Conspiracy theorists

Putinovsky wrote: »

In the majority of cases a lot of those who latch onto conspiracy theories do so because they live uninteresting lives and need to be apart of something that makes their world more interesting. Many of them tend to be unemployed and socially inept from what I can see. Conspiracy theories give their life meaning, they can pretend that they are part of a select few in the know who are fighting a battle against imaginary evil tyrants that will save the world.

That's my brother down too a tee. Really disappointing, because he used to be massive history buff in his 20's. Incredibly knowledgable. Now I can't have a conversation with him without him trying to convince me 9/11 was an inside job for the umpteenth time. I don't bombard him with my 'Conspiracy' (in his eyes) that 9/11 was orchestrated by Osama Bin Laden.

It has consumed him.

My favourite conspiracy theory, is that the CIA coined the term 'conspiracy theory', as a conspiracy to discredit ideas that challenge those in power - so that the term 'conspiracy theory' is itself, is a kind of meta-conspiracy-theory :pac:

Yogosan wrote: »

Detached Retina wrote: »

It would be more difficult to fake the moon landings than to actually complete them.

i'm not sure that's true

Deleted User wrote: »

There is always a document that was destroyed - a testimony that was covered up - a witness that was silenced - a location that was deleted.

the thing is, there usually is a document misplaced. look at the current uk paedo ring investigation. thats clearly a conspiracy to cover up.

blinding wrote: »

There is definitely something going on there.
Its probably more of a case of everybody knowing their place and realising that taking on the establishment in Britain will kill their career.

Its just how things are in Britain. You don't need a conspiracy.

Particularly in the past. Royalty/Sirs/Top politicians were/are untouchable.

People know their place and their place is not to question their betters !

The Catholic Church/Top Politicians/Judiciary/High Ranking Gardai had/have the same system in the Irish "Republic"

Its not really a conspiracy, its just people knowing their place.

thats what a conspiracy is. whether its brought about for reasons of 'knowing one's place' or not.

conspiracy



1. the act of conspiring.

2. an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.

3. a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.

4. Law. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.

Yogosan wrote: »

Detached Retina wrote: »

It would be more difficult to fake the moon landings than to actually complete them.

Deleted User wrote: »

That is indeed a characteristic of such conversations that I have observed often. Their conspiracy theory will rely on a buried document - and their supporting argument for the existence of such documents - is that they can point to entirely unrelated cases where documents _have_ been buried.

In other words the existence of missing or buried documents is - to them at least - justification that the document they want to declare buried exists.

This - to me - is a bit like trying to establish the guilt of an accused in a murder trial - by pointing out that other convicted murderers exist in the world. It simply does not wash.

A similar line of "reasoning" shows up in supernatural discussions. The believer in supernatural explanations will respond - when you point out their lack of ANY evidence for their claims - that there are many things we do not understand - or that there were things now held to be true that once we had no evidence for.

It is exactly the same thing. They are trying to explain away their lack of evidence - by pointing out that entirely unrelated scenarios where there was also a lack of evidence.

Are documents lost or buried? I am sure they are, a lot. Does that mean the document needed to support a given conspiracy theory was therefore misplaced or buried? No. Not even a little bit.

I am not educated on the full list of fallacies like "Appeal to Authority" and "Appeal to the majority" so perhaps it exists already - but if it does not already contain it then the list should also have the fallacy of "Appeal to Similarity" on there for this type of "thinking".

And as I said I also have a credibility problem with it. In a world where an american president could not even cover up a blow job, the level of competence and complexity required for the kind of cover ups Conspiracy People get off on relative to this is simply absurd to expect.

Might be this fallacy:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/False_analogy

Most conspiracy theories are very easily identified as woo, but it's valuable to be able to identify exactly what is wrong with arguments backing them (pretty good training on critical thinking) - and ya, most of it comes down to "but there's no evidence".

Sometimes though, a conspiracy theory is a more extreme/loonified version of an actual truth, and there is value in using critical thinking to pick apart all the arguments backing it which are wrong, while giving the overall idea benefit of the doubt, long enough to test each part of it for plausibility.


A good example of something that, until the last few years, was a 'conspiracy-theory-worthy' idea - of the variety of 'lizard-people controlling the world' - was how banks actually create money when they give out loans (deposits/savings are not actually used to make loans).

This used to be regularly dismissed as worthy only of 'New World Order' or similar conspiracy theories (even was a part of those 'Zeitgeist' conspiracy movies) - but this year, it is now slowly becoming a mainstream idea, after the Bank of England confirmed/backed it (just read the first few sentences there - it's all the evidence anyone should need).

It's a topic almost unlike any other I've ever encountered, for generating cognitive dissonance, where many people reflexively dismiss it, and then are kind of stunned when they realize that it's true - sometimes still can't believe it, even when it's shown to them; people have always been taught that bank loans come from deposits/savings, but it's not true at all, the money is pretty much created from nothing (not without limits, mind) - and this makes it incredibly hard for people to even consider that that is wrong.
My favourite quote on it, is from John Kenneth Galbraith: "The process by which money is created is so simple the mind is repelled."

Once people understand that, and the implications of it (how it gives banks/finance enormous power over society and politics, when they are left unrestricted), you can then kind of see, how lunatic 'New World Order' etc. conspiracy theories can be whipped-up from it - and that these conspiracy theories, even though they are 99% bullshít, touch on one of the most important (yet not-well-known) truths out there, which in turn lead to some of the most important political/economic (and overall democratic) questions of the last few centuries: "Is it democratic for banks to have a monopoly on money creation?", "Who should have the power to create money?".

It's a line of discussion almost nobody is well acquainted with (or even able to discuss), because it requires discussing economic topics, that even economists don't know a lot about (since most economists also have been taught that loans come from savings/deposits); there is no conspiracy behind any of that either, it's just a world-population-wide misconception, that has lasted an incredibly long time.