So you’re rejecting BD Air’s hypothesis at the beginning of this thread?🥴

@NostraDumbass yep

@glennlab @NostraDumbass I have no time for the mentally and socially disturbed @BDair.

@anglophone I think it’s a mistake to write off conspiracy theorists in this way, though a percentage are bonafide wingnuts. Just finished reading “Among the Truthers” by Jonathan Kay (more a study on why they believe than what they believe. For example, the (sub)title of Chapter 5 is “A Psychological Field Guide to Conspiracists”.) Additionally, I used to be one of those guys 40+ years ago before I had my “Aha” moment and was able to course correct before the pseudoscientific matrix swallowed me up completely. So in a way I get people like BDAir, and try not to be too hard on them…Though not always successfully.

@NostraDumbass He seems to me to thrive on causing social disharmony, unlike all the other conspiracy theorists that I have encountered. I am also (in)famous for not suffering fools gladly. As an aside, I have done a small amount of research into the psychology of conspiracy theorists, and if I may be so bold as to offer a conjecture, it would be that you found hard scientific evidence outweighed for you the forces that bind groups of conspiracy theorists together.

@anglophone That’s part of it. But mostly, this was taking place before there was an internet, so it was a private, personal experience for me. Therefore no peer pressure from fellow travellers who would have treated me as an apostate for betraying the faith. Nowadays, conspiratorial echo chambers can form almost instantly over the internet. And the community they offer for the disaffected can be seductively irresistible. I didn’t have to deal with any of that back in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. So there was an element of luck involved as well that prevented me from becoming a permanent resident of that realm.

@OldMetalHead Thanks. A very interesting article, indeed. It also seems to describe the outlook of @BDair

@Petter See below