The mathematics of conspiracy theories
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
"We further assume that a leak of information from any conspirator is sufficient to expose the conspiracy and render it redundant"
This is just stupid.
That said conspiracy theories are based around areas where a complete knowledge is not available. The description of the problem maybe correct, but the motivations of the parties involved wrong. To discredit an idea simply because it is a conspiracy theory is illogical.
Many popular conspiracy theories involve huge numbers of conspirators - thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. For anyone who has a "feel" for how math works, it seems wrong. Putting some hard statistics work around it makes the false nature of large-scale conspiracies more concrete for those of us who believe in math.
A conspiracy theory where no more than a dozen people need to be involved makes sense to me. A conspiracy theory involving every climate scientist in the world, or every doctor in the world, or every NASA employee, seems like BS.
There could be informal conspiracy, take the 2008 financial crisis. Everyone was working in their own self-interest, and there were thousands of them doing it. From the outside it could look like they were working together to some nefarious ends.
Every time I hear a conspiracy that requires large numbers of people (>1000 especially) to stay quiet - especially when there is good motivation for someone to not keep the secret - I roll my eyes. My favorite in that regard is climate change. The justification for the conspiracy is generally to get research dollars. But with oil companies and other political interests offering generous funding for anti-climate change results, there's a motivation for breaking with the conspiracy. Beyond that, scientists tend to be motivated more by glory than by money, and by knowledge more than by glory. Truth-seekers cannot be easily bribed. And a scientist who disproved climate change effectively would be turning the science world on its ear. There's nothing more glorious for a scientist than substantially changing consensus.
The number is not relevant. It could be 1 or a million, as long as every one of them fear for their life or job, or something like that everybody is going to keep quiet.