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LINK Why do many people love conspiracies? Critical Thinking in the Fake News Era 092170 006 A - YouTube

I did wonder about this.

Faced with a deluge of information, where has reason gone? Why do we prefer conspiracies rather than rational explanation? Raphaël Enthoven speaks with Sophie Mazet, a teacher, and Gérald Bronner, a sociologist.

Naomi 8 Apr 23
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2

I tend to be skeptical of conspiracy theories, but I do agree with one of the posts here that stated "people do conspire". That in itself is caused for concern, but what I find far more troubling is the number of powerful people who, in a heartbeat, will take advantage of a crisis in order to further their own agenda. You don't have to look hard to see it happening right now. Sometimes I worry we spend too much time looking for conspiracies in all the little nooks and crannies, while the greater threat is in plain sight.

2

The acme of "conspiracy theory" is the flat earther theory that the spherical earth is a hoax, but this of course is a classic double bluff by the poker playing lizard people to discredit conspiracy theories generally leaving the great Globalist Babylonian One World Dictatorship safe from the incisive investigations of the IDW intellectuals.

1

People who lack critical thinking skills and subsist on a diet of misinformation and propaganda are vulnerable to manipulation. To swallowing nonsense hook, line and sinker. Vulnerable to being manipulated into believing almost anything.

This is relevant. And will go down like a lead balloon on this forum.

0

I can't do sub-titles for more than a few minutes (I got to about seven something where one of them called the Notre Dame fire an attack). What were a few of the ideas from the video that you thought were most interesting?

There is a lot in the video. I'll have to watch it more than once. And yes, subtitles are annoying. You don't have to turn the sound on. You can pause now and then to read subtitles.
The video is about the lack of rationality and reasoning. Like you describe, "real" conspiracy theorists would even spend their lifetime formulating their theories. But nowadays, so much information is available to everybody that the expansion of knowledge has become the expansion of credulity - ironically. For example, one questions the official version of an event (e.g., what the government tells them), and may form a conspiracy theory on what is really going on. Then, they go on the Internet and find the information that "suits" their theory. It takes only 10 minutes to settle with the knowledge they like. In this case, a conspiracy theory is merely dictated by a personal opinion. It is just a comparable option. Yet, it is hard to argue against because of "credulity". I might call it lazy thinking with a lack of reasoning and evidence. The person who came up with the conspiracy theory firmly believes that it is the truth, at the emotional level rather than at the rational level, so there is no room for rational discussion. They show some examples in the video, and there is much more! That is why I thought your SJW example was good.

@Naomi, I finally got through it and I understand where we're at odds. Their whole conversation was more about susceptibility to conspiracy theories rather than about theorists themselves. Their touching on the old school theorists is in contrast to the major topic of distrust leading to searches for alternative "truths," and how the distrust itself leads to a willingness to latch onto any tightly woven theory that will fit readily into ones worldview. Is that close to how you took it?

Yes, govols. While we have access to so much information, we lack critical thinking and we have become (well some of us have become) credulous, i.e., the expansion of knowledge has become the expansion of credulity. Isn't it paradoxical? The video implies that many of us stopped thinking freely, and most importantly critically, and are happy to settle with what we're comfortable with rather than seeking truth.

You might be interested in reading this article:
[theguardian.com]

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

0

I think the following is relevant to this Topic:

1

I'm a huge fan of conspiracy theories because I'm certain that no official story is a complete truth. SOMEBODY has to scratch the scabs that cover the gaps.

No official story is a complete truth doesn't mean that conspiracy theories are more true than official stories. Neither can be an alternative to the other.

@Naomi, the conspiracy theorist reveals the holes in the official narrative. It's the archaeologist digging around into stories for which some or most of the information is intentionally withheld from all but, and sometimes even including, the story tellers. The theorist is just digging and inspecting details that can be found for new ways to connect details to events. The theorist doesn't know the truth, but only that the official narrative is bullshit. It the followers of the theorists who think they have a truth in their hands because all they see is the just so story.

Just for fun, let's compare it to the Greatest Story Ever Told: The White Male Patriarchy, or How Post Modern Neo-Marxists reinvented Western Civilization. The theorists over the past hundred fifty years weren't originally actively doing conspiracy theory, but trying to come up with novel methods for exploring history, or language, or texts because they thought that the content we have in our heads is the one we're given rather than the reality of things as we've come through reason to understand them. The modern SJW is the emergent phenomenon rather than the purpose of the theorists. They're the true believers who could never have built the foundational methods, but can only spout out the latest version of the various projects' current narratives.

Maybe that makes some sense...

@govols You mention SJWs. That's what conspiracy theorists are like nowadays, no?
As @ScottforKing puts it, "an individual starts with a theory and then collects only the evidence that supports their theory; anyone who questions their proof is dismissed as stupid or a denier or racist or whatever." YouTubers/vloggers/bloggers do this all the time and they (and their thousands of fans) spread their conspiracy theories all the time. If there is a genuine definition of conspiracy theory, even that has been lost, I think.

@Naomi

Damn. I failed. Try again.

The theorist has no choice but to be doubtfully open to new information. The starting point for the theorist is that everything I think I know is given to me from outside, by a culture with its own motivations...and it's incomplete at best. The theorists puts his ideas AND data out for peer review, and continues to revise and fill out the theory based on feedback form other theorists. The true believers buy into the the narrative because the data has been presented as a just so story and all of the pieces fit together. They "have their theory, and eat it too." They are the one who advocate and become unreasonably closed to non-supportive information or feed-back. The theorists themselves are NOT the ones with their hair on fire, shouting out their truths. The theorists are the ones who receive criticism, resolve it back into the narrative, and recast the new narrative out to the other theorists for further review. SJWs aren't theorists; they're evangelists for the latest version of the theory.

@govols Unfortunately those who fall into the trap of a conspiracy theory is that they are always looking for a conspiracy and then evidence to support it. If one see a flaw in an argument challenge it by all means. Not everyone has evil intent, sometimes they are just too lazy to think about what they are saying and end up saying stupid things too often.

@ScottforKing

Okay, maybe I get it. If I have a map of the world that assumes the secret global cabal, whether lead by Soros or Koch, or both, I'm also going to assume that most all aspects of official narrative are included into some conspiracy or another...and I can find in short order on the web to verify my bias. About right?

@govols Yeah, kinda sorta. If you only criticize without any suggestions on how to improve, then you are doing nothing but whining. - Theadore Rosevelt - And if I might add, looking for a conspiracy.

1

The obvious problem with a conspiracy theory is that the individual starts with the theory and then collects only the evidence that supports their theory. Anyone who questions their proof is dismissed as stupid or a denier or racist or whatever.

Hello. It is assumed somehow that we all like conspiracy theories - well I don't.
You're so right when you say that "an individual starts with a theory and then collects only the evidence that supports their theory; anyone who questions their proof is dismissed as stupid or a denier or racist or whatever."
Some people, if not many, are too quick to make assumptions and pass judgement IMO.

@Naomi People make assumptions because it's easier than thinking. Thinking is the hardest work there is, if it were easy everyone would do it.

@ScottforKing I guess we all prefer to stay in our comfort zone rather than being exposed to uncomfortable truth.

@Naomi Yes and take the path of least resistance, not read books or think. Ignorance is a prison not bliss.

1

Any thoughts? @waynus, @Crikey, @SupraLibrix , @N0DD. @govols, @
AndrewInVail, @RobBlair, @Kravman2, and anyone I forgot to mention.
Only if you're interested. 🙂

None. This is an American thing.

As an Australian I do not even bother with this stuff.

Zero interest, it is fiction.

2

People conspire.
It's what they do. To deny it is irrational.

Some believe that "conspiracy theorists" are just willfully dismissing facts that don't fit their preconceptions, while... those conspiracy theorists themselves seem to believe just as strongly that, that is exactly what the deniers are doing.
And they're both right.

You don't have the whole story.
It doesn't matter what the topic is... you don't have the whole story. To pretend that you do, is to delude yourself into a bubble that you find comfortable, and therefore believable.
Most of us have a huge problem differentiating what we think from what we know.
What we actually know is an abysmally tiny portion of what we tend to think we know.

Consider flat-Earthers.
They contend that the earth is flat, and that there is a conspiracy afoot to get you to believe that it's round.
"But the earth is round...", you say.
OK... but you haven't addressed the conspiracy claim at all.
The likelihood that the one claim is incorrect, doesn't imply that the conspiracy is not real.
It took a couple centuries to actually prove the philosophical theory that the earth was not flat.
So... why the concerted effort for 200 years or so, to push an idea for which there was no empirical proof? Even against the tide of active, coordinated suppression from "Big Catholicism" who had their own truth to sustain; which is, itself, another conspiracy theory that simply reflects what actually happened.
As far as I know... 😉
Was it to undermine the theocratic notion that earth-and-man were the center of the universe, and thereby undermine confidence in the Church itself? If so, then doesn't that motivation still exist, despite the fact that the theory was ultimately accepted as scientific fact; perhaps even to the surprise of the "round-Earthers" themselves?
And, if so, then in what other ways is that motivation influencing the zeitgeist; either corrupting or enlightening it with no sincere regard for which it is, as long as the "right" message is promulgated?
We'll never know if we refuse to examine the question.
Which just might be the whole point of dismissing it with ridicule, rather than reason. 😮

Hello. I think that people latch onto conspiracy theories when they reach the tipping point of distrust, say distrust of the current government, and when there is an alternative to what the government says, they would rather believe that alternative.

The word "credulity" is used in the video, and as @Josf-Kelley found, its definition as follows:

Noun: credulity
A tendency to be too ready to believe that something is real or true.

Like you say, when we don't know the whole story, especially, the whole story we don't believe, an alternative (conspiracy theory if you want to call that) becomes the whole story and we are too ready to believe it regardless of whether this "alternative" is true or not.

Hi @Naomi, yes I think crédulité basically means gullibility.

"Trusting" a source, any source, is crédulité.
...and it always has been. That has nothing to do with the internet.
People used to trust Walter Cronkite implicitly. Monday morning around the water cooler, if you didn't parrot whatever Walter said, then you just weren't "informed."
Cronkite and the 3 or 4 topics they chose, and how they chose to present them that night... was the Truth.
Just try, for a moment, to imagine the unfathomable power that afforded the CBS Evening News, and how irresistable a target for corruption.

These guys make the assertion that an expansion of knowledge is also an expansion of credulity; but I don't think so.
Theirs simply seems an arrogant, elitist reaction to the democratization of information, into the hands of rubes who couldn't possibly know what to do with that information like they do; sophisticates that they are.
First, they're talking about an expansion of access to information, not knowledge... two different things.
We've made great strides in gathering, storing, retrieving and presenting information.
We've made no strides in synthesizing that information into knowledge. In fact, we've probably regressed in that regard.
We still just want to know what channel to turn to for "the truth."

That dynamic of credibility-by-authority endures, but it's been dispersed into different factions; and that's a good thing. And the internet has dispersed and diluted that corruptability even further.
Control-freaks hate that, and are doing everything they can think of to re-establish their monopoly on "trusted" information.
This video is fantastic propaganda toward that end.

What you can trust, is that people will act according to the incentives before them. That is predictable, and infallable, insofar as you understand those incentives.
People, especially public figures or entities, are rarely... if ever, incentivized to openly, honestly and publicly discuss their activities and the motivations behind them, nor to present everything they think they know and how they know it; nor what they think about the implications, outside the "official" or acceptable position.
And they have plenty of incentive not to.

Every conspiracy theory, it seems, begins with the observation that "there's something they're not telling us."
And, since that claim is invariably correct; starts immediately out the gate with some degree of credibility.

But, accepting someone else's conclusion as "knowledge" is no different, and no less gullible, than it's ever been.
Whether from an "official" government agency, from a guy in a lab coat or a Shaman's robe, from a textbook, or from the internet; doesn't matter. You just have more options to choose from now, that's all.
And that's a good thing. -Cheers

1

I tried to listen to the program, but it is already obvious that these people prefer to ignore the factor of fraud.

A. Expansion of Knowledge (democratized)
B. Expansion of creduility or nonsense ("side effect" of "democratization"?)

Interestingly (National Interest?):

I found a definition for "credulity":

noun: credulity
a tendency to be too ready to believe that something is real or true.
"moneylenders prey upon their credulity and inexperience"

A.K.A. Treasonous Central Banking Fraud (a known fact of conspiracy proven the lawful way)

"Plaintiff admitted that it, in combination with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, which are for all practical purposes, because of there interlocking activity and practices, and both being Banking Institutions Incorporated under the Laws of the United States, are in the Law to be treated as one and the same Bank, did create the entire 14,000.00 in money or credit upon its own books by bookkeeping entry. That this was the Consideration used to support the Note dated May 8, 1964 and the Mortgage of the same date. The money and credit first came into existence when they created it. Mr. Morgan admitted that no United States Law or Statute existed which gave him the right to do this. A lawful consideration must exist and be tendered to support the Note. See Anheuser-Bush Brewing co. V. Emma Mason, 44 Minn. 318. The Jury found there was no lawful consideration and I agree. Only God can create something of value out of nothing."
STATE OF MINNESOTA
COUNTY OF SCOTT
First National Bank of Montgomery, Plaintiff
vs
Jerome Daly, Defendant.
December 9, 1968

Noun: credulity
a tendency to be too ready to believe that something is real or true.
"moneylenders prey upon their credulity and inexperience"

Oxford University Press

When you reach the tipping point of distrust, say distrust of the current government, and there is an alternative to what the government tells you, you will be more than happy to believe the alternative.
I think I can understand that psychology.

@Naomi

Centralization of power, or cartelization, of any cooperative effort of any number of people incorporated into the same endeavor (religion, science, medicine, law (a.k.a. government), art, sport, manufacturing, or markets of any kind), by the fact that it happens, transfers the power to decide from many individuals to a few individuals.

That transfer can be natural, as in a natural ability to make better decisions concerning specific conditions demanding better decisions within any market, and those less able to make better decisions naturally follow those who are better at making better decisions, BUT the decision to follow is made by all the individuals who make that decision on their own authority to do so, and those who choose not to follow are free in liberty to make that decision which may be a better decision in fact, for that individual, or it may not be a better decision for that individual in fact.

We can speak about that if that is the decision you make.

What about fraud?

People who are MADE to follow a path despite their own power to decide for themselves are - by that fact - not empowered to make a decision in that case. That is not the same thing as a naturally occurring transfer of the power to decide a better course of action from the many to the few.

We are on the edge of a cross in the road for the corporation of humankind, where every single individual is a member of this incorporated body due to the fact that we are all on this one planet like it or not. We don't have to go to an official building and sit in an official chair, and sign an official document in blood, and declare a blood oath, and pass an official test, to be incorporated into the body of humankind, being born and surviving is the cost of membership. We the people on earth can collectively succumb to blind obedience to falsehood without question, and suffer all the consequences that will occur down that path if we choose, or fail to choose otherwise.

The "virus" fraud (treasonous) has already played out in at least 2 previous cases world-wide:

  1. Polio
  2. AIDS/HIV

Those constitute serial murder (mass murder) perpetrated by specific people for profit: power transfer from victims to criminals.

The same script is in play today, right now, as people are led to wear masks, and abide by social distancing ORDERS, and other people are not so stupid and servile.

There is no evidence (none I can find yet) of a specific micro-organism accountable as the cause of a so-called "Virus."

That is as it was in Polio (arsenic/lead pesticide) and AIDS/HIV (a laundry list of documented causes) where those responsible for those mass murders made a killing on that treasonous fraud, gaining near-absolute power, certainly the power to keep on murdering with impunity as confirmed as a fact by the number of people today wearing masks, social distancing, and other ORDERS enforced by the single Monopoly Power or Cartel.

One could test and find the actual cause of whatever sickness is causing whichever death anywhere, anytime, or fail to do so, because there is an ORDER not to do so, and that ORDER is effectively enforced.

One could follow the money, find the mass murderers from the leadership on down to the corporate drones, if one wanted to, or fail to do so once again because there is an effective ORDER to not find those mass murderers by following the trail of bodies from the murder scene, following each step back to the cause, and the source, and the motive (cui bono) as the power transfers to the single source.

The information is the link misses a vital point, and why do you think that is?

Fraud, in this case, is obvious to me.

Cause of action: a dead person.
Critical thinking: what exactly caused that death?

That is an obvious step, and those who don't follow that obvious step belong in a group of people knowable as those who don't follow that critical thinking step.

Case in point, a play-acting discussion between imaginary people:

A says:
"Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered by people in the government, it was a conspiracy."

B says:
"You are a conspiracy theorist. You found that on the Internet. It was just another Conspiracy Theory. It is a consequence of ubiquitous interconnectivity. All that information now available to anyone and everyone is bound to include Conspiracy Theories, Flat Earthers, people who put on tin foil hats. You are one of them, clearly."

A says:
"I read the trial transcripts on-line. I wanting to know if people claiming to be the government are actually capable of murdering people for speaking against such things as War of Aggression for Profit (the crime the Nazis were convicted and hung by the neck) such as the Vietnam Aggressive War for Profit. You know, mass murderers for profit murdering massively in another country on the other side of the world, and then those mass murderers murder someone at home who dares to NOT follow ORDERS to keep their mouth shut. You know, critical thinking about matters that affect our temporal salvation, like the Patrick Henry meme from 1775. You know, surely you know, that time when the British were perpetrating War of Aggression for Profit, rioting in the blood of the innocent in America. Don't you know?"

"Here, in case you forgot:

"MR. PRESIDENT: It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the house? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation -- the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer.
Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned -- we have remonstrated -- we have supplicated -- we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free -- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending -- if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight! -- I repeat it, sir, we must fight!! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak -- unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable and let it come!! I repeat it, sir, let it come!!!
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! -- I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

B says:
"Here you go, your tinfoil hat."

A says:

"Too much cost associated with critical thinking?"

From the Transcripts of the Martin Luther King Jr. Conspiracy Murder Trial in 1999, where the jury (the country: common law process) finds the "government" guilty of conspiracy murder:

"Q. Let me ask you finally -- this has
been a long road -- how you regard -- what is
your explanation for the fact that there has
been such little national media coverage of
these -- of this trial and this evidence and
this event here in this Memphis courtroom,
which is the first trial ever to be able to
produce evidence on this assassination --
what has happened here that Mighty Wurlitzer
is not sounding but is in fact totally
silent -- almost totally silent?

A. Oh, but -- as we know, silence can be
deafening. Disinformation is not only
getting certain things to appear in print,
it's also getting certain things not to
appear in print. I mean, the first -- the
first thing I would say as a way of
explanation is the incredibly powerful effect
of disinformation over a long period of time
that I mentioned before. For 30 years the
official line has been that James Earl Ray
killed Martin Luther King and he did it all
by himself. That's 30 years, not -- nothing
like the short period when the line was that
the Cubans raped the Angolan women. But for
30 years it's James Earl Ray killed Dr. King,
did it all by himself.

And when that is imprinted in the
minds of the general public for 30 years, if
somebody stood up and confessed and said: I
did it. Ray didn't do it, I did it. Here's
a movie. Here's a video showing me do it. 99
percent of the people wouldn't believe him
because it just -- it just wouldn't click in
the mind. It would just go right to -- it
couldn't be. It's just a powerful
psychological effect over 30 years of
disinformation that's been imprinted on the
brains of the -- the public. Something to
the country couldn't -- couldn't be."

Fraud is a factor.

"But let us not forget that violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood. Between them lies the most intimate, the deepest of natural bonds. Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence. Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE. At its birth violence acts openly and even with pride. But no sooner does it become strong, firmly established, than it senses the rarefaction of the air around it and it cannot continue to exist without descending into a fog of lies, clothing them in sweet talk. It does not always, not necessarily, openly throttle the throat, more often it demands from its subjects only an oath of allegiance to falsehood, only complicity in falsehood."
Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture, 1970

1

I think mass conditioning (Mass Media: Fake News) explains a lot of the comments and the data (message in the above link) having to do with 2 natural phenomenons known as:

  1. Criminals organize into criminal gangs (they conspire to harm innocent people on purpose)

  2. Victims prefer not to be harmed by criminals, not the "Lone Gunman," nor the Mob, and certainly not Criminals claiming to be the government: see Declaration of Independence, Solemn Notice of Mixed War, Notice of Liability.

To target a collective group of unnamed people as "conspiracy theorists" is a tactic used by "Lone Gunman" and the Mob, and Criminals claiming to be the government: a fact that matters.

A form of censorship is achieved by mislabeling anyone who may have any inculpatory evidence that could prove facts that matter in a criminal case: and that may be news to some, but it is not a new phenomenon.

2

Of course not all conspiracy theories are fake.
Governments world wide are actively covering up their mistakes.
Big businesses are colluding in many cases.
We are being lied to.
There are stuff we do not know or understand which will upset us greatly when we finally do.

So you only need a few of the conspiracy theories to be actually true and the believe in many more fake ones are justified.

And then conspiracy theories make us feel like we are “in the know”... it gives meaning to our small and mostly unimportant lives.
We all love a good conspiracy theory.

I think it's what happens when you reach the tipping point of distrust.

@Naomi You nailed it.

Instead of the phrase "conspiracy theory", think of it this way:

"theory about why something happened"

Some are better than others, each allows the person who holds them to believe they understand their world.

look at theories (no matter what you think about their veracity in detail) as signals of what is good or bad, NOT what is perfectly true.

the 2 roots of thought are trust in a higher power and self, or trust in the group and others to survive because only through group trust can we progress.

That's it.

Every other thought is a subset of one of those roots.

@Naomi trace each theory and it tells you who you should trust.

Just because it's labelled a conspiracy theory doesn't mean that the labeller has your interest at heart.

Who can you trust in the end, after all?

That's a hard thing to consider riding a spinning rock through the void.

Ultimately, individually we need to ACT like there is more to this life if we want to trust others.

4

It appears alot of folks are content to dwell within their own little worlds and surround themselves with views that make them comfortable, with little to no regard for reality or what science has to say.

Everyone does that. I have suspicion we evolved to do that as a coping mechanism.
Hence religion in all its forms were created numerous times in all locations.
Hence we prefer to only watch Fox or only CNN.
Some are worse than others, but we all do it.

Spreading ungrounded conspiracy theories irresponsibly is an another matter, I guess.

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