Conspiracy theory conspiracy!

[ZenRaiden]

Lots of articles from psychologist claim conspiracy theorist, are wrong and dumb essentially.
While this maybe true, we are all wrong and dumb, a lot of times.

What I noticed that conspiracy theories tend to be often right.
More often than expected.
Lots of conspiracy theories also remain unchecked, but "officially" they are debunked, with most flimsy evidence imaginable.

What is intriguing is the level of superb confidence anti conspiracy people have.
Its on par with the people they criticize.

Its very much like "there are no conspiracies you are just making it up" then years later it is proven and much worse than conspiracy theorist imagined.

My main point is the focus on conspiracy theory.
A lot of dissenting views from the official party line is often labelled conspiracy.
I imagine this is in and of it self pretty self defeating since most people have opinions that are very different.
Any single opinion could easily be labelled conspiracy theory.

Which again renders the term conspiracy theory pretty vague, almost superfluous.
Its like even a small suspicion is conspiracy.
Being suspicious of other people motives and being conspirator is not the same thing.
Being open to alternative views is basis for democracy not conspiratory.

See my point we have the double speak orwellian thing going on in media.

Its like even thinking outside of the box is enough to dub things conspiracy.

I was mainly moved by the 9/11 incident.
The thing is the guy who was labelled as the culprit was Bin Ladin.
We know Bin Ladin lived in US. Comes from rich family, became a leader of Taliban for some time.
We know where he was, but US "pretending" they do not know where he is was the biggest lie of all.
We still have no direct evidence linking Bin Laden with 9/11, just what amounts hearsay and gossip.

What is more WTC was hit and was targeted before 9/11. Only 9/11 was actually successful.
Many people don't think about the fact, that the buildings were downed by guys who basically had 0 chance of success.
I know they had plastic weapons, and I know they were terrorist.
But chances of guys taking charge of planes and being able to fly them into buildings is zero without some major help.
Professional pilot training would be one of those things, ability to take over a plane with plastic weapons, ability to get passed security CIA FBI TSA whatever else.

These guys were pros, but either they got supper lucky or had some major insider help.

What is more bin Laden was like number one target and most of the world knew where he was hiding, but somehow magically the best secret services in the world CIA best funded for sure, could not find this guy while he was basically in an exposed area that everyone already knew.


There are million other things that make this very fishy, but my point is that for a conspiracy theory, 9/11 breaks very even on being inside job and being outside thing organized by terrorist.

Its more unusual, that most terrorist cannot even successfully do basic bombings.
If you look at history of terrorism it amounts to bombing public places.
Most of these terrorist things usually amount to lost of wounded, but few casualties.

So to put this in perspective toppling 9/11 is the most organized and most outstanding terrorist achievement you could put on par with special forces training.

I mean if you got together a bunch of special forces guys, on a mission their chances of success would be lower than these guys.

These guys were not terrorist in classic sense of the word.
They were extremely specialized extremely well trained and extremely well informed operatives with very express and advanced plan.

The amount of effort we see here is very much not what "terrorism is"

 

[EndogenousRebel]

It's fairly easy to see what has merit and what doesn't by the people that gravitate around the conspiracy.

Epstein didn't kill himself? Probably something to it. Who done it is where things get weird. What narrative do you want to be true?

These fringe theorist are always trying to do something more than just trying to uncover that specific theory aren't they? It's a part of a wider mission for them. If you ask me it usually has something to do with something mundane or unsatisfying about their lives. Not a pathological marker on its own, but it's pathological in them. The more radical that mission the more pathologic usually.

Jewish people run the world? By coincidence and historical facts, it can be observed that it's maybe accurate and as to how it happened. But this is just specific industries isn't it? Like law and media, and some other niche things, the product of centuries of being excluded from old bread winning jobs.

All the global elite are pedophiles? ALL of THEM? Not a peep from anyone? Surely there are sex trafficking rings that are global, in fact it would be a necessity as with slavery to import them from a different country where no one will have the power to find them or make a ruckus.

Conspiracy theorist are indeed something that we should acknowledge, and I'm kinda putting forward that we should look at the people instread of the theories, but that's because the theories are governed by language which can easily slip past many people's understanding and be suggested as reality by the mind. It's probably safer to assess the people than listen to the theories they construct is what I'm saying.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I mean I saw a flat Earth person running and following a NASA guy.
That is indeed pathological.
Not the flat Earth thing, but shouting at a guy with bread in his mouth trying to eat his lunch, because that is nuts.
But to be honest there are those kinds of people who would do something like this and many of them are not flat Earthers.

Its suggest mood dis regulation.

So before we make science studies that magically make everyone who talks about conspiracies crazy we should really ask ourselves if its even tenable or meaningful position.

My whole rant is that conspiracy theorist are not a magic crazy group, but normal people who divert their attention to topics and happen to have a stronger than usual opinion.

OH SORRY that opinion is not about how Rey whatever sucks in star wars as a character.

Are star wars fans talking about Mandalorian to death trying to connect dots and see if its yoda or something?

Nah its harmless.

SO to me the crazy part is that this theme of conspiracy theorist shows up in psychology, paints them with massive brush strokes anti social, or down right crazy nut jobs, who cannot deal with life?

I mean in a way probably you need odd type motivation to follow the crums to these odd places.

There are conspiracational themes even in professions like archeology, history, whatever even math.

So its not a major pathology to view your government is lesser than suspicious.

More importantly the fact it is a inside job does not mean it was the government.
Hell it could be a company like toys R us.

I am just saying this anti conspiracy thing is frequenting media as if its true, without nuance or context?

At the end of the day we can say always fuck it. Who cares anyway life goes on!!!!

And to be honest whether WTC was inside or terrorist job is the least of my concern.

Because even if it is inside job, its democratic will of people, and it is the will of the elites sanctioned by people.
So who cares?
Its not even that many dead people comparably to other things like fires, flood,s tornados, earth quakes, and stuff of more serious nature.

Afghanistan alone probably ruined more lives than 100 times WTC over.

Still my point media narratives with fairly dumb explanations and articles snubbing serious suspicion is very orwellian to say the least.

I mean if anything casting doubt on thing is common sense skepticism all the way to scientific method.

Ability to cast suspicion on motives on government are the basis of constitution in US.

Its literally the only thing that is supposed to keep the country in check.

SO I really want to see who are these psychologist who come to these conspiracy theory conclusions if they even exist, and end up writing in media extreme portrayals of humans
who simply have alternative explanation.

You cannot even get psychologist to agree on DSM by the way, so how the fuck should people agree on WTC anyway, and how is that even close to pathology as opposed common sense skepticism????

 

[EndogenousRebel]

This psychological model 'neurotypes' came out of an anime community I am not associated at all with so please don't associate it with me

-Up-down are those that think the most divergently with disparate thoughts towards the bottom who think from point a to point b directly.

-Left-right those that see life in concrete terms where everything has it's place vs those that see the world via whatever the world impresses upon them.

It has zero scientific basis, but it's this classification of linear vs lateral thinkers is reminiscent of what you're talking about. Though it has nothing to say about conspiracy theories, it would imagine that those at the top would be more likely to see threads others may not. Towards the top right you'd have psychotics and towards the left you'd have obsessives people.

There is a non-non-existent community built around this with people who like to talk about this but it's pretty cringe and or inaccessible to me because I don't want very much anime at all and they might be just confirming and validating their beliefs to each other. Pretty interesting crowdsourced pseudo-psychological idea that confirms that people are inclined to agree with you.

But no there are very mentally ill people who just happen to latch onto this stuff because it's just the sort of thing that attract them. Can't have a nice thing because a couple people ruin it. Figures.

 

[ZenRaiden]

But no there are very mentally ill people who just happen to latch onto this stuff because it's just the sort of thing that attract them. Can't have a nice thing because a couple people ruin it. Figures.

According to psychology now a days, everything is mental illness if it does not work, including the things psychologist don't know how to explain or see immediate benefit.
This is not psychology, but human nature, that is why appendix was demonized, because it only cost doctors effort.
New research showed the benefit of appendix might be more real, but we just don't care much about it either way.

Burnout is new in psychology, but it essentially when people have a lifestyle that pushes you towards a lifestyle that is not sustainable longterm, so you end up depleted psychologically.

My theory is that burnout is simple name for working inefficiently.
You can work hard and work long and be efficient go for a lifetime.

However same way ergonomics is made to lower your strain on one sided physical effort, you can say some sort of psychological ergonomics exist too.

For example stress reduces your productivity no matter how steely your nerves are.
The only people who don't suffer in this sense are very calm types who just don't spike stress.

The problem is today we have very fast paced work environments with lots of tasks per hour. We also have environments that change fast, we have also environments that are less predictable and more random.
This is not the problem of work force, but how you divide work and delegate and choose experience levels.

This is how you get people in their 20s having burnout.
Its not that people cannot handle the load, its just that we are not wired for long term strain psychologically.

For example a fighter pilot can experience 20 minutes of extreme stress. I mean life threatening stress. Some flights are as short as 5 minutes from take off and landing and hitting your target.
The level of stress is so high psychologically and physically it leaves you drained and no bit on you is dry.
But the thing is after those 5 to 20 minutes you are not going for a second flight, there is a second guy in your plane taking off.
You have to recover from that strain.

Extreme spikes in stress can be handled well by people.
However our bodies are not made for continuous stress for hours on end or full work day, not to mention your private life contains stress too.
If your stress levels are spiking 24 hours a day you get burn out.

Some guy in radio said he left manager position to work at a conveyor belt in some factory, because the sheer stress of making decisions for others and handling responsibility was beyond and over what he could do.

We have the same jobs as before, but the jobs are packed with more work per hour.
What people did in weeks time some people might want to cram into single day.
Not only because there is no efficiency, but over long term that slow pace might have bigger results.
We just entered a world of fast paced for everything.

What I mean by this is psychology is industrialized in this sense.
You are reduced to little happy drone and their job is to get you online so you work efficiently for the overlords.
I know this sounds dumb, but that is how psychology looks at people so you get demented people saying stuff, like

.... find your passion, there is no stress its all in your head, smile and the world will smile back, be positive, always go the extra mile etc.

This is by the way not psychology, this is just double speak for slavery.
Shoot for the stars and you might hit the moon.

Yes these ideas do work sometimes.

Human psychology has pretty obvious limitations.

We often try to overcome these artificially and act like they do not exist, but essentially that amounts to creating artificial environments that are often far worse than we think.

So what I mean is psychology really is just industrial machinery looking for what works.
If someone is looking for trouble he is bad apple period!!!
How dare they question things.

The only crazy thing about conspiracies if you working without evidence or looking for something that is not there.
This can be bad, but only if you do it too much.
Its definitely not a bad thing to know that things are different as opposed to what you think previously.
Its the main reason why we have brains.

People who question vaccines on principal without looking at the possibility of death are crazy, but most people on this forum claim to be un vaccinated.

If so they are definitely crazy according to definition.

 

[Hadoblado]

Conspiracies exist. People that claim a theory is untrue because it's a conspiracy theory are wrong some of the time.

But the generation of a conspiracy theory has a lot lower cost than the generation of a conspiracy. Most theories are wrong and most conspiracy theories (being within the set of theory) are wrong.

But it goes deeper than that. Conspiracy theories are more likely to be generated when someone is paranoid. i.e. There are psychological factors that predispose people to generate conspiracy theories even more than normal theories.

I have had conspiracy theories made that include me as an actor. My dad is paranoid and has made conspiracy theories (sometimes disprovable, sometimes not) about basically everyone but me.

Personally, I am dismissive of most conspiracy theories because their format lends itself to invalidity in the formal logic sense. If someone tells me a conspiracy theory, I usually assume that it's probably wrong and don't bother investigating. I remain open to them being right, but for the most part these things rarely affect me and tend to be a result of ideological media and mental health/epistemic looseness.

Basically, to take a conspiracy theory seriously I want some evidence and testable claims. Jetfuel doesn't melt steel beams is a meme but it's actually testable and so this is a lot more concrete to me than "rothschild billgates Clinton Nasa".

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Burnout is new in psychology, but it essentially when people have a lifestyle that pushes you towards a lifestyle that is not sustainable longterm, so you end up depleted psychologically.

My theory is that burnout is simple name for working inefficiently.
You can work hard and work long and be efficient go for a lifetime.

It used to be called ego depletion, and now it seems like they've made a distinction that it does indeed happen with chronic stress and that it should be called burnout. Or at least those are the symptoms from where I see it.

There's something fishy about that whole debacle, but whatever. Apparently however you identify your willpower to be is what determines how much willpower you have oh well. Unless you're literally on the brink of dying with cortisol leaking trough your ears and your immune system tanked. Then you might be burning out.

This is not the problem of work force, but how you divide work and delegate and choose experience levels.

This is how you get people in their 20s having burnout.
Its not that people cannot handle the load, its just that we are not wired for long term strain psychologically.

Certainly. They want those little drones but don't want to pay any maintenance fees, and instead induce this culture that adds fuel to the fire and direct people to spend the prime years of their life in a rat race. All in service to the Economy with a capital E.

We have the same jobs as before, but the jobs are packed with more work per hour.
What people did in weeks time some people might want to cram into single day.
Not only because there is no efficiency, but over long term that slow pace might have bigger results.
We just entered a world of fast paced for everything.

What I mean by this is psychology is industrialized in this sense.
You are reduced to little happy drone and their job is to get you online so you work efficiently for the overlords.
I know this sounds dumb, but that is how psychology looks at people so you get demented people saying stuff, like

.... find your passion, there is no stress its all in your head, smile and the world will smile back, be positive, always go the extra mile etc.

This is by the way not psychology, this is just double speak for slavery.
Shoot for the stars and you might hit the moon.

Yes these ideas do work sometimes.

Human psychology has pretty obvious limitations.

We often try to overcome these artificially and act like they do not exist, but essentially that amounts to creating artificial environments that are often far worse than we think.

So what I mean is psychology really is just industrial machinery looking for what works.
If someone is looking for trouble he is bad apple period!!!
How dare they question things.

The only crazy thing about conspiracies if you working without evidence or looking for something that is not there.
This can be bad, but only if you do it too much.
Its definitely not a bad thing to know that things are different as opposed to what you think previously.
Its the main reason why we have brains.

People who question vaccines on principal without looking at the possibility of death are crazy, but most people on this forum claim to be un vaccinated.

If so they are definitely crazy according to definition.

There is a cognitive component that only the individual can see, and also a distance that the individual chooses to bound themselves between their psychologist. But of course there is. It's a very complicated subject and especially in America, it's an expensive endeavor to spend hours with someone who can actually help you. Even one hour for a light chat can cost you over $200 usd.

Evidence, yes. If you have hypothesis you need to test based off postulation, then test until it's unreasonable to continue testing.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Personally, I am dismissive of most conspiracy theories because their format lends itself to invalidity in the formal logic sense. If someone tells me a conspiracy theory, I usually assume that it's probably wrong and don't bother investigating. I remain open to them being right, but for the most part these things rarely affect me and tend to be a result of ideological media and mental health/epistemic looseness.

Me too.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Certainly. They want those little drones but don't want to pay any maintenance fees, and instead induce this culture that adds fuel to the fire and direct people to spend the prime years of their life in a rat race. All in service to the Economy with a capital E.

Its the mores of time that define psychology.
Psychologist themselves are pretty neurotic too, because I guess, clients come to the with specific problems that need solutions.
So if a client comes with a unreasonable demand or something very specific leaving out context in can amount to clinicians in clinical setting looking for ad hoc solutions.

Some other end of spectrum I saw is a guy who wrote a book amounting to help yourself don't expect to be coddled. Which is also valid, but with highly specific environments you would expect people coming in with odd problems.
You can have people come in with a "thing" that sounds absurd, but in the context of reality it is actually a valid "thing" but most common sense aspects of life that thing would be bullshit.
So there is huge culture component how things are approached.
I see this often in TV when psychology is brought up and some major expert instantly says "Its this or that" without any real observation beyond the immediate situation.
I know this applies to medical movies too, but I used to think about these things, if its really possible to just look at something and know, and from experience yes, but also there could be a huge massive bias there hanging.

My point would be that psychology revolves around efficiency, not because it costs money on the couch, but it costs income in real life.
You can go around looking for solutions, but won't amount much since there simply is no solution. Or to put it differently there is a solution, but given the current era, its like blood letting or something.

Its just everything has to work now.
The issue is if there is no single variable and usually there few or many its really not an math equation you can just put into some equation and get precision.
Things change sometimes too fast.

To give basic analogy my broken legs healed over 6 months period and I have what seems same legs as before if not better.
When it comes to ligaments, one torn ligament took 1 year to heal.
I see the same issue with other people. Dad had a ligament torn and it took a lot of time.
Broken bones are just nothing. They heal so fast.
Intuitively you would think its the reverse the hard part that gets broken is more of a problem. Not really.

This is also major bias in medicine.
OH YOU are fine its just... whatever insert thing.

COVID was just flu, and yes defacto its mildly stronger than flew, which meant huge underestimation of its danger.
Realistically it killed a shit ton of people over what seems three year period.
Its really a disaster even many of them were already sick and close to old age or death it still was pretty devastating.
Flu is always underplayed as nothing, we get all kinds of medicine and told to work with sniffling nose.
Reality is that flu is dangerous too, and kills people too, or leaves damaged organs, its just lot more rare than COVID, but even flew should not be underestimated.

The problem is we live in culture where flu is just code word for lazy.
Its not. Its a serious issue.
It also affects other peoples productivity if they get sick.

You can underplay lots of things, but essentially short term gain will turn into long term lose sometimes more than expected.

So yeah we often look things through current situation and circumstance.
This also means all of psychology amounts to this sort of solutions.
Assorted tools are just that they evolve with demand.

This is also why old peoples folk medicine sometimes amounts to better solution than modern medicine. Trial and error for 100s of years can work.
Only problem with this sort of medicine is its not tested.

 

[Perfectly Normal Beast]

everything is one giant conspiracy

 

[Puffy]

Conspiracy theory as a term captures a lot of theories, many of which are plausible. Something shouldn't be dismissed just because it's a conspiracy theory. Like with the whole COVID thing, it's perfectly plausible that the marketing strategies of wealthy pharmaceutical companies played some role in the situation.

My issue is more with a lot of the culture around conspiracy theory. There's a tendency towards the fantastic and unprovable. A feeling of radical mistrust and alienation from the world. A consequent silo'd and closed-off bubble of thinking that's essentially dogmatic, fundamentalist (and often lazy) in nature. It's just dangerous and has an alienating effect on people, so it gives me cause for concern.

These statements can't be applied across the board, there will always be exceptions. There are several highly intelligent people I know who are into it. But when I get a whiff of the culture I treat it with skepticism. I'm happy to look into it but I won't accept it until my skepticism is satisfied.

 

[ZenRaiden]

My issue is more with a lot of the culture around conspiracy theory. There's a tendency towards the fantastic and unprovable. A feeling of radical mistrust and alienation from the world. A consequent silo'd and closed-off bubble of thinking that's essentially dogmatic, fundamentalist (and often lazy) in nature. It's just dangerous and has an alienating effect on people, so it gives me cause for concern.

Thats well, put as opposed to what?

You can be dogmatic and lazy and not conspiracy theorist as well.
Also what is this bubble?
As opposed to what other bubble are we talking about?

Also what counts as fundamentalism?

I mean you are using words like US government trying to describe some terrorist group.

Do flat Earth people seem like a terrorist group?
They aren't even that interesting as far as conspiracy theories go.

Also ascribing bad motives to other groups is not necessarily conspiracy theory, but often its tagged as one.
To me that just seems lazy.

As if a group of people never did anything negative at all?

My point is most articles about conspiracies and added psychobabble about what makes these people whatever, sounds a lot like cherry picking.

Let me give you a good example.
US funded terrorism in Afghanistan.
They wanted to help people in Afghanistan to fight Russia.
So they gave them a lot of stingers and whatever stuff they need to kill of Russians.
Today its just history. We know its true.
The pivotal point was when US tried to take over Afghanistan and rebranded the people who they armed as terrorist groups.
Technically they were not terrorist groups.
They were a militia, trained by their own operatives and armed.
I would not be that surprised if their ability to make bombs was trained by US.
Now we might not know the scope of this idiocy and lunacy, but you get my point.
Its not something hidden or conspiracy like, but the people involved in this conflict are crazy.
So to me some lunatic pointing out that this stuff happened is quite normal.
In fact the only thing above that separates it from conspiracy theory is that its basically accepted fact.
The whole crazy part is that if you have 100s of things happening like this, on such massive scale sanction and confirmed, that people still have the audacity to point to conspiracy theorist as crazy.

I don't think so. I think its pretty obvious you can be always wrong about stuff.
Then again being wrong about conspiracy theory, whats the worst thing that could happen.
Your going to discover that the Earth is actually round?
Hardly a problem.

 

[Hadoblado]

Not speaking for Puffy, but bouncing off his comment:

The culture is shared belief, but the core of what I struggle with is selective scepticism. Flat earth is an easy example because (presumably) everyone discussing it doesn't believe in it, whereas if you talk about political conspiracies people are going to disagree a lot more.


I think this video is a good demonstration while also being entertaining. The conspiratorial mindset tries to explain why the individual feels the world is "wrong". Demons, government, aliens, Jews, Hitler, the elite. The skepticism is selective against answers they don't like, but answers that feed into their narrative are accepted wholesale. This is normal for most people, but it's more intense in these individuals.

They see Truth as something they can determine and appraise evidence based on whether it fits with that conclusion.

Not all ideas about conspiracy work this way. It's pretty stupid to group all conspiracies together, but it is certainly interesting where people draw the lines between what's reasonable and what's not.

 

[ZenRaiden]

reasonable and what's not.

Well if the theory is correct then the reasoning is OK then its pointless.
And again what makes the difference between one conspiracy theorist that is wrong, and another person that is wrong.
I suppose you claim its confirmation bias of some sort or cherry picking.
But being wrong happens in other circles as well.
In science being wrong is the norm.

Also what is wrong about aliens, hitler and elite.
Are they like invisible entities?

 

[Puffy]

Well, personally I think the feeling of mistrust and alienation one is typical to observe in my experience. A lot of the theories tend to stem from an expression of deep mistrust in society and its pervading structures: government, medicine, science, academia, media, etc.

For someone deeply into it, this is often traced back to a single source or grand narrative like the illuminati meme (as an example). From the perspective of this illumination, everything is designed to control you and so nothing can be trusted except information from other illuminated people.

This mistrust becomes alienation. Because if you cannot trust any of the pervading structures in society then you're alienated from them. And consequently are alienated from the majority of people (the unawakened) who buy into these structures to some degree.

The natural logic that follows is that someone will split from the mainstream and only consume sources and become friends with people that endorse their grand narrative. So they start to exist in a bubble (silo) from society, where the only information coming into the bubble and being shared in the bubble is what props up the conspiracy.

They've arrived at the same behaviour by different means but there's little difference between this and religious fundamentalism. They exist in a world distorted through the lens of a shared belief that by its nature can't be disproven. Anything outside the bubble can't be trusted or is seen as wrong and so the bubble can't be popped. So it's essentially dogmatic and fundamentalist in nature.

I've literally observed people who were friends during the pandemic form a commune (i.e. Westboro Baptist Church) in an attempt to live off-grid from society, alienating themselves from their former friends and family in the process. Not everyone into conspiracy theory culture will reach this extreme or be that completely immersed in it. However, to me it is a consequence of following the shared belief to its logical conclusion.

The challenge of being involved with conspiracy culture to me, similar to being spiritually oriented or a part of a religion, is in being a part of that while also remaining a part of the world around them. Diversity of beliefs and worldviews among contacts is healthy. Mono-cultures are bad. That's my 2cents anyway.

 

[Hadoblado]

reasonable and what's not.

Well if the theory is correct then the reasoning is OK then its pointless.
And again what makes the difference between one conspiracy theorist that is wrong, and another person that is wrong.
I suppose you claim its confirmation bias of some sort or cherry picking.
But being wrong happens in other circles as well.
In science being wrong is the norm.

Also what is wrong about aliens, hitler and elite.
Are they like invisible entities?

I was pretty explicit about asking that question myself.

If I were to give my best answer, I would say that conspiratorial thinkers care about capital T Truth and work backward from there. It's more important that they are "right" than how they are "right".

You are correct, it's very normal to be wrong in science or otherwise. I would argue that a good scientist can acknowledge this but that the deep-end conspiracy theorist cannot.

Yeah I think "invisible" entities is a good way of putting it. I think that if you're comfortable assuming the existence of complex narratives that you've never seen evidence for then that's abnormal. A normal person will do this but consider authority as evidence (e.g. a priest/scientist/guru/politician/parent told me so it must be true!!). A conspiracy theorist type seems to think they know better than everyone else. A different kind of error.

 

[scorpiomover]

If I were to give my best answer, I would say that conspiratorial thinkers care about capital T Truth and work backward from there. It's more important that they are "right" than how they are "right".


You are correct, it's very normal to be wrong in science or otherwise. I would argue that a good scientist can acknowledge this but that the deep-end conspiracy theorist cannot.

But is is normal in science for scientists to admit that they're wrong? From what I've read, scientists usually hang onto their theories even when the evidence is against them, or they leave science and do something else, like the military.

Yeah I think "invisible" entities is a good way of putting it. I think that if you're comfortable assuming the existence of complex narratives that you've never seen evidence for then that's abnormal. A normal person will do this but consider authority as evidence (e.g. a priest/scientist/guru/politician/parent told me so it must be true!!). A conspiracy theorist type seems to think they know better than everyone else. A different kind of error.

But is it a better or worse kind of error?

Moreover, even if the conspiracy theorist doesn't believe in the theories of authority figures, it's clear that in the West, authority figures like scientists have repeatedly encouraged people to develop their own opinions, and to be distrustful of authorities. So being the sort of person who comes up with conspiracy theories, is practically rubber-stamped by the authorities.

Can we really say that conspiracy theorists are any different than normal people, when both only do what they do because they've been told by authorities to do what they do?

But it does split a population into different demographics that don't really talk to each other. "Divide and conquer" is a very old strategy for controlling people.

 

[Hadoblado]

If I were to give my best answer, I would say that conspiratorial thinkers care about capital T Truth and work backward from there. It's more important that they are "right" than how they are "right".


You are correct, it's very normal to be wrong in science or otherwise. I would argue that a good scientist can acknowledge this but that the deep-end conspiracy theorist cannot.

But is is normal in science for scientists to admit that they're wrong? From what I've read, scientists usually hang onto their theories even when the evidence is against them, or they leave science and do something else, like the military.

Is it normal? Pretty normal. Is it even close to 100%? Hell no.

Yeah I think "invisible" entities is a good way of putting it. I think that if you're comfortable assuming the existence of complex narratives that you've never seen evidence for then that's abnormal. A normal person will do this but consider authority as evidence (e.g. a priest/scientist/guru/politician/parent told me so it must be true!!). A conspiracy theorist type seems to think they know better than everyone else. A different kind of error.

But is it a better or worse kind of error?

Moreover, even if the conspiracy theorist doesn't believe in the theories of authority figures, it's clear that in the West, authority figures like scientists have repeatedly encouraged people to develop their own opinions, and to be distrustful of authorities. So being the sort of person who comes up with conspiracy theories, is practically rubber-stamped by the authorities.

Can we really say that conspiracy theorists are any different than normal people, when both only do what they do because they've been told by authorities to do what they do?

But it does split a population into different demographics that don't really talk to each other. "Divide and conquer" is a very old strategy for controlling people.

I would say that the average person is less biased, but they are more harmful due to how easy it is for this group think to compound.

 

[ZenRaiden]

If I were to give my best answer, I would say that conspiratorial thinkers care about capital T Truth and work backward from there. It's more important that they are "right" than how they are "right".

You are correct, it's very normal to be wrong in science or otherwise. I would argue that a good scientist can acknowledge this but that the deep-end conspiracy theorist cannot.

Yeah I think "invisible" entities is a good way of putting it. I think that if you're comfortable assuming the existence of complex narratives that you've never seen evidence for then that's abnormal. A normal person will do this but consider authority as evidence (e.g. a priest/scientist/guru/politician/parent told me so it must be true!!). A conspiracy theorist type seems to think they know better than everyone else. A different kind of error.

No, how you are right, is basis for conspiracy theory.
IS Biden conspiracy theorist then?
I never heard the man say he is wrong about anything.
He is an authority. If he knows better, that means he is conspiracy theorist according to your definition?
Seems you just about blamed everyone on planet Earth now.

 

[ZenRaiden]

But it does split a population into different demographics that don't really talk to each other. "Divide and conquer" is a very old strategy for controlling people.

Yes, but if people are divided over something then clearly there is a problem.
What if your bank manager and your clerk were divided over how much money you have in your bank account.
I think if that ever happened as routine in a bank to every client they service that bank would go bankrupt.

Also I don't think you can divide people over flat earth theories or completely dumb theories.
You can divided them on theories that are plausible or relatable.

 

[Hadoblado]

If I were to give my best answer, I would say that conspiratorial thinkers care about capital T Truth and work backward from there. It's more important that they are "right" than how they are "right".

You are correct, it's very normal to be wrong in science or otherwise. I would argue that a good scientist can acknowledge this but that the deep-end conspiracy theorist cannot.

Yeah I think "invisible" entities is a good way of putting it. I think that if you're comfortable assuming the existence of complex narratives that you've never seen evidence for then that's abnormal. A normal person will do this but consider authority as evidence (e.g. a priest/scientist/guru/politician/parent told me so it must be true!!). A conspiracy theorist type seems to think they know better than everyone else. A different kind of error.

No, how you are right, is basis for conspiracy theory.
IS Biden conspiracy theorist then?
I never heard the man say he is wrong about anything.
He is an authority. If he knows better, that means he is conspiracy theorist according to your definition?
Seems you just about blamed everyone on planet Earth now.

What. No. What?

I wasn't giving a definition, I was exploring the difference between kookie and mundane thinking.

Biden is a figurehead who presumably defers to authority/expertise all the time. The president has an extensive network of supporting infrastructure to keep them up-to-date and advise them. They are involved in too many things to keep up with on their own.

This is the opposite of the conspiracy kook (and not all people who believe in conspiracies are kooks). They seem to reject evidence/expertise/authority in favour of their own ideas. The Truth comes from within. The scientist says that the earth is round, but how do I know they're telling the truth? What do they know that I don't?

 

[Hadoblado]

Okay here's a real life example.

As a child, my dad showed me a newspaper article where a man saved three people from a car as it was sinking. This stuck with me as it was my introduction to the concept of triage and how society can value some lives over others (they saved a child first, then parent, then grandparent). It was also the first time I had water pressure explained to me.

My dad was proud of the person that saved them, saying he knew them personally.

Years down the track, this time I am a young adult, he tells me the story again. This time, he's upset and bitter about it. HE saved that family and this other bastard is talking shit.

I ask him how he managed to open the doors underwater, he said that they magically popped open due to God's intervention. My dad had been anti-theistic for many years having experienced intense trauma from a religious upbringing, including for a long time following when he showed me the original article.

When I asked him about the newspaper, he said that the editor was in on it. That they stole his story. I asked him what the family thought, he said he couldn't reach them.

When I asked him why he didn't say this last time he showed me the article he didn't feel it was appropriate (this sounds reasonable for a normal present, but if true, this is the only time my dad has ever censored himself for a child's sake).

 

[Hadoblado]

I think this is a good example of how mental health can generate conspiracies because the contradiction is against his own previous narrative. As his mental health gets worse, the stories twist and turn.

I don't think mental health is a particularly well-mapped area, we're getting better at it but I don't assume that we know what we're talking about yet. However, there is something different going on here.

I don't think this is just a "strong opinion" my dad has. I think his cognition is tangled resultig in self-reinforcing narratives incidentally shaped by the subconscious.

This is far from the only story like this, but it's the clearest example of contradiction. In another story I took up film-making and he and I made a film. I can assure you this did not happen - I know nothing about this and have never pursued such an interest.

Again, it's not just a strong opinion.

 

[ZenRaiden]

I guess you are right about something.
Don't know what you mean really.
Though I think I am right.

I don't think conspiracy theories are wrong though.
Most of them turn out be right.
Its just depends what you mean by conspiracy.

 

[Hadoblado]

But that is wrong though. Most conspiracy theories are not right because most theories are not right. The ratio of true conspiracy theories to false conspiracy theories is a product of how easy it is to correctly interpret reality. We have a terrible track record across the board. What makes you have so much faith that people are correct about it now?

Unless you've got your own definition of conspiracy theory that includes them being tautologically correct, your belief that most conspiracy theories turn out to be right is kind of insane.

 

[ZenRaiden]

But that is wrong though. Most conspiracy theories are not right because most theories are not right. The ratio of true conspiracy theories to false conspiracy theories is a product of how easy it is to correctly interpret reality. We have a terrible track record across the board. What makes you have so much faith that people are correct about it now?

Unless you've got your own definition of conspiracy theory that includes them being tautologically correct, your belief that most conspiracy theories turn out to be right is kind of insane.

Yeah well tufff

 

[scorpiomover]

But it does split a population into different demographics that don't really talk to each other. "Divide and conquer" is a very old strategy for controlling people.

Yes, but if people are divided over something then clearly there is a problem.
What if your bank manager and your clerk were divided over how much money you have in your bank account.

Your bank manager can still go to war because your bank manager said that a dog is a "four-legged animal", and your clerk said that a dog is a "mammal", even though both are true.

Also I don't think you can divide people over flat earth theories or completely dumb theories.
You can divided them on theories that are plausible or relatable.

Because you make the rules about where you can divide things? Do you own all the scissors in the world? Humans can divide things in all sorts of ways.

 

[ZenRaiden]

Your bank manager can still go to war because your bank manager said that a dog is a "four-legged animal", and your clerk said that a dog is a "mammal", even though both are true.

Yes even in finance there are differences of opinion.
For example your interest rate might change midway and you might disagree with this, while your clerk might tell you to just shift your client to another bank account where the interest is different and more likely to fit you better.
Its not that finance is black and white.
But if your money is 200 on your bank account and next time you go to your bank and its -200 and your bank acts like that is OK you are going to be probably thinking that its not worth having money in a bank.
You might think its easier to just have your money in a sock or go to a more reliable bank, because banks a function to help you keep money safe not take the money away and make you go into debt.
Even if the policy of bank had been correct, and they taken away your money for some good reasons, you are still in minus, so you cannot afford to have a bank and you put your money in a sock.
This also explains why some people who lived through recession not trusting banks as opposed to people who work during economical growth tend to trust a bank more as the bank seems to serve its utility better.


Same way we can agree that perhaps the Earth is round, but we can also agree that some of the points of flat Earth people are correct.
Ergo them bring up things like why does the Earth move so fast, and people don't just fall down etc.
These are dumb question for people who do understand, but are not dumb for people who do not understand they are legit logical question.

So you certainly can have different views, and those can be labelled as conspiracies, but nevertheless you an be correct.
In which case the theory is still correct.
So why would some psychologist claim that people who are correct about something are also crazy?

 

[Black Rose]

Conspiracy Theorists fall into two categories. The crazy and the skeptical. All a conspiracy is, is an organized attempt at accomplishing something. This requires agents to work together (conspire). Much proof of this has been seen in nefarious circumstances. It is why there are terrorist watch lists. People working together vs the lone wolf. But there also is the fact that people say things such as:

They're out to get me Bob says.
Who Bob? I say
"Them" Bob says

I actually know a person like this. and he is incorrect. He is able to sense electricity in the air and see far away things moving. But I know another person who has had death threats posted at him on his phone for being gay. He knows many people killed for being gay in my state. We live by the border where the cartel is. People smuggle drugs in my town "alot".

Theories about the earth being flat are not the same as theories that NASA is lying.

The illuminati are not the same as the elite. People confuse them. Powerful people are not illuminati. The illuminati are hidden wise people. exoteric vs esoteric secrets. Bullshit spreads that the illuminati want to rule the world but ruling the world would go against the plan. It is a decentralized network not hierarchical. There are no oaths it is a self-selection.

Aliens existing are not a conspiracy either, governments hiding alines at area 51 is. But this can be proved.

I remember a show in the 90s called "that's so weird". All the best conspiracies started in the 90s and were on the history channel and Disney channel. That is when I was first exposed to them. There were other shows like X-files The outer limits and the Twilight zone. I remember the show Godzilla the animated series. And Men in Black. I once went to Roswell for a week and visited the museum. I read books in the library that had a section about conspiracy theories. Bigfoot and lock ness monster. Y2K was a big conspiracy theory. The TV said the military received a D in its preparation for Y2K. Nothing happened on Jan 1, 2000. I saw the ball drop in time square on tv at midnight.

I disagree that it is wrong to be skeptical and that everyone is crazy. I think things happen we are unaware of. But I also think that if you are schizophrenic you are more likely to be affected by the false positive effect. Connecting the wrong dots together. Be skeptical of the crazies but also be skeptical of what is said to be inadmissible.

 

[birdsnestfern]

Maybe Lyme was spread by DOD or it also could have been just birds flying between Plum Island and Lyme, Connecticut, just a few miles apart.
Plum Island and other govt animal disease labs are extremely nightmarish, almost like the Island of Dr. Moreau movie!
Drs still don't help people with Lyme very much, and its a huge issue.

And you hear about weird creatures washing up on shore sometimes too, but this Lyme was probably created somewhere like Plum Island.

Whatever they are doing in Chinese labs, is science fiction stuff thats hard to fathom.
They are playing god in outlandish Frankenstein nightmare realities we don't want to think about.
If Loch Ness is real, it might just be a dinosaur that survived because it stays below the surface for so long.
Some of these are half truths, but might have some truth to them, or even a lot of truth to them.

https://www.newsweek.com/pentagon-weaponized-ticks-lyme-disease-investigation-1449737

Lyme Disease on Plum Island: Fringe Conspiracy Theory or Government Cover-up? – Tick Talk

Plum Island Animal Disease Center - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[birdsnestfern]

And I know I posted on one of the Covid threads about this, that Covid leaked from the Wuhan lab, I just can't find that post now:
Ah, here it is: https://www.intpforum.com/threads/should-i-take-the-third-jab.28811/#post-622848

I think NIH lab in Texas (maybe the University of Texas at Austin) lab originally brought covid virus to the Wuhan lab in order to have it researched.
Then, it likely leaked and I don't know how, but I think thats what happened, they might have been working on genoming sequences to make it easier to catch.
They genomed HIV virus into it which weakens immune systems and the live vaccine includes HIV. That is why I think vaccine is not the answer.
And, I think people with allergies will have more resistance to COVID, and possibly won't catch it at all. Allergies block something about the transmission of it.

List of Institutes and Centers

NIH is made up of 27 Institutes and Centers, each with a specific research agenda, often focusing on particular diseases or body systems.

www.nih.gov