
The mathematics of conspiracy theories - beat
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/01/28/the-internets-favorite-conspiracies-would-involve-too-many-people-to-stay-secret-says-science/
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fiatmoney
His conspiracy process model is wildly unlike that of actual empirical
conspiracies. In particular, most of them do not require widespread, hidden
knowledge of a single juicy lie that can be "exposed". Hell, a lot of
objective cabals or conspiracies operate relatively openly, are fairly open
about their general goals, & their actions are public records; the specific
correlation between goals and actions is what is obscure.

"We further assume that a leak of information from any conspirator is
sufficient to expose the conspiracy and render it redundant"

This is just stupid.

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randomgyatwork
I don't understand the the trend these days to disprove conspiracy theories as
a category. Obviously some conspiracy theories are true and most of them are
false.

That said conspiracy theories are based around areas where a complete
knowledge is not available. The description of the problem maybe correct, but
the motivations of the parties involved wrong. To discredit an idea simply
because it is a conspiracy theory is illogical.

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beat
_Conspiracies_ are often true. _Conspiracy theories_ are generally false.

Many popular conspiracy theories involve huge numbers of conspirators -
thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. For anyone who has a "feel" for how
math works, it seems wrong. Putting some hard statistics work around it makes
the false nature of large-scale conspiracies more concrete for those of us who
believe in math.

A conspiracy theory where no more than a dozen people need to be involved
makes sense to me. A conspiracy theory involving every climate scientist in
the world, or every doctor in the world, or every NASA employee, seems like
BS.

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randomgyatwork
That sounds reasonable.

There could be informal conspiracy, take the 2008 financial crisis. Everyone
was working in their own self-interest, and there were thousands of them doing
it. From the outside it could look like they were working together to some
nefarious ends.

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exolymph
What most people believe has little or nothing to do with mathematical
estimates. I know that's not the point of the article, but I think it's worth
noting -- empiricism and reason are ineffective ways to convince the average
person of something that they aren't already ideologically aligned with.

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beat
It's nice to see someone put numbers around this. Of course, the researcher
could be part of the conspiracy...

Every time I hear a conspiracy that requires large numbers of people (>1000
especially) to stay quiet - especially when there is good motivation for
someone to not keep the secret - I roll my eyes. My favorite in that regard is
climate change. The justification for the conspiracy is generally to get
research dollars. But with oil companies and other political interests
offering generous funding for anti-climate change results, there's a
motivation for breaking with the conspiracy. Beyond that, scientists tend to
be motivated more by glory than by money, and by knowledge more than by glory.
Truth-seekers cannot be easily bribed. And a scientist who disproved climate
change effectively would be turning the science world on its ear. There's
nothing more glorious for a scientist than substantially changing consensus.

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rjsw
... plus scientists generally get paid the same amount whether they have been
awarded big research contracts or not.

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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11008224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11008224)

