
The average conspiracy theory is half-true - bookofjoe
https://deponysum.com/2019/09/20/by-my-scoring-over-half-the-items-in-the-generic-conspiracist-scale-are-literally-true/
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jakeogh
The most effective way to prevent people from looking into something is to
poison the well. Attach the thing to something else obviously false, bonus
points if evokes a negative emotional response.

Example; if someone decides to research 911, and instead of seeking out
published papers and original sources, they go on yt and start watching videos
about it, they will in short order hear a number of false things; holograms,
lasers, nuclear weapons, missles, etc. Stuff that the average person would
instinctively know is false.

The goal is not to convince the person that any of those examples is true.
It's to associate them with other information and to game confirmation bias.

[http://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/prete...](http://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/pretext.mov)
(win users might need videolan.org)

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jasonvorhe
The video is a 2008 9/11 truth conspiracy theory video from a guy called
Justin Keogh.

Imho it's neither worth the download nor the time.

~~~
jakeogh
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15003606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15003606)

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addicted
The point scoring system gets things completely backwards.

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they take generic possibilities,
which often have been true at at least one point or another, and apply it to a
specific situation with no evidence.

So, for example, it gives a point for “spread of diseases is deliberate,
concealed effort, by some government”, and uses 2 historically known instances
(I’m not sure how “concealed” these efforts are, but for the sake of argument
let’s assume they’re valid), to give an entire point for the theory itself.
However, the problem is there is no conspiracy theorist going around saying
the thing in general, and if they are, they are met with a resounding “yes,
that has definitely happened”. The problem is that conspiracy theorists were
saying that this was true of Aids, or vaccines, and there is no evidence to
believe either these (or the variety of other similar conspiracy theories)
were true.

Yet, the scoring system here gives that theory a full point.

The problem with many conspiracy theories are that they take known
conspiracies, and imply that because there was a conspiracy, that means
everything similar is a conspiracy. And this scoring system rewards that
fully.

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abbracadabbra
One interpretation of the title could be that half of conspiracy theories are
true.

