Changes in conspiracy beliefs are rare, but possible
bps.org.uk
bps.org.uk
There's still plenty of friction on this slope.
I miss the n-gate guy.
When an idea sounds vaguelly conspirational, it can lose credibility just by association of ideas.
Conspiracy theorists have had a paradoxical chilling effect on whisteblowers, who would have a hard time even using the word "conspiracy" without coming accross as deeply unserious paranoiacs.
If you have a family member stewing in this world, I don't think a framing of health is the right one.
Well, we are in for one hell of a century
With regard to the stability of beliefs, there's a strong element of social reinforcement at work. An incident discussed in the above mentioned book is how a group of prominent 9/11 truthers was invited to meet with various scientific experts who presented the case against the conpiracy, and as a result of the meeting, one (but only one) member of the group did change his mind about 9/11. However, this rejection of the conspiracy by a prominent conspiracist did not cause a crisis of belief among the rest. Rather, they rejected and shunned the mind-changer from the community, despite the fact that he used to be a leader of the community.
There are numerous of cases of financiers, academics, etc. who have been expelled because they have corrected their beliefs in contrary to the groups.
I see a lot of general social dynamics being presented negatively depending on the case: We need inclusion in primary school but celebrate exclusion in other communities (like the conspirators).
I guess the world is just a bunch in incoherent emotional babbling with no hope for a consistent model.
The best thing to do is leave. Once you cross that Rubicon, never think "I can change this system/institution from within". You will die on that hill.
I wish people had better psychological education and preparation to understand what institutions are. Realistic preparation before joining the police, army, government, or academia would help many people avoid so much suffering - and make those institutions "better" by making it easier for differently-thinking individuals to get out and start new movements or institutions.
It's really hard, because sometimes ones whole identity gets wrapped up in that group. Cult leavers often talk about this. Rejecting the ideas is the comparatively easy part. Escaping the people is harder. But hardest of all is escaping the part of yourself that identifies.
Sorry I don't have a better link to this video [0], but it matches my experience, of waking up one day in an in institution I had outgrown, surrounded by tiny-minded, compliant, insecure, mutually hostile, self-deluding people. It takes courage to move on.
People are more likely to believe something if it follows intuitive thinking, is familiar or easily retrievable from memory [1]. Additionally, while efforts to correct beliefs in misinformation can be successful, the continued influence effect means that misinformation and correct information compete for activation, meaning that even after correction, misinformation may still be recalled [1]. It is important to note that debunking misinformation does not work as effectively at the group level [1]. Therefore, understanding social identity theory and intergroup threat theory may also be useful for correcting beliefs at the group level through an improved understanding of the human desire to align with groups to reduce feelings of insecurity [2].
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-021-00006-y
[2] Chapter 7 of this book http://www.philippebourbeau.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/B...
- Gulf of Tonkin incident - Incident justifying Vietnam war did not happen.[1]
- The "Business Coup" plan to get rid of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[2]
- The Lewis Powell memo, the plan that created the business-funded conservative movement.[3]
- The British propaganda campaign to get the US into WWII.[4]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
[3] https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/
[4] https://www.history.com/news/wwii-us-entry-secret-british-ca...
Regardless of truth or falsehood, the accusation of "conspiracy theory" has become a simple shorthand for shaming outliers back into line. After a while we learn to self-censor and regulate our own opinions.
The cognitive dissonance of confronting an outrageous fact causes disbelief. I can think of my own edges, for example Noam Chomsky. He is really hard to take at times.
When I read and watched Chomsky talk about The Trilateral Commission's "Crisis of Democracy" [0], I dismissed him as a nutcase. For years I wouldn't read or watch him.
That there could be a high level international conspiracy to undermine democracy, involving leaders of the US, Britain and Europe - that just seemed crazy. Especially after WW2. I became completely blind to the fact anyone could just download and read the report. I "refused" to click the links.
Years later I read and confirmed the authenticity of it, studied the message and proposals. Somehow this time I was ready to accept it; "Yes, there are prominent traitors to "our way of life" walking around in plain sight and actively conspiring to destroy it."
How could I square this? In China they would be called dissidents, and be shot. Here we call them "leaders of industry". What we have to celebrate is the non-irony that in a tolerant democratic society they are free to openly meet and plot its overthrow. Non-contradiction. And like that... the dissonance evaporated.
Why didn't I just realise that earlier? On reflection I am disappointed in myself for having been so easily trained into blindness. I think of myself as a sceptic, a scientist, an "evidenced based" thinker. But the evidence is that I am just as easily led by emotional bias and social pressure to ignore the truth as anyone else.
Today I think of this internal self-censorship is something one must strive to overcome. It's part of the project of being a rationalist and sceptic. A true sceptic is also a contrarian because one has to overcome the desire to be "liked".
"Conspiracy theory" is simply a pejorative label.
To ask, 'are there conspiracies?' is akin to asking 'do people lie or cheat for personal benefit?' The answer is 'yes, of course!'
The real question, is 'what is the truth?' And therein lies the problem with this research. Just because something is said to true or a lie (aka 'conspiracy theory'), how can one know it to be so? Can media or Wikipedia or anyone be assured to have the truth? Is there a bastion of truth? If 99.999% of people believe something, does that make it true?
The answer is that there is source for truth, and that no one can determine the truth for anyone else. One can only personally verify something to be true. Truth cannot be outsourced to the BBC, NYT, psychologist organisations, science studies, etc. Whether others believe things to be true has nothing to do with the underlying reality - many people can be wrong.
So, this sort of analysis comes with all sorts of illogical nonsense baked in. It assumes that certain institutions and people are truthful, that conspiracies do not occur, that people cannot act on personally verified knowledge rather beliefs, that truth is a numbers game - where what most people believe is also true.
Working with mental health clients for 20 years.
If we all continue to not accept that conspiracy theories are valid we also choose to not accept that those people are valid.
Why is it that over the past few years those with different opinions are now called conspiracy theorists.
It is a very rare experience that I sit down with someone, in fact anyone, and we agree on all subject matter on the table. Just because someone has different views does not make them a conspiracy theorist.
There is always grain of truth in conspiracy theories.
In psychiatric wards over the world there are people who struggle with intrusive paranoid thoughts. Do we dismiss what they think, see and imagine as not being real? It is real to them.
To really understand these poeple you need to step inside their world and you will see that their is a grain of truth in what paranoid people are talking about.
If people feel helpless, that they are not being heard or they have no control over their lives, is it so hard to believe that they will cling on to something/anything that represents how they feel.
The lizard people on the moon who control our way of life on earth is a classic example. There are of course no lizard people living on the moon but I am sure many people feel that there are hidden forces controlling their lives that they have no influence upon.
I think it has a lot to do with the lack of transparency in the world of politics, government and tech. Without knowing the truth the mind will inevitably wander and make up stories.
Isnt this what conspiracy theories are. Stories built on snippets of truth.
* SARS-CoV-2 being a bioweapon
IIUC isn't the lab leak hypothesis still one valid possibility?
* condensation from planes supposedly being harmful ‘chemtrails’
Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too? Note: I was unaware of 'chemtrails' and assumed it was referring 'contrails'
In any case, I don't think I believe in any "conspiracies" of the top of my head but I do believe in graft and I often see things and wonder why.
One example would be going to lunch at a FAANG company and seeing vending machines for cables. The vending machines are about the size of 6 large refrigerators next to each other. They have a large touch screen display. I'm guessing they cost $30k each or more, not including cost to develop them, network them, ongoing maintenance, etc. So, my conspiracy hat says "someone who stood to gain the contract to make them pushed to get them put in or knew someone and offered a kickback because the seem like they cost more than 50 years of the stuff they're dispensing. (happy to be proven wrong)
Another example is kitchen gloves that all food preparers wear now. I see them touch all kinds of things and get the gloves dirtier than my hands would ever be because with my hands I know when they're dirty by how they feel, more than I do than with gloves on. So, is it possible it's a conspiracy by glove manufactures? Of course my hands are not everyone else's hands.
There's the real "conspiracy" on how car companies pushed for freeways and roads. Is that a "conspiracy"? Most people push for laws that help them personally.
I even think it is unhealthy that the word "conspiracy theory" is so negative. Because people do conspire, to all sorts of degrees. People that put their phones in a fridge when they were talking about secrets were once conspiracy theorists. Now they suddenly aren't. Like they were uplifted from a disgraceful state to a better one.
Some level of "conspiracy" thinking is no more than healthy. Although to be fair, the article doesn't suggest it isn't, not directly.
People should keep an open mind, think like a Bayesian. Some things are unlikely (like how nobody would notice a chip in your blood with all those MRI scans every day). Some things aren't (like a drug cancelled that worked but wouldn't make enough money).
Lab leak and intentional bioweapon, one whose patient zero was in China, are totally different.
> Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too?
No, becuase of the "part of a secret government program" part.
There are reasonable hypotheses proximate to these conspiracy theories. There always are. But the claim per se is stupid. Incredibly stupid. They focussed on people who believed the claim as presented, without caveats.
They're mostly water, though they can also contain impurities, e.g. "sulfur compounds (0.05% by weight in jet fuel)" [1].
More to the point: someone suspecting they're trails of pollution isn't unreasonable at first glance. Believing they're a secret government program to put toxic chemicals in the air is stupid. (I'm not ruling out governments poisoning their populations. Just that this particular way of going about it is incredibly stupid and obviously discoverable.)
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/armstrong/nasa-p....
> > IIUC isn't the lab leak hypothesis still one valid possibility?
> Lab leak and intentional bioweapon, one whose patient zero was in China, are totally different.
Any lab working on gain of function research is arguably by definition, working on bio weapons or bio weapon defense. I'm not saying I believe in the lab leak. I'm rather saying that it's not hard for me to believe that if you believe in a lab leak you believe the research that lab is doing is related to bioweapons, even if they weren't building a weapon.
> > Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too?
> No, becuase of the "part of a secret government program" part.
The article didn't mention a "secret governmen program". It just said "condensation from planes supposedly being harmful ‘chemtrails’"
stuff coming out of planes is harmful, full stop. So it's not hard to believe that seeing "condensation from planes supposedly being harmful ‘chemtrails’" is associated with / confused with, the actual harms.
Sure. But that isn't the claim. It's specifically "a biological weapon intentionally created and released by China" (emphasis mine) [1].
> The article didn't mention a "secret governmen program"
The study does. Chemtrails refer to "the trails left behind airplanes are toxic chemicals released as part of a secret government programme."
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-51653-z/tables/2
And, nope, chemtrails are not bad for the environment. It is just the wings which cause cloud formation.
It's more usually the exhaust condensing [1], though pressure changes around the lifting body also contribute to it.
I might soon join the "Back in the days, HN was a better place" crowd, am i that old?
Also, HN was never good.
Not saying that you're definitely wrong.
But machines like that are often put in free of charge to the business owner. The machine operator company puts the machines in at their own cost, and handles stocking and repairs. The business owner gets a cut of the profits for letting them use their floor space.
I haven't seen these particular vending machines. But there are generic machines with touch screens that can dispense anything that will fit in their spaces. I have seen vending machines at airports where you can buy cables, chargers, headphones, etc. The development cost is written off over many thousands of machines.
A machine dispensing cables is easier to operate and maintain than one dispensing frozen microwave dinners.
Now, there is an opportunity cost for the FAANG company, where managers have to spend some of their time setting up and maintaining a deal like this. Too many distractions from core business is not a good thing.
But working with computers, there's always some type of cable or adapter missing. It takes time to find or buy one. So I can see how it'd be nice to always be able to get what you need in-house.
> There's the real "conspiracy" on how car companies pushed for freeways and roads. Is that a "conspiracy"?
I agree. Each individual company would have an obvious interest to push for things like that. No need to secretely meet with others and hatch elaborate plans.
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/practically-a-book-review-r...
That settled it for me at least that it was not a lab leak. Glad to get that debated so well and so solidly
Some people believe in a flat earth, that doesn't mean we pander to them.
The study presented the most extreme interpretation of each of trope. It didn't ask if one believes vaccines can cause harm. It asked if their harm is being "covered up by governments and pharmaceutical companies," and if "COVID-19 'vaccines' contain microchips to monitor and control people." That's chemtrail-calibre nonsense. (Which, of course, they include.)
[0]: https://www.who.int/news-room/commentaries/detail/modes-of-t...
Yes. There is an incredibly motivated political constituency putting tremendous political capital on the table for anyone who can show this.
Secrets hide in banality. The stuff that gets covered up is more usually a chemical or treatment you and I have never heard of, because it's so, so, so fucking boring that even if you had terrible information about it, there is no ready constituency who would care.
I think things tend towards disclosure. We had coverups in the UK of rape gangs operating in northern towns which was eventually came to light after many years. I think if there are significant vaccine harms they will come to light. I don't know that if those harms exist they would have come to light by now.
Oh, I don't think it was intentional. Just a (hypothetical, not confirmed) unintentional side effect.
I know several people who waited for the non-RNA vaccine because they wanted to wait for more data before using new techniques, it isn't a conspiracy theory, just prudence. I disagree but i certainly respect the choice.
Personally, I disagree. No one feels flattered being called a "conspiracy theorist" and I don't really see the need to differentiate, especially if a general audience is being addressed.
Not all such have to be "conspiracies", so the existence of gods or flying spaghetti monsters also don't count.
The perfect "conspiracy theory" is unfalsifiable. They survive by evolution, since lesser (falsifiable) conspiracies get debunked.
Compare that with "Who really shot JFK?". Let's say that tomorrow we read a deathbed confession by the highest ranking CIA or KGB officer, setting out exactly how it all went down. At least half the people would just not believe it. Especially in the age of "deep-fakes". The narrative would just "slip sideways" into "how the whole fake confession was engineered". It's like chasing that last pea around the plate with a fork. The sharper the instrument, the less use it is. With time it's essentially become an unknowable thing.
So that's what a I mean my "perfect conspiracy theory". JFK is a much more perfect "conspiracy" than flat-earth or faked moon landings which have elements of timeless physical evidence.
It’s a bunch of folks who don’t believe but want you to believe that they do believe.
It probably started that way. But I've met people who seriously believe it. Combination of preferring a force that has its hands on the reins, even if in the shadows, to the anarchic reality human civilisation exists in, and longing for a sense of belonging, with the exercise of actually believing the ridiculous almost serving as a pledge of loyalty.
Donald Trump only won the election because of Russian assistance he asked for.
Hunter Biden's laptop was not genuine and was Russian disinformation.
Either you are doing that, or you are larping as a foolish conspiracy theorist because it's rather meta to do in this context, which is against the rules concerning trolling/flamebait.
Either way, please don't, it's rather hard to steelman a position that is so far removed from reality.
There are more than enough subreddits for either purpose, but hn should not be subjected to this.
Re-reading my comment, it was also unnecessarily snarky, which is against the hn guidelines as well. So I am a hypocrite anyway, and would be even if the comment I replied to had actually endorsed those conspiracy theories in contradiction with the guidelines.
I'm not sure about the best practice in this case, do I delete my previous comment, or let it stand as a monument to my shame?
To me it implies that what they are operational using as “conspiracy theory” is nothing more than individual differences in personality. Those who want to study/address/remove “conspiracy theories” really just have a problem with individual differences and want to control others.
> maybe it'll get rid of the problem in a couple decades
YMMV, but compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39084117
(I've been around for more than a couple of decades, most of which I've spent trying to figure people out, and at this point I'm almost ready to give up and write a book on "How I learned to stop worrying and love eating Eloi")
Every power tried to meddle. Russia, Germany, America. Each power has their own cyber army that tries to control media, or influence it.
Conspiracy theories. You do not even know if it is just another disinformation campaign from your government. Maybe it is just another disinformation campaign to add new layers of control disguised as user protection.
Why not make better tools for moderation? Naaah they will always decide to create more oversight boards.
Everyone who wants, should get their booster shot every six months. They should also get RNA vaccine for flu, common cold, herpes and every other illness they desire. I would encourage them to do so! It is their life, and my life will go on.
And arguing about virus origin? Who does that today? It is like arguing about Santa Claus! (it's village must be on the North magnetic pole in Greenland, so it does not sink into ocean...)
I don’t think there is any larger truth in this like the flat earth conspiracy, moon landing conspiracy or many of the others outside ‘people in power are lying to us’ in the general sense. Problem is that conspiracy believers use this to prove their side: people in power lie to us about X, hence they lie about Y (aka they lie about everything).