’s how your brain has decided things function and your explanation has merely been good or functional for you. It’s not logical.
    - krapp 4y ago
      Logic has little to do with human behavior, much less belief in conspiracy theories.