Why people believe in conspiracy theories – and how to change their minds

>Does that mean we should go to the opposite end of the spectrum and condemn all those who have read of the countless proven conspiracies in history and are concerned with holding authorities accountable where little to no accountability exists?

No, and no one here is suggesting that, and neither is the article suggesting it. You're the one building the strawman.

At some point "conspiracy theory" just ends up meaning "wild claim, and also you turned out to be wrong".

If I said that:

- The US Navy tested bioweapons on San Francisco without notice, causing hospitalizations

- The US Army sprayed a cadmium compound on the city of Winnipeg, Canada without notice

- The CIA attempted to develop a mind control formula, which they preferentially tested on gay men and racial minorities

- The US government built a secret bunker hidden in a mountain, designed for the US Congress to hide out there while broadcasting to the nation as though nothing was wrong

- The CIA recruited mafia support in an attempt to assassinate a foreign leader

Well... all of that might sound a little kooky. If you said any of those things at the times they happened, you would almost certainly have been dismissed as an insane conspiracy theorist. And yet everything on that list is a matter of public record, openly acknowledged by the US government - after the fact.

So... when I hear someone say "the CIA used the mafia to kill Kennedy!", I can't judge them as a fool. I can disbelieve them, I can say they have no decent evidence, but given that "the CIA uses the mafia for an assassination attempt" is a matter of public record, do I really get to say it fails the laugh test?

There are theories far more absurd than that - lizard people or hollow Earth theories, for instance. But when things like Project Echelon were called conspiracies theories well after hard evidence for them emerged, I start to wonder if the reason we can't change people's minds is that too many people cried wolf for too long.

(My examples,respectively: Operation Sea-Spray, Chemical Corps project, Projects Mkultra/Bluebird, Project Greek Island, CIA Family Jewels.)

The "car allergic to ice cream" is a little bit different than a conspiracy theory though, since the flavour of ice-cream wasn't the real cause.

The conspiracy theory version of that would be more like the man denying that the cause was vapour lock, and continuing to insist that the problem was the flavour. A conspiracy theorist dismisses the alternative, correct explanation for the crazy one.

The car allergic to ice cream story is an example of disproving a ridiculous theory, not confirming it.

A conspiracy theory is someone who holds to a belief that their car is allergic to ice cream despite the fact that someone explained in detail that it's impossible and there must be some other explanation.

The problem with conspiracy theorists isn't that they consider forbidden ideas. It's that they dismiss better ones. For example, the idea that the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile on 9/11 is worth brief consideration. But when you dig into it, there's no support, while there's plenty of support for the airliner.

To use your debugging analogy, it's like speculating that the bug happens because this particular variable holds 2 when it's supposed to hold 1. Then you check and it actually holds 1. But instead of moving on to the next idea, you decide that the CIA modified your debugger to lie about the value and proceed under the assumption that it really is 2.

Right. So, do the believers of conspiracies actually examining their favorite conspiracies or do they just, well, believe them? Maybe there are different designations for those who explore the theories and those who just stick to them.

CIA mind control program was (is?) real though

Certainly not true. Nothing to do with religion at all. A conspiracy theory is not necessarily false. Conspiracies are very common; (secret ones are less well-known). Some theories turn out to accurately reflect reality once the facts are apparent.

Thumbs up for your conspiracy canary idea.

Maybe "virus of the mind" or "parasite of the mind" works better though. The big C is a bit morbid :)

What you point out is a very interesting aspect of conspiracy theories. The – but loads of people would have to be in on it and not a single one has blabbed – part. Mental.

"The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US $2 billion (about $27 billion in 2016 dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and to produce fissile material, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons."

Just to play devil's advocate, isn't this an example of tens of thousands of people employed in a massive conspiracy?

I believe I've had some success with ridiculizing conspiracy theorists and displaying outrage, but only among people who already respect me as a peer and with whom I've had long and fruitful conversations about other topics before. Also, these people were supposedly trained in critical thinking, which might have helped a bit.

With strangers, this is almost impossible. Most conspiracy theories are designed to be hard to debunk, and people who believe them are unable to distinguish good testimony from bad testimony when direct evidence is not available. You end up fighting about the credentials of experts, and although it's in reality very easy to distinguish real experts from fake experts or real experts with fringe opinions, in the end all testimony will have become somewhat doubtful to the conspiracy theorist after a long discussion, which in turn makes them fall back to their default position rather than at least turning agnostic.

As for conspiracy theories, in my experience almost all genuine conspiracy theories fail with explaining the motives. Like in good detective story, if there is something fishy with the motive or explaining it requires complicated and unsubstantiated background stories, then that's probably because there is something wrong with the explanation in the first place.

In philosophy terms it can be described as leaving the epistemological connection with the real world.

The way we think is by creating mental model of the world around us. This model allows us to separate noise from signal. For instance, your cat jumping on your head, is just cat jumping on your head, you don't take it as your cat is trying to kill you. Now of course, it's not impossible for you to believe that your cat is trying to kill you, but for that, you'd need to believe in a lot of other things, for instance, you must believe cognition and rational ability in your cat. Or at least begin with believing that cat hates you, or that there are humans who have learned to brainwash your cat.

When you drop the epistemic connection with the world, any noise can be signal. I remember once Alex Jones was releasing some 'documents' on his site, but his site kept on going down, so he started claiming that hackers are trying to bring his site down in order to attempt to stop releasing the documents.

Now, anyone who has launched a new server or trying to bring a site up, knows that it can easily be some glitches or noob web developer unable to bring the site up properly, but in the world Alex Jones lives, any noise can be interpreted as signal and any signal can be interpreted into the conspiracy signal.

Since anything which you can believe can be faked, it's not possible for anyone to convince you about anything other than what you already believe.

And how many that didn't?

Terminological remark. Conspiracy theory cannot be falsified, it is an unwarranted belief in conspiracy that cannot be disproved, because all the evidence against it is considered to be a part of the conspiracy.

There were though, historically, falsifiable theories about conspiracies (perhaps best would be to call them "conspiracy hypotheses") and they were shown to be true. These conspiracies reveal some interesting facts that can be used to disprove other theories about conspiracies, for example, how many leakers can an organization of given size expect in a certain period of time. But that's sadly not what the believers in "conspiracy theories" are doing. They are self-indulging in unfalsifiable beliefs.

That's the point. You nailed it.

Many theories are wrong due to lack of knowledge which is substituted with suspicions. That's the reason why conspiracy theorists are ridiculed so often. Some conspiracy theories however are true. If Pulitzer prize winners Woodward and Bernstein hadn't believed in conspiracies Watergate would never had been discovered.

I am amazed that there are actually people right here who stubbornly reject the reality of conspiracies at all. Conspirators want people who don't believe in conspiracies since deceiving such people couldn't be easier.

I would believe him by default, especially if there was a possible credible cause or motive (e.g. your friend is a dissident in some less democratic country). The alarm clock seems harmless, mine has done that in the past due to faulty switches. As for things in the room, I'd advice him or her to use reliable and consistent tests to confirm or disconfirm the hypothesis, for example by making pictures of the apartment, noting the position of objects in the apartment and keeping the notes with you, installing a camera at the entrance, etc.

The East German Stasi did things like that to a few select regime critiques. For example: rearranging or removing towels, replacing freshly bought milk with spoiled one, making medical doctors give you the wrong medication. These incredibly evil practices were called Zersetzungsmaßnahmen and only used on a few hundred to thousands dissidents at maximum.

It can be dangerous, both for the believers and other people. Many terrorists, for instance, are huge believers in various conspiracy theories.

Even if I know this is pretty useless, I feel an urge to speak up if the belief is harmful for the person holding them. If you believe that homeopaty can cure cancer, and that every big pharma is trying to poison you, this can have quite big consequences.

However, if you believe that moon landings are fake or the earth is flat, I have a harder time to find a scenario where it can harm you, so I don't bother.

On a final note, in the 90's I was pretty convinced that Echelon was totally silly, and we know how it turned out. So I tend to be a bit more cautious on what is true or not.

On balance, even if "they" are out to get someone, chances are you're not someone worth getting.

Thank you for that timely link ForRealsies. Scott Adams has brilliantly put into words what has been floating disconnected around my brain since the realities of Brexit and the inauguration of the current POTUS.

I visited the UK for a conference at a university just before the Brexit vote. Practically every "ordinary" person I talked to told me they were going to vote leave. On campus it was a totally different story, like night and day. Now, where the polarisation stems from is a different matter – same as in the States – not being able to see it ahead of time is one thing, but thinking your ideological opposite is stupid/racist/crazy/… after the fact is something else entirely.

For a perfect demonstration of this head over to YouTube. Choose two media outlets that differ in their attitude towards the current POTUS. (There are no shortages on both sides.) Watch the coverage of the Veterans' Bill speech, read the comments. On the pro-side there's "Seems reasonable to me." On the anti-side there's nasty vitriol, ad hominem, and vilification. For the record I am indifferent.

Same applies to UK media outlets and articles about Brexit.

I'm aware my comment hasn't addressed the original article which offers very good advice. I once spent an hour pointlessly debating a Scotsman who turned out to be a Truther (I'd never met one). After reading this article my tactics will definitely change.