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How can anybody be surprised that so many people belive in so called "conspiracy theories" when many of them looks like true. The rising tribalism in times of
by t0bia_s 4y ago
How can anybody be surprised that so many people belive in so called "conspiracy theories" when many of them looks like true.
The rising tribalism in times of digital information is truly interesting phenomenon. When most people realise how easily we are manipulated just by words and images in media, trust in any information will not exist. We are really go to post-truth times.
- somenameforme 4y agoIt seems to me that many of the current changes in society are not really changes, but just the ending of what was an abnormal little, extremely pleasant, bubble in time. And it's in that bubble that "we" (Westerner, over the age of ~30) all grew up in. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. .... I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false." - Thomas Jefferson, 1807 [1] That sort of condemnation of the news would have been, at the minimum, quite hyperbolic during the time we grew up in. But now? It seems like a scathing, yet completely reasonable, criticism of the current state of media. And this goes on endlessly far back. Read the classics (Plato's "The Republic" feels effectively prophetic at this point) and it goes from sounding alien, during our bubble, to sounding like something oddly familiar. It's quite comforting in a way. We're not stepping into some great new unknown, but merely returning to the endless cycling of history. [1] - https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.038_0592_0594/?sp=2&st=text https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.038_0592_0594/?sp=2&st=tex...
- t0bia_s 4y agoBack then, news, or even ability to read anything was not available as it is today. So it is a little bit different in a scale. "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell
- cbsmith 4y ago> How can anybody be surprised that so many people belive in so called "conspiracy theories" when many of them looks like true. The Darwinian nature of conspiracy theories mean that if they didn't look like the truth, they'd not really establish much of an audience.
- yesco 4y agoIn other words, this as how human societies naturally build consensus.
- cbsmith 4y agoNo, consensus building is the reverse. It's people playing the game vs. the game playing people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/qanon-game-plays-believers/2021/05/10/31d8ea46-928b-11eb-a74e-1f4cf89fd948_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/qanon-game-plays-beli... Consensus building is looking for ways to persuade people who aren't predisposed to an idea to come around to it (and because it's bidirectional, simultaneously being open to ideas one isn't predisposed to). Conspiracy theories are looking for ways to become something that fits people's predispositions.
- t0bia_s 4y ago"Conspiracy theories are looking for ways to become something that fits people's predispositions." Maybe that is exactly yours predisposition?