Semi-related: I'm currently interested in how people get into the seemingly closed and endless maze of believing in things that are relatively provably incorrect or at odds with their own interests.
My daughter has recently been diagnosed with an eating disorder, and she cannot get past wanting to lose weight, no matter that she's in hospital due to her heart rate having slowed down to alarming levels. She still wants it to go slower, as a challenge, as a goal, to show how strong she is in fighting her own body's will to live.
It's fucking crazy, but it's her reality. I do not understand how this kind of fantasy gets a foothold. I feel like the power of an idea is woefully underestimated.
Same goes with conspiracy theories. Maybe an idea has to fit like a puzzle piece into a real life scenario as a convenient surface-level explanation for something unpleasant or just unresolved.
I used to think the brain was a logic machine, but I think there are strong elements of it that are coping mechanisms. Cling to a fantasy that makes unpleasant thing less unpleasant. Don't know how that relates to potentially starving oneself to death, but that seems to be entirely on the table for ye olde brain.
Careful what you consider plausible folks!
rdgthree · 16h ago
In my experience, I've found most deeply embedded self-destructive ideas to be rooted in fear.
The brain and body are effectively locked in a paranoid "fight" state - "I know this behavior is unhealthy, but if I don't behave this way, then [insert irrational fear] will happen."
If you can figure out what she is afraid of, you might be able to help her walk back the behaviors from there. But trying to correct the behaviors on their own is very hard. Since the fear is usually irrational, the behaviors may be a relatively rational response to said fear. They may hold the fear itself as table stakes - not understanding that they are afraid of something that isn't real (i.e. I will never find love if I'm not as skinny as the other girls on Instagram).
Again IME - the feeling from inside the self-destructive brain is "I shouldn't be doing this self-destructive behavior, but I don't know another way to achieve X goal, and I absolutely need to achieve X goal." Asking the question "Why do you need so badly to achieve X goal?" is usually a good start to defanging the fear.
BLKNSLVR · 11h ago
Thank you, I will work on getting an answer to that question today!
Not the underlying fear that you mention, but seeing her reaction to being asked (forced) to eat is reminiscent of being asked (forced) to pat a spider.
I'm not sure if visceral, immediate fear maps to an underlying fear or not, but fear seems to play some part at least.
noahjk · 8h ago
Dr. Becky on Andrew Huberman this year said something like:
The first thing you should do when your kid is feeling something is to just say, "I believe you."
Don't tell her that she really is skinny, or that she really is beautiful, or that she's not thinking right. Don't tell her those things because what you're really saying is, "I know you better than you know yourself." That, unintuitively maybe, damages self confidence - where self confidence is really just "believing oneself."
If you plant a seed of doubt that she doesn't know herself and that others know more about her than she does...
(Obviously this is about validating her feelings and not validating self harm, which is nuanced and could probably use some professional direction or deep thought about how to approach this in a way which doesn't encourage deeper affirmation of the self image)
Anyway, I wish you luck. That sounds gut-wrenching and terrible. I hope you and your family can safely pull through on the other side.
justusthane · 17h ago
Wishing your daughter the best. I can’t imagine how devastating it must be to watch your child go through something like that and feeling powerless to help.
xtiansimon · 10h ago
> “I feel like the power of an idea is woefully underestimated.”
You’ve heard of the “meme”? That afterthought of idea by Richard Dawkins? I first learned of it during COVID lockdown. There was a post—somewhere—linking to a post from NASA making a bunch of their publications available for reading. In these was a whole anthology titled Cosmos and Culture. One of the articles is by a professor and writer Susan Blackmore. She wrote an article, something like, What The Pandorans Knew. In it she makes the argument that what we will find, if we explore the cosmos past earth, is most likely not alien civilizations, but the remains of extinct civilizations. She argues that ideas are in fact dangerous and might just be the death of civilization. And with this in mind, we’re more likely to find evidence of the extinct civilizations than live ones.
It’s a radical idea. At least that’s what I thought until people in positions of trust started into their non-scientific medical ideas during COVID.
While I find memes of great interest, don’t expect to find memes beyond a curiosity.
The big problem is, what can you do with memes that you can’t do with the current academic orthodoxy? I think if it like someone espousing on the merits of their favorite programming language, and the main line language users scoff and say they have work to do.
Neither speculative non-fiction, nor meme theory, nor programming languages compare to the matters of health and wellness. This is the crisis of our time.
Humans aren’t rational animals, they are emotional animals. They believe what they want to believe, emotionally. Body Keeps the Score kind of stuff, which focused on acute amygdala hijacking, but should have talked a lot more about continuous amygdala hijacking.
I’m sorry about your daughter I hope she gets better.
esseph · 17h ago
I'm very sorry to hear about your daughter, and I hope.... yeah. I "hope" for you, best way I can explain it. One dad to another.
RandomBacon · 17h ago
It's probably a mixture of A and B, and maybe some C, etc.
I believe a necessary element is that people want to be "better" (eg. ahead, smarter, or etc) than others, whether that's having some sort of "secret" knowledge or just wanting to be a contrarian.
bdangubic · 11h ago
I'm currently interested in how people get into the seemingly closed and endless maze of believing in things that are relatively provably incorrect
in the age of AI/social media/etc. almost nothing is provably incorrect…
BLKNSLVR · 10h ago
I did pause when I wrote that. I'm sure there are such things... I'm sure of it.
(attempting to be self-referential on the topic of beliefs and ideas)
throwaway8333 · 17h ago
I've been through that. Even with a BMI below 18 when you already look like a walking skeleton and can't do more than a minute of physical activity without having to rest, you still continue seeing yourself in the mirror as obese, focusing in on small imperfections and exaggerating them to absurd levels. I really saw myself as fat, even though the weight was far below the normal range. You don't believe what other are saying because the mirror is objective and won't lie to you.
It can be fixed though — the hospital stay after passing out from low glucose levels finally straightened me out, but she really needs to figure this out for herself. Good luck.
BLKNSLVR · 10h ago
Thank you. I recently spoke to someone who used to be an alcoholic and it also took them a somewhat near-death experience to create sufficient internal will power (or realisation) to change their behaviour.
It must come internally.
We keep working on what a wonderful happy life she used to have, hoping that such reminders will eventually seep in to create her own realisation.
Mouvelie · 14h ago
With our societal move away from religion, we lost (what I think is) the useful metaphor of demons to explain some behaviours and frankly, it is my theory that demons and ideas are akin to viruses : they come, take ahold of who they can, thrive where they can, to take everything they can until they can't.
From the short post you shared, your daughter seems, for a lack of better words, possessed by this terrible terrible idea. Sadly, I have no idea (!) why some ideas stick to some whereas other won't attract ideas even close. But yeah, you are right, one should never consider their own thoughts to be absolutely true.
Sorry that you got this lesson is such a hurtful format. Hope your daughter gets better.
BLKNSLVR · 10h ago
Whilst I'm not religious, there's a definite sense that my daughter is 'possessed' by this idea. Not necessarily like demonic possession but almost like a slave to this idea as her master.
She is a chattel to what started as an idea but has grown into an entity to be obeyed.
krapp · 10h ago
>With our societal move away from religion, we lost (what I think is) the useful metaphor of demons to explain some behaviours
What we lost with religion is the belief in literal demons controlling people as an explanation for human behavior. Demons as metaphor is not a religious concept per se, and such metaphors still exist within secular society.
jfengel · 16h ago
I wonder if that was always true.
When I think of "classical" conspiracy theorists, like the JFK assassination or the moon landings, I think of somebody who believes that they have special knowledge that most people do not have. They believe themselves to be a valiant minority struggling against an oppressive force -- one that has gotten to practically everybody except them.
I suspect that conspiracy theories have gone mainstream, and have categorically changed in the process. These beliefs aren't fringe any more. They may not be held by a majority, but they no longer need to seek out obscure chat rooms to share them. They'll be affirmed in the media, by politicians, and by many of their neighbors.
burnt-resistor · 2h ago
> special knowledge that most people do not have.
A signal of likely mental illness or a deliberate simulation of such by an unserious person.
It's unreasonable to reason with unreasonable people. - My late grandfather
intalentive · 17h ago
Here's an idea: treat conspiracy theory as theory, an explanation of a set of facts, rather than as social contagion or pathological disorder. Allow open discussion of all sides of an issue, admit controversial facts, and structure the discussion in such a way that truthfulness and explanatory power rises to the top. I'm picturing some kind of hybrid of Reddit and Wikipedia.
Censorship, ostracism, and certain debunking styles are counterproductive in the sense that they harden the "conspiracy theorist" in his beliefs, confirming that "the establishment" is protecting sacred cows and forbidden knowledge. These approaches are unnecessarily combative and condescending. I think a more open approach is called for.
Sabine Hossenfelder handled "flat earth theory" in a way I found refreshing. She said, "Huh, this is interesting. I appreciate that they aren't afraid to question fundamental assumptions. That is a scientific attitude. But here's why I think they're wrong."
intended · 16h ago
Well, what do we do about people who don't read the article? Even if you tell them what is being discussed, they will interject about their pet theory, and insist on having you discuss their PoV.
Discussion about the topic is now hostage to whoever has the least understanding but the most willingness to interject.
At that point, it wouldn't be surprising to find experts leaving the conversation, to form more specialized groups to discuss the topic.
How would you solve this?
burnt-resistor · 2h ago
We should really be calling it their wild-haired, pet conjecture.
Jensson · 10h ago
Do you think experts are more likely to read the article? In my experience experts are less likely to read these pop articles about their domain, because they are so wrong.
No comments yet
Majromax · 16h ago
> Here's an idea: treat conspiracy theory as theory, an explanation of a set of facts, rather than as social contagion or pathological disorder. Allow open discussion of all sides of an issue, admit controversial facts, and structure the discussion in such a way that truthfulness and explanatory power rises to the top.
That's well worth doing when evaluating the merits of a potential conspiracy theory for yourself. However, it's not evident that this approach will convince people who incorrectly believe conspiracy theories of their errors.
Eponymous conspiracy theories have a built in 'immune system' to reject logical, scientific argumentation, since most if not all refuting facts can be attributed to the untrustworthy or malicious conspiracy itself.
Ultimately, scientific argumentation depends upon all involved parties having a shared understanding of what observed facts are true or false, and if that agreement is not there then otherwise rational parties can still reach different conclusions with no persuasion possible.
> Sabine Hossenfelder handled "flat earth theory" in a way I found refreshing. She said, "Huh, this is interesting. I appreciate that they aren't afraid to question fundamental assumptions. That is a scientific attitude. But here's why I think they're wrong."
Was this approach persuasive to any 'flat earthers', or was it instead interesting to watch as a 'round earther'?
regularjack · 16h ago
If you make outrageous claims for which there is abundant proof of the contrary (e.g. flat earth), it's on you to provide proof, it's not on me to pretend that you're not making outrageous claims.
> Conspiracy belief is a growing issue, thanks to an “expanded marketplace for conspiracy theories” online and on social media platforms, Pennycook said.
Biases that are strengthened by for-profit disinformation business.
Which raises an interesting point: In another time is sociological history, fringe thinking would have had to overcome a much more robust social challenge.
People "on the edge", who might have re-calibrated effectively, have become less likely to self-critique.
potato3732842 · 17h ago
>Which raises an interesting point: In another time is sociological history, fringe thinking would have had to overcome a much more robust social challenge.
In a world of razor thin survive/starve margins there's more incentive to keep things stable on the day to day and if that means we all gotta convince ourselves the king is ordained by god and Saddam did have WMDs (or whatever) then so be it, at least you all get to work the fields in relative harmony and importantly not starve, not having dissent is more important than getting to the truth on any one issue.
As society gets richer we need (in the strict "bottom of the pyramid" sense) social cohesion with those around us less so we're freer to adopt beliefs from wherever even if not shared with those around us.
bokoharambe · 17h ago
I really don't think it's about social media. Conspiracy theories were a big deal on the leadup to the French revolution (look up the Famine Pact and the Great Fear), and there was no social media back then.
The conversation that no one wants to have is that American society is in a similar process of collapse, and conspiratorial thinking is only gaining traction because no one trusts that the state holds the general interest anymore. The real social challenge to overcome is government legitimacy.
If in our time conspiracies are perpetuated because of for-profit incentives, it is only because profit is what our society is structured around at a fundamental level. When the time for collapse has come, it brings itself into being by means of any and all existing institutions.
EDIT: and for the record, it's not about cognitive biases either. No one here has a real historical perspective.
fuzzfactor · 16h ago
I would say lack of awareness or even absolute delusion can thrive without any particular bias.
Sharlin · 14h ago
Yes, but when reading these sorts of news it's a good habit to spend a moment reflecting on one's own potential cognitive blind spots as well.
sxp · 17h ago
Can't this statement be generalized from "conspiracy theorists" to "most people"? E.g, "Religious people unaware their their religion is in the minority"? Unless a person has subjected their belief to rigorous scrutiny and debate, they will probably be unaware about how many people in the world agree or disagree with it.
kemayo · 17h ago
I think the more interesting one is "religious people unaware their religion is in the majority".
Lendal · 17h ago
I don't believe rigorous scrutiny and debate would have this effect at all. Most people would just get defensive and entrench. There has to be another way to reveal reality to them that doesn't result in their entrenchment.
antisthenes · 15h ago
> There has to be another way to reveal reality to them that doesn't result in their entrenchment.
Before you reveal anything to them, make sure you are actually revealing reality and not just your version of the story.
arp242 · 16h ago
There are degrees of things. It's true that many people have some beliefs that are unconventional, irrational, or even radical, but many also realise at least to some level. There are many religious people who will admit they can't prove any of it.
Similarly, in general people tend to overestimate how much people agree with them, but you can overestimate by a little or by a whole lot.
It's my general observation that many conspiracy theorists are far more sure of "the truth" as they see it than the average person. This is also why so many keep banging on about it in any venue, whether appropriate or not.
clickety_clack · 17h ago
I can’t remember where I heard it, maybe a Joe Rogan clip, but he made a good point that believing that there are _no_ conspiracies is also an extreme viewpoint that is obviously wrong, given that some conspiracy theories eventually turned out to be conspiracy facts.
arp242 · 16h ago
I don't think there is anyone who believes there are no conspiracies.
The terms "conspiracy" and "conspiracy theory" have very different meanings. This is essentially just a linguistic sleight of hand, not too different from when creationists say "evolution is just a theory". "Conspiracy theory" is somewhat unfortunate term.
clickety_clack · 15h ago
Isn’t it the “deep state” and “government coverup” type of theories that are conspiracy theories? The flat earth thing is an example of that, where the theory is that “they” (the government or big globe or whoever) are trying to convince you that the world is round when it’s actually flat.
Note that the article we’re discussing specifically mentions “people who believe in conspiracies” in the first line.
arp242 · 15h ago
> Note that the article we’re discussing specifically mentions “people who believe in conspiracies” in the first line.
Which obviously refers to conspiracy theories in this context. Words can have more than one meaning (again: see "theory", among others).
Watergate was a government cover-up. No one denies that happened. Or Iran-Contra, or the Snowden leaks. Or the WMDs in Iraq.
coolhand2120 · 17h ago
Science itself works off of "conspiracy theories" AKA "theories".
Were the challengers of Phlogiston conspiracy theorists? Better yet, Copernicus? Imagine you're a Tolimeic and you've been accurately predicting the positions of the heavenly bodies for almost a THOUSAND years. Your great, great, great, x10 grand fathers did the same thing and it's all perfect math and it has ALWAYS worked, QED. And this "conspiracy theorist" comes along and wants to rock the boat.
This is EXACTLY how scientific revolutions work and it follows that all human progress follows this model.
It's the entrenched Toliemics that are constantly shouting "you're a crazy!". And from first principles: they are wrong.
It's like the boy who cried wolf. The "conspiracy theorists" have won. The people you call crazy have beaten the "consensus" too many times to be written off. And it has always been this way.
And why do we have to add the pejorative "conspiracy". It's not even a pejorative if one examines it. Are we suggesting that humans don't conspire so the theory can't be true? Isn't that a disqualifying ad hominem? Shouldn't that be a red flag for the intentions this line of argument? I get really tired of "conspiracy theory" thrown around as a way to dismiss someone. Just steel man the arguments and I'll decide for myself how crazy it is.
sharkjacobs · 17h ago
The "conspiracy" part of "conspiracy theories" is that other people are deliberately and knowingly concealing the truth for their own ends.
- "The moon landing is faked" : the conspiracy is the media campaign selling this fake lunar landing
- "Princess Diana’s death was not an accident" is a royal assassination coverup
- "Dinosaurs never existed" means an anti-religious conspiracy of scientists and experts pretend Dinosaurs exist as an attempt to discredit the bible
The difference between theories and conspiracy theories is that Copernicus' opponents didn't actually secretly know that his theories were true
roxolotl · 17h ago
Responses like this muddy the waters by trying to equate the reality that understanding changes overtime with what are opinions that are largely unfounded.
There are two big differences between scientific consensus and theory building and conspiracy theories. First the scientific method tests these theories. This approach tests theories and continually responds as new information arrives. Second the theories are useful. Science’s goal is to estimate reality to the point that it is useful.
It is not a disqualifying ad hominem to say “you provide no nor respond to evidence and your theory doesn’t provide a useful testable hypothesis.”
krapp · 17h ago
>This is EXACTLY how scientific revolutions work and it follows that all human progress follows this model.
No, it isn't.
Scientists attempt to disprove their theories using hypothesis and observation, and adjust their models of reality based on what the evidence shows. Conspiracy theorists state their assumptions a proiri and refuse to adjust their models based on evidence to the contrary.
Scientists are the ones saying the Earth is round, conspiracy theorists are saying it's flat. These are not the same.
exe34 · 17h ago
Back on Earth, we get about 1 good theory for every 1000 "conspiracy theories" (in your nomenclature).
Yes they laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the clown.
ks2048 · 17h ago
Of course it all hinges on what one considers a "conspiracy", but from my view the of the word, NO the conspiracy theorists have not won - the earth is not flat, the moon landing was real, aliens and reptile-man hybrids are not running the show.
redavni · 17h ago
The dichotomy of conspiracy theory / not conspiracy theory is semantic poison. This entire article is reinforcement. Do you see it?
Are you the kind of person who believes convincing sounding research from an Ivy League school posted on social media and wikipedia articles? Is your epistemology based in socialmediaism?
intended · 17h ago
Do you know that we've seen a difference in how information cascades through conspiracist networks vs science oriented ones?
If you want a better differentiation, is computer science the same as magic? Is there no difference between the skills someone develops as a professional and expert in their field, and the lay person? Everyone has the same level of ability and willingness to understand a subject?
For example, did you read the article before commenting?
redavni · 11h ago
Conspiratorial networks? I'm not wasting my time reading research which is probably entirely intentionally incorrect conspiracy theories that people believe. Might was well have done research into whether people believe Gone With The Wind was actual history. Reading the research is not necessary because of the framing. The framing makes the research useless for truth seeking.
The idea here is exactly what you say, belief in authority because science people spend time on it. Essentially this is science as religion. Which was exactly my point.
labrador · 17h ago
If I was wealthy conspiracy theorist I might even build an AI molded after my beliefs and call it the "source of truth"
PaulHoule · 17h ago
Love the use of ‘false conspiracy’ which has been an increasingly popular phrase in conspiracism research.
js8 · 17h ago
Right. I think a "conspiracy theory" is more than just a theory about some conspiracy. I think an important attribute of conspiracy theories is that they are unfalsifiable. Any piece of evidence or witness against them is either labeled to be in the conspiracy or being fooled by it.
Conspiracy theories are thus logically self-consistent theories, which effectively exclude all evidence against them as invalid. Therefore, it's impossible to counter them rationalistically, they can only be countered empirically.
bell-cot · 17h ago
IIR, it was the Bavarian Illuminati who first used that phrase - as part of a double-false-flag op (run through their Society For Truth, before they lost control of that front org to the Invisible Emperor's Legion of Elba).
/s?
disambiguation · 12h ago
The paper linked in the article is paywalled, but after a bit of sleuthing I found a full access pre-print (I assume hosted legitimately)
The section on measuring over-confidence is interesting, specifically how they address the shortcoming of self-reporting confidence (if you're bad at the task in the first place, you're also going to be bad at estimating your performance, where the act of estimating resembles the task itself).
Another fun activity is to visit the appendix (p. 47) which lists all of the True and False Conspiracies used in their assessment.
theyknowitsxmas · 15h ago
Giordano Bruno wasn’t killed for no reason.
xhkkffbf · 17h ago
But why does it matter if you're on the fringe or not? Galileo was on the fringe, but he ended up wrong. Hitler was very popular and not a fringe person after he assumed power. Yet, he was pretty wrong.
Somehow I bet Kate Blackwood is certain that she's not on the fringe. She probably also thinks she's on the side of righteous change and history, something that already suggests she's not in the center of popular thought.
I'm sure she also feels that people who disagree with her are on the fringe.
Hasz · 17h ago
Unfortunately, dismissing ideas based on who supports them is pretty common and used by people who are unwilling or unable to discuss the ideas directly. This is mostly used incompetently, but occasionally used maliciously.
I think I see this most commonly in politics, where if <obviously bad> person supports an idea, then that idea must be also bad.
> This is mostly used incompetently, but occasionally used maliciously.
It can also just be a good heuristic. If a person or group/org with a reputation for dishonesty tells you an "idea", it's reasonable to throw shade.
> I think I see this most commonly in politics, where if <obviously bad> person supports an idea, then that idea must be also bad.
The conclusion is not always this direct, but it is completely reasonable to question ~why~ the obviously bad person holds that idea. What do they gain from pushing the agenda? Some people are so intellectually dishonest that everything they say is suspect.
msluyter · 17h ago
Is anyone arguing "all fringe ideas must be false" or, conversely, "widely accepted ideas are true?" That's basically just argumentum ad populum, and I don't think that's the argument of the paper. Rather, it's that those with fringe ideas tend to be over-confident in their beliefs.
IME, a scientific/empirical mindset tends to lead one to a state of epistemological modesty, in which few things are unassailably true, and beliefs are provisional until disproven. One crucial feature of that mindset is the notion of falsifiability. Knowing if/how ideas may be falsified helps one avoid leaping down conspiracy rabbit holes. <- (A likely unfalsifiable statement!)
intended · 17h ago
I mean, your comment is a good example of why everyone ISNT Galileo. The moment you read the article, the first thing that stands out is the similiarity with dunning-kreuger, not a defense of the tortured soiltary genius, whose time has not come.
potato3732842 · 17h ago
Remember back when libertarians had bumper stickers that said things like "married gay couple should be able to defend their weed with machine guns"?
Back in ye olden days if you said that someone was a conspiracy theorist it was a boolean that meant that they believed that literal conspiring was happening and now "conspiracy theorist" this whole diverse spectrum that people who believe various things are not exactly as portrayed exist on.
Oh how the goalposts of fringe have shifted over time.
Never mind how it shifts simply based on who you're asking. I'm sure there's beliefs that are fringe among the Cornell faculty who did this research that are wholly uncontroversial over in the maintenance department.
coolspot · 17h ago
NSA spying on most of the internet traffic was a crazy conspiracy theory before Snowden.
griffzhowl · 17h ago
Not if you believed Bill Binney, who was the technical director responsible for designing the surveillance programs, but blew the whistle when they were set on US citizens after 9/11
It really wasn't. No one knew the exact extent and no one really knew anything for sure, but belief about this was fairly common in the early 2000s (esp. after 9/11) and even 90s. But again, we didn't know for sure.
You're being down voted because some people actually were aware of the extent of the data the NSA was hoovering up and wouldn't have thought of it as a crazy conspiracy theory. Your average Joe on the street though would have thought this was crazy until Snowden made the extent of it known to a far wider audience, so I agree with your point.
krapp · 17h ago
NSA mass surveillance was literally a gag in the Simpsons movie years before Edward Snowden.
dboreham · 17h ago
Um no. I've sat in numerous meetings through the 1990s where the discussion went like "so should we do X thing to make our system more secure?" "nah, the only relevant attacker is the NSA and we're never going to keep them out regardless".
cubefox · 17h ago
Some have also argued that the academic theory of "systemic racism" (as opposed to conventional racism) is a conspiracy theory. It's an invisible force that can be postulated to explain any form of discrepancy. "Group X performs worse than group Y? Must be due to systemic racism!" Basically the opposite of alleged Jewish "nepotism". Unlike racism, systemic racism cannot be observed directly, and its existence is only inferred from its hypothetical effect: group disparities.
Sohcahtoa82 · 17h ago
Systemic racism is real. Obviously, it's not going to written into laws, and the people engaging in it probably don't think they're doing it, but all it takes is looking at statistics to see it.
cubefox · 17h ago
Statistics only show group disparities, not that those are caused by things like "systemic" racism, nepotism, etc.
Sohcahtoa82 · 14h ago
Group disparities are basically the definition of systemic racism.
cubefox · 13h ago
No, because systemic racism is supposed to cause and explain observable group disparities. If they were identical, there could be no causal relationship, because nothing can cause itself.
mc32 · 17h ago
Lots of “so-called” conspiracies end up being true in one sense or another if not exactly matching a sometimes misled conspiracy.
I mean, take a look at the freaking Epstein episode -what the fick is that all about? If that’s not the “swamp” calling the shots, I don’t know what in hell is.
burningChrome · 16h ago
ALex Jones was talking about Epstein during the Clinton years and all these flights powerful people were taking to his island. It was an open secret Epstein had a thing for young women so naturally Jones start inferring that Clinton and others were pedos.
Everybody labeled him a kook at the time, mainly because this was just one of the many outlandish theories he had on the Free Masons and Illuminati.
BLKNSLVR · 10h ago
Even kooks (and Alex Jones is a kook) can be right sometimes. But that doesn't make them right anywhere near all the time, and it doesn't make them worth paying any attention to, ever - the things they're right about will generally be discussed, and more rationally, elsewhere too.
mc32 · 15h ago
Alex Jones has a credibility problem. While he has used thinktank & other quasi-governmental institutions's papers to find nuggets of information he contaminates that with "interdimensional beings" blah... So yeah, frogs's hormones were out of whack and he predicted aspects of 9-1-1, government spying on citizens and some other things, he also has whoppers like sandyhook.
potato3732842 · 16h ago
>I mean, take a look at the freaking Epstein episode -what the fick is that all about? If that’s not the “swamp” calling the shots, I don’t know what in hell is.
And to muddy the waters even further, some people believe there is conspiring going on, some people don't. Some believe that it's so big everyone in DC is just kinda dropping it because they're all afraid they'll know someone on it or something like that. That is hugely different degree of "conspiracy theory" from the folks who believe something along the lines of the spooks have the list and are blackmailing everyone and of course there's beliefs everywhere in between. Some of the theories involve literal conspiring, many do not. The whole thing stinks to high heaven so much so that the idea that the official narrative is false is likely the majority opinion. Where do we even draw the line on what constitutes a conspiracy theory here?!
Rantenki · 17h ago
This paper runs very parallel to Dunning-Kruger, and it's surprising that nobody here has commented on it (although the paper itself DOES reference Dunning-Kruger). It's a bit sad, really. When you realize that most people that buy into this stuff are trapped by a lack of cognitive ability, rather than being rooted in malice. There's a dose of https://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidi... in there too, as even well educated, otherwise intelligent people can get trapped in these conspiracy theories.
"Conspiracy believers not only consistently overestimated their performance on numeracy and perception tests"...
Compared to:
"The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability."
intended · 17h ago
I saw that as well, it reminded me of dunning-krueger immediately. Although in this case, they assume not only that they reasoned correctly, but that their position is the median position for the population.
fiddlerwoaroof · 17h ago
Although, from what I can tell, there’s a lot of new evidence that the Dunning–Kruger effect is an artifact of the experimental protocol and not some interesting fact about psychology.
goodluckchuck · 16h ago
This is tautological. They’re effectively defining conspiracy theories to be things which are not widely believed, and then proclaiming that the things which are not widely believed are not widely believed…
Okay?
cubefox · 17h ago
Note that the study didn't test for mainstream conspiracy theories. In such a case I presume the conspiracy theorists correctly determine that their beliefs are mainstream.
There is then also the question of non-conspiracy fringe theories. Do people who believe them still think that they are mainstream?
kova12 · 16h ago
I constantly see beliefs dubbed as "conspiracy theory" later found to be actual true facts. Does that indicate that truth is sometimes on the fringe, and if yes, then what "fringe" really is?
lastcat743 · 18h ago
Strange, I observed the very conspiracy culture absorb main stream governance and sociological narratives.
I do believe their coup worked. Next the views asserting this move into fringe conspiracy and the ouroboros continues devouring its own.
PaulHoule · 17h ago
As I see it, Donald Trump was factually false but Kamala Harris was emotionally false. As a rhetorician, if I had to choose one or the other, I’d pick the first. [1] I am thinking a lot of how to explain the ‘emotionally false’ bit to those who don’t bellyfeel it but it will probably be another two years or so before I have an explanation that’s transmissible.
[1] but I am not just a rhetorician!
pjc50 · 17h ago
Isn't that entirely a product of which news channels the voters were watching?
intended · 16h ago
Yes. The left and center media is still traditional media with its broken business model and journalistic norms. They don't always live up to their standards, but that is entirely different from what Fox and the right created since the 1970s.
Politically, they decided to eschew Bipartisanship, primarying anyone who crossed party lines. Along side this came Limbaugh and later Fox, which became clearing houses to "just ask questions". See the success in platforming things like Intelligent Design, or Climate denial, giving them the imprimantur of credibility and authenticity.
Republican politicans would then follow up by pointing to the news reports and rumors and stall bills, which would then become fodder for the news cycle, closing the loop.
There COULD have been independent thought and counter forces, but in the end consolidation of networks to stay afloat, and becoming part of the party means this is a pipe dream.
This is the engine that keeps our current doom loop going.
PaulHoule · 17h ago
No. A facial expression that comes 0.5 seconds after it should can create a perception of inauthenticity as can the use of measured-seeming words. (Yet, an emotional expression that breaks gradually can be the most powerful of all —- Biden’s performance where he feels how “you’re fired” makes him feel or Pelosi’s tears at Trump inauguration 2 hit hard in a way that her usual mask never does)
If there was anything characteristic about Biden to Trump voters it was that they didn’t watch or read the news much at all
Klein would say he got a huge amount of hate mail from people who said the Times was not putting up strident enough headlines (won’t use the F-word or N-word for Trump) but that the kind of people who read the Times weren’t that the kind of people who need to be persuaded.
Psychoanalysis has been out of fashion for 50+ years but I also think a presidential candidate who looks like your mom evokes feelings of helplessness you had a a child which has to do why I couldn’t stand Clinton II and many blacks couldn’t stand Harris. In two years of chewing on it and people coming around I will have emotional and factual truth reconciled more than I have it now.
ryeats · 17h ago
Trying to understand this but what you said to me is essentially, she couldn't prove any of his statements false because she gave off the vibe of someone who was not authentic and trustworthy?
PaulHoule · 17h ago
Yeah, particularly if you ask young men, minorities, working class people, etc. But it is not so much ‘is that predicate false’ or ‘did they come to the wrong conclusion?’ but ‘how does it make me feel?’ ‘Illegal alien’ hits people hard because we all obey laws we don’t like. I hate seeing people walking in through the emergency doors in the subway because I am paying. Illegal aliens mostly keep their heads down to keep out of trouble but when you conspicuously defend people who commit terrible crimes you look unempathtic to victims. Empathy for the in-group but not for the out-group is a destructive force.
A distinction we don’t make enough in politics, marketing, McLuhanism and more is between early adopters and laggards. Zohran Mandami played well with young cosmopolitans and people in racially integrated areas but Clinton and Cuomo play well with laggards in all-white and all-black areas because they’ve been around, so does Bernie Sanders. Walking into a group of black nationalists as a 22 years old vanguardist and getting rejected was part of my origin story as an activist and lead but spending years listening to those people and telling the story I saw turned things around.
intended · 16h ago
Trump and the Republican party do not exist in a vaccum. They exist in a party-media bubble that simply has different epistemological processes than what everyone else has.
They platform narratives, and anyone not getting on board or supporting the current narrative is ignored and sidelined. This allows them incredible agenda and conversation shaping power.
Its why Trump can do product promotions from the White House lawn, say the sky is green one day and pink the next, without any penalty, and be seen as the Hero.
Its not rhetorical power, its Wrestling / Kayfabe converted into politics.
madmaniak · 17h ago
Article's author doesn't believe his awareness is on the fringe :))
recursivedoubts · 17h ago
The term "conspiracy theory" is a psychological kill shot designed to socially ostracize anyone who questions the mainstream (read: elite) narrative, instilling fear in questioning that narrative.
Yes, there are crazy people who think crazy things. There are also sane people who think "crazy" things might be true, but keep it to themselves out of fear of the social ostracization associated with being called a "conspiracy theorist." As designed.
My person in deity, the American government is currently run by anti-vaxxers, white supremacists and UFO grifters, and was elected by people who believed the weather was controlled by Jewish space lasers, COVID vaccines were full of mind-control chips and the Democratic Party ran a sex cult under a pizzeria. You need to update your priors.
It's become de rigueur to virtue signal how radically untethered one is to consensus reality, to the point that even on Hacker News, which is ostensibly full of rational people, you'll get ostracized far more for believing in the mainstream narrative than for questioning it.
potato3732842 · 16h ago
The powers that be keep changing how conspiracy theorists are measured to hide the true rate of conspiracy theorist-flation!!!1!1!1!!
Joking, but also not joking, back in the day a conspiracy theorist was someone who believed that something was explained by a literal conspiracy with literal conspiring going on. Now every Tom, Dick and Harry that thinks a press release isn't telling the whole truth gets to call themselves one. The reason the definition got watered down was for exactly the reason you state, various people found it useful to apply that label much more broadly.
My daughter has recently been diagnosed with an eating disorder, and she cannot get past wanting to lose weight, no matter that she's in hospital due to her heart rate having slowed down to alarming levels. She still wants it to go slower, as a challenge, as a goal, to show how strong she is in fighting her own body's will to live.
It's fucking crazy, but it's her reality. I do not understand how this kind of fantasy gets a foothold. I feel like the power of an idea is woefully underestimated.
Same goes with conspiracy theories. Maybe an idea has to fit like a puzzle piece into a real life scenario as a convenient surface-level explanation for something unpleasant or just unresolved.
I used to think the brain was a logic machine, but I think there are strong elements of it that are coping mechanisms. Cling to a fantasy that makes unpleasant thing less unpleasant. Don't know how that relates to potentially starving oneself to death, but that seems to be entirely on the table for ye olde brain.
Careful what you consider plausible folks!
The brain and body are effectively locked in a paranoid "fight" state - "I know this behavior is unhealthy, but if I don't behave this way, then [insert irrational fear] will happen."
If you can figure out what she is afraid of, you might be able to help her walk back the behaviors from there. But trying to correct the behaviors on their own is very hard. Since the fear is usually irrational, the behaviors may be a relatively rational response to said fear. They may hold the fear itself as table stakes - not understanding that they are afraid of something that isn't real (i.e. I will never find love if I'm not as skinny as the other girls on Instagram).
Again IME - the feeling from inside the self-destructive brain is "I shouldn't be doing this self-destructive behavior, but I don't know another way to achieve X goal, and I absolutely need to achieve X goal." Asking the question "Why do you need so badly to achieve X goal?" is usually a good start to defanging the fear.
Not the underlying fear that you mention, but seeing her reaction to being asked (forced) to eat is reminiscent of being asked (forced) to pat a spider.
I'm not sure if visceral, immediate fear maps to an underlying fear or not, but fear seems to play some part at least.
The first thing you should do when your kid is feeling something is to just say, "I believe you."
Don't tell her that she really is skinny, or that she really is beautiful, or that she's not thinking right. Don't tell her those things because what you're really saying is, "I know you better than you know yourself." That, unintuitively maybe, damages self confidence - where self confidence is really just "believing oneself."
If you plant a seed of doubt that she doesn't know herself and that others know more about her than she does...
(Obviously this is about validating her feelings and not validating self harm, which is nuanced and could probably use some professional direction or deep thought about how to approach this in a way which doesn't encourage deeper affirmation of the self image)
Anyway, I wish you luck. That sounds gut-wrenching and terrible. I hope you and your family can safely pull through on the other side.
You’ve heard of the “meme”? That afterthought of idea by Richard Dawkins? I first learned of it during COVID lockdown. There was a post—somewhere—linking to a post from NASA making a bunch of their publications available for reading. In these was a whole anthology titled Cosmos and Culture. One of the articles is by a professor and writer Susan Blackmore. She wrote an article, something like, What The Pandorans Knew. In it she makes the argument that what we will find, if we explore the cosmos past earth, is most likely not alien civilizations, but the remains of extinct civilizations. She argues that ideas are in fact dangerous and might just be the death of civilization. And with this in mind, we’re more likely to find evidence of the extinct civilizations than live ones.
It’s a radical idea. At least that’s what I thought until people in positions of trust started into their non-scientific medical ideas during COVID.
While I find memes of great interest, don’t expect to find memes beyond a curiosity.
The big problem is, what can you do with memes that you can’t do with the current academic orthodoxy? I think if it like someone espousing on the merits of their favorite programming language, and the main line language users scoff and say they have work to do.
Neither speculative non-fiction, nor meme theory, nor programming languages compare to the matters of health and wellness. This is the crisis of our time.
My2c
https://www.nasa.gov/history/history-publications-and-resour...
I’m sorry about your daughter I hope she gets better.
I believe a necessary element is that people want to be "better" (eg. ahead, smarter, or etc) than others, whether that's having some sort of "secret" knowledge or just wanting to be a contrarian.
in the age of AI/social media/etc. almost nothing is provably incorrect…
(attempting to be self-referential on the topic of beliefs and ideas)
It can be fixed though — the hospital stay after passing out from low glucose levels finally straightened me out, but she really needs to figure this out for herself. Good luck.
It must come internally.
We keep working on what a wonderful happy life she used to have, hoping that such reminders will eventually seep in to create her own realisation.
From the short post you shared, your daughter seems, for a lack of better words, possessed by this terrible terrible idea. Sadly, I have no idea (!) why some ideas stick to some whereas other won't attract ideas even close. But yeah, you are right, one should never consider their own thoughts to be absolutely true.
Sorry that you got this lesson is such a hurtful format. Hope your daughter gets better.
She is a chattel to what started as an idea but has grown into an entity to be obeyed.
What we lost with religion is the belief in literal demons controlling people as an explanation for human behavior. Demons as metaphor is not a religious concept per se, and such metaphors still exist within secular society.
When I think of "classical" conspiracy theorists, like the JFK assassination or the moon landings, I think of somebody who believes that they have special knowledge that most people do not have. They believe themselves to be a valiant minority struggling against an oppressive force -- one that has gotten to practically everybody except them.
I suspect that conspiracy theories have gone mainstream, and have categorically changed in the process. These beliefs aren't fringe any more. They may not be held by a majority, but they no longer need to seek out obscure chat rooms to share them. They'll be affirmed in the media, by politicians, and by many of their neighbors.
A signal of likely mental illness or a deliberate simulation of such by an unserious person.
It's unreasonable to reason with unreasonable people. - My late grandfather
Censorship, ostracism, and certain debunking styles are counterproductive in the sense that they harden the "conspiracy theorist" in his beliefs, confirming that "the establishment" is protecting sacred cows and forbidden knowledge. These approaches are unnecessarily combative and condescending. I think a more open approach is called for.
Sabine Hossenfelder handled "flat earth theory" in a way I found refreshing. She said, "Huh, this is interesting. I appreciate that they aren't afraid to question fundamental assumptions. That is a scientific attitude. But here's why I think they're wrong."
Discussion about the topic is now hostage to whoever has the least understanding but the most willingness to interject.
At that point, it wouldn't be surprising to find experts leaving the conversation, to form more specialized groups to discuss the topic.
How would you solve this?
No comments yet
That's well worth doing when evaluating the merits of a potential conspiracy theory for yourself. However, it's not evident that this approach will convince people who incorrectly believe conspiracy theories of their errors.
Eponymous conspiracy theories have a built in 'immune system' to reject logical, scientific argumentation, since most if not all refuting facts can be attributed to the untrustworthy or malicious conspiracy itself.
Ultimately, scientific argumentation depends upon all involved parties having a shared understanding of what observed facts are true or false, and if that agreement is not there then otherwise rational parties can still reach different conclusions with no persuasion possible.
> Sabine Hossenfelder handled "flat earth theory" in a way I found refreshing. She said, "Huh, this is interesting. I appreciate that they aren't afraid to question fundamental assumptions. That is a scientific attitude. But here's why I think they're wrong."
Was this approach persuasive to any 'flat earthers', or was it instead interesting to watch as a 'round earther'?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_projection_fallacy
https://www.lesswrong.com/w/typical-mind-fallacy
Biases that are strengthened by for-profit disinformation business.
Which raises an interesting point: In another time is sociological history, fringe thinking would have had to overcome a much more robust social challenge.
People "on the edge", who might have re-calibrated effectively, have become less likely to self-critique.
In a world of razor thin survive/starve margins there's more incentive to keep things stable on the day to day and if that means we all gotta convince ourselves the king is ordained by god and Saddam did have WMDs (or whatever) then so be it, at least you all get to work the fields in relative harmony and importantly not starve, not having dissent is more important than getting to the truth on any one issue.
As society gets richer we need (in the strict "bottom of the pyramid" sense) social cohesion with those around us less so we're freer to adopt beliefs from wherever even if not shared with those around us.
The conversation that no one wants to have is that American society is in a similar process of collapse, and conspiratorial thinking is only gaining traction because no one trusts that the state holds the general interest anymore. The real social challenge to overcome is government legitimacy.
If in our time conspiracies are perpetuated because of for-profit incentives, it is only because profit is what our society is structured around at a fundamental level. When the time for collapse has come, it brings itself into being by means of any and all existing institutions.
EDIT: and for the record, it's not about cognitive biases either. No one here has a real historical perspective.
Before you reveal anything to them, make sure you are actually revealing reality and not just your version of the story.
Similarly, in general people tend to overestimate how much people agree with them, but you can overestimate by a little or by a whole lot.
It's my general observation that many conspiracy theorists are far more sure of "the truth" as they see it than the average person. This is also why so many keep banging on about it in any venue, whether appropriate or not.
The terms "conspiracy" and "conspiracy theory" have very different meanings. This is essentially just a linguistic sleight of hand, not too different from when creationists say "evolution is just a theory". "Conspiracy theory" is somewhat unfortunate term.
Note that the article we’re discussing specifically mentions “people who believe in conspiracies” in the first line.
Which obviously refers to conspiracy theories in this context. Words can have more than one meaning (again: see "theory", among others).
Watergate was a government cover-up. No one denies that happened. Or Iran-Contra, or the Snowden leaks. Or the WMDs in Iraq.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Re...
Were the challengers of Phlogiston conspiracy theorists? Better yet, Copernicus? Imagine you're a Tolimeic and you've been accurately predicting the positions of the heavenly bodies for almost a THOUSAND years. Your great, great, great, x10 grand fathers did the same thing and it's all perfect math and it has ALWAYS worked, QED. And this "conspiracy theorist" comes along and wants to rock the boat.
This is EXACTLY how scientific revolutions work and it follows that all human progress follows this model.
It's the entrenched Toliemics that are constantly shouting "you're a crazy!". And from first principles: they are wrong.
It's like the boy who cried wolf. The "conspiracy theorists" have won. The people you call crazy have beaten the "consensus" too many times to be written off. And it has always been this way.
And why do we have to add the pejorative "conspiracy". It's not even a pejorative if one examines it. Are we suggesting that humans don't conspire so the theory can't be true? Isn't that a disqualifying ad hominem? Shouldn't that be a red flag for the intentions this line of argument? I get really tired of "conspiracy theory" thrown around as a way to dismiss someone. Just steel man the arguments and I'll decide for myself how crazy it is.
There are two big differences between scientific consensus and theory building and conspiracy theories. First the scientific method tests these theories. This approach tests theories and continually responds as new information arrives. Second the theories are useful. Science’s goal is to estimate reality to the point that it is useful.
It is not a disqualifying ad hominem to say “you provide no nor respond to evidence and your theory doesn’t provide a useful testable hypothesis.”
No, it isn't.
Scientists attempt to disprove their theories using hypothesis and observation, and adjust their models of reality based on what the evidence shows. Conspiracy theorists state their assumptions a proiri and refuse to adjust their models based on evidence to the contrary.
Scientists are the ones saying the Earth is round, conspiracy theorists are saying it's flat. These are not the same.
Yes they laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the clown.
Are you the kind of person who believes convincing sounding research from an Ivy League school posted on social media and wikipedia articles? Is your epistemology based in socialmediaism?
If you want a better differentiation, is computer science the same as magic? Is there no difference between the skills someone develops as a professional and expert in their field, and the lay person? Everyone has the same level of ability and willingness to understand a subject?
For example, did you read the article before commenting?
The idea here is exactly what you say, belief in authority because science people spend time on it. Essentially this is science as religion. Which was exactly my point.
Conspiracy theories are thus logically self-consistent theories, which effectively exclude all evidence against them as invalid. Therefore, it's impossible to counter them rationalistically, they can only be countered empirically.
/s?
https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/d5fz2_v3
The section on measuring over-confidence is interesting, specifically how they address the shortcoming of self-reporting confidence (if you're bad at the task in the first place, you're also going to be bad at estimating your performance, where the act of estimating resembles the task itself).
Another fun activity is to visit the appendix (p. 47) which lists all of the True and False Conspiracies used in their assessment.
Somehow I bet Kate Blackwood is certain that she's not on the fringe. She probably also thinks she's on the side of righteous change and history, something that already suggests she's not in the center of popular thought.
I'm sure she also feels that people who disagree with her are on the fringe.
I think I see this most commonly in politics, where if <obviously bad> person supports an idea, then that idea must be also bad.
It can also just be a good heuristic. If a person or group/org with a reputation for dishonesty tells you an "idea", it's reasonable to throw shade.
> I think I see this most commonly in politics, where if <obviously bad> person supports an idea, then that idea must be also bad.
The conclusion is not always this direct, but it is completely reasonable to question ~why~ the obviously bad person holds that idea. What do they gain from pushing the agenda? Some people are so intellectually dishonest that everything they say is suspect.
IME, a scientific/empirical mindset tends to lead one to a state of epistemological modesty, in which few things are unassailably true, and beliefs are provisional until disproven. One crucial feature of that mindset is the notion of falsifiability. Knowing if/how ideas may be falsified helps one avoid leaping down conspiracy rabbit holes. <- (A likely unfalsifiable statement!)
Back in ye olden days if you said that someone was a conspiracy theorist it was a boolean that meant that they believed that literal conspiring was happening and now "conspiracy theorist" this whole diverse spectrum that people who believe various things are not exactly as portrayed exist on.
Oh how the goalposts of fringe have shifted over time.
Never mind how it shifts simply based on who you're asking. I'm sure there's beliefs that are fringe among the Cornell faculty who did this research that are wholly uncontroversial over in the maintenance department.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(intelligence_o...
I mean, take a look at the freaking Epstein episode -what the fick is that all about? If that’s not the “swamp” calling the shots, I don’t know what in hell is.
Everybody labeled him a kook at the time, mainly because this was just one of the many outlandish theories he had on the Free Masons and Illuminati.
And to muddy the waters even further, some people believe there is conspiring going on, some people don't. Some believe that it's so big everyone in DC is just kinda dropping it because they're all afraid they'll know someone on it or something like that. That is hugely different degree of "conspiracy theory" from the folks who believe something along the lines of the spooks have the list and are blackmailing everyone and of course there's beliefs everywhere in between. Some of the theories involve literal conspiring, many do not. The whole thing stinks to high heaven so much so that the idea that the official narrative is false is likely the majority opinion. Where do we even draw the line on what constitutes a conspiracy theory here?!
"Conspiracy believers not only consistently overestimated their performance on numeracy and perception tests"...
Compared to:
"The Dunning–Kruger effect is defined as the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability."
Okay?
There is then also the question of non-conspiracy fringe theories. Do people who believe them still think that they are mainstream?
I do believe their coup worked. Next the views asserting this move into fringe conspiracy and the ouroboros continues devouring its own.
[1] but I am not just a rhetorician!
Politically, they decided to eschew Bipartisanship, primarying anyone who crossed party lines. Along side this came Limbaugh and later Fox, which became clearing houses to "just ask questions". See the success in platforming things like Intelligent Design, or Climate denial, giving them the imprimantur of credibility and authenticity. Republican politicans would then follow up by pointing to the news reports and rumors and stall bills, which would then become fodder for the news cycle, closing the loop.
There COULD have been independent thought and counter forces, but in the end consolidation of networks to stay afloat, and becoming part of the party means this is a pipe dream.
This is the engine that keeps our current doom loop going.
If there was anything characteristic about Biden to Trump voters it was that they didn’t watch or read the news much at all
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/democrats-need-to-face...
Klein would say he got a huge amount of hate mail from people who said the Times was not putting up strident enough headlines (won’t use the F-word or N-word for Trump) but that the kind of people who read the Times weren’t that the kind of people who need to be persuaded.
Psychoanalysis has been out of fashion for 50+ years but I also think a presidential candidate who looks like your mom evokes feelings of helplessness you had a a child which has to do why I couldn’t stand Clinton II and many blacks couldn’t stand Harris. In two years of chewing on it and people coming around I will have emotional and factual truth reconciled more than I have it now.
A distinction we don’t make enough in politics, marketing, McLuhanism and more is between early adopters and laggards. Zohran Mandami played well with young cosmopolitans and people in racially integrated areas but Clinton and Cuomo play well with laggards in all-white and all-black areas because they’ve been around, so does Bernie Sanders. Walking into a group of black nationalists as a 22 years old vanguardist and getting rejected was part of my origin story as an activist and lead but spending years listening to those people and telling the story I saw turned things around.
They platform narratives, and anyone not getting on board or supporting the current narrative is ignored and sidelined. This allows them incredible agenda and conversation shaping power.
Its why Trump can do product promotions from the White House lawn, say the sky is green one day and pink the next, without any penalty, and be seen as the Hero.
Its not rhetorical power, its Wrestling / Kayfabe converted into politics.
Yes, there are crazy people who think crazy things. There are also sane people who think "crazy" things might be true, but keep it to themselves out of fear of the social ostracization associated with being called a "conspiracy theorist." As designed.
Here's a good review of the science, which contradicts the assertions made above: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annur...
It's become de rigueur to virtue signal how radically untethered one is to consensus reality, to the point that even on Hacker News, which is ostensibly full of rational people, you'll get ostracized far more for believing in the mainstream narrative than for questioning it.
Joking, but also not joking, back in the day a conspiracy theorist was someone who believed that something was explained by a literal conspiracy with literal conspiring going on. Now every Tom, Dick and Harry that thinks a press release isn't telling the whole truth gets to call themselves one. The reason the definition got watered down was for exactly the reason you state, various people found it useful to apply that label much more broadly.