I've always been fascinated by those who are predisposed to conspiracy theories and pseudoscience. The way they form their opinions seems weird. Why is that? And I may have found the answer.
Who believes in conspiracy theories? A meta-analysis on personality correlates
Abstract
Conspiracy theories are ubiquitous (e.g., 9/11, COVID-19) and can have negative consequences (e.g., prejudice). Thus, there is an increasing need for evidence-based recommendations (e.g. possible target groups) with respect to interventions and prevention measures. Present Bayesian three-level meta-analysis (686 correlations, 127 independent samples) includes a synthesis of the extant literature with respect to 12 personality correlates and their relationship with conspiracy beliefs. On average, people who believe in pseudoscience, suffer from paranoia or schizotypy, are narcissistic or religious/spiritual and have relatively low cognitive ability, are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. Heterogeneity was partially explained by the examined moderators and no strong evidence for publication bias was found. Implications for developing tailored interventions are discussed in the article.
Read on: [sciencedirect.com]
So you want to dictate the conclusions that people make about situations rather than letting them come to their own conclusions based on the facts that they see?
Kind of like 2 weeks to stop the spread was a soft start for more restrictions??? turned out to be true after it went on for two years.
What about all of the ones that the liberals came up with when Trump was elected that never turned out to be even remotely close to true???
Democrats only like the conspiracy theories that CNN tells them are real.
I do not always dismiss all conspiracy theories out of hand. But I do think that there is a lot of value in Hanlon's razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Because here is a strong desire in many humans, to see agency in all things, and a strong denial of the extent to which pure random chance and our own very limited understandings govern nearly everything that happens in the world. Conspiracy is comforting, because it ultimately says that someone, albeit someone evil, is in control, and could even be made to act differently. Many find that less frightening than accepting that we are adrift in an universe over which we have virtually no control, and of which we have virtually no understanding, where random chance and individual random actions govern nearly everything in unpredictable and confusing ways..
It is therefore a religion, which stems ultimately from the same origins as animism. Where primitive thinking saw gods and thinking agents behind everything, like rainclouds, in the hope that those thinking beings could have actions which could be understood or even modified.
A change in language is needed. I use terms like, cover ups, covert programs, false flag operations, psych op programs, disinformation programs, spin, PR, and plain old fashioned lying by power in all its forms. Not just America, but look at the America specifically and these are in abundance. Of course, maybe I'm wrong and everyone just tells the truth now, or admits to their corruption, criminality and incompetence. I know my view on that.
@Fernapple and here we are at the moment full of the Republican conspiracy to over turn the 2020 election. That RICO law is all about people conspiring to do something criminal. In this case they were the dumbest most inept conspirators imaginable. Other conspirators have more brains and cover their tracks.
Yes, conspiracy theory, theory -- the proposition that power puts out a bullshit cover story, and when people question and challenge it, power says 'conspiracy theory! conspiracy theory! ', and as no one wants to be called a 'conspiracy theorist' they back off and shut up. Power wins again. It's a good tactic, works a treat, and helps power rule through implied fear-- fear of being called a conspiracy theorist.
After all, just look at America and the past 60 years: assassinations, Vietnam, Watergate, Pentagon Papers, whistle-blowers on surveillance since 9/11, Including the yes we can Obama years, the covert criminal programs of the CIA and other agencies.... I mean, why would you ever want not to believe the accounts of government, or the corporate sector or the US Military Industrial Complex generally? They are always sooooo truthful, aren't they.
No.
People in power lie, and do not want to be questioned, so those who do question their sinister actions, which happen to be covered in deceit, are called conspiracy theorists, simply because the lying members of government, and their minions, don't come right out and tell the truth, etc.. Maybe because telling the outright truth about their actions, would expose them as lawless goons, who have no respect for laws or even basic morality..
And also because, in a more lawful society, they might even be held accountable for their actions, if they told the truth about what they do, so they are always a little concerned about covering their tracks, in case the peasants ever actually regain control of their government and, along with some officials suddenly having an attack of conscience and integrity, might actually prosecute them for their crimes... All of which are very unlikely to happen, but the perps want to be sure that even that small risk is minimized, by having the evidence well removed or concealed, for all time..
@TomMcGiverin history certainly suggests so.
You do know that there is a conspiracy theory ABOUT conspiracy theories!
The term originated in 1870, and was not a pejorative term, it was a method for analyzing information in order to allow intelligence officers to head off espionage. Discovering and exposing conspiracy theories was an actual job, performed by the secret service.
However, in 1964 "Countering Criticism of the Warren Report" after the assassination of JFK, became a priority for the CIA , and a report by that name was released in 1967.
The Gist of the plan was to cover up what actually had happened to the president and why, by flooding the media and the popular press with false stories and misinformation about the assassination, that could them be debunked and demonized as Wacko conspiracy theories including the truth, there would then be a concerted effort to make Wacko conspiracy theories a derogatory term for any piece of leaked government information true or not, and to label anyone who tried to tell any inconvenient truth as a conspiracy NUT JOB. ,
It worked really well until in 1997 "Countering Criticism of the Warren Report" was made public under the 30 year rule, and the fact that the CIA had invented and corrupted the term Wacko conspiracy theory in order to successfully cover up their own incompetence in assassination of JFK became public knowledge.
Which of course the CIA immediately ridiculed as a Wacko conspiracy theory
Yes, conspiracy theory, theory.
Among others, Christopher Columbus was a conspiratory theorist, he did not fall off the edge of the earth either. Many of the people who changed the course of humanity were also touted as conspiritory theorists until they proved their theories.
These people were never any more insane than the rest of humanity , they stood by their convictions .
This has been the normal course of human development.
In modern times some pseudoscientific linguistic mumbo jumbo has created the term Conspiritory theorist and attributed these people as having undiagnosable medical conditions for which there is no treatment or disease, yet anyone can instantly suffer from this non proven non existent disease when on they expressed a contrary opinion. No need for a medical diagnosis , anyone from age 1 to 100 can instantly diagnose without any sort of training in any scientific endeavour, How can that be??
I read conspiracy theories, the horoscope and the comics section in my local paper for the same entertainment value.
Bottom line, according to the article, people who believe in conspiracy theories are, on average, fucked up in the head. It is as I suspected (and always nice to have my bias confirmed! )
The popularity of certain movie and TV series types proves that many of us are into conspiracy theories. What I find strange is that many are still talking Biderbergs, Trilateral Commission, and saying that Brzezinski has a big nose. (sorry ) From the time that was getting popular I was hearing that he was against all of this. Not hardly correct.
Sorry, mate, I can't read your comment; it is in a long single line and extends out of the display range. Do you think you could type it again? Cheers.
Did you upload a text JPG or what? How did you manage to mess that up so much?
@DennoPenno.
I have found this problem occurs when you have left a space on the left side of the comment box
E.g Careful when using ident when starting a new paragraph. Happens mainly when I copy and past from another source.
Some web sites use old fashioned HTML, so it is always a good idea to paste any cuttings in to Notepad, then cut and paste them again from note pad to remove all formatting. Other wise you are likely to get the above effect, with the pasted text being reverted to HTML default RTF
@LenHazell53 Thanks to everyone for the advice. This very seldom happens to me.
Where would the Netflix documentary series The Family fall in the mix of conspiracy theories? Asking for a friend.
I’ve read some scholarly stuff on the Bilderbergs and Trilateral Commission that Zbigniew Brzezinski spawned from that previous forum. Huntington produced an essay talking of an “excess of democracy” in that framing. I have reservations toward that sort of elitism, but there was a Cold War going and the current Trumpenproles show where the hoi polloi sheep can wind up with what “The Family” called a Wolf King.
That aside I still can’t fathom the whole Bohemian Grove frat party thing.
Bohemian Grove is neo masonic silly boys club, based on ancient Canaanite Moloch worship and Glaukopisiusm (Bull and Owl worship). That makes bored rich folk think they are part of something magical and special, and obliges them to help one another in business, and to gather once a year, get drunk, do silly rituals and screw anything that moves.
While there are people who are predisposed to conspiracy theories, there are of course people who create and circulate conspiracy theories. I remember reading some articles about Alex Jones spreading the conspiracy theory that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged, and as a result of being subject to torment by Jones' followers, a couple of fathers whose children were shooting victims had to kill themselves. Man, that was awful!
Had to kill themselves? I don't think anyone has to kill themselves!
As far as I am aware the only person to commit suicide over the Sandy Hook tragedy was Adam Lanza, the shooter, who blew his own head off, and saved the American tax payer the cost of a trial.
@Shaggy2018 OK, 'committed suicide' then.
Conspiracy theorists tend to be people who don't have a whole lot of critical thinking skills and tend to be incurious about the facts or researching what they are. Thy hear something provocative like: "the moon landing was staged," or 9/11 was an inside job," or "the election was stolen from Trump" and it inflames their imaginations so they run with it unconcerned by what the truth might be even if it can be proven.
Republicans love conspiracy theories.
Firstly I must state that I tend not to subscribe to conspiracy theories. The main reason is that I have never come across any organisation that is that efficient and certainly not on any large scale like the moon landings would have required. That said, there have been cover-ups of wrongdoing that have lasted for years and we cannot say for sure how many are still out there.
One of the reasons for people believing in conspiracy theories not listed is a breakdown in trust. Like a partner who cheats on you once, it is nigh on impossible to regain. Scientists who told us nuclear power was perfectly safe, doctors who worked for the tobacco industry who did the same. I know people from both sides of the political spectrum who will never trust the BBC again after the Jimmy Saville affair. Or as the old joke punchline goes "But you shag ONE sheep".
Without that element of trust, the world becomes a much scarier place. Like a mugging victim who becomes agoraphobic, it would be difficult to persuade them otherwise. So in the absence of trust, we have doubt. All it takes is someone to provide easy answers and that doubt disappears. You are special, you are in the know, and all the rest are sheeple. It matters little if each piece of misinformation is debunked as there will be 5 more to replace it by the time you type.
Joke;
A conspiracy theorist dies on the operating table. He goes to heaven and meets God, whereupon he asks him "Do vaccines cause autism?"
God replies "No autism is a congenital condition that is there in the womb"
Just then the surgeon applies paddles to his heart and brings him back to life. The next day his friends and family visit him and ask "Wow what was it like dying?"
To which he says "This conspiracy goes deeper than we knew"
Good joke.
Not unlike religion, conspiracy theories explain the inexplicable and give significance to otherwise seemingly meaningless events. Hence, a loner with confused politics and a mommy complex didn't assassinate JFK- it was a conspiracy to... do something that Kennedy didn't want to do. A new strain of SARS-CoV didn't make the jump from animals to humans- it was manufactured by a conspiracy (for reasons!). 19 Saudi fundamentalists didn't hijack and crash planes into buildings on 9/11 (despite the evidence of voice recorders and phone calls from actual passengers describing the hijackings)- it was a conspiracy to... well, I've always been a little vague on what it was supposed to accomplish, honestly.
In exactly the same way, religion provides a simple explanation for seemingly inscrutable events. Life comes about gradually through natural processes? No, God created it all!
Conspiracy theories simplify the world for their believers, no matter how complex said theories might become. The more complex the better, actually; a multilayer, interwoven plot is conversely much easier to believe for the conspiratorial mindset. Any evidence to the contrary, or a complete lack of evidence, merely goes to show what a great conspiracy it is... they can even produce or hide all the evidence! These being self-reinforcing explanations is not perceived by the conspiracy believer.
Like religion, a conspiracy theory not only wraps up all the confusing events of real life into one easy package- it also gives the believer an enemy to believe in. And it puts the believer in the center of events, an important participant who knows the "truth" about great events; just as religion puts the believer at the center of the universe as the intentional creation of God, not simply one product of the evolutionary process no more important than any other.
And this is why conspiracy theorists, like religionists, cling so hard to their beliefs. Without the belief, they're no longer a person of importance, they become just another cog in the machine.
It would be interesting to read the unredacted study but I get the gist.
A big piece of the puzzle may just be garden variety ignorance, but I’m pretty sure paranoia plays a role.
A couple of minor nits I would pick are “9/11” and “religious/spiritual”.
By any legal definition, 9/11 clearly was a conspiracy. It was a crime that was planned and executed by two or more people.
And I’m sure by “religious/spiritual” they were referring to religious/spiritual literalists.
Yes, 9/11 was a conspiracy- but conspiracy theorists would prefer to believe it was a conspiracy by anyone except the actual conspirators. Because obviously a bunch of Arabs living in Afghan caves couldn't pull off something of this magnitude, it had to be our government! Or Jews! Or Jews in the government!
Well yeah, 911 was a conspiracy among a bunch of mostly Saudi nationals including Osama Bin Laden. And that is not merely hypothetical. The identities of the hijackers were all confirmed. That's conspiracy fact. The conspiracy theory is that it was a false flag operation, engineered by the CIA or FBI to get the US into a war. There isn't any evidence to support that hypothesis; it's just pure
.
@Flyingsaucesir
I’m not the kind of person who thinks that everything that happens is a conspiracy, but neither do I scoff at every “conspiracy theory”. I try to look at the available evidence, make my best guess, and remember that my best guess may not be fact.
In the case of 9/11 there appears to me to have been more going on than the official report acknowledged, but I don’t claim to know what that was specifically, nor do I expect to ever know.
That and the Kennedy assassination and Jan 6 are on my “suspicious” list, but I don’t claim to know.
@skado 9/11 and J6 seem pretty cut-and-dried to me. But I have never been satisfied with the explanation of JFK's assassination.
@Flyingsaucesir come on, everybody knows the Cia killed jfk. And Jeffery epstein didn't kill himself! Some conspiracies are just obviously true...lol
9/11 was a crime, it was not however political or religious, it was an old fashioned real estate scam.
The twin towers like everything else built in 1973 contained HUGE amounts of asbestos fire proofing in their frame work. The government had been told in the 1990s they had to replace all of the asbestos , or face a class action suit from cancer suffering employees at some point in the future.
The cost of removing and replacing the the asbestos safely was going to be two billion dollars per tower, and would almost certainly mean closing the building for two years, costing another fortune.
Either planning, or allowing the towers to be destroyed in a terrorist attack, was a lot cheaper, and could be claimed on insurance.
A third attack on the pentagon at the same time, that just happened to hit the records department, got rid of no end of embarrassing documents.
On the 911 footage, it can be seen that huge clouds of white powder, encompass the whole area as the towers fell.
And coincidentally in the decades following 2001, literally thousands of first responders and people living or working around ground zero, suffered and dies from asbestosis.
But you cannot sue dead terrorists for poisoning you.
I will post my above reply for you here as well. Because I think that you are correct, about religious literalism and conspiracy theory, though I would go further and say that conspiracy, is in fact a literalist religion.
I do not always dismiss all conspiracy theories out of hand. But I do think that there is a lot of value in Hanlon's razor. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
Because here is a strong desire in many humans, to see agency in all things, and a strong denial of the extent to which pure random chance and our own very limited understandings govern nearly everything that happens in the world. Conspiracy is comforting, because it ultimately says that someone, albeit someone evil, is in control, and could even be made to act differently. Many find that less frightening than accepting that we are adrift in an universe over which we have virtually no control, and of which we have virtually no understanding, where random chance and individual random actions govern nearly everything in unpredictable and confusing ways..
It is therefore a religion, which stems ultimately from the same origins as animism. Where primitive thinking saw gods and thinking agents behind everything, like rainclouds, in the hope that those thinking beings could have actions which could be understood or even modified.
I would point out that some eco activists behave like religious believers. They firmly believe that the world is ending. They think that we have abused our planet so much, so long that Mother Nature (god to them probably) is punishing us by ending the human world.