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Why Do People Share Conspiracy Theories and Fake News? Maybe It's the Human “Need for Chaos”

posted by chromas on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the That's-what-they-WANT-you-to-think dept.

aristarchus writes:

In the Salon

There seems to be a lot of science being thrown at the "Trump Phenomenon." Salon covers yet another, and interviews the author.

A new paper, recently presented at the American Political Science Association's annual convention, suggests a widespread motive driving people to share fake news, conspiracy theories and other hostile political rumors. "Many status-obsessed, yet marginalized individuals experience a 'Need for Chaos' and want to 'watch the world burn'," lead author Michael Petersen tweeted, announcing the availability of a preprint copy.

Truth, in such a worldview, is beside the point, which offers a new perspective on the limitations of fact-checking. The motivation behind sharing or spreading narratives one may not even believe can help make sense of a variety of threatening or confusing recent developments in advanced democracies. It also sheds light on disturbing similarities with outbreaks of ethnic or genocidal violence, such as those seen in Rwanda and the Balkan nations during the 1990s.

Preprint of the paper available at PsyArXiv, here. [DOI: 10.31234/osf.io/6m4ts]

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:43PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:43PM (#733662)

    Are you marginalized? (Are you depressed? Have you ever been depressed?)

    Most importantly, we must have an inquisition targeting all people assigned the male gender at birth about the number of sexual partners they've had, and then we must establish how many of those sexual partners have regular menstruation. Then we will be able to find out who the incels are and put them to death, which will solve all the problems with capitalist alienation, depression, declining life expectancy in modern nations, wealth stratification (and the inherent contradictions this feature of capitalism creates), social isolation, and marginalization. And most importantly, this will allow Hillary Clinton to ascend to the throne in 2020, so that we can shoot our nuclear wad at the Russian incels.

    Burn the incels! 燃える、燃える！Police be upon them!

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:03PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:03PM (#733674)

    I think there may be therapy now for whatever issues you are struggling with.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:14PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:14PM (#733760)

      no way to get to a zone of absolute fortune on a mystic moon