Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it's LARPing or "intellectual exercise" for some, but for many if not most, it's their reality. I've personally tried to reason with some - it is truly and deeply a waste of time. They literally cannot see beyond their own senses, e.g., want to see for themselves the curvature of the earth, yet they believe that it is the case that every one of the billions of photos of the earth from space or high altitude is…
Not disagreeing, but I think this idea of theorists believing there are hidden patterns as an impotent attempt to impose control on a random and uncertain world falls into its own categorical/binary/blackandwhite trap that also overlooks complexity. Someone seeing periodicity or even symmetry, fractal self simlarity, or isomorphic structure in something noisy could just as easily be accused of apophenia until they pr…
I'm not sure it conflicts, and likely even correlates well with your view of how people relate to power and truth.
Whatever the root cause is relatively unimportant, until an aspiring authoritarian starts herding those who have trouble with objective reality - creates support for a regime that will constrain the rest of us.