http://www.bps.org.uk/news/why-are-conspirancy-theories-so-popular
The British Psychological Society reports on a new study about why people believe conspiracy theories.
A need for "cognitive closure" leads to many people believing in conspiracy theories, according to a new study.
Research by Dr Karen Douglas of the University of Kent, which is being presented at this week's British Psychological Society's Social Psychology Section conference in Canterbury, examined the extent to which 250 people agreed with theories for the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 earlier this year.
Scientists expected that factors such as mistrust, powerlessness and paranoia could influence whether or not individuals believe in conspiracy theories.
However, they also discovered that "the need for cognitive closure and belief in an unjust world" can also play a part if no official explanation exists.
In addition, they found that those who believe in MH370 conspiracy theories also agree with alternative explanations for other notorious events, such as the death of Princess Diana and the 9/11 attacks.
Dr Douglas said this means the psychological predictors of conspiracy beliefs "may be the same whether an official explanation has been established or not".
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday September 15 2014, @09:50AM
> Why are Conspiracy Theories so Popular?
Because "they" want us to be. Think about it, if everyone is constantly wrapped up in conspiracy theories, we will be too distracted to see what they are really up to. If the mainstream media is always pushing us to believe in these outlandish and ridiculous paranoid fantasies, it's because the mainstream media is controlled by Reptilons.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday September 15 2014, @10:13AM
Beat me to it.
They are popular because the NSA, CIA, Secret World Government and the Aliens want them to be - what more evidence does anyone need ? :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @10:38AM
I love that this got modded "insightful" rather than "funny".
(Score: 3, Funny) by mrclisdue on Monday September 15 2014, @11:38AM
...because that's the way they want it....
(Score: 2) by gman003 on Monday September 15 2014, @01:13PM
Fun little factoid: many of the JFK assassination conspiracy theories were actually created by the KGB. They saw how some had cropped up after the MLK assassination, and decided to fan the flames by spreading a bunch of conspiracy theories about the JFK assassination. Which obviously worked, seeing how many of them there are and how many people believe them.
That itself is technically a conspiracy, so now we're discussing a conspiracy theory conspiracy. Meta.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:58PM
Your conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories has some big holes in it. JFK was assassinated almost five years before MLK. The conspiracy theories began almost immediately when each one of them died. Was the KGB looking into the future through some kind of time warp to gauge the effectiveness of MLK conspiracy theories? How does that even work exactly? And, no, appealing to Star Trek to answer that question will not enhance your credibility.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday September 15 2014, @02:00PM
Or maybe, juuust maybe, more and more we are seeing things that were once called "nutter conspiracy theories" turn out to be 100% true? After all pre Snowden everybody laughed at the "They are monitoring everything you do!" believers as nutbars, for decades people said those that believed the Vietnam war was a false flag were told they were fucking insane until it came out that whoops, turned out Gulf of Tonkin was totally faked and they knew it before ever telling the public or congress, on and on as time goes by we see shit that was once relegated to the "they must be nutbars" pile turn out to be 100% true.
So yeah i can understand why they are popular, because if a world government told me it was raining I'd want a second opinion and as we have seen it really doesn't take too many at the top to be on board to get entire wars started over nothing...Iraq WMDs anyone?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday September 15 2014, @07:34PM
A large number have proven to be true, but a much larger number, by at least a couple of orders of magnitude, have no such evidence. Many of them are clearly ridiculous. Others are just implausible. But many implausible ones have proven true. And distinguishing between ridiculous and implausible depends on who's looking.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Tanuki64 on Monday September 15 2014, @08:04PM
Agreed. I think that generally dismissing all conspiracy theories as crackpot ramblings and always accepting the official explanations is based on the same mindset as dismissing all official explanations and suspect conspiracies everywhere. Some people might need conspiracy theories to feel superior to the brainwashed, unthinking majority. But at the same time some people seem to feel superior by sticking to the always sane mainstream think and distancing themselves from the crackpots.
So, what is true? As in most cases there is no simple answer. Some conspiracy theories are nonsense. Some are true. Some are spread in good faith and are nevertheless wrong. Some are wrong but spread intentionally to hide the truth and discredit alternative explanations.
The consequence is that it is not wise just to dismiss conspiracy theories. Even the most stupid ones might give important hints. For instance if it can be shown that they are spread on purpose to ridicule all alternative explanations. IMHO this means that it is not only necessary to look at a conspiracy theory in general, but also at every single claim.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday September 15 2014, @09:50PM
Well said.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Monday September 15 2014, @09:52AM
Mistrust.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FuzzyTheBear on Monday September 15 2014, @01:35PM
When Governments lie constantly , hide under secrecy what should be pubiic and use the media as a tool for disinformation and propaganda aint it obvious that the " official " version might just be one more lie ? Conspiracies might be real and they are trying to discredit them that way. Either way , who still trust governments to tell the truth , just and nothing but the truth ?
I certainly don't .
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday September 15 2014, @02:48PM
Mistrust of the Government is healthy. But making up bullshit reasons why things happen is not.
It reminds me of the God of the Gaps fallacy.. "Science cant explain why this happened, therefore God."
I have also found that conspiracy theorists are also likely to believe in bullshit\n\n\n\n\alternative medicine.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday September 15 2014, @02:49PM
Also, GP's sig is relevant.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday September 15 2014, @10:00PM
How do you distinguish between making up and figuring out?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday September 16 2014, @04:08AM
evidence.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DNied on Monday September 15 2014, @10:05AM
They're popular because - just like religions - they provide a simple answer to everything ("They did it" or "God did it", respectively).
With the small flaw that those answers are made up, of course; sadly, that seems to sound better than "no answer yet", to most people.
(Score: 1) by gargoyle on Monday September 15 2014, @11:55AM
Or "no answer ever"... with ever effectively being the lifetime of the person.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday September 15 2014, @10:25PM
I've theorized that conspiracy theories, religion, and superstition all center around that same part of the brain or the same logical pathways. We humans seem to be wired for the need to know basic facts of our surroundings, scientifically and politically, and without performing diligent fact checking these explanations speak directly to that need.
Sometimes, a version goes viral: Alex Jones for conspiracy theories, L. Ron Hubbard for religion, and dare I say it... sports fans for modern superstition (lucky jersey/sock anyone?). It's sad to see the modern incarnations, but I can't help but wonder if the tendency to look for things we don't readily see is what got our species into the whole tool-making thing in the first place, which finally led us to where we are. It may at this point be even more vestigial than the appendix (we finally figured out what that's for, thankfully), and can shun it as a desirable mating feature, but it is so ubiquitous as to be significant, I think.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Monday September 15 2014, @10:44PM
Look here:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Skinner_box [rationalwiki.org]
Especially the part: Skinner's box and superstition
My hypothesis is that from an evolutionary point of view what the doves do makes sense. When the environment changes, doves cannot really think of ways how how to adjust. So all kinds of random behaviours are 'tested'. One might work by pure chance and those doves using it survive.
This mechanism is probably to a certain degree in still in humans present and is the cause for superstition. In some more, in some less.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by evilviper on Monday September 15 2014, @10:30AM
Conspiracy theories are popular because people want to be insiders on some secret knowledge that other people don't have. They want to be the clever ones, who noticed some details others missed, which they then fill-in the blanks and weave into crazy stories. And some of them go to great lengths, trying to fit all the disparate and contradictory conspiracy theories into some single larger tenuous narrative that allows them to co-exist, instead of factions of crazy people fighting with each other for supremacy.
Not that I fault people for being interested in such things, I certainly found the stories fascinating when I was young. Over several years, though, it was easy to observe that the conspiracy theories just never pan-out, but instead keep getting changed and updated and made more ridiculous to fit new evidence and whatnot, while the mainstream explanations maintain an infinitely better track record.
It seem to be the same motivation behind crazy diet advice, herbalistic medical advice, and old wive's tales/urban legends in general.
When someone tells me to take such-and-such foods and herbs for headaches, stomach, insomnia, etc., I usually stare at them like you would at anyone who suggested pouring creamed corn down your pants... Why would I ever even consider going through that mess, instead of taking 10 cents worth of modern medicines, which are tremendously and reliably effective?
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @12:22PM
I would couple "secret knowledge" with assignment of culpability. If "bad things" just happen, then the world is a scary and unpredictable place. If, on the other hand, the worst tragedies are wrought by human malfeasance, then an honest man can keep his head down, avoid the attention of the illuminati, and expect to live a long, modestly comfortable life. We're taught from very young age that "bad things" happen because of misbehavior, although the rules are often obscure and arbitrary - if you can't assign culpability to one of the gods, then it must be god-like humans.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Monday September 15 2014, @06:23PM
This is the reason with which I have the most personal experience. A little background - in my branch of my family (parents and siblings), we all did very well in school and went on to technical/engineering degrees and successful careers in those fields. On the other hand, my aunt and cousins never did well in school, barely eked out two-year communications degrees at community college, and now work as waitresses, receptionists, and real estate agents.
Said aunt and cousins believe in every conspiracy theory they hear about, and it really is a way for them to make themselves feel superior to us - an ego boost, really. My side of the family might have all these fancy degrees, but they know and "understand" things we don't. And it's beyond the point where our logic even holds any sway with them - I can debunk their theories until I'm blue in the face, and I'm just met with blank stares, followed by them handing me long lists of links to sites filled with unintelligible gibberish, and always the comment, "educate yourself." It makes them feel good about themselves to supposedly be in-the-know, while the rest of us are just duped "sheeple."
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday September 16 2014, @12:09PM
To be fair sometime herbs [wikipedia.org] actually do work. To be fair I always have like the saying :
Q:Do you know what they call alternative medicine that works?
A: Medicine.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @10:58AM
20 years ago saying the NSA spied on EVERYONE and recorded EVERYTHING got you comments about tinfoil and nobody believed it.
Today we just all scoff and pretend we knew it was true all along.
What evil shit will we find out was true today... 20 years from now?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Monday September 15 2014, @12:41PM
A nice 50 year hold on declassification gives things a chance to blow over.
Google News for "declassified documents" [google.com]
Don't Like That Israel Has the Bomb? Blame Nixon. Newly declassified documents reveal how the Nixon White House looked the other way while Israel built the Middle East’s first nukes. [foreignpolicy.com]
Declassified Documents Reveal US Plan for Alaska in a Russian Invasion [io9.com]
Not a truther conspiracy below!
Ex-Senator Bob Graham: FBI covered up 9/11 investigation [wtsp.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @02:07PM
Watergate. Many of you folks are too young to have lived through it, but it was like the end of a Robert Ludlum novel where it was revealed on tape where Mr. Big (the President of the United States, in this case) was orchestrating all the break-ins and wiretaps and dirty tricks.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday September 15 2014, @02:50PM
You must be young... Echelon was big news 20 years ago, and it wasn't treated like tinfoil hat nuttery.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday September 15 2014, @02:52PM
Oops, my mistake, I was actually thinking of Carnivore, which is a proven real thing. Echelon was not ever really proven because of blocking by the US Government. Which some would use as proof that it does exists, but it is a borderline case.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Monday September 15 2014, @07:01PM
How is Eschelon borderline? Is it not the precursor?
The Australian governemt partially acknowledged it, and the EU parliament held an enquiry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Public_disclosures_.281990-2000.29 [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Monday September 15 2014, @08:33PM
Well I am just saying it is not acknowledged by the US Government. But I think everyone knows it really is a thing.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:04AM
There have always been innumerable conspiracies.
But then people talking about actual conspiracies probably have always been lumped in with the crackpots as well. Or killed.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday September 15 2014, @11:06AM
From looking at conspiracy theories and similar subcultures, the salient thing seem to be the need for a coherent narrative to explain the world. What a lot of people seem to need is a simplified, coherent way to explain reality. The single thread going through all conspiracies is a "them" who is orchestrating a specific, detailed plan to create chaos, confusion, and uncertainty in the world to benefit themselves. An authority figure, like Alex Jones, comes along and explains that the overwhelming uncertainty in the world, the random patterns that make no sense, are actually the machinations of "them" and only the authority figure has the courage to expose them. The authority figure presents a simple, straightforward narrative that explains everything going on in the world and how to cope with it. And that kind of explanation sells.
Now if you look at it objectively, these conspiracy people are stark raving nuts, and nothing they say makes sense. I first learned of Alex Jones with his bizarre chemtrails conspiracy theory. The first thing I noticed was that he had an advertisement for a quack health product that was basically taking silver internally. If you don't know, silver is used as an antiseptic externally on wounds (eg silver nitrate) but you don't take it internally because it's poison. So this guy was actually making his money selling a product that would definitely harm people, and doing it while scaring them with a government conspiracy to use chemtrails to poison them. And people were buying into it literally by buying his conspiracy materials.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 15 2014, @11:27AM
Funny how you complain these people want to simplify the world and then go to say stupid things like they're all the same and crazy...
If we look at the definition of the expression, Wikipedia offers A conspiracy theory is an explanatory proposition that accuses two or more persons, a group, or an organization of having caused or covered up, through secret planning and deliberate action, an illegal or harmful event or situation.
Yeah, could never have happened. All official explanations are gospel truths and the rich and the powerful of the world don't regularly hold secret meetings where they engineer "free trade" agreements etc.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 15 2014, @03:35PM
If we were to use the term "theory" in the scientific sense, then "conspiracy theory" would really mean any case where it's been *proved* that people colluded to do something. What we're really talking about, using that terminology, is "conspiracy CONJECTURES." I can see how people may object to "sciencifying" the topic, but we have plently of pseudoscience around already so what the heck.
And that, y'know, sometimes conspiracy theories are actually right. I don't need to explain everything in the world as being the fault of Them, but I generally like to actually know the truth. Why I keep reading SN/SD is the search for That One Guy Who Explains What Is Actually Going On 3/4 of the way down the comments section.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by DNied on Monday September 15 2014, @11:30AM
Can you expand on "similar subcultures"? That reference inspired some curiosity here.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @11:36AM
"Can you expand on "similar subcultures"?"
I'd suggest religion, but over the course of humanity not just the locally dominant modern fake Christians. They're like moths to a flame to "why do we exist" and "what created the world" and "what causes thunder and lightning and volcanoes and locust plagues" and "what kind of .gov should we have" and "whats all this geology stuff" and "what is the purpose of life" and all manner of lifestyle and dietary stuff that superficially seems to have nothing to do with imaginary father figure in the sky but they ram it into place anyway. And of course in their opinion its all metaphysical mystical stuff and they get ALL wound up if you try to convince them the topic fits in another category like science or random chance.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Monday September 15 2014, @03:56PM
or as Prof. Brain Cox says "a load of woo".
Religions persist in modern society for 3 reasons
1) Adults are permitted to teach it to children (How else does it get into human heads?)
2) They get charitable status (Who wouldn't say they believe?)
3) It allows you to get away with murder, and not feel so bad about it. (Who wouldn't want that?)
Science doesn't care who says it, if it can be replicated, it is proved.
Religion cares so much who said it, because none of it can be proved, and yet they want everyone to do what they are told.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday September 15 2014, @12:38PM
A similar subculture would be, for example, the King James Only movement. The subculture ranges all the way from true conspiracy theories (New Age Bible Versions) to a genuine principled if uber-reactionary stand against change. They provide a similar narrative which simplifies a chaotic world. If you study their subculture, they have created an alternate history of Bible texts which gives people a simplified narrative that cuts through the chaos of studying ancient manuscripts - an area of study few people know anything about - and gives people an assurance that the King James Bible is a solid bulwark of stability in an otherwise changing, confusing world. The KJV is not the point at all - the point is that people don't like change. So authority figures like Peter Ruckman and DA Waite have created a narrative that gives people a coherent way to filter the chaos of reality. Forget the Hero With A Thousand Faces, we've got the Narrative With A Thousand Faces. All of these movements have this essential theme in common of creating a coherent narrative in a chaotic world. The more you look for it, the more you find it. Look for people making money - if you can package and sell a coherent narrative, you can make a lot of money. Even someone like Tony Robbins has made a lot of money over the years by simplifying personal achievement into a neat little system. Whether it works or not (you decide - but the answer is no) is beside the point. He's selling certainty.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Monday September 15 2014, @04:09PM
Nice parody.
The fun thing about your post is that it presents a simple, salient, and coherent narrative to explain the often frightening set of conspiratorial beliefs people hold about their world.
Love. it.
subicular junctures
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tanuki64 on Monday September 15 2014, @11:26AM
I once watched a hoax moon landing 'documentation'. There were several arguments, which sounded really convincing. At least for a casual viewer like me. It was very well done. So what do I expect in such a case? Answers, which debunk the conspiracy. What was what I mostly found? Let me exaggerate a bit:
Conspiracy:
Was the hatch between the Command Module & the Lunar
Module too small for the space-suited astronauts to pass
through no matter what contortions they could go through to try?
Answer:
You are stupid. You are stupid. You are a crackpot.
Conspiracy:
Did the front hatch of the Lunar Module open inward
making it impossible for the astronauts to exit the cramped LM?
Answer:
You are stupid. You are stupid. You are a crackpot.
Was the 10-foot Rover too long to fit into the 5-foot side of the LM?
Answer:
You are stupid. You are stupid. You are a crackpot.
It is 100 times easier to find statements that conspiracy theorists are idiots than
to get actual answers to their questions.
Another example:
The soil on the moon looks like its wet or made of plaster or something like that. After all, look at how sharp those footprints and impressions are!
I was interested in this question. Took me a bit to find the answer. The best answer actually
came from a moon hoax debunking episode of the Mythsbusters. Is it a wonder that under
circumstances like that conspiracy theories flourish?
And... One thing should not be forgotten... There is the Streisand effect. If something is in
the internet, you cannot get it out again. Be noisy, sue... and you just draw attention to it.
So a better way to hide something might be to muddy the water. Produce theories, which are
obviously wrong and very stupid. Very stupid and antisemitic conspiracy theories are even
better. You then can lump truth and fake conspiracies together and say: Look how stupid
those conspiracy theorists are. A bunch of antisemitic crackpots. Does anyone want to have
anything to do with them?
The consequence? IMHO that even the most stupid questions has to answered. In detail.
Might be tedious. It won't convince everyone. Sure, many have made up their mind and
cannot be convinced regardless of arguments, or proofs. But not doing it at all just furthers
conspiracy theories and paranoia.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Monday September 15 2014, @12:07PM
Since you asked:
LM hatch and door problems: http://www.clavius.org/lmdoors.html [clavius.org]
Rover storage problem: http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/000731.html [collectspace.com]
I suspect you're not stupid, but there are plenty of deniers and conspiracy wonks who simply won't apply the smallest measure of common sense or accept obvious evidence that contradicts their pet theory. When you cross the logic event horizon one goes from merely mistaken or ignorant to being willfully stupid.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Monday September 15 2014, @12:32PM
I already found out, but it was much more work than it should have been. Ages since I looked into this special conspiracy theory. Took it only as very obvious example of a very stupid theory. But if you search Youtube for all kind of conspiracy theories, you find very well, very professional made films. Anti-conspiracy films? Yes, there are some, too. But much less, and strangely of much worse quality. Technically worse and very often with a much worse narrative. I think this is one of the main reasons why conspiracy theories are so popular: They have a better 'lobby'.
In a way I can understand why. One intelligent person cannot answer the questions 1000 idiots can ask. It is just tedious to do it and usually there is no reward in it.
On the other hand... not all conspiracy theories are necessarily false. Nowadays every person has the ability to spread information in a way not long ago only big media houses or governments could. Discrediting leaked information as 'conspiracy theory' is one logical method of damage containment. And in no way a new one... Has been done during the cold war long before the internet.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 15 2014, @01:21PM
You bring up a good point. The way information is presented is pretty much 99% of the battle. If I make a false yet very convincing and intelligent sounding argument, then I can easily influence people to believe whatever lie I please. That bit of info is now implanted and is there to stay. It is now very hard to convince people they heard wrong. One someone hears something, it is imprinted in them.
The next problem is smart people don't like arguing, it's not their job. To them the claims are so absurd that they can't even begin to grasp how people can believe a charlatan. So they don't even try and debunk them in an equally convincing manner. They simply wave their hands and yell "lies, damned lies!" All the while the ignorant are sitting there and looking at the liar thinking "this guy knows what he is talking about." Yet they look at the actual expert in the subject yelling lies thinking "This guy is full of shit."
When you fight a liar you have to try and be as equally convincing. You need more facts than the liar does. Just look at the "documentary" Zeitgeist. I have friends, a couple, who fell for that load of crap hook line and sinker, especially the 9/11 part. I tried explaining to the best of my knowledge that steel loses its strength at temperatures far below its melting point (around 400C vs ~1400C melting). But they couldn't accept that because the Zeitgeist Charlatan got his garbage info to them first. As calmly as simply as I explained it all I heard was "but this ... but that ... but bla bla". It was frustrating and I understand why intelligent people have such a hard time fighting the liars. The sad part? She hold a masters in environmental science and he holds a bachelors is CS (in the grand scheme of things diplomas and schooling mean nothing). Talk about frustrating.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Marand on Monday September 15 2014, @11:37AM
A good conspiracy theory is also a lot more interesting than the more likely answers. Most of the shitty things that happen are caused by the following:
• Coincidence
• Incompetence
• Greed
That, however, isn't particularly interesting, and is also kind of depressing. Conspiracy theories give you a narrative where there's a clear villain, an evil plot, and no moral ambiguity. It's the same sort of logic that makes Nazis and zombies a safe go-to antagonist in games.
Of course, real-life everyday big-business provides plenty of fuel for conspiracy theory, too. The motives might just be simple greed, but it's not hard to make the jump to overarching conspiracies when the real-life starting point has things that like illegal back-room deals (Apple ebook price fixing), big business lobbying for convenient laws (ISPs and net neutrality), corporations running shell companies and branches in multiple countries to avoid taxes, etc. making the news.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khakipuce on Monday September 15 2014, @12:08PM
They are also fueled by the fact that the media only ever reports exceptions and never gives the statistical background. The story is "celebrity killed in car crash" for example. The media only report the "exceptional" car crashes so people think car crashes are fairly rare and seem to only happen to celebrities. If, however, they reported all car deaths on the same day and gave background stats on car deaths then people might be more accepting that it was an accident.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Monday September 15 2014, @12:39PM
Good point. I deal with the same sort of thing with some relatives occasionally, and no amount of logic will satisfy them because the media hype is more appealing. Since I know it's futile to even try, I just say the same thing each time it happens and then drop it: if it were that common, it wouldn't be news.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday September 15 2014, @08:02PM
And it's also true that there ARE a lot of actual conspiracies. Most of them are petty, and banal. Most don't every do anything. And they are very difficult to detect.
What makes something a conspiracy? If it's just an agreement to break the law, then unjust laws automatically create conspiracies. I could even say "widespread conspiracies", but most of them have no connection with each other. Increase the connectivity and you automatically increase the size of the conspiracy without changing anything else WRT it's actions or effectiveness.
"Every meeting among gentlemen of a profession is a conspiracy against their customers"? Why is this an incorrect statement? They may (or may not) be engaging is subtle pricefixing. They will nearly certainly act to reduce competition. (See also "Union".)
But if the laws are written to favor the rich, is it surprising that many things done by the rich are crimes when done by the poor? This, of course, is not necessarily the act of any illegal conspiracy. People who are rich and powerful independently (or at least plausibly independently) support things that make things better for those who are rich and powerful. This is systematic bias, not, necessarily, conspiracy. And yet they also prefer to socialize with those who are also rich and powerful, so if a conspiracy were absent it would be truly remarkable.
But just TRY to figure out which are the real conspiracies. Was Senator Wellstone's death in a plane crash due to a conspiracy? No plausible evidence that I'm aware of, but the circumstances were quite suspicious. It could have been an accident. It could have been malice. And I can't even assign a probability either way. (Similarly for, I think it was, John Dean's wife back in the days of the fall of Nixon.)
When the evidence is inconclusive, then the desire for cognitive closure combines with Bayesian priors to shape one's conclusions. One would hope that there would be a strong lack of certainty, but many people seem unable to deal with that.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 15 2014, @11:50AM
The only way 2 people can keep a secret for more than a year or two is if one of them is dead. That inherently limits the size of conspiracies.
Look at it this way: If you were the one who had killed JFK while standing on the grassy knoll, or were on the cameraman on the moon landing set, or spent decades working with space alien scientists in Area 51 to adjust their implants for us humans, or placed the explosives to bring down the World Trade Center, would you really be able to go to your grave without writing down your story somewhere to be found by one of your grandkids or something?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 15 2014, @12:18PM
While I agree that most conspiracies are wrong, that's the worst reason to cite for them being wrong. Plenty of people have come forward claiming involvement in a hushed-up conspiracy plot, such as saying that they encountered UFOs in a military setting [telegraph.co.uk], or to push another deathbed Kennedy assassination claim [wikipedia.org]. Pretend that one of these situations really occurred. Would extraordinary measures be needed to ensure the silence of a handful or up to hundreds of people?
In the case of military personnel, they tend to stay silent when they are told to. But let's say they don't. Their claims enter into a public consciousness in which 33-80% of Americans are affirmative on a number of UFO-related questions, and "Gallup polls have found that only 20-30% of the population believe that Oswald had acted alone," yet daily life goes on. There's just too much information out there competing for public attention. That was true before the Internet, and now it's exponential in scope. In the absence of hard proof, dozens of conspiracy theories compete for attention around the same plot. Many of these theories are money grabs (book sales), or simply the musings of lunatics.
Why haven't conspiracy-proving documents come to light in a Wikileaks/Snowden style data dump? Perhaps no documents were made, or the records were lost, or were on wet paper [theguardian.com]. Nobody's grandpa got a sample of otherworldly UFO tinfoil, because the militaries haven't recovered a UFO or alien bodies. In the end, witnesses are just witnesses: unreliable and numerous. And that's why conspiracy theories will always be with us.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday September 16 2014, @05:17AM
On the other hand, look at how long the extend of the NSA spying was kept secret. Very large operation even involving contractors who didn't have much skin in the game.
There's also the ease of which a leak can be overwhelmed with fake conspiracies. If 0.01% of conspiracies are real, they're likely to get lost in the noise.
Of course there is also people meeting accidents etc, JFKs accused assassin got eliminated pretty quick as well as the assassins assassin. When you're playing with people who play for keeps,especially if you have a family, you're more motivated to keep quiet.
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Tuesday September 16 2014, @06:52PM
A lot of the people who worked at Bletchley Park still don't talk about their time there, and there was a fair number working there over the war.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 15 2014, @11:53AM
There are real unidentified objects in the sky!
Aliens have landed, infiltrated British nuclear missile sites and deactivated the weapons, according to US military pilots. [telegraph.co.uk]
Former Arizona Governor Symington: I saw a UFO in the Arizona sky [cnn.com]
Believe in UFOs? Highlights of the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure [washingtonpost.com]
Citizen Hearing On Disclosure: Pilots Testify To UFO Encounters [huffingtonpost.com]
If there are really alien spaceships flying around Earth, they should do something more brazen, like broadcast over all AM radio channels, hover over major sporting events, or drop down onto the Hudson river. Most likely they will just wait and see if we've solved the world's problems in 50 years. They are probably bored tourists ogling our shitty planet.
How's this for a conspiracy theory (based on the above links):
1. Militaries/governments know about alien "UFOs", but can't prove they are extraterrestrial because there's no line of communication.
2. They don't acknowledge a threat from UFOs because there is no defense against them and they don't appear hostile.
3. There's no need for a cover story because the public already believes in alien UFOs and there's no excellent proof to disclose.
But there is a problem with the extraterrestrial theory: why are all the videos so shitty? Because they are far away, moving and lit up, or because they are actually ball lightning? Another problem: increasing use of drones. Will they lead to in-atmosphere recordings of aliens, or just tens of thousands of on-the-ground recordings of drones mistaken for aliens?
My number one reason to want alien sightings to be real: it would mean faster-than-light travel is possible.
And that's how you write up a popular conspiracy theory.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Monday September 15 2014, @12:00PM
This kind of conspiracy theory works less and less:
http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1235:_Settled [explainxkcd.com]
;-)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 15 2014, @12:25PM
Where's the footage of the first shooting at Ferguson?
Now put the incident of interest miles up into the atmosphere, and give it bright and blurry lights.
U.S. smartphone penetration is more than 50% in 2014. But how good are those cameras at resolving spooky aliens? How good is a 600 gigapixel Nokia Lumia at resolving spooky aliens? And the sighting videos persist [google.com].
If there are no aliens, drones will film incredibly boring skies once they become common in 2015+. But people on the ground will still upload drone videos to YouTube and call them alien spacecraft.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Monday September 15 2014, @12:38PM
Where's the footage of the first shooting at Ferguson?
In this context an irrelevant question. More cameras does not mean that there is footage of every singular event. It just means that the probability to get pictures at all rises. Which when it comes to the abuse of police power definitely happens -> abuse of police power is real. More pictures of Bigfoot, Ufos, Nessie? Nope -> Most likely not real.
(Score: 1) by takyon on Monday September 15 2014, @12:51PM
My point is that no amount of human-operated cameras can guarantee documentation of an event. And while filmed encounters of police abuse are increasing, so are videos of fuzzy lights in the sky, as a quick search will confirm. They are all terrible videos (or fakes), of course, but some of those police encounters filmed shakily in portrait mode on a cheap feature phone with terrible audio aren't very useful either.
I'm not a hardcore believer in the extraterrestrial hypothesis. I'm just playing devil's advocate here and assigning it an appropriate probability of being true (how about 2%?). This has been a fun Soylent article.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday September 15 2014, @08:07PM
How about UFOs are real and are actually unidentified.
The need to have an identification for all things seen in the sky, regardless of how much you actually see, is definitely suggestive of cognitive closure. Often there isn't enough information available to reach a valid conclusion.
I once saw a UFO. Fortunately it hung around for awhile as we drove after it seeing it in various angles of sunlight. Eventually it unrolled an banner advertising, IIRC, Nikon film. It was a largely transparent blimp that was quite reflective of sunlight. If the road had curved in a different angle and took us away from it I'd never have known.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Monday September 15 2014, @08:21PM
You are cheating. :-)
Of course there are unidentified flying objects. Every plane I see is an UFO. I usually cannot tell what kind of plane it is and don't know its flight number -> UFO.
But of course, with UFO usually is E.T. stuff meant.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @11:53AM
Nobody suggested my personal favorite which is small number of observers.
Lets say a bank gets robbed and there's two witnesses. Well they are going to get an epic dose of shit, truckloads and truckloads, because nobody is going to trust only two observers. Its an inside job, it was a setup. The robber was the best friend of one and the cousin of the other witness. Someone hates (insert ethnic group) and suspiciously the accused robber is in that group. One witness is (insert ethnic group) and so is the robber funny how he "didn't get a good look at the robber". This stuff goes on and on forever, because there's only two witnesses and the smaller the concentration of participants, the better historically conspiracies have worked.
Lets rob the same bank with 45 witnesses on Friday night at 6pm (aka after payday). I've had direct deposit for .... 15 years? 20 years? but there are still people getting legacy checks on friday afternoon and visiting the bank, believe it or now. Even if the data gathered is about the same, no one is going to give 45 people a truck load of shit because no one will believe a conspiracy could realistically form spontaneously or otherwise among 45 people. Heck even if the data gathered is objectively worse, the witnesses STILL aren't going to get weird theories about how the robber just happened to be the cousin of best friend of all 45 witnesses in the bank at that time.
Now lets look at the media who tell us what to think. There is some political bias in the wiki articles listed below because to make things look "fairer" they include small bit players that "no one" pays attention to. For comparison, 4 million viewers is about 10-20 times as many people who watch CNBC, but its still less than 1% of the population. Anyway, the "big six" is not an entirely bad way to describe the situation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_of_media_ownership [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
You'd have to be pretty uncreative or overly gullible to not think that those 6 just might try pulling the wool over everyones eyes, once in a while. And obviously not all have to participate. Like one .gov guy and maybe two .com guys can pretty well control what America hears and thinks, pretty well.
This is aside from the obvious "open conspiracy" topics. You have a small powerful ogliopoly and you don't need weird back room meetings to conspire, because your interests ARE your competitors interests. As an obvious example, if the only people allowed to speak are very rich owners of TV channels, they're not going to report anything positive about IP TV or streaming video or net neutrality (paying attention to the real thing or the 1984 doublespeak definitions)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 15 2014, @12:01PM
"A need for "cognitive closure""
Another aspect is journalism is in a race to the bottom. You try to capture the last consumer by running everything at a 4th grade literacy and intelligence level, you "win" in the marketplace, but a side effect is perhaps 99% of your viewers are going to be about a std deviation or two of intelligence smarter than your target audience which is just slightly more mentally alert than the Teletubbies. Think "Fox News" or any daytime drama or ... well pretty much everything on TV during weekday day time except maybe for some movies and some syndicated reruns. Some of the viewers are going to notice they're head and shoulders above the target audience mentally and thats going to lead to squirrel-i-ness. None of this paragraph seems remotely controversial? So TV is aimed at 8 year olds to maximize revenue, what else is new?
Think how your parents bullshitted you about santa claus and the tooth fairy and religion at that same age in that same lower grade school level of cognition and literacy, and here's a TV show acting exactly the same way... hmm wonder if they're full of BS too. To be charitable, maybe they're treating you like an idiot just to get the financially valuable idiot viewers. Or maybe there really is no santa claus, we really don't need another war in Syria, there isn't a tooth fairy, and some funny business did happen with 9/11.
Its a crossed signals thing. How do you appeal to morons to make money without making smart people feel they're being condescended to, plus or minus a conspiracy, in the process?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by doublerot13 on Monday September 15 2014, @12:39PM
Conspiracy theories are popular because collusion exists. It is real.
Civilization itself is a conspiracy, at least between those with good will.
But bad people collude too.
See every car manufacturer and dealership and the biggest example of the Federal Reserve.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday September 15 2014, @01:01PM
I thought it was just that you can feel special for being part of the elite group who are better than everyone else because they know The Truth.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Monday September 15 2014, @01:22PM
That is a far too easy view. More on the line to discredit everyone who does not believe in an official story. Regardless what the story or the arguments are. Check the 911 theories. Many of the conspiracy theorists are professors or Ph.D. academics. Some even put there career in danger. So regardless if they are right or wrong, I doubt their motives can just be disregarded as 'they need to feel to be elite'.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday September 15 2014, @03:13PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Monday September 15 2014, @04:59PM
I find most conspiracy nuts, (especially those who come up with conspiracy theories...), and most conspiracy believers seem to display hubris, ignorance, and selection bias traits in abundance. I attribute the popularity of conspiracy theories to the prevalence of these traits in the population.
Hubris: I find this one is most common regarding conspiracy theories about the past. It is a special kind of arrogance that makes people believe "I can't see how it could be done, therefore it wasn't", or "With all my knowledge as a modern person, I cannot understand how this was done, therefore Aliens did it" and similar.
It's also hubris to attribute _everything_ to the actions of some external force in persuit of some plan. Random things happen, and coincidences do occur.
Ignorance: Conspiracies thrive on ignorance. Everyone is genuinely misinformed or uninformed regarding something. All it takes is a polished, semi-logical, convincing sales pitch, and an ignorant person will believe a conspiracy. To the informed, the "sales pitch" exposes itself as nonsense straight away.
Selection Bias: Once someone has it in their head that there is a conspiracy, it gives them a convenient excuse to ignore any evidence to the contrary, and a disincentive to educate themselves further. When pressed, they'll usually defend themselves by saying that the evidence has been "planted" or "manufactured", or continue to ignore contrary evidence entirely.
I try to give any theory that doesn't seem to require these three traits a closer look. Often times, the "conspiracy theory" will turn out to be correct in the long run, sometimes it's just nonsense, but I've found them interesting nonetheless.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Monday September 15 2014, @07:00PM
I think this "need for cognitive closure" is pretty important, not so much for conspiracy theories bit for thinking in general. I think those with the greatest capacity for insight are happy to think "I don't know" or "60% chance of this and 40% chance of that" and are happy to leave it that way in their mind. Then when it comes up again in the future they don't make the mistake because they remember they weren't sure, instead of just remembering the answer they liked most.
I hate it when people "choose" an answer even though it's obvious that nothing is proven.
(Score: 2) by khallow on Monday September 15 2014, @09:49PM
There's also the connotation of labeling something a "conspiracy theory". That sometimes seems to be used as a rhetorical attempt to shut off discussion of a topic.