Conspiracy theorists unaware their beliefs are on the fringe

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/06/conspiracy-theorists-unaware-their-beliefs-are-fringe

by PaulHoule • 1 year ago

58 117 1 year ago

news.cornell.edu

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.

PaulHoule4• 1 year 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• 1 year ago

Isn't that entirely a product of which news channels the voters were watching?

ryeats• 1 year 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?

intended6• 1 year 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.

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year ago

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!

RandomBacon• 1 year 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.

justusthane• 1 year 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.

esseph• 1 year 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.

throwaway8333• 1 year 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.

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year 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.

rdgthree2• 1 year 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.

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year 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.

Mouvelie• 1 year 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.

krapp3• 1 year 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.

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year 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.

deepfriedchokes• 1 year ago

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.

bdangubic• 1 year 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…

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year 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)

xtiansimon• 1 year 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.

My2c

https://www.nasa.gov/history/history-publications-and-resour...

K2h• 1 year ago

My heart goes out to you fellow parent - work hard to get the help needed and through the difficult time.

orwin• 1 year ago

I am so sorry to be this guy, but did she tried CBT with a trained professionnal? You should allow her to vet the therapists (some are bad, other are worse, but good ones definitely exist).

I'm not in the "you should seek help" camp, at all, but for eating disorders in particular, randomized trials show that CBT is extremely effective, on the short and long term.

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year ago

She was seeing a psychologist in the few weeks prior to her hospitalisation and my wife tells me that CBT was part of that.

Post hospital discharge, hopefully in a couple of weeks, we'll be doing FBT (family based therapy, I think) which, according to this morning's information session, is rated above CBT in it's effectiveness.

There's a 12-month-ish program she'll be going into once she's recovered to a healthy weight / nutrition level.

BrandoElFollito3• 1 year ago

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.

I closely know an 18-year-old who decided to show his body that there are no limits in sport. He trains an insane amount of time (more than professional athletes) despite his body not following up.

He had a heart alert, and the cardiologist told him that the next time they will meet at his cardiac arrest, if he is lucky.

This absolutely did not change his mind.

He is intelligent, has ample opportunities to go forward in whatever he would like, lives in Western Europe, comfortable life and what not. He could be an excellent amateur athlete, competing at university level and doing well but he just wants to get his body past the breaking point.

The only hope is that he will mature enough to realize this in a few years, hopefully survive by then without serious impacts on his health.

Everything I the head, and this is an uncharted world.

xeonmc2• 1 year ago

Did he by any chance watch One Punch Man?

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year ago

Over-exercising is also a symptom of anorexia. A kid in the same ward, 12 or 13 years old, presented anorexia by obsessively exercising.

The desire to take it past the breaking point definitely puts them in dangerous-thinking territory.

At 18, though, I'm not sure how much help you can force on them. I'm vaguely concerned that, if my daughter has issues past 18 then what can a parent force given we're no longer a legal guardian? Could she call the police and we're arrested for some kind of restriction of liberty or kidnapping or something? She has literally said that she can't wait until she's 18 so she can leave and follow this starvation pursuit outside of our influence.

(the disease is horrible in that they literally are thinking and believing these things and there is no way to reason with "it" that doesn't reinforce the position - this is the first thing I've come across where logic and rationalisation are useless tools).

fatbird• 1 year ago

I have a cousin who went through many years, from her teens on, of anorexia, bulimia, and substance abuse. Somehow she still managed to become a vet with a decent career, with parents actively supporting her in getting different treatments.

The one treatment that finally broke the hold of her eating disorders was a live-in program at a hospital where all they did was, as a group, prepare and consume three square meals a day. It was like nutrition 101 coupled with some basic household management. Her words: "It had never been laid out like that for me, and I just didn't know it."

Does that mean it would work for your daughter? Maybe, but one obvious thing was that it was the right treatment at the right time for my cousin. A decade earlier she'd probably have blown it off or missed the point. The only thing I can say worked for her, is her and her family not giving up, hanging on and trying different things, until some magical combination of action and receptiveness met up.

As a friend to others with similar issues, I've seen the same thing: it's usually a lucky combination of action and circumstance. No treatment is guaranteed, no approach failproof. As you observe, the human brain is, in large part, a bunch of coping mechanisms (most therapists these days would nod excitedly at that understanding). It's not reasoning, it's reflexive defensives, and can take a long time to untangle.

Don't lose hope, and keep trying. And consider counselling for yourself and your spouse. This is traumatizing to you too, and getting support yourself to keep at it also helps.

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year ago

We're currently preparing to both go part time to support her basically 24/7 when she's discharged from hospital, likely in a couple of weeks.

Agree 100% that chances of beating it improve significantly with full family support, so that's what we're planning.

I'm fundamentally an optimist, and plan to remain so in the face of anything and everything.

burnte2• 1 year ago

I used to run IT for a rehab healthcare company that did chemical dependency and eating disorders. The number one thing to understand here is that she has mental health problems, that is the root of this. She's not choose to believe fantasy, there are mental illness aspects that are warping her reasoning processes. She needs to engage with therapists as soon as possible. I'd be happy to make a couple of suggestions.

BLKNSLVR13• 1 year ago

Yes, 100% it's the mental illness and not her.

The approach being taken (by the hospital) is to get her back to a healthy weight and level of nutrition before starting therapy because a nutrient starved brain doesn't respond to psychology / therapy.

ropable• 1 year ago

As the father of a daughter: this is horrifying, and my heart goes out to you. I hope that you and your family all get through this. Godspeed.

PaulHoule4• 1 year ago

Love the use of ‘false conspiracy’ which has been an increasingly popular phrase in conspiracism research.

bell-cot• 1 year 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?

js8• 1 year 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.

coolspot• 1 year ago

NSA spying on most of the internet traffic was a crazy conspiracy theory before Snowden.

griffzhowl• 1 year 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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(intelligence_o...

SirFatty• 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

mc322• 1 year 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• 1 year 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.

potato37328424• 1 year 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?!

krapp3• 1 year ago

NSA mass surveillance was literally a gag in the Simpsons movie years before Edward Snowden.

cubefox4• 1 year 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.

Sohcahtoa822• 1 year 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.

dboreham• 1 year 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".

arp2424• 1 year ago

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.

godshatter• 1 year ago

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.

Sharlin2• 1 year ago

Some relevant cognitive biases:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_projection_fallacy

https://www.lesswrong.com/w/typical-mind-fallacy

heresie-dabord• 1 year ago

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.

bokoharambe• 1 year 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.

potato37328424• 1 year 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.

fuzzfactor2• 1 year ago

I would say lack of awareness or even absolute delusion can thrive without any particular bias.

Sharlin2• 1 year 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.

xhkkffbf• 1 year 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.

potato37328424• 1 year 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.

Hasz• 1 year 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.

bill_joy_fanboy• 1 year ago

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.

saghm• 1 year ago

Reminds me of the classic https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-kno...

msluyter• 1 year 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!)

intended6• 1 year 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.

cubefox4• 1 year 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?

madmaniak• 1 year ago

Article's author doesn't believe his awareness is on the fringe :))

sxp• 1 year 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• 1 year ago

I think the more interesting one is "religious people unaware their religion is in the majority".

Lendal• 1 year 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• 1 year 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.

arp2424• 1 year 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.

Rantenki• 1 year 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."

fiddlerwoaroof• 1 year 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.

intended6• 1 year 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.

redavni2• 1 year 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?

intended6• 1 year 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?

redavni2• 1 year 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• 1 year ago

If I was wealthy conspiracy theorist I might even build an AI molded after my beliefs and call it the "source of truth"

clickety_clack2• 1 year 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.

arp2424• 1 year 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_clack2• 1 year 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.

mike_hearn2• 1 year ago

Maybe not zero conspiracies in total, but academic social science does take it as axiomatic that public sector organizations never engage in conspiracies. That's why their papers always assume any belief that they might do so is automatically false and must be explained via other factors. Occasionally you see recognition that private sector actors might genuinely conspire, but never public sector.

Invariably, such papers use an ad-hoc set of beliefs that are labelled as false with no explanation or investigation. The authors just assume that because everyone they know believes something, it must be true. Ironically that's the same sort of faulty belief system they claim to be investigating.

intalentive• 1 year 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."

Majromax• 1 year 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• 1 year 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.

intended6• 1 year 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?

Jensson• 1 year 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.

burnt-resistor2• 1 year ago

We should really be calling it their wild-haired, pet conjecture.

recursivedoubts2• 1 year 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.

potato37328424• 1 year 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.

krapp3• 1 year ago

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.

recursivedoubts2• 1 year ago

huh, must be why my post got downvoted

hackingonempty• 1 year ago

The White House is pushing the "lab leak" consipriacy theory. https://www.whitehouse.gov/lab-leak-true-origins-of-covid-19...

Here's a good review of the science, which contradicts the assertions made above: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annur...

goodluckchuck• 1 year 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?

mike_hearn2• 1 year ago

Their definition of conspiracy theory is found in Appendix A, where they just present an ad-hoc list of things they personally believe are false beliefs. Some of the things they present are very widely believed, and at least a few of them have actually been proven true (more or less).

It's always like this with such papers. 100% of them are pseudo-science.

jfengel• 1 year 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-resistor2• 1 year 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

kova12• 1 year 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?

theyknowitsxmas• 1 year ago

Giordano Bruno wasn’t killed for no reason.

disambiguation• 1 year 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)

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.

LargoLasskhyfv• 1 year ago

I need to work harder on my zen, to produce better qualia in my solipsism.

Conspiracy theorists unaware their beliefs are on the fringe

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