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It has never made any sense to me to regard any and all conspiracy theories as equivalent in nature. Contrast "Epstein, not a suicide" theory against "Flat Ear

It has never made any sense to me to regard any and all conspiracy theories as equivalent in nature. Contrast "Epstein, not a suicide" theory against "Flat Earth" theory for example.

JohnFen 3y ago
I certainly think different theories have different degrees of plausibility, but all conspiracy theories do have a few things in common that help define them. The one that strikes me is that they all start with a conclusion they want to reach and selectively choose/interpret evidence in a way that supports that conclusion.
toss1 3y ago
This quote in the middle of the article seems key to understanding the phenomenon: >>Naomi Klein examines the mushrooming of conspiracism in her new book Doppelganger, noting that people often come under its sway because they are searching for a practical solution to a sense of unfairness. Conspiracists have a “fantasy of justice”, hoping that the evil-doing elites can be arrested and stopped. “Conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong but often get the feelings right,” she writes. “The feeling that every human misery is someone else’s profit … the feeling that important truths are being hidden.” She quotes digital journalism scholar Marcus Gilroy-Ware’s conclusion that: “Conspiracy theories are a misfiring of a healthy and justifiable political instinct: suspicion.” They want to understand the unfariness, but lack particular mental capacity to do so — the combination of intellectual capacity and education required to manage complex research (filtering ofr credibility) and understanding complex interactions — and so are lead into simpler wrong explanations by those who exploit spread of information, and/or the fellow deluded Useful Idiot (V.Lenin sense) 'fellow travelers'. It would be amusing if it weren't as dangerous to society as it is baffling.
tmn 3y ago
One of the best tools to suppress discovery of real conspiracies is to generate an abundance of obtuse conspiracy theories to discredit and confuse the entire sphere.

It has never made any sense to me to regard any and all conspiracy theories as equivalent in nature. Contrast "Epstein, not a suicide" theory against "Flat Earth" theory for example.

JohnFen 3y ago

I certainly think different theories have different degrees of plausibility, but all conspiracy theories do have a few things in common that help define them. The one that strikes me is that they all start with a conclusion they want to reach and selectively choose/interpret evidence in a way that supports that conclusion.

toss1 3y ago

This quote in the middle of the article seems key to understanding the phenomenon: >>Naomi Klein examines the mushrooming of conspiracism in her new book Doppelganger, noting that people often come under its sway because they are searching for a practical solution to a sense of unfairness. Conspiracists have a “fantasy of justice”, hoping that the evil-doing elites can be arrested and stopped. “Conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong but often get the feelings right,” she writes. “The feeling that every human misery is someone else’s profit … the feeling that important truths are being hidden.” She quotes digital journalism scholar Marcus Gilroy-Ware’s conclusion that: “Conspiracy theories are a misfiring of a healthy and justifiable political instinct: suspicion.” They want to understand the unfariness, but lack particular mental capacity to do so — the combination of intellectual capacity and education required to manage complex research (filtering ofr credibility) and understanding complex interactions — and so are lead into simpler wrong explanations by those who exploit spread of information, and/or the fellow deluded Useful Idiot (V.Lenin sense) 'fellow travelers'. It would be amusing if it weren't as dangerous to society as it is baffling.

tmn 3y ago

One of the best tools to suppress discovery of real conspiracies is to generate an abundance of obtuse conspiracy theories to discredit and confuse the entire sphere.