Why People Fall for Conspiracy Theories
fivethirtyeight.com
fivethirtyeight.com
The problem is that people tend to dig in like ticks when presented with facts contrary to their closely held conspiracy theories.
They move the goal posts and re-interpret/mis-interpret statements over and over to keep their faulty beliefs.
It's so frustrating to deal with as to make it not even worth it.
Facts require three things:
- observation (the temperature is 15°C),
- omission (the temp outside my home, omitting the rest of the universe), and
- trust (my thermometer is probably working).
Almost all disagreement about Facts is really about what we’re omitting & what we trust, not the observation.
Truthers didn’t just wake up one day - they moved onto something else.
"Social intuitionism proposes four main claims about moral positions, namely that they are (1) primarily intuitive ("intuitions come first"), (2) rationalized, justified, or otherwise explained after the fact, (3) taken mainly to influence other people, and are (4) often influenced and sometimes changed by discussing such positions with others."
She's never been good with schedules and doesn't know how to send an email-attachment, but she's not dumb. She's just your stereotypical aging baby boomer who's just retired. Despite her own concerns of mental disease as she ages... I haven't witnessed anything of the sort (Dementia and delusions run on my Dad's side of the family, not my mother's side).
Have you ever tried to talk a parent out of such a conspiracy theory? Because I have. Its impossible to convince them that Obama is a Christian, despite photographic evidence or whatever.
Its ultimately just a thing that I accept about my mom. She believes in that conspiracy theory (Obama is a Muslim), and there's nothing I can do to change it.
Its not like my mom pulls the "parent" card out on me either. As far as I can tell, we discussed things as equal adults, but never came to an agreement over that particular factoid. If Obama was appearing in church, its only to keep up with the Presidential expectations to look Christian while in office (at least, in her mind). If he's got a birth certificate from Hawaii, it was doctored. Mainstream Media reporting on Obama's appearances in Church are unreliable and biased. Obama is faking it when he prays in public. Etc. etc.
There's always a response, each one more ludicrous than the last. Its turtles all the way down. They believe in conspiracy theories that support other conspiracy theories in a "stable" footing. Their entire mindset is built around the conspiracy, and its very difficult to budge them from it.
She's surrounded by other people she trusts more than me on this issue. She listens to her pastor, her fellow church members more so than me. (Its just me vs many people. So from a social perspective, I'm coming in on the disadvantage because her ENTIRE church group believes in this crap). My father (her husband) doesn't seem to care about changing her opinion either, much like myself (its definitely not worth the effort). So we give up.
Its a point of stress and ultimately doesn't matter anymore. So why bother correcting it now? Obama is out of office and can't be elected again, and its not like my mom is a Q (or otherwise a "current" conspiracy theorist who is actually dangerous).
She seemed to be a COVID19 denier initially, but when members of her church group started dying, that quickly reversed course on its own. Some conspiracies are harder to keep than others. So the truth comes out when its really important and personal.
Even language makes this difficult. Ask someone to explain natural selection to you, sometime.
So, what we have in many cases are various changes in our society, some of which are truly unintended consequences of some government policy or invention; then, throw in some group that benefits from this change, either unintentionally or because they were able to recognize and seize an opportunity, and that's all you really need for some people to think that "They" were behind the thing, all along.
But I do believe you can mitigate conspiracy thinking by helping the theorist with their underlying problems, whatever those might be. Distract them from their obsession and increase their real-world engagement. Give them back a sense of control over their lives and they can start to rebuild their sense of reasonableness.
A conspiracy theory gives people some control over their lives in that it explains chaos or random events, and puts people in charge of things. or maybe it's an answer for meaning in the world.
It's comforting for many to think a world government is pulling the strings for some reason. It's more scary to realise that no one has control and things happen at random, meaninglessly.
1. A feeling of control, e.g. "Now that I know the truth, people won't manipulate me with their lies!"
and
2. A feeling of superiority, e.g. "I'm smarter than all those sheep who don't see the truth!"
Besides the biases mentioned in the article, these feelings must contribute to people believing conspiracy theories, or so I would think.
Secondly, I find it interesting that you shift the focus of your argument from the idea, to the person...especially considering we aren't talking about any specific theory here. That tells me that it doesn't matter what's actually being discussed, because you've already made up your mind. This is the mental foundation that allows things like discrimination and stereotyping to exist. Do you really not see that? Your cognitive dissonance is so strong, that your mind is tricking itself into actually believing there's something wrong with another person, simply because they discuss an idea you already made up your mind on.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CF5Kh57Aw5L/?hl=en
Clearly I am talking about the upper regions of this pyramid, not simply new/uncomfortable ideas.
> we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
Those quotes are from Edward Bernays, considered to be the father of public relations. He ran many big public relation campaigns in the 20th century. He is responsible for millions of people who say, think and believe that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. He helped to popularize smoking, and promoted the idea that smoking was healthy. He often would form institutions of experts to help promote his campaigns with authority.
Why are we so sure that we know what is a conspiracy theory and what is true?
Why is it so important for everyone to believe the "right thing" as told by authority figures?
Why is it so important to demonize people who believe alternative hypotheses (aka conspiracy theories)?
But wouldn't it be so nice if it were?
We need national Spock day(s), a day where everyone play acts around being hyper logical and deduceful and analytical.
Maybe with practice, people would lean to think more.
A gag/cult holiday designed to change society! Now that's a conspiracy theory worth something.
Ideas should be judged on their merit, not merely dismissed as a conspiracy theory on the basis that the mainstream doesn't (currently) accept them.
Some politicians and leaders use these beliefs to control and influence people.
This is a real thing and it should have a name.
What do you suggest we call this phenomenon if not "conspiracy theory"?
Easy for the media to label something a conspiracy if it doesn't align with their worldview.
Critical thought made it obvious that this was a distinct possibility, even from the early days.
That being said, of course there are conspiracies so radical they're almost certainly untrue. But we should be hesitant to label something a conspiracy outright without compelling counter reasoning.
Lack of evidence does not make a conspiracy
A lab breakout should not be labeled a conspiracy theory, unless you add specific component, like "the lab breakout was organized by the CCP/ a dissident part of the CCP/ Falun Gong". I've seen some figure that said the likehood of a lab escap was 10% compared to zoonose, but other figure on twitter were more like 40/60, so i have no opinion. If the CCP hide a lab breakout, good for them. I don't really care, but its not a conspiracy theory, even if the theory is disproven.
A conspiracy theory is not just "an accident happened and some government is hiding things". The russian missile that shut down the MH17 could have been fired by ukrainians, or by russian mercenaries. One governement is definitely hiding something, but me saying that it was the Ukrainian that did it, even if this is a minority theory deosn't make it a conspiracy theory.
A conspiracy is a theory in which a small group of people or a government either - plan to kill people to take over (take over what? unclear) - is hiding the truth for unclear or bullshit reasons (avoid a panic) - is lying to people for unclear reasons. I might forgot some points, but this is the gist of it.
I don't consider "birthers" conspiracy theorists. I do consider them influencable.
Amazing how using your own brain to think critically to reach your own conclusions is now frowned upon (a.k.a. wrongthink). And it's being done by people who think they're smarter than everyone else, but are actually under control of a much smaller group of people in the social wrung above them.
Nothing going on in the world lately is really about politics, it's all about population control and class warfare. Politics is the vehicle to recruit useful idiots.
"In practice, that might look something like the post below, which was shared in a QAnon Telegram group."
To get context, we need to know which group so we could verify the post for ourselves and also the number of views of the post and the number of members of the group which would reveal how relevant or extensive this theory has spread.
How about the Russian election manipulation? Racism and Sexism being endemic in the tech industry? Those are conspiracies too.
I agree however that that judging quickly is a problem. You are even perceived as slow if you reserve judgement for a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20...
Wikipedia isn't really straight here. At first the story was that people were manipulated. But no message could be found that allegedly influenced voters. Later it was changed they were stirring the pot. Really questionable sources were pulled that later proved to be more than unreliable.
The readiness to believe these plain lies explains the Iraq invasion though...
the linked page is chock full of messages that allegedly influenced voters. Such as:
> Influence operations included recruiting typically unknowing assets who would stage events and spread content from Russian influencers, spreading videos of police abuse and spreading misleading information about how to vote and whom to vote for.[76][46] The attempt to target Black Americans has been compared to the KGB's attempt to foster racial tensions during Operation INFEKTION.[149]
it of course is impossible to prove that a specific voter changed their vote due to a specific message from a disinformation campaign, short of them telling you so. But certainly we are well within the range to "allege" that the enormous amount of propaganda coming from Russia may have influenced voters, it would be ridiculous to claim otherwise.
Laughable. Sure that wasn't voters of democrats? Or general Youtubers?
> The attempt to target Black Americans
I would think people have much more problems with virtue signaling domestic companies than Russians, but there is again no evidence. These are plain conspiracy theories.
> enormous amount of propaganda
It isn't enormous. Propaganda targeting civilians has one property and that is visibility. The more of it, the better. So where is it? I don't believe in ghosts.
This is the conspiracy theory in and of itself, not the other way around. Russia interfering in the election was already being investigated & reported on BEFORE election day.
People were fed up with career politicians and voted out of spite. End of story.
The DNC hacking could have been Russia. I have seen the public evidence and it is inconclusive. An internal source sounds more likely, but there is just no evidence on anything.
Tracking influence due to advertisements is tricky, as it's hard to make a direct 1-to-1 connection being being exposed to a consistent ad campaign and the decision to buy a product at a particular moment. Did I buy a Coca-Cola today because I saw a YouTube ad? Or is more the constant awareness of the Coca-Cola due to a dedicated persistent ad campaign? The exact influence is hard to measure, but nevertheless we can say it must be effective, or why would Coca-Cola spend billions on ads? I bring up this example to try to steer your thinking away from the unrealistic scenario of someone seeing a Facebook ad, and then choosing to vote differently because of it. That idea is obviously ludicrous, and you should rightly scoff at such a proposition. However that is not the scenario that the people arguing against you are stating. They are concerned with a foreign state actor spending so much money and attention to nudge public attention to a few key ideas. The entire advertising industry is proof that such techniques are effective.
The question you should be asking is why the idea that "people are fed up with career politicians" was so prominent in this election. Why did that message resonate with some, but completely bypass others? Note: that Russia spending lots of money on targeted ads doesn't make people's frustrations not real, or manufactured. But why was so many people's attention drawn to this issue?
Is the argument that this strategy is just completely lost on legacy incumbent politicians (because they're tech-illiterate, don't understand ads, whatever), and the "Russians" were able to spend 1/1000th the cash as the DNC on these targeted advertisements and actually effect the outcome? What makes all of this unconvincing to me is we have to act like the only set of political science "experts" in the 2016 election was a Russian troll farm. If that is the case, it's a much more serious point about the viability of American democracy in the 21st century than anything about "the Russians".
The US's own politicians use targeted advertising as well this as well. There is a huge difference between American politicians using advertising techniques to spread their messages and a foreign state actor with a history of hostility to the US doing the same thing. Especially when the primary goal of that foreign state actor was to spread divisiveness, such as by organizing both protests and opposing counter-protests. Rather than pushing for any specific policy.
https://www.businessinsider.com/russians-organized-pro-anti-...
Activities such as this are legitimate threats, and many people are rightly concerned about them.
I don't know what a solution looks like.
Television, newspaper, etc. It was reported that there was suspicion of Russian interference, from multiple outlets, well before election day.
"The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation of Russian interference in July 2016, including a special focus on links between Trump associates and Russian officials and suspected coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government."
Obviously it was all rather silly, AS YOU RIGHTLY POINT OUT. That being said...
> It was an excuse for a embarrassing loss.
It was not an "excuse" the (D) dreamt up for the loss. That's the issue that makes no sense.
- Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
- Clinton lost the 2016 election primarily due to Russian interference.
Now from there, you could take that single statement and try to interpret the impact of the Russian interference two ways:
- The election was so close it was nearly a toss-up, and the Russian interference probably had very little effect on most voters.
- Alternately, because the election was so close, Russian interference would have only had to influence a few people in some key districts, and therefore a very small amount of influence could have had a large outsized effect.
I'm not necessarily vying for either of these arguments, however I am trying to make a point about how both sides of this problem are talking past each other with regards to a pretty simple point.
I'm only half-joking here, but if these Russians were able to undermine the 2016 election's integrity, spending that pittance, either Trump or Biden would have hired these political science geniuses for 2020.
My understand is that their efforts were mainly meant to sow political discord. If you ask me, what they learned is that we don't need their help with that.
Yes, exactly. It was the Same in 2017 in France, they did "interfere", but the goal was not to elect one or the other candidate. probably.
>The Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with the goals of harming the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to U.S. intelligence agencies, the operation—code named Project Lakhta[1]—was ordered directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin.[2]
How is that not straight? I don't understand what you're getting at, other than just ignoring most of that page.
The founding of the federal reserve springs to mind...
There's a couple for you. Search google for more.
What I would be really interested in seeing is some contemporary claims, e.g. what were people claiming about COINTELPRO in 1960? Was it based on evidence? Should we have believed someone based on the information available at the time? Was there a theory that turned out to be true because it was well-founded, or were there dozens of similar equally unfounded theories and one of them turned out to be true by chance?
The failing of conspiracy theorism is not in being wrong, but in having utter conviction of being right without sound rationale.
To learn from these examples, we need to see the theories, not the conspiracies.
None have solid evidence. Will any be proven to be true?
The problem is that we don't all believe the same conspiracy theories. So we spend time lots of time pretending there is some taxonomic difference between good conspiracy theories and bad conspiracy theories.
Then there are vast, globe-spanning conspiracies that involve all of the worst machinations of humanity mashed together and applied to an Other. That is the type of conspiracy theory that is governing the decision making process of a non-trivial amount of the American(and increasingly European) voting public, and that is what the problem being described in the article is.
- 7 WTC collapse
- Jefferey Epstein suicide
- Wuhan virology lab incidentally being in Wuhan doing bat stuff
- Yes, Bush did make up lies about WMDs
- Yes, the entire finance industry ran a scam with securitized mortgages.
- They’ve been cheating in baseball every other decade.
If we go back further:
- Mmmhmm, that whole Gulf of Tonkin thing.
- Watergate
- Someone shot Kennedy
Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? Read the above list. Crazy stuff has been happening for a long time.
The events of the world do have some unexpected turns, but there's a difference between conspiracy theory and something real but unexpected. As mentioned in the article, conspiracy theories are based on little evidence and seeing patterns that aren't there.
It's much better to be suspicious of real events that are unexpected or improbable than to believe in something with little evidence.
Nothing is better conspiracy fodder than ‘the government tried to practice mind control by force feeding people LSD,’ etc - and this is actual declassified government papers. Freaky stuff.