What Drives Conspiracy Theorists?

[Cletus]

What drives them is a lack of education and groupthink. Many of the republicans in power today are among the stupidest group in history, consider only the QAnon followers. They remind me of the morons in HS who thought saying stupid shat was funny. Groupthink is dangerous but groupthink among the stupid with power is really dangerous. For the interested reader, a few books.

'Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power' by Anna Merlan

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/20/71521...iracy-theories

And:

'Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming' Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. M. Conway

Have you ever been out in the sunlight?

[Standing Wolf]

In many cases, people believe conspiracy theories because they provide simple answers to complex questions, and because those people are not only stupid, but lazy.

https://thepoliticalforums.com/threa...tern-Democracy

[The Xl]

Truth drives so called conspiracy theorists. Are some conspiracy theories and theorists out there? Sure. But for every one that is untrue and outlandish, there is one that is accurate. Government is filled with liars and criminals.

[Ethereal]

In many cases, people believe conspiracy theories because they provide simple answers to complex questions, and because those people are not only stupid, but lazy.

https://thepoliticalforums.com/threa...tern-Democracy

Actually, it's the exact opposite. People rely on vaguely defined and highly subjective terms like "conspiracy theory" because they're too stupid and intellectually lazy to make real arguments. It's much easier to just label anything you don't agree with as a "conspiracy theory".

[Common Sense]

The proliferation of the internet has resulted in an explosion of conspiracy theories and theorists. Prior to message boards and conspiracy blogs, the people who espoused these theories were basement dwelling crackpots and homeless people suffering from mental illnesses.

With the explosion of the information super highway, came the proliferation of these elaborate theories and delusional claims. While some conspiracy theories are based in fact, many mote are based solely on an inherent distrust of government and the belief in grand schemes perpetrated by shadowy forces. Some are based on a sliver of truth, but most are based on ridiculous theories that most sane people would laugh at.

Psychologists have studied this phenomenon (dismissed as deep state propaganda by the conspiracy nuts), and have discovered that essentially adherence to conspiracy theories gives less informed people a false sense of intelligence and superiority. And the first down the rabbit hole people go, they will believe more and more unrealistic theories. It becomes self fulfilling. And the irony is that they believe everyone else is gullible. It’s actually a pretty tragic phenomenon that has divided families and ended friendships.

Unfortunately, this trend isn’t going away anytime soon.

[Standing Wolf]

Actually, it's the exact opposite. People rely on vaguely defined and highly subjective terms like "conspiracy theory" because they're too stupid and intellectually lazy to make real arguments. It's much easier to just label anything you don't agree with as a "conspiracy theory".

It's true, of course - people often describe ideas they don't agree with as "conspiracy theories" out of laziness and malice. People also frequently believe those theories, as I stated, out of ignorance and malice. The fact of one does not negate the other.

The thread title is "What drives conspiracy theorists?", not "What makes people call things conspiracy theories that may be grounded in fact?"

[blackjack21]

But, to dismiss the shooting of dozens of children as a conspiracy when it would take a massive effort to organize such a stunt crosses the line into madness.What makes a person believe unbelievable conspiracies?

Television "programming" really is "programming." It's not some non-biased broadcasting of the events of the day. I've given examples before: like the tsunami that hit Japan and killed 20k people--that story only mattered until there was a fire at the Fukushima power plant killing 14 people. Suddenly, the media pivoted and that was all they could talk about, because they are trying to program people to be anti-nuclear power. It was as if they were standing on a small hill of 20k bodies pointing at 14 dead people fighting a fire at a nuclear power plant. These shootings are no less weird, because they are always paired with calls for gun control, but the shooters are usually mentally ill and on SSRIs. Since the media gets much of its funding from drug companies, and are staffed with political actors, their coverage of shootings is so disconnected from how normal people see the events that there is a massive cognitive dissonance occurring.

It is a real psychosis?

Quite possibly. I limit the amount of television news I watch. I only have Fubo to catch a bit of news and football. I don't watch any other "programming." Take the guy who just ran over an 18-year old kid, because he thought that the kid was a MAGA extremist. Where did you hear that first? Biden's over-the-top rhetoric, right? There are some people who cannot make the distinction between over-the-top rhetoric and a genuine threat. So they will listen to Biden and literally go out and kill somebody.

They aren't ALL stupid, but the one thing they all have in common is an inability to wrap their heads around the reality that some nobody like Oswald could change the course of history by taking out a President of the United States. There has to be some bigger, powerful force acting behind the scenes and pulling the levers.

Yes, but some "nobody like Oswald" was trained to shoot by the US military, was an FBI and CIA informant, defected to Russia during the Cold War, and later returned to the United States only to shoot the sitting president of the US. Why do the FBI and CIA still insist that some information about the assassination remain classified? It's because Oswald wasn't just a nobody. He had ties to the US intelligence community.

That doesn't mean conspiracies don't exist. Of course they do. There are plenty of real world conspiracies going on out there all the time, but most of them lack the excitement or glamor of the murder of a President.The reality is that history can be and often is changed by insignificant people.

I don't know that I would call the murder of a president glamorous. However, consider other things happening at the time. Konrad Adenauer and Kennedy didn't like each other. Adenauer thought Kennedy was naïve, while Kennedy thought of Adenauer as a fossil regarding keeping West Berlin free. Adenauer's government ended up charging Der Spiegel journalists with espionage for publishing a defense document detailing the weakness of West German armed forces. The scandal ultimately forced Adenauer out in October of 1963, one month before Kennedy was shot. At the same time, the US and UK were at loggerheads over Skybolt and whether or not the US would supply the UK with submarine-launched Polaris missiles. France--namely Charles DeGaulle--was upset about it and vetoed the UKs entry into the European Economic Community. Harold Macmillan's government also came to an end in October 1963. DeGaulle himself had over 30 assassination attempts on him. See The Day of the Jackal if you want to watch a good film of that time period. Italy held an election and overturned Amintore Fanfani's government in June of 1963, and Giovanni Leone's government only lasted until December 5, 1963. Jan de Quay's government in the Netherlands also came to an end in July of 1963. John Diefenbaker's government came to an end in Canada in April of 1963.

So in the span of one month, the UK and German leaders step down, Kennedy is killed and a short-lived Italian government collapses. In the span of six months, the leadership of most of the NATO allies turned over, with Kennedy getting shot. It was a pretty interesting year for politics to put a finer point on it.

While some conspiracy theories are based in fact, many mote are based solely on an inherent distrust of government and the belief in grand schemes perpetrated by shadowy forces.

Some are propagated by the government themselves, like UFO sightings to cast suspicion on anyone who has seen the latest new secret fighter plane, etc. Red Herrings and False Flags are not uncommon either.

[Common Sense]

Damn, the internet has done a number on some people.

[Peter1469]

Originally Posted by Standing Wolf
In many cases, people believe conspiracy theories because they provide simple answers to complex questions, and because those people are not only stupid, but lazy.


https://thepoliticalforums.com/threa...tern-Democracy

Actually, it's the exact opposite. People rely on vaguely defined and highly subjective terms like "conspiracy theory" because they're too stupid and intellectually lazy to make real arguments. It's much easier to just label anything you don't agree with as a "conspiracy theory".

Right. The first time the term was used was done so exactly as Wolf and Sense did above- by the CIA in reference to people talking about MK-Ultra to discredit them. It took until the 1970s for Congress to determine the conspiracy theorists were right leading to restrictions on CIA activities.

[Ethereal]

It's true, of course - people often describe ideas they don't agree with as "conspiracy theories" out of laziness and malice. People also frequently believe those theories, as I stated, out of ignorance and malice. The fact of one does not negate the other.
The thread title is "What drives conspiracy theorists?", not "What makes people call things conspiracy theories that may be grounded in fact?"

What's a "conspiracy theorist"? What's a "conspiracy theory"?

It's whatever the person using those terms wants it to be.

And as it turns out, many of the things which are labeled "conspiracy theories" turn out to be completely true. You know what the difference between a "conspiracy theory" and the truth is? About 3 months, these days. For whatever reason, you just don't want to admit how bad the ruling class really is, even though they're rubbing your face in it.