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Comment by csours | Hacker News Reader

> The conclusion is terrifying in my opinion.

And this is why "conspiracy" theories exist. I prefer to call them Low Information High Satisfaction theories, as I fee that is a more accurate name.

I am do not intend to pass judgement on this commentor or on people who believe in these theories; in fact, I think that if you tell yourself "I am too smart to believe in conspiracy theories", you are making yourself MORE likely to fall into one.

We are truly living in an age of narrative; it's not the first and it won't be the last.

Book recommendation: High Conflict by Amanda Ripley

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> I prefer to call them Low Information High Satisfaction theories

If you called them Low Information Excessive Satisfaction theories instead you'd end up with a much more satisfying acronym! :)

Stories Pushing Imaginary Nonsence

I was about to recommend "Satisfaction High, Information Tenuous"

Ooh, I like that.

However, I think the original thinking behind the term "meme" is probably still the definitive discourse on the subject: in analogy to genes, ideas undergo natural selection for survival/reproduction and the attributes that promote this specific kind of fitness (ease of spread, satisfaction, advantage obtained by spreading) will be selected for in the course of social interaction. Qualities we might like to encourage (accuracy, completeness) will not be selected for except insofar as we can connect them back to the actual selection mechanism.

That said, "meme" really doesn't quite put as sharp of a point on the problem as "LIES."

I like it.

Another tweak: Low Information Extra Satisfying

I was always down with Edgar Allan: “Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see”

But now I think he was vastly over-optimistic.

I’ve heard a different version “believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you read”, variously attributed to Mark Twain, Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Douglas Adams.

I guess that proves their point, whoever they were.

I found it funny that your phrase: Low Information High Satisfaction > L.I.H.S. is a homonym with "lies".

Great phrase btw

> I think that if you tell yourself "I am too smart to believe in conspiracy theories", you are making yourself MORE likely to fall into one.

That's what they want you to think.

This is like saying you're more likely to fall for scams if you think you're too smart to fall for them.

I don't think it works that way.

I wouldn't use the word smart to describe the people (that I know) that fall for scams/conspiracy theories.

Now, you could say that they incorrectly think they're to smart, but then that means how smart you consider yourself isn't relevant, i.e. a not-smart person and a smart person both consider themselves smart.

I think it works exactly that way. It's doubt that protects you. If you think you're too smart to fall for it, then you've now got a blind spot that can be exploited.

Assurance makes you a sucker.

It...does work that. Unfortunately.

Scams rely on two things:

1. Over-confidence. The often (but not always) target the elderly because the elderly have pride that comes with long living. When you think you've seen it all, you think you know it all.

2. Emotional irrationality. The scammer is expert at quickly putting a person in an emotionally agitated state, negating good rational thinking. This is easier to do when pride creates a blind spot to catch someone off guard.

People fall for scams not because they are stupid, but because they are humans which tend to be easy to manipulate by playing our cognitive biased and emotions against us. Scamming is both an art and an industry as a result.

Apart from the fact that conspiracies also do exist. Before serious reporting was done, people would've called you a crackpot for talking about half the things that the CIA got up to under Allen Dulles, such as with Operation Gladio, MKUltra, PBSuccess, Propaganda Due, etc., or mass surveillance under the NSA and GCHQ.

It's the same reflex: the desire to apply a simple theory with apparent explanatory power.

Yeah I do agree with that.

I am too smart to believe in conspiracy theories. (And I'm not even particularly smart.)

Not being particularly smart probably gives you a better defense against conspiracy theories; a lot of them rely on pseudoscience and faith in said science, which require some intelligence to comprehend.

Like, I'm too stupid to understand the flat earth science.

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