A recent poll showed that >40% of American’s don’t believe that Biden legitimately won the election. How on earth is America coming back from that?
Whoops. They got you hook, line and sinker with that one bafink 😛
I like the idea of introducing a critical thinking subject into the school syllabus. It was very much the premise of my undergrad days ... but it also takes mental energy. Another problem is that i see some people i know that are highly educated (eg a former meteorologist/BBC weather presenter I studied with) claiming that they are critical thinkers and still coming up with arsehattery. Could be some logic to the narcisist theory in that case, actually.
It definitely seems likely that the uptake of conspiratorial thinking among the ‘wellness community’ is aided by narcissistic tendencies IMO.
Me from 2019 is still staggered that someone would shove a jade egg up their fadge on the advice of a an "Actress, businesswoman and singer" who appears to have no qualifications in the field of gynecology, yet Dr Jennifer Gunter gets a lot of bad press and some weapons grade word salad in response.
I only know a couple of anti-vaxxers and they’re both the kind of people who would also likely believe you can cure cancer with green tea and yoga if someone on YouTube told them so
That Goop article is (unsurprisingly) absolute cobblers! But it’s very dangerous cobblers as it’s just selling some bollocks woo-woo disinformation. I’d be interested in seeing the professional qualifications of ‘our doctors’ that they refer too.
There seems to be a whole world of gullible half-wits out there and plenty of charlatans and snake oil salesmen ready to exploit them
We have had decades or even centuries of humanity going against nature and “winning” (so long as you ignore inconvenient details) but here is one which really slaps us in the face. Its about feeling small in the face of nature and not wanting to admit it. Therefore some people chose the its a fake somehow and that a subset of humanity has created it for gain vs all of us being victims to some level or another.
Theres seems to be some of that going on. Of the two (huge sample size here) Anti Vaxxers I know well enough to visit at home. They both had a real problem feeling small in existence, whereas I found the unfathomable scale of things to be a positive thing. We’d been watching that Brian fella droning on about space on TV.
It was all a bit “no, I mean something more than that”
kind of people who would also likely believe you can cure cancer with green tea
One of the anti vaxxers I know believes grape juice will cure late stage Pancreatic Cancer, to which I lost a friend last year.
For the, actually fairly reasonable debate above about “why people believe” I’m not sure you can pin it down to x y or z. Some of it just seems to be chance of circumstance.
A lot of people are very gullible, easily led, can't be bothered to look very deep into anything.
Governments in democracies rely on this to exist, just think if the whole population thought about what is going on, who is doing what and when and thinking about how bad that is for them/society and what other options would be better. People could do that or they could just read some posts on Facebook and go with that.
Then you have the gullible mixed with other issues where for whatever reason they want to believe in things that don't hold up to 10 seconds of actual thinking about.
The group that harassed Starmer were shouting about Saville as they already knew about how Starmer didn't prosecute Saville because Starmer is all part of the massive paedophile ring that all people in power are part of but the have no proof or evidence of that, obviously. It is for others to disprove what they believe.
I know three anti vaccers, coincidentally they also believe crystals cure illnesses and have 'qualifications' in herbal medicine.
All three also have rather nice businesses catering to the esoteric end of the healing spectrum.
Sadly, they also impose their beliefs on some of my favourite people. 😔
It's a lifestyle choice, like singlespeeding.
It’s a lifestyle choice, like singlespeeding.
In that respect isn’t pretty much everything a ‘lifestyle choice’? From pork-product militants to German car drivers? From committed vegetarians to cargo-bike users ? Weekend Prosecco binge-life to Fiat 500-polishers? Beefatarians to rastafarians? Keep fit fanataics to smokers and tokers? Internet/phone-addicts and workaholics? Fat nationalists, fit rationalists?
At what point does (say) a cyclist become a ‘fanatic’? I was marked as such simply for being the only employee who cycled to work. I didn't have special cycling clothes or anything. Just marked as ‘crazy/fanatic’ for cycling to work. I realise that if instead I’d lived in Holland I wouldn't have been thought of as crazy or fanatical. I also think that having a singlespeed can be fanatical fashion thing or simply a simple bike choice. ( I’m in the latter camp, have no tattoos - but like feeling like I’m riding a lighter, bombproof bike with no faff )
‘
Is it about a feeling of personal power and control as well? Very often the ones I speak to on Twitter present in a "YOU don't know the truth but I do, you'll be sorry one day" kind of way. I don't think they wilfully choose to believe that, say, the covid vaccines will give you AIDS, but once you've had the seeds of doubt sown and you doubt tje science, is it empowering to think you've dodged a bullet and possess knowledge that all the sheeple are ignoring?
I doubt that we would be quite so awash with conspiracy theories today if it wasn’t for Watergate
the Illuminati conspiracy theory has been trundling along in various forms since the French Revolution - It begins as a conservative backlash against the revolutionaries, morphed a bit with inclusion of the protocol of the Elders of Zion, collected a couple of German invasion scares in the early 20thC. Gains a whole new audience with the communist witch hunts in the 50's and probably reached all our dads with a now infamous Playboy short story in the 60's that somehow became; rather than a forgotten work of fiction, the founding text of the New World Order that we all know and love today.
I think people are open to them as they don't rely on evidence or understanding but rather faith or belief, we all "know" that secretive individuals exists in organisations and to speculate on their activities that relies ultimately on bad extrapolation of inbuilt biases like our man JHJ with his conjunction fallacies is easier and more interesting and makes more sense in a world that's ultimately chaotic and filled with people in positions of responsibility generally making terrible decisions because they're human as well, and subject to all the same inbuilt biases and fallacies that the rest of us are.
and more interesting
Thats a big part of the problem. The real inequality and corruption is normalised and boring, political funding means the wealthiest few percent get a greater control of politics than the majority and they use it for their benefit. It is a much more interesting and exciting story to sell that there is a secret baby eating inner cabul of lizards controlling mankind.
Gah edit window + the site seems to be broken again and randomly refreshes, wiping out half my post. Hello 2018.
I think my rambletrain of thought was looking to terminate at the No True Scotsman Terminus.
IMO what distinguishes cultic activties/behaviours from ‘lifestyle choices’ is twofold.
1. A cult is normally part of an ‘us vs them’ narrative that is (fair to say) not steeped in humour. It can’t laugh at itself. It looks for ways to call non-adherents ‘lost’ or ‘sheep’ or ‘insane’. You don’t often tend to get sausage-roll addicts doing that. Neither singlespeeders. Fixie-riders…otoh 😉
2. A cult is defined from the inside out (us vs them/them vs us) yet will never of course refer to itself as a ‘cult’. This is problematic by the example I gave as a lone cycle-commuter. What if I had found/teamed up with another employee cycle-commuter for company on the ride in? Like people sharing a car to work? Then we’d have been known by all the drivers as the ‘odd couple’ or somesuch. I suppose over the years I’ve learned/been taught to identify as a 1-man ‘out-group’.
This is interesting as it may give me some insight into cult-adherents.
Being an ‘out group’ is arguably more than a lifestyle choice. From what I’ve seen of these ‘freedom’ catch-all protests is a hodge-podge of out-groups and fringe-interests uniting in a bid to ‘out-group’ all of the rest of us? Only *they* have the answers. We are all ‘sheep’ etc. Cousin of mine has gone right down the rabbit-hole (near tip of that pyramid) and they are truly entrenched. They walked away from their whole family, even from their elderly parents. Of course there was something ‘amiss’ with them (lonely, disenchanted) before they found their way to the many conspiracies online. I assume via the ‘redpill’ route. And this is now their entire life. If you can call it that. I haven’t tried to intervene. My experience with such characters online = ‘mega-sensitive’. I think any attempt at intervention just sends them deeper into the cave. As does debunking their claims. It’s essentially anti-science. Science/rationalism works by proving itself wrong, by disproving it’s theories again and again and again until something sticks. Conspiracy cults operate by ‘never ever being wrong’. It’s egotism/narcissism at work. Not all are likely suffering from narcissism, of course, but I’d venture that most are incredibly over-sensitive and averse to their claims being challenged/being shown to be mistaken.
I’ve never been followed around my local by a UFO nut for example, because for the most part there used to be some self-awareness about fringe beliefs etc.
A major difference there is that Covid has led to restrictions that directly affect our lives - unless you live in Nevada I can't think of any differences supposed UFO coverups might make to our day-to-day living. Which doesn't in any way excuse the behaviour of that particular **** in the pub, but does (at least to my mind) explain it a bit.
It is a much more interesting and exciting story to sell that there is a secret baby eating inner cabul of lizards controlling mankind.
Yup. There was an extent to which all the qanon stuff was just a big immersive crime fiction roleplay experience. LARPing as they would put it. The way it works with the 'drops' kept people hooked wanting to know what happens next.
Look at the actual capital riots in the US. Sure there were hardcore anti-government extremists involved but there seemed a greater number of people who just wanted a jolly day out playing at insurrection and to get some content for their vlogs etc. The fact that this was something with real world consequences seems to have been lost on many of them.
The real inequality and corruption is normalised and boring, political funding means the wealthiest few percent get a greater control of politics than the majority and they use it for their benefit.
Yes, we're all happy to read and agree that the Roman aristocracy or Egyptian royalty exploited their populations, but us sophisticates in the 21st Century? We're to clever for all that aren't we? It's a sad truth that human society hasn't really changed all that much that folks of over 4000 years ago wouldn't be unfamiliar with. Or that we have noble savage stories as a backlash to Indigenous criticism of colonialist or mercantile lifestyles.
We tell ourselves lies in order to feel better about it.
Indeed. It’s a real shame that our schools don’t teach critical thinking.
It was in my day. In history. (compulsory years 7-9 in my school). Analysing and comparing sources, asking why they differ and what the purpose of them is.
Didn't matter whether the topic was Sufferagettes, Nazis or the Vietcong.
As always, those who needed it, didn't listen.
the Illuminati conspiracy theory has been trundling along in various forms since the French Revolution – It begins as a conservative backlash against the revolutionaries, morphed a bit with inclusion of the protocol of the Elders of Zion, collected a couple of German invasion scares in the early 20thC. Gains a whole new audience with the communist witch hunts in the 50’s and probably reached all our dads with a now infamous Playboy short story in the 60’s that somehow became; rather than a forgotten work of fiction, the founding text of the New World Order that we all know and love today.
I'm sure there were conspiracy theories back in days of the Roman Empire. The question however is why do they appear to have become so much more prevalent in recent times.
IMO it is probably a combination of many factors including a reaction to feelings of powerlessness in liberal democracies, a reaction to genuine conspiracies by governments such as Watergate, and, ironically, far greater and easy access to information.
why do they appear to have become so much more prevalent in recent times.
I honestly don't think they are. The US for instance was properly gripped by the assassination of Lincoln, and by the "escape" of Booth. Books, newspapers, all pretty much awash with stories and tales from conspiracies by Andrew Jackson to become president, faked names for Booth and him living in hiding with the aid of soldiers who collected the bounty for "shooting" him. In 1905 (I think) there was a best seller written by a journalist interviewing a man claiming to be Booth that "explained" it all.
None of this is new under the sun
As COVID-19 begins to wane (at least from the front pages) as sure as eggs is eggs we will see the largest activist/conspiracy momentum directed towards denying climate change emergency, and by extension against any fighting any governments/parties/individual who either advocate or make any changes in response to the climate change emergency.
‘The EUliberalillumijewlizardcommiebankerpaedoelites invented this fake climate change narrative so they could use their AGENDA to take away our precious life fluids and make us slaves who will own nothing and be happy like they planned all along’ #satireisdead
Like in that movie ‘Elysium’. Many no doubt see themselves a Matt Damon character (except instead of the actual movie synopsis where he is fighting for equal access to healthcare and against worker-exploitation, these internet-liberty-pillers will be using a sordid brand of fact-free populist pop-culture to fight against something called ‘soymarxism’ or ‘greencommies’ (I think I read ‘watermelons’?) or somesuch…
When socialised healthcare/medicine has finally been sold off in all but name, and the boat-people/immigrants become extra-numerous due to entire flooded countries and drought, failed crops etc, and most all media consumed is either clickbait infotainment and/or 24hr conspiracy feeds - then will these brave new flag-waving social-media freedom-meme-warriors blame corporate capitalism/consumerism and multinationals? Or will they blame ‘socialism’ ‘foreigners’, and the EU? Or, will they finally be able to look themselves honestly, squarely in the eye, in the mirror, as they drive around in circles?
Have a guess…
(Now I sound like one of them…)
Mark my words…
There was an extent to which all the qanon stuff was just a big immersive crime fiction roleplay experience
I read a really interesting piece that basically suggested that books like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code coming along at a time when folks could read his stuff that drew from existing inconsistencies and somewhat closed societies (like the Masons) and check it out for themselves on this new thing called the Internet...and wow! some of this stuff checks out!! Those folks just have continued to apply those same "investigative" methods to other subjects....
In an uncertain, unpredictable, hypocritical, misleading world conspiracy theories offer a 'world view' or ideology that, however lacking in evidence it might be, hangs together with easy answers and provides bonding social capital through group membership.
Once again I can recommend this book, it goes into a lot of detail on the subject, written IIRC by a neuroscientist:
I doubt that we would be quite so awash with conspiracy theories today if it wasn’t for Watergate.
American anti-government sentiment goes far deeper than that, it is built into origin myth of the country. The country needed to be marketed in the 19th and early 20th century and they did this by talking about freedom and independence, which is why it's all part of the American dream. And the corporations that were started took advantage of the same freedoms and lack of regulation. This plays into the second amendment fantasy, even though that was clearly written in a completely different context from today and was not intended for the purposes for which it is being used. Even the Founding Fathers were ideologues, their ideas were framed in the context of pushing back against aristocracy. I don't think they really could conceive of what would happen if a country of 300m people all wanted absolute individual freedom.
So a lot of people take the idea of personal freedom very seriously and bristle whenever any regulation gets handed down to them regardless of how sensible it is. Running a country is really at odds with absolute freedom, but due to the mythic status of the Founding Fathers this is what people fall back on when they are told they have done something wrong. Ironically in many ways because daily life seems to have more petty regulations than it does here. Try parking your car on the wrong side of the road...
The US for instance was properly gripped by the assassination of Lincoln
Well you would expect conspiracy theories as a reaction to the assassination of a political leader, not least because a conspiracy is actually quite likely even if not necessarily true.
However the prevalence of conspiracy theories appears to have grown significantly in recent times and now covers a range of bizarre subjects from alleged fake moon landings to apparently vaccines which contain microchips so that the government can keep a track of where you shop.
Correction
As COVID-19 begins to wane (at least from the front pages) as sure as eggs is eggs we will see the largest activist/conspiracy momentum directed towards denying climate change emergency, and by extension
against anyfighting against any governments/parties/individual who either advocate or make any changes in response to the climate change emergency.
However the prevalence of conspiracy theories appears to have grown significantly in recent times
I think they just reach a wider audience because of the availability of instant information. Folk are aware of the more popular ones, form stuff like JFK and the Moon landings, but Mount Rushmore, Mickelsen Safeguard Complex the KKK and Snapple, they've all had their day in the sun and quietly faded away.. and there's been hundreds.
And let's not forget that the flu pandemic, a century ago, was accompanied by its own conspiracy theory groups. Nothing new under the sun.
Whilst there is undoubtedly many folks being misled by fringe groups with a whole lot of batshit nonsense sprinkled on, it's equally worrying to me just how eager everyone is to accept official stories, when time and again the authorities have lied (and continue to lie)
Perhaps it's just easier to accept the information you're fed, rather than going to the effort of delving deeper...
Perhaps it’s just easier to accept the information you’re fed, rather than going to the effort of delving deeper…
but you’re not “delving deeper” either. You’re just uncritically reposting alternative sources that feel truer to you because they happen to align with your own biases. Searching the net for “not mainstream” isn’t any better or a more accurate way of finding out what’s going on
It’s just a straw man. I don’t know anyone who just accepts what comes from government channels, on anything. Whether it’s checking out More or Less, or IndieSage, or any number of other sources… no one just takes the government line as gospel without challenge or checking.
However the prevalence of conspiracy theories appears to have grown significantly in recent times and now covers a range of bizarre subjects from alleged fake moon landings to apparently vaccines which contain microchips so that the government can keep a track of where you shop.
I think it must largely be down to the internet. Pre the millennium people had limited sources of information. Most* people would watch the news or read a paper, but those are regulated to an extent. If you were interested in a subject you then had to go t a library and get a book on it.
Beyond the limited reach of magazines and books you had to actually buy they couldn't spread. And the venn diagram of people who read books and are capable of some critical thinking is a decent overlap so the ratio of copies of new scientist to UFO monthly sold was probably quite good.
Now there is no barrier to "information" on the internet (often the opposite, the good stuff is behind a paywall). With far more people actively consuming it.
*Actually a minority
I don’t know anyone who just accepts what comes from government channels, on anything.
Count yourself as being in a lucky group of people then as there are many millions of people just in this country who accept all sorts of crap.
but you’re not “delving deeper” either. You’re just uncritically reposting alternative sources that feel truer to you because they happen to align with your own biases.
Oh that that was true; I spent years investigating matters, uncovering many scoops along the way and doing my utmost to ensure that information was available to the wider media.
Oh that that was true; I spent years investigating matters, uncovering many scoops along the way and doing my utmost to ensure that information was available to the wider media.
Posting the Google image results of "Jimmy Saville and" isn't a scoop.
I quite like the idea that this is all Dan Brown's fault.
I quite like the idea that this is all Dan Brown’s fault.
Yeah, makes you think
I reckon if you took the phones off a test group of 'conspiracy theorists', within a year most would give up their beliefs without the constant serotonin rush of validation.
I spent years investigating matters, uncovering many scoops along the way and doing my utmost to ensure that information was available to the wider media.
Of course you did. Reality you found a few things were a bit different then perceived and that was already known.
Posting the Google image results of “Jimmy Saville and” isn’t a scoop
Chortle, guffaw...
I got out of the game when I realized that no one was going to publish details of how Mark Sedwill and Matthew Rycroft, the guys behind the Iraq dossier were 2 of the most senior permanent members of Her Majesty's Government.
Sedwill has since moved on mind, to Chair a Panel of the G7 after nomination by none other than our dear Prime Minister and man of the party people, Boris de Pfeffel
doing my utmost to ensure that information was available to the wider media.
What you post on here is some information that is pretty open ended, and then you insinuate the conclusion that you appear to want. Don't you see a problem with that?
I realized that no one was going to publish details of how Mark Sedwill and Matthew Rycroft, the guys behind the Ir
I thought everyone knew that was a stitch-up without bring them into it?
I got out of the game when I realized that no one was going to publish details of how Mark Sedwill and Matthew Rycroft, the guys behind the Iraq dossier were 2 of the most senior permanent members of Her Majesty’s Government.Sedwill has since moved on mind, to Chair a Panel of the G7 after nomination by none other than our dear Prime Minister and man of the party people, Boris de Pfeffel
Not being rude, but.... So what? A long time, senior diplomat/politician got another job as a senior diplomat/politician.
The main problem I see is a lack of curiousity and excessive acceptance of the status quo...
I thought everyone knew that was a stitch-up without bring them into it?
Yup. And that was at the time, not just in hindsight. That report was an obvious stitch up that resulted in many of us protesting at the time. Almost like people don't just take what the government say at face value when corroborating evidence from else where isn't available.
The main problem I see is a lack of curiousity and excessive acceptance of the status quo…
Really? Still don't see this amongst people I know in the slightest. Challenging and questioning the "status quo" can happened without clinging to nonsense just because it is contrary to the status quo.
Not being rude, but…. So what?
Exactly... without all the drama that comes from a media frenzy, a huge scandal can be swiftly dismissed and forgotten and business can continue as usual
Course, all the lives lost don't matter, they were brown people
Still, at least we got the Chilcot report...
no one was going to publish details of how Mark Sedwill and Matthew Rycroft, the guys behind the Iraq dossier
The idea that a report created (although containing fictitious information) to aide the govt's case to go to war was written by members of the same Govt is hardly a startling revelation. Is it?
The main problem I see is a lack of curiousity and excessive acceptance of the status quo…
For lots of folks just managing to feed themselves and keep their homes is enough of a struggle. You have to be in a position of some privilege to be able to spend the time and resources flicking the bean of your own curiosity. For others the shenanigans of some random individual on some other continent has so little bearing on their lives, it may as well be the plot of a novel.
Well, aside from the fact that there was a nigh on 20 year time period in between...
(during which time ££millions was spent with Chilcot and Pals doing their utmost to muddy the waters get to the truth)
Rather than being sacked, or even disciplined, they were constantly promoted, to the extent that Mark Sedwill was the most powerful man in Government, what with not being elected.
As they tend to remain in place regardless of who is elected, who vets civil servants and their career paths?
Jive, couple of questions
How old were you out the outbreak of the war in Iraq and secondly have you ever lived in a country that’s not a 1st world democracy for any significant length of time?
