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Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#51

Post by tompston »

jamal-kumar wrote: post #8

There's an author, Robert Anton Wilson, who started writing an influential novel called the Illuminatus trilogy which is a pretty fun read but basically if the whole point of his work was anything it would be that if you aren't doing something of your own kind of conspiracy and you're instead obsessing over real or imagined conspiracies that other people are doing, you're wasting your time. It's a fun thing to tell s…

RAW is great!

Haven't read Illuminatus trilogy, but the first chapters of Prometheus Rising had an interesting framework for how you can view the world. Definitely recommend!

Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#52

Post by kennend3 »

lampshades wrote: post #22
kennend3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a conspiracy theory type of person but know a few people who are. My advice to them is to practice "critical thinking". A fairly easy approach should be to recognize your "confirmation bias' and curiosity and feed that by actively looking for contradictory evidence. Too often conspiracy theory types seek out evidence to further support their views, without looking at anything else. I know it is easier said th…

Critical thinking is what got me into this situation. :P

Not considering all the evidence, but only evidence which supports your view causes this. If you are unwilling/unable to debate the other side of an issue, you haven't looked into it enough.

Personally I think the COVID19 vax is the correct action to take, i have also read at least one of the "anti-vax bibles" to get an idea of their views (I found it mostly misinformation)

You mention you are not a "flat earther", why is that? What made you decide that this "theory" was wrong, yet you support others?

Lets look at an example of serous conversations people have had with me: "Flat earth theory."

OK, do you believe in gravity? Given gravity is uniform, this generally should lead to round objects in space. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

So they argue about Gravity... and if it is "real"..

Go to the sink, get water, pour it slowly, what shape is formed.. explain in scientific terms why it is round, but the earth is not....(surface tension, minimum surface area). Could this force impact planets as well absent "Gravity"?

What other planet in the universe is "flat" besides the earth?...

Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#53

Post by nineplay »

etherael wrote: post #39
lettergram wrote: post #17

I do enjoy the fact "conspiracy theory" is a pejorative, although it's how we interpret the world as humans. The term only started to become a pejorative because the news / government started pushing the idea as a pejorative in the 50's. https://www.routledge.com/The-Stigmatization-of-Conspiracy-T... The term was particular pushed in a negative light onto those questioning the murder of JFK. https://history-matters.c…

The truth values of the narrative in question doesn't actually change the point the article makes, though I suspect this is because they're accidentally right rather than they went out of their way to make allowances for the fact that many conspiracy theories turn out to be true. Believing that the greater social structure of your society is controlled by conspiring entities who tend to work in their mutual self inte…

> Most humans just don't care and aren't capable of parsing the truth value of the questions raised, they're just interested in their status within those structures rather than the nature of them.

Good job, you've successfully identified the core belief of almost every conspiracy theorist. A big part of the reason conspiracy theories are so appealing is that it gives the theorist has the happy thought that they and they alone see the truth while everyone else is not 'capable of parsing the truth'.

Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#54

Post by anonporridge »

photochemsyn wrote: post #2

Consider the following theory: > "There's an all-powerful, all-knowing entity watching everything you do and recording all your actions, and depending on that behavior you will be either rewarded with a post-life heavenly bliss, or a post-life eternal hellish punishment. A guaranteed way into heaven is absolute loyalty to your feudal lord and payment of a portion of your income to the church and its priests." Yes, th…

Not just religion, but stateism.

In the US, the conspiracy memes are literally on our money, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Providence.

We nurture and spread the memes of the all seeing eye and the slow grinding gears of justice, not because they're literally true in all cases, but because if you get a critical mass of people to behave as if they are true and voluntarily act in compliance with the rules of this entity, then the much more limited power of the entity can focus itself on the tiny minority of detractors. That's also why detractors often spend time trying to get as many other people out of compliance as possible. It's easier to hide in a crowd when the entity you're hiding from can't arrest everybody.

This is also why it really doesn't take a terribly large minority to collapse this power dynamic, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35.... The actual kinetic power is necessarily supported by its memetic power.

Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#55

Post by soco »

jmt_ wrote: post #34
photochemsyn wrote: post #2

Consider the following theory: > "There's an all-powerful, all-knowing entity watching everything you do and recording all your actions, and depending on that behavior you will be either rewarded with a post-life heavenly bliss, or a post-life eternal hellish punishment. A guaranteed way into heaven is absolute loyalty to your feudal lord and payment of a portion of your income to the church and its priests." Yes, th…

I use the phrase "God hole", introduced by TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, to refer to the phenomenon mentioned in the article. If you're familiar with the show it may seem crass to use that phrase to generalize incredibly complicated philosophy, but it succinctly allegorizes many peoples desire to attach to something greater than them that provides a sense of belonging, identity, and purpose. For example,…

I think not everybody is at struggle with their own insignificance. If nothing else, being aware of it frees you to do good things for yourself and those you care about, instead of pursuing imaginary higher-level goals. If one doesn't feel guilty for trespassing fantasy rules, they can work out what makes them and their loved ones happy in this very life - and I don't think that being an ass or criminal would be many people's choice anyway.

Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#57

Post by joering2 »

anonym29 wrote: post #35
photochemsyn wrote: post #2

Consider the following theory: > "There's an all-powerful, all-knowing entity watching everything you do and recording all your actions, and depending on that behavior you will be either rewarded with a post-life heavenly bliss, or a post-life eternal hellish punishment. A guaranteed way into heaven is absolute loyalty to your feudal lord and payment of a portion of your income to the church and its priests." Yes, th…

I'm no earthographer or planetologist, but I'm pretty confident there's a scientific way to disprove an (allegedly) flat earth.

I think the whole "movement" has been created from the fact that, scientifically speaking, earth is not round. At least not perfectly round like you see photos, because that's obviously water being pulled by gravity making it look like a soap bubble perfectly rounded.

First time I saw real photo of Earth I was somewhat shocked.

https://c.tenor.com/f7Pz19uaXFwAAAAC/earth-rotating.gif

Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#58

Post by detaro »

joering2 wrote: post #57
anonym29 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no earthographer or planetologist, but I'm pretty confident there's a scientific way to disprove an (allegedly) flat earth.

I think the whole "movement" has been created from the fact that, scientifically speaking, earth is not round. At least not perfectly round like you see photos, because that's obviously water being pulled by gravity making it look like a soap bubble perfectly rounded. First time I saw real photo of Earth I was somewhat shocked. https://c.tenor.com/f7Pz19uaXFwAAAAC/earth-rotating.gif

"real photo" - followed by a visualization that over-exaggerates the anomalies way more than thousandfold? (i.e. in the image earth is ~240 px high, given a polar diameter of ~12 000km we end up at ~50km per pixel. So even the difference between polar and equatorial diameter would be barely visible, and ~100m anomalies are 0.002px)

Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#59

Post by jmt_ »

soco wrote: post #55
jmt_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use the phrase "God hole", introduced by TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, to refer to the phenomenon mentioned in the article. If you're familiar with the show it may seem crass to use that phrase to generalize incredibly complicated philosophy, but it succinctly allegorizes many peoples desire to attach to something greater than them that provides a sense of belonging, identity, and purpose. For example,…

I think not everybody is at struggle with their own insignificance. If nothing else, being aware of it frees you to do good things for yourself and those you care about, instead of pursuing imaginary higher-level goals. If one doesn't feel guilty for trespassing fantasy rules, they can work out what makes them and their loved ones happy in this very life - and I don't think that being an ass or criminal would be many…

I see what you're saying and mostly agree. I should have worded my original comment better and to be careful with "awareness". I think the degree to which people understand, perceive, and struggle with their existentiality is a wide spectrum. What I really should have argued is that the desire to fill the God hole exists across this spectrum and drives a lot of human behavior regardless of how aware the person is of this effect. I'm reminded of people I grew up with who blindly grab on to, say, religion or patriotism - they may not be thinking in such a "meta" way about their existence, but have a primal desire to fill the God hole and enjoy the effects of their chosen filling. I think I'm more arguing that filling a God hole is a much more primal desire than we may realize.

Re: Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

#60

Post by orwin »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #18
Dudeman112 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's no scientific way to disprove any of these theories And yet probability theory has a lot to say about the likelihood of theories and epistemology has come a long way in the last century Not every likely (or unlikely) hypothesis is as likely (or unlikely) as each other

> And yet probability theory has a lot to say Would love to see your experiment design for testing with the null hypothesis "there is no god" ... personally, I'm an atheist, but that's still a belief-based position.

I'm not sure it is. It isn't for me. I don't really believe there is no god, i am however certain that I am more likely to get the wrong one than not (statistically). Thus, rather than taking a belief and moral system from a book, i choose to act as if I don't have one and act following a consequentialism that suits me.

But honestly, 99% of the time, i just don't care.

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