3 ms·

It's unfortunate that "conspiracy theory" has taken on an indisputably negative connotation now. Conspiracies do occur, theories about them form. More often, pe

It's unfortunate that "conspiracy theory" has taken on an indisputably negative connotation now. Conspiracies do occur, theories about them form. More often, people and entities behave in concert without conspiring per se, and this could be because of aligned goals or beliefs, or simply regulations that cause corporations to do the same sort of thing, especially when they keep an eye on one another. For example, is "market rent" a conspiracy? Is it price-fixing or collusion? Hey, I just caught you making a theory! I think the main bad thing about conspiracy theories (and other theories that may belong to crackpots and crazies) is that the facts mostly can't be known. If in fact there are conspiracies, nobody who's involved will speak openly and truthfully about them, so I guess just follow the money. Or don't. Why not concern yourself with living your life, enjoying your family and friends, being a good neighbor, having some recreation time outdoors and stuff. All of these things are known cures for the "cluster of psychological features" that may trouble you.

K0balt 3y ago
Conspiracy: An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act. Insofar as 2 or more people have coordinated, colluded, or planned an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act, a conspiracy is afoot. In fact, almost all significant illegal, wrongful, or subversive acts include conspiracies to commit said acts. I think it is safe to say that the present sociopolitical and socioeconomic landscapes are rife with activities, writ large, that are, from some reasonable perspective, illegal, wrongful, or subversive in nature. To remove the idea of conspiracy as a valid concept wielded by reasonable people is perhaps the most surgical of injuries to society which might otherwise seek to prevent or interfere with these kinds of illegal, wrongful, or subversive acts. When a couple of people decide to rob a liquor store, we call it a conspiracy. When someone suspects that a global cabal of banks might be colluding to screw the world over, we discredit them as a “conspiracy theorist”. (Libor) Insofar as it is reasonable to suspect that an individual might be capable of doing something illegal, wrongful, or subversive, it is also reasonable to suspect that an organisation might might do the same. We are conditioned to protect the systems and individuals that parasitise society, because we do not wish to confront the flaws in the system we serve. That said, there are plenty of nutjobs out there with outrageous claims. Some of them are delusional, some of them are attention seekers, some of them are merely ignorant or misinformed. But we should call them nutjobs, not conspiracy theorists. We ignore our civic duty to be vigilant “conspiracy theorists” at our peril. In doing so, we give cover to the lies that are big enough to be easy to believe.
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  Society is full of real, actual conspiracies and collusion that are harmful to people, whether they’re currently illegal or not. It’s just that the people promoting what popular media refers to as “conspiracy theory” throw enormous resources at distracting from those substantive issues by focusing on 5G, microchips in vaccines, chemtrails, and various silly theories of secret cabals running the world. If I was one of the people actually benefiting from a conspiracy that extracts value from society, I would be thrilled about this. I would even work hard to promote it. I would even try to elect political candidates that support or wink at obviously-lunatic conspiracy theories.
  - K0balt 3y ago
    Exactly, it is extremely effective cover for people actually doing harmful things. Also, that sounds like something a conspiracy theorist would say (lol).
  - Amezarak 3y ago
    Here’s a conspiracy theory: it’s not the 5G vaccine microchip fringe that’s the problem, it’s the people who make sure to bring up the wildest, most extreme oppositional “conspiracy theories” when defending their beliefs in order to paint all critique of their position with the same brush, even if more reasonable “conspiracy theories” are vastly more common. IE, it’s not the rare lunatic fringe that’s the issue, it’s the people in your last paragraph. That said, I think this grace should be given to the lunatic fringe: they instinctually feel something’s “not right” and the rest is all rationalization and theorycrafting divorced from reality. If they had the education and abilities they’d be among the reasonable set. But human instincts honed by millions of years of evolution should not be ignored, even if the rationalized theories are nonsense: SOMETHING really is wrong and needs to be corrected. Instead of ignoring these people we should be asking what in the social environment is setting them off.
    - ubertaco 3y ago
      >That said, I think this grace should be given to the lunatic fringe: they instinctually feel something’s “not right” and the rest is all rationalization and theorycrafting divorced from reality. Speaking as a formerly-"Moral-Majority-esque" Christian, who still lives in the deep red of the Bible belt, I assure you that this sense that "something is wrong" is _not_ a credit, depending on what the "something" is. In the county where I lived as a child, the KKK ran the county seat as a "sundown town" as late as the 80s, and only when an Oprah special on the area drew public attention and scrutiny did the KKK lose (official) power. It remains a starkly-white county just outside one of America's blackest cities, and its overwhelming majority is in fervent support of Marjorie Taylor Greene, who calls that area her home. To that crowd, yes, something is wrong: namely, the whites-only "order" they once enforced is now denied them by the force of both law and social pressure. And so, they lean _hard_ into white supremacy and "great replacement" conspiracy theories, in pursuit of their racially-homogeneous comfort zone of dominance. The feeling that something's "not right" is not a credit on its own; that depends greatly on what the "something" is identified to be, and what "right" means to that person.
specialist 3y ago
> unfortunate that "conspiracy theory" Ya. Some new phrases might help. Something like the distinctions between science -fiction ("sci-fi"), -fantasy ("syfy"), and -fact (aka "science"). Just sounding it out: Conspiracy-fantasy, -fiction, and -fact.
mannykannot 3y ago
The use of noun-, verb- and adjectival phrases, in lieu of either inventing a neologism or writing out in full a dictionary definition every time you want to use the associated concept, is commonplace in the English language, and complaining about it is not going to change anything, as it is more convenient than the alternatives.
wesapien 3y ago
That is the point. It's meant to diminish, discredit, and discriminate. It's a conspiracy theory until it's not. People used to wonder why Iphones got slow overtime and then Apple admits to slowing their phones down albeit for other eXcuses.
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  The thing you described (batterygate) happened once. It was a feature brought out on a single release and it still exists today. It does not fit with the other narrative that phones slow down over time, or with the release of a new OS. People love to misunderstand it though.

K0balt 3y ago

Conspiracy: An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act. Insofar as 2 or more people have coordinated, colluded, or planned an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act, a conspiracy is afoot. In fact, almost all significant illegal, wrongful, or subversive acts include conspiracies to commit said acts. I think it is safe to say that the present sociopolitical and socioeconomic landscapes are rife with activities, writ large, that are, from some reasonable perspective, illegal, wrongful, or subversive in nature. To remove the idea of conspiracy as a valid concept wielded by reasonable people is perhaps the most surgical of injuries to society which might otherwise seek to prevent or interfere with these kinds of illegal, wrongful, or subversive acts. When a couple of people decide to rob a liquor store, we call it a conspiracy. When someone suspects that a global cabal of banks might be colluding to screw the world over, we discredit them as a “conspiracy theorist”. (Libor) Insofar as it is reasonable to suspect that an individual might be capable of doing something illegal, wrongful, or subversive, it is also reasonable to suspect that an organisation might might do the same. We are conditioned to protect the systems and individuals that parasitise society, because we do not wish to confront the flaws in the system we serve. That said, there are plenty of nutjobs out there with outrageous claims. Some of them are delusional, some of them are attention seekers, some of them are merely ignorant or misinformed. But we should call them nutjobs, not conspiracy theorists. We ignore our civic duty to be vigilant “conspiracy theorists” at our peril. In doing so, we give cover to the lies that are big enough to be easy to believe.

matthewdgreen 3y ago
Society is full of real, actual conspiracies and collusion that are harmful to people, whether they’re currently illegal or not. It’s just that the people promoting what popular media refers to as “conspiracy theory” throw enormous resources at distracting from those substantive issues by focusing on 5G, microchips in vaccines, chemtrails, and various silly theories of secret cabals running the world. If I was one of the people actually benefiting from a conspiracy that extracts value from society, I would be thrilled about this. I would even work hard to promote it. I would even try to elect political candidates that support or wink at obviously-lunatic conspiracy theories.
- K0balt 3y ago
  Exactly, it is extremely effective cover for people actually doing harmful things. Also, that sounds like something a conspiracy theorist would say (lol).
- Amezarak 3y ago
  Here’s a conspiracy theory: it’s not the 5G vaccine microchip fringe that’s the problem, it’s the people who make sure to bring up the wildest, most extreme oppositional “conspiracy theories” when defending their beliefs in order to paint all critique of their position with the same brush, even if more reasonable “conspiracy theories” are vastly more common. IE, it’s not the rare lunatic fringe that’s the issue, it’s the people in your last paragraph. That said, I think this grace should be given to the lunatic fringe: they instinctually feel something’s “not right” and the rest is all rationalization and theorycrafting divorced from reality. If they had the education and abilities they’d be among the reasonable set. But human instincts honed by millions of years of evolution should not be ignored, even if the rationalized theories are nonsense: SOMETHING really is wrong and needs to be corrected. Instead of ignoring these people we should be asking what in the social environment is setting them off.
  - ubertaco 3y ago
    >That said, I think this grace should be given to the lunatic fringe: they instinctually feel something’s “not right” and the rest is all rationalization and theorycrafting divorced from reality. Speaking as a formerly-"Moral-Majority-esque" Christian, who still lives in the deep red of the Bible belt, I assure you that this sense that "something is wrong" is _not_ a credit, depending on what the "something" is. In the county where I lived as a child, the KKK ran the county seat as a "sundown town" as late as the 80s, and only when an Oprah special on the area drew public attention and scrutiny did the KKK lose (official) power. It remains a starkly-white county just outside one of America's blackest cities, and its overwhelming majority is in fervent support of Marjorie Taylor Greene, who calls that area her home. To that crowd, yes, something is wrong: namely, the whites-only "order" they once enforced is now denied them by the force of both law and social pressure. And so, they lean _hard_ into white supremacy and "great replacement" conspiracy theories, in pursuit of their racially-homogeneous comfort zone of dominance. The feeling that something's "not right" is not a credit on its own; that depends greatly on what the "something" is identified to be, and what "right" means to that person.

specialist 3y ago

> unfortunate that "conspiracy theory" Ya. Some new phrases might help. Something like the distinctions between science -fiction ("sci-fi"), -fantasy ("syfy"), and -fact (aka "science"). Just sounding it out: Conspiracy-fantasy, -fiction, and -fact.

mannykannot 3y ago

The use of noun-, verb- and adjectival phrases, in lieu of either inventing a neologism or writing out in full a dictionary definition every time you want to use the associated concept, is commonplace in the English language, and complaining about it is not going to change anything, as it is more convenient than the alternatives.

wesapien 3y ago

That is the point. It's meant to diminish, discredit, and discriminate. It's a conspiracy theory until it's not. People used to wonder why Iphones got slow overtime and then Apple admits to slowing their phones down albeit for other eXcuses.

thebruce87m 3y ago
The thing you described (batterygate) happened once. It was a feature brought out on a single release and it still exists today. It does not fit with the other narrative that phones slow down over time, or with the release of a new OS. People love to misunderstand it though.