I saw. Just because conspiracy theories aren't well-formed sentences in the logical manner, doesn't mean they don't represent valid values and principles. This resistance to change is societally purposeful, Ethos Pathos and Logos is required for a convincing movement, and a few people immune to Logos provide the natural resistance in the form of gravel to an increasingly mechanised logical political motor. Conspiracy theorists in this manner provide a natural resistance just by existing, to dehumanising mechanisation of political movements. Their existence can prevent changes from going too far, in a dampening matter a la differential equations. If we learn to untangle these beliefs easily, it's like driving a car with no shock absorbers, might get too bumpy and damage the car.
There's nothing obvious in casual observation of conspiracy theories that would point to a helpful bias towards resisting trends. The content and suggested emotional state of conspiracy theories often suck to the point of leading individuals to hell. We already have various forms of conservatism in all societies, and that looks far more like an appealing story of adding friction to change in a politically plural society.
If you have a family member stewing in this world, I don't think a framing of health is the right one.
Yes, take care of family members and change lives for the better where you can. Some places you can't, some places can't be reached. Whether they are healthy or not they play a role, a type of diversity if you will.
They really don't. In fact, conspiracy theorists often have the opposite effect.
When an idea sounds vaguelly conspirational, it can lose credibility just by association of ideas.
Conspiracy theorists have had a paradoxical chilling effect on whisteblowers, who would have a hard time even using the word "conspiracy" without coming accross as deeply unserious paranoiacs.
If we make it that far, and if freedom ever returns, 100 years from now (or more) they will gloss over the atrocities of the 20th century and the main event will be how in the 21st century they actually convinced the whole world that powerful people always have the best interest of the common folk at heart and never doing anything for their own interests, the government loves you and wants to take good care of you, the media always tells the truth, and to think otherwise was a mental illness worthy of ridicule and scorn lest you repent to the gods of the internet. Then they will list off the horrendous atrocities that led to, starting with..
Related: The book "How Minds Change" by David McRaney.
With regard to the stability of beliefs, there's a strong element of social reinforcement at work. An incident discussed in the above mentioned book is how a group of prominent 9/11 truthers was invited to meet with various scientific experts who presented the case against the conpiracy, and as a result of the meeting, one (but only one) member of the group did change his mind about 9/11. However, this rejection of the conspiracy by a prominent conspiracist did not cause a crisis of belief among the rest. Rather, they rejected and shunned the mind-changer from the community, despite the fact that he used to be a leader of the community.
These dynamics play out everywhere when you stop sharing fundamental beliefs about a system.
There are numerous of cases of financiers, academics, etc. who have been expelled because they have corrected their beliefs in contrary to the groups.
I see a lot of general social dynamics being presented negatively depending on the case: We need inclusion in primary school but celebrate exclusion in other communities (like the conspirators).
I guess the world is just a bunch in incoherent emotional babbling with no hope for a consistent model.
> There are numerous of cases of financiers, academics, etc. who have
been expelled because they have corrected their beliefs in contrary
to the groups.
The best thing to do is leave. Once you cross that Rubicon, never
think "I can change this system/institution from within". You will die
on that hill.
I wish people had better psychological education and preparation to
understand what institutions are. Realistic preparation before joining
the police, army, government, or academia would help many people avoid
so much suffering - and make those institutions "better" by making it
easier for differently-thinking individuals to get out and start new
movements or institutions.
It's really hard, because sometimes ones whole identity gets wrapped
up in that group. Cult leavers often talk about this. Rejecting the
ideas is the comparatively easy part. Escaping the people is
harder. But hardest of all is escaping the part of yourself that
identifies.
Sorry I don't have a better link to this video [0], but it matches my
experience, of waking up one day in an in institution I had outgrown,
surrounded by tiny-minded, compliant, insecure, mutually hostile,
self-deluding people. It takes courage to move on.
Some reasons why changing beliefs is difficult to do:
People are more likely to believe something if it follows intuitive thinking, is familiar or easily retrievable from memory [1]. Additionally, while efforts to correct beliefs in misinformation can be successful, the continued influence effect means that misinformation and correct information compete for activation, meaning that even after correction, misinformation may still be recalled [1]. It is important to note that debunking misinformation does not work as effectively at the group level [1]. Therefore, understanding social identity theory and intergroup threat theory may also be useful for correcting beliefs at the group level through an improved understanding of the human desire to align with groups to reduce feelings of insecurity [2].
There are also things like Operation Northwoods, a proposed false flag operation, where if it /had/ actually been executed they would never have released any documents. If they'd gone through with it then anyone who guessed, or found evidence, of the truth would be written off as a lunatic. Even hinting at the idea of an event being a false flag operation is almost instantly reflexively regarded, in western countries, to be a "conspiracy theory".
People want to be liked. So we try to be "normal", following normal
rituals and believing normal things. We are also troubled by "tall
poppies" who "rock the boat", so others cause similar discomfort.
Regardless of truth or falsehood, the accusation of "conspiracy
theory" has become a simple shorthand for shaming outliers back into
line. After a while we learn to self-censor and regulate our
own opinions.
The cognitive dissonance of confronting an outrageous fact
causes disbelief. I can think of my own edges, for example Noam
Chomsky. He is really hard to take at times.
When I read and watched Chomsky talk about The Trilateral Commission's
"Crisis of Democracy" [0], I dismissed him as a nutcase. For years I
wouldn't read or watch him.
That there could be a high level international conspiracy to undermine
democracy, involving leaders of the US, Britain and Europe - that just
seemed crazy. Especially after WW2. I became completely blind to the
fact anyone could just download and read the report. I "refused" to
click the links.
Years later I read and confirmed the authenticity of it, studied the
message and proposals. Somehow this time I was ready to accept it;
"Yes, there are prominent traitors to "our way of life" walking around
in plain sight and actively conspiring to destroy it."
How could I square this? In China they would be called dissidents, and
be shot. Here we call them "leaders of industry". What we have to
celebrate is the non-irony that in a tolerant democratic society they
are free to openly meet and plot its overthrow. Non-contradiction.
And like that... the dissonance evaporated.
Why didn't I just realise that earlier? On reflection I am
disappointed in myself for having been so easily trained into
blindness. I think of myself as a sceptic, a scientist, an "evidenced
based" thinker. But the evidence is that I am just as easily led by
emotional bias and social pressure to ignore the truth as anyone else.
Today I think of this internal self-censorship is something one must
strive to overcome. It's part of the project of being a rationalist
and sceptic. A true sceptic is also a contrarian because one has to
overcome the desire to be "liked".
To ask, 'are there conspiracies?' is akin to asking 'do people lie or cheat for personal benefit?' The answer is 'yes, of course!'
The real question, is 'what is the truth?' And therein lies the problem with this research. Just because something is said to true or a lie (aka 'conspiracy theory'), how can one know it to be so? Can media or Wikipedia or anyone be assured to have the truth? Is there a bastion of truth? If 99.999% of people believe something, does that make it true?
The answer is that there is source for truth, and that no one can determine the truth for anyone else. One can only personally verify something to be true. Truth cannot be outsourced to the BBC, NYT, psychologist organisations, science studies, etc. Whether others believe things to be true has nothing to do with the underlying reality - many people can be wrong.
So, this sort of analysis comes with all sorts of illogical nonsense baked in. It assumes that certain institutions and people are truthful, that conspiracies do not occur, that people cannot act on personally verified knowledge rather beliefs, that truth is a numbers game - where what most people believe is also true.
If we all continue to not accept that conspiracy theories are valid we also choose to not accept that those people are valid.
Why is it that over the past few years those with different opinions are now called conspiracy theorists.
It is a very rare experience that I sit down with someone, in fact anyone, and we agree on all subject matter on the table. Just because someone has different views does not make them a conspiracy theorist.
There is always grain of truth in conspiracy theories.
In psychiatric wards over the world there are people who struggle with intrusive paranoid thoughts. Do we dismiss what they think, see and imagine as not being real? It is real to them.
To really understand these poeple you need to step inside their world and you will see that their is a grain of truth in what paranoid people are talking about.
If people feel helpless, that they are not being heard or they have no control over their lives, is it so hard to believe that they will cling on to something/anything that represents how they feel.
The lizard people on the moon who control our way of life on earth is a classic example. There are of course no lizard people living on the moon but I am sure many people feel that there are hidden forces controlling their lives that they have no influence upon.
I think it has a lot to do with the lack of transparency in the world of politics, government and tech. Without knowing the truth the mind will inevitably wander and make up stories.
Isnt this what conspiracy theories are. Stories built on snippets of truth.
What actions exactly are you suggesting here? It sounds to me like you're claiming there's nothing at all wrong with mental health clients or people in psychiatric wards, and thus we ought not to try treating them but rather discharge them and send them on their way into society as totally normal.
IIUC isn't the lab leak hypothesis still one valid possibility?
* condensation from planes supposedly being harmful ‘chemtrails’
Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too? Note: I was unaware of 'chemtrails' and assumed it was referring 'contrails'
In any case, I don't think I believe in any "conspiracies" of the top of my head but I do believe in graft and I often see things and wonder why.
One example would be going to lunch at a FAANG company and seeing vending machines for cables. The vending machines are about the size of 6 large refrigerators next to each other. They have a large touch screen display. I'm guessing they cost $30k each or more, not including cost to develop them, network them, ongoing maintenance, etc. So, my conspiracy hat says "someone who stood to gain the contract to make them pushed to get them put in or knew someone and offered a kickback because the seem like they cost more than 50 years of the stuff they're dispensing. (happy to be proven wrong)
Another example is kitchen gloves that all food preparers wear now. I see them touch all kinds of things and get the gloves dirtier than my hands would ever be because with my hands I know when they're dirty by how they feel, more than I do than with gloves on. So, is it possible it's a conspiracy by glove manufactures? Of course my hands are not everyone else's hands.
There's the real "conspiracy" on how car companies pushed for freeways and roads. Is that a "conspiracy"? Most people push for laws that help them personally.
The real and possible lab leak theory was never about any bio weapons or bio weapons research. We still have no strong evidence for or against an accidental lab leak of non-bioweapon. But experts (including one of my friends who was tasked with looking into this long before mainstream media even thought of lab leak as a possibility) who have looked at it have seen no evidence of anything indicating that the virus was intentionally altered.
And, nope, chemtrails are not bad for the environment. It is just the wings which cause cloud formation.
They needs to be 'weapons', used intentionally. Would you call a tsunami a 'geoweapon'? Or Chernobyl a nuclear weapon (better example, as it's a man-made accident)?
Even the "theory" that pharmaceutical companies suppress a cancer cure could be argued for, since it's very common to write patents that are just used to "cover the market", not to guarantee a time of monopoly on innovations. And I've met people there that get enthusiastic about cancer being a incurable but manageable and the fact that that is a nice thing for the company.
I even think it is unhealthy that the word "conspiracy theory" is so negative. Because people do conspire, to all sorts of degrees. People that put their phones in a fridge when they were talking about secrets were once conspiracy theorists. Now they suddenly aren't. Like they were uplifted from a disgraceful state to a better one.
Some level of "conspiracy" thinking is no more than healthy. Although to be fair, the article doesn't suggest it isn't, not directly.
People should keep an open mind, think like a Bayesian. Some things are unlikely (like how nobody would notice a chip in your blood with all those MRI scans every day). Some things aren't (like a drug cancelled that worked but wouldn't make enough money).
> seeing vending machines for cables. The vending machines are about the size of 6 large refrigerators next to each other. They have a large touch screen display. I'm guessing they cost $30k each or more, not including cost to develop them, network them, ongoing maintenance, etc.
Not saying that you're definitely wrong.
But machines like that are often put in free of charge to the business owner. The machine operator company puts the machines in at their own cost, and handles stocking and repairs. The business owner gets a cut of the profits for letting them use their floor space.
I haven't seen these particular vending machines. But there are generic machines with touch screens that can dispense anything that will fit in their spaces. I have seen vending machines at airports where you can buy cables, chargers, headphones, etc. The development cost is written off over many thousands of machines.
A machine dispensing cables is easier to operate and maintain than one dispensing frozen microwave dinners.
Now, there is an opportunity cost for the FAANG company, where managers have to spend some of their time setting up and maintaining a deal like this. Too many distractions from core business is not a good thing.
But working with computers, there's always some type of cable or adapter missing. It takes time to find or buy one. So I can see how it'd be nice to always be able to get what you need in-house.
> There's the real "conspiracy" on how car companies pushed for freeways and roads. Is that a "conspiracy"?
I agree. Each individual company would have an obvious interest to push for things like that. No need to secretely meet with others and hatch elaborate plans.
> IIUC isn't the lab leak hypothesis still one valid possibility?
Lab leak and intentional bioweapon, one whose patient zero was in China, are totally different.
> Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too?
No, becuase of the "part of a secret government program" part.
There are reasonable hypotheses proximate to these conspiracy theories. There always are. But the claim per se is stupid. Incredibly stupid. They focussed on people who believed the claim as presented, without caveats.
> > IIUC isn't the lab leak hypothesis still one valid possibility?
> Lab leak and intentional bioweapon, one whose patient zero was in China, are totally different.
Any lab working on gain of function research is arguably by definition, working on bio weapons or bio weapon defense. I'm not saying I believe in the lab leak. I'm rather saying that it's not hard for me to believe that if you believe in a lab leak you believe the research that lab is doing is related to bioweapons, even if they weren't building a weapon.
> > Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too?
> No, becuase of the "part of a secret government program" part.
The article didn't mention a "secret governmen program". It just said "condensation from planes supposedly being harmful ‘chemtrails’"
stuff coming out of planes is harmful, full stop. So it's not hard to believe that seeing "condensation from planes supposedly being harmful ‘chemtrails’" is associated with / confused with, the actual harms.
> it's not hard for me to believe that if you believe in a lab leak you believe the research that lab is doing is related to bioweapons, even if they weren't building a weapon
Sure. But that isn't the claim. It's specifically "a biological weapon intentionally created and released by China" (emphasis mine) [1].
> The article didn't mention a "secret governmen program"
The study does. Chemtrails refer to "the trails left behind airplanes are toxic chemicals released as part of a secret government programme."
They're mostly water, though they can also contain impurities, e.g. "sulfur compounds (0.05% by weight in jet fuel)" [1].
More to the point: someone suspecting they're trails of pollution isn't unreasonable at first glance. Believing they're a secret government program to put toxic chemicals in the air is stupid. (I'm not ruling out governments poisoning their populations. Just that this particular way of going about it is incredibly stupid and obviously discoverable.)
I know a few nutcases that believe in all of these but there are far more ; notably flat earth and the moon landing are missing for instance. But many more.
> Is “flat earth” not in the same camp as “the birds aren’t real”? I.e. never ever accept any possible hint that it’s satire, but it is satire
It probably started that way. But I've met people who seriously believe it. Combination of preferring a force that has its hands on the reins, even if in the shadows, to the anarchic reality human civilisation exists in, and longing for a sense of belonging, with the exercise of actually believing the ridiculous almost serving as a pledge of loyalty.
There is a Netflix documentary on it. They're real, they're having real conventions and everything. They sometimes even try to prove the earth is flat, but fail every time, which somehow does nothing to their convictions.
I know people who believe and try to convert others. Also they get aggressive when you find it nonsense. They believe that the govs of the world band together to patrol the ice wall, that education hides the real shape of our world, that all nasa materials are fake and made of deceive us etc. And flat earthers are well known to believe all other conspiracy theories as well and usually fit them in their flat view easily by making up theories that make no sense but spread like wildfire.
The real conspiracy is how the media was unable to discuss either critically, leading skeptics to become belivers that something, sinister or benign, was going on.
"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity."
Either you are doing that, or you are larping as a foolish conspiracy theorist because it's rather meta to do in this context, which is against the rules concerning trolling/flamebait.
Either way, please don't, it's rather hard to steelman a position that is so far removed from reality.
There are more than enough subreddits for either purpose, but hn should not be subjected to this.
You are correct, after having read a couple of other comments in here which endorsed similar conspiracy theories, I was primed to read the previous comment as of the poster also believed them. This is probably not even the case, it was just an addition of more theories to the list.
Re-reading my comment, it was also unnecessarily snarky, which is against the hn guidelines as well. So I am a hypocrite anyway, and would be even if the comment I replied to had actually endorsed those conspiracy theories in contradiction with the guidelines.
I'm not sure about the best practice in this case, do I delete my previous comment, or let it stand as a monument to my shame?
Interestingly, in the German-speaking scientific literature and science communicators, there is a movement to call it "conspiracy ideologies", "conspiracy myth" or "conspiracy narratives" (they have not found a consensus yet), because they're not theories according to Karl Popper and generally lack any properties that we would usually expect a scientific theory to have.
Personally, I disagree. No one feels flattered being called a "conspiracy theorist" and I don't really see the need to differentiate, especially if a general audience is being addressed.
You could argue that conspiracy theories are falsifiable, and it's just that conspiracy theorists won't accept any proof. The flat earth theory for instance is easily debunkable: just take a flight from Auckland to Santiago de Chile.
You're absolutely right of course, about flat-earthers. Those sorts of
people delight in dismissing incontrovertible physical evidence.
Compare that with "Who really shot JFK?". Let's say that tomorrow we
read a deathbed confession by the highest ranking CIA or KGB officer,
setting out exactly how it all went down. At least half the people
would just not believe it. Especially in the age of "deep-fakes". The
narrative would just "slip sideways" into "how the whole fake
confession was engineered". It's like chasing that last pea around the
plate with a fork. The sharper the instrument, the less use it is.
With time it's essentially become an unknowable thing.
So that's what a I mean my "perfect conspiracy theory". JFK is a much
more perfect "conspiracy" than flat-earth or faked moon landings which
have elements of timeless physical evidence.
> Some people might not agree they are conspiracy theories
Some people believe in a flat earth, that doesn't mean we pander to them.
The study presented the most extreme interpretation of each of trope. It didn't ask if one believes vaccines can cause harm. It asked if their harm is being "covered up by governments and pharmaceutical companies," and if "COVID-19 'vaccines' contain microchips to monitor and control people." That's chemtrail-calibre nonsense. (Which, of course, they include.)
As a thought experiment, if it was discovered tomorrow that that Covid vaccines had some terrible side effects, do you think that information would be made public given that the people that developed the vaccine and pushed for its rollout are mostly still in post?
> if it was discovered tomorrow that that Covid vaccines had some terrible side effects, do you think that information would be made public given that the people that developed the vaccine and pushed for its rollout are mostly still in post?
Yes. There is an incredibly motivated political constituency putting tremendous political capital on the table for anyone who can show this.
Secrets hide in banality. The stuff that gets covered up is more usually a chemical or treatment you and I have never heard of, because it's so, so, so fucking boring that even if you had terrible information about it, there is no ready constituency who would care.
I think things tend towards disclosure. We had coverups in the UK of rape gangs operating in northern towns which was eventually came to light after many years. I think if there are significant vaccine harms they will come to light. I don't know that if those harms exist they would have come to light by now.
The more people are involved, the most likely it is that it will be leaked shortly after. Intentionally harmful vaccines would incredibly hard to pull off.
But here, you're not in a conspiracy theory (or conspiracy myth as some would say). You have a falsifiable theory, "This specific vaccine have harmful side effects", you're not the only one. In France, we thought the HB vaccine increased SLS risks for a decade+: it was further enhanced by allergic reactions to some bad dosage, and some double vaccination during the 93 campaign (my mother was double vaccinated and reacted poorly the second time).
I know several people who waited for the non-RNA vaccine because they wanted to wait for more data before using new techniques, it isn't a conspiracy theory, just prudence. I disagree but i certainly respect the choice.
The basically undeniable lab leak hypothesis is included with a minor tweak that renders the claim incorrect. The thing about fluoride differs from reality only because it has incorrect claims about people's motives. If it said "Fluoride concentration is negatively correlated with IQ" it would just be a fact. "Vaccine harm coverup" is untrue but one could be forgiven for mistakenly believing in it after an endless stream of lies about vaccine efficacy and other sorts of covid misinformation from the CDC and WHO. For a specific example of this sort of thing, in April of 2022, at the height of big tech censorship of "covid misinformation," you could search for "is covid airborne" on Google and get a summary of this article[0] above all the search results, informing you that it's totally not airborne.
I used to lean towards the belief that Epstein was murdered, but as I read the reports and evidence describing the circumstances of his incarceration, I came to realize that it really was just a suicide, enabled by incompetence.
“It also implies that explanations of belief in conspiracy theories need to accommodate the observation that beliefs in such theories vary much more between people than within people.”
To me it implies that what they are operational using as “conspiracy theory” is nothing more than individual differences in personality. Those who want to study/address/remove “conspiracy theories” really just have a problem with individual differences and want to control others.
I think what destroys conspiracy theories, is teaching them the tools to attack "propaganda" of the oppossing side- and watch them retract it.
If your mental tools work and are sharp, they do not stop, just because you turn towards your own side. You can not subconciously run with scissors.
That only works if economic growth doesn't require that people respond to more socially acceptable conspiracy theories: "you've come a long way, baby", "have a coke and a smile", etc.
> maybe it'll get rid of the problem in a couple decades
(I've been around for more than a couple of decades, most of which I've spent trying to figure people out, and at this point I'm almost ready to give up and write a book on "How I learned to stop worrying and love eating Eloi")
Most conspiracy theories come from the internet. Internet is a place full of crooks.
Every power tried to meddle. Russia, Germany, America. Each power has their own cyber army that tries to control media, or influence it.
Conspiracy theories. You do not even know if it is just another disinformation campaign from your government. Maybe it is just another disinformation campaign to add new layers of control disguised as user protection.
Why not make better tools for moderation? Naaah they will always decide to create more oversight boards.
I used to believe conspiracy theories, now I am far beyond that.
Everyone who wants, should get their booster shot every six months. They should also get RNA vaccine for flu, common cold, herpes and every other illness they desire. I would encourage them to do so! It is their life, and my life will go on.
And arguing about virus origin? Who does that today? It is like arguing about Santa Claus! (it's village must be on the North magnetic pole in Greenland, so it does not sink into ocean...)
I think that depends on how small/big that ‘element’ is; most come down to ‘people in power lie to us’ and yep they do, just not on this scale or about this, but the small element of lying stands.
I don’t think there is any larger truth in this like the flat earth conspiracy, moon landing conspiracy or many of the others outside ‘people in power are lying to us’ in the general sense. Problem is that conspiracy believers use this to prove their side: people in power lie to us about X, hence they lie about Y (aka they lie about everything).
