Changes to inflation result in potentially sharp transitions, which creates an implied uncertainty about a future outcome. By definition, climate is not characterized by sharp transitions; it is very slow on a human timescale.
The argument "against climate change" is more so an argument against immediate action. It's a silly argument since prepping for climate change involves R&D into ultimately more profitable energy solutions, like nuclear, electric, solar, etc. People are deterred by the cost of change.
Closer to about 24 thousand years or so. The regular cycles in the climate are hard to understand except that scale. Last thing we need is to give those nuts more ammo by withholding any information at all; give them the whole truth.
You can't fight a misinformation campaign by attacking the simple truths that keep it functional as a conspiracy theory.
The climate is always changing. Even if we survive the local warming period, we're just as likely to fall into a brutal ice age right afterwards, of which humanity will not survive unless we very quickly learn how to do planetary-scale geoengineering and terraforming.
My problem with the whole "climate change is fake" conspiracy nuts is... why aren't they just going for the obvious one that the governments just don't care and aren't fixing the larger issue? The amount the US government spent on the endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan could have ensured the survival of the human race.
A nice big juicy conspiracy right there, and none of them are going for it. Government fucked up? Check. People profited from war? Check. Media is refusing to cover it? Check. Come on, take the fucking bait and run with it.
I think that people are proposing a conspiracy theory as you've described there; I think it goes along with phrases such as "The Deep State" and "Our Greatest Ally".
It also goes along with purging people representing a different perspective than "The Cure". That there's no real plan other than being puppets to billionaires, doesn't phase these groups. That their leaders are willing to seed chaos, destruction and war, for political gains and power, seems also to fly right by.
Interesting! That sounds like a very different conspiracy theory to the one that I had encountered, but I suppose this isn't really the appropriate forum to go into the gritty details of stuff like that.
What Western government isn't all-in on climate change? Am I misunderstanding your point?
As someone you'd probably describe as a climate skeptic, I think governments are capitalising expertly on this. They have hysterical populations literally begging for bigger and broader taxation; all they have to do is not be greedy. Exploit as much as they can get away with, and no more. That means pandering to the cronyists and greenies begging for taxes (that they won't pay) under the guise of environmentalism, without getting so carried away that the working class father decides enough is enough. That's what they're doing.
How is a conspiracy around government inaction going to work when I read about new regulations, committees, levies and taxes every time I open a newspaper?
Sometimes, yes. The current US President has offered up quite a few theories about Covid. I’m not sure it’s fair to say that he created them though as much as spread them, but there are media and political organizations that spread theories about Covid, climate change, vaccines, etc.
rt.com put a fair amount of effort into promoting the 5G health theories. Here's a comment from a year ago [1] that includes links to 5 of their video segments on 5G.
My intuition is that this is not very good advice. I don't think it is very likely to talk someone out of a conspiracy theory - unless you're really well prepared for the discussion and they are willing to listen and change their mind.
If you model the conspiracy theorist as being similar to yourself, I think you'd have to assume there is roughly equal likelihood that you will convince them that covid is caused by a virus (or whatever), as there is that they will convince you that it is caused by their cell phone - that is, not much chance at all of changing people's minds by discussion like this.
Sadly there is no reasoning with stupid, I don't mean that in a totally derogatory way, we are all a bit stupid over something, that topic where our reasoning stops and our emotions, fears and justifications take over.
The only way to deal with stupid is more stupid.
The best example I have heard of this is countering anti-vaxers with "Is is possible anti-vax is miss-information spread by insert "enemy" country to destabilise the health of this country's population?"
Or "I wear a mask as it makes the government cameras and microphones harder to track me" (which actually isn't all that stupid probably)
It's not necessary that people are stupid but the logic is so flawed that you just can't help it. Also, people hate to be wrong,so even if the entire world tells different, they'd just defend their line even more stronger. I think this year, I lost all hope for humans seeing masses spouting utter nonsense like it's bloody dark ages..
Sadly I believe you are right. There are people on the fringes of a "conspiracy" that are still open to reason. They want an explanation for their world gone un-understandable (as I like to calll it) for them. Their worldviews just broke and their sense of security and normalcy received a huge blow.
When the first soft lockdown was in place in Germany I stumbled into a small anti-mask/anti-corona discussion. There was a leader type (a medical doctor who should know better) that was unreachable. And there were some clear disciples of his. But there was also one guy who presented numbers and stats printed on paper about how much more deaths the flu season 17/18 caused.
Gladly I knew my numbers and could point him to some facts about the numbers. First he only had data about said year. That some few years before there were only two-digit flu death numbers in Germany he didn't know (and I could point him to the same source of original data he was quoting showing this).
The more and more I took his arguments seriously and only was arguing in a fact based manner based on his sources, the more I saw that he started to think about what he said. I also was clearly not putting him down and even stating, that some of the government's measures seem illogical to me (as they were at the time and still are), but that I - from the values I was raised with - valued the knowledge, that I do everything not to endanger people who cannot protect themselves as good as I can (they were mostly arguing against masks).
I argued that I am guided above all by the value of humanity and that I therefore follow the principle of caution and prefer to wear the masks in a store where I might accidentally get too close to other people, even if I find it unpleasant, rather than taking the risk of possibly endangering someone in the risk group.
While we talked, more and more people of this group as well as bystanders started to listen and I saw that at least in some parts the seemingly homogeneous group split into disciples and people starting to think.
Do I think I was able to argue somebody out of believing? Clearly not - but I am hopeful, that I was able to plant a seed. One would need more time and more real talks to really pull someone away from the fringes of a conspiracy. Someone captured deep within is imho sadly lost.
[Edit:]
Forgot - I really like your irrationality approach. Will copy it and try it.
If you have time and they do t seem totally all in then the reasoning approach is still the best I think (as you out here)
On illogical governments I’ve managed to calm friends down by saying “yeah, not all lock down rules seem sensible but you know what? We’ve not done this before, we’ve not been through a pandemic in about 100 years and the world is very different now. We are all making this up as we go along and so inconsistencies will arise, mistakes will be made and we will all get through this together by playing our role. Don’t rage at the system, realise the system is flawed but the end goal is the same, stop the virus spreading until we have a vaccine” it seems to have helped a number of my friends who were on the “it’s like these rules are designed to get us in trouble” train
“Never assign to malice what can be explained by incompetence” - is a happier way to live in my books
You're absolutely right we haven't gone through this 100 years people are way smarter now they understand how germs spread we'd be okay without lockdowns we'd be okay without masks I trust in humanity people are smart enough if they're taught to just cover with their arms and take regular baths.
When global leaders were in power they sent me to Iraq to look for wmds they expected toxic environments and put me through mopp training a lot of those guidelines were created by CDC. If a manufactured virus was to be loose the following guidelines were taught. This is military training overseen by CDC. Improper use of mask covering is worse than no covering, touching the mask to adjust it is improper, reusing mask is improper, improper disposal is improper, improper construction and material is improper,...... Then all of a sudden everything the CDC ever taught me flew out the window overnight and they started editing manuals to sound ridiculous.
I don't think that's fighting stupid with stupid, but more so pitching black-sheep thinking to someone who likes the idea of being a black sheep.
Your first example isn't entirely unlikely (I'd make it part of my effort if I were trying to destabilise a country) and as you said, the second example isn't too stupid.
A friend of mine dated a woman recently and she was partial to some qanon business. When he carefully probed with an argument to see how firm her thinking was, she said literally "I don't want to change my mind," which is likely quite insightful.
Y'all sound like you just trying to indoctrinate and force a conformity what happened to diversity is our greatest strength diversity of thought will save us all if you just blindly file into a line like CNN tells you you're going to walk off a cliff
I have a problem with that logic because it's not working on me I would say I'm a pretty smart fellow and I used to think anti-vax was retarded but seeing all of the genome and DNA sequencing that's going on around the SARS virus and all the copywriting trademarking going around the DNA structure of the virus I'm starting to wonder if this whole sickness was manufactured just to sell drugs. As I said before I spend a lot of time in the hospital and when doctors are marking people who slipped on ice as dying of covid you got to start to wonder what the crap is going on.
The first falacy described in the article highlights how much conspiracies are faith based. Where someone deep enough in the rabbit hole believe it to such an extent that it's part of their identity.
If you have a religious person, think how almost impossible it would be to convince them that their faith is a human created fiction.
I'm not sure that religion is a good example. I mean, religion is quite openly a set of guidelines and rules that establish how a society should operate. Some religious text books use parables as rhetoric devices to show scenarios that illustrate how behaviors harm or benefit society. Thus, we don't need the supernatural to be religious. It helps, but it's not necessary.
Yeah, plus large swaths of land have grown irreligious in relative short timespans (< 100 years), indicating that religion is pretty vulnerable in the memetic war.
Even in the Islamic world the number of secret atheists is growing. [0][1][2] It is not too hard to become disillusioned in faith if you witness entire countries pulverized in the name of God.
The distinction from OP might've been "human created fictions"? That was my interpretation anyway. If you were all about the societal guidelines, would you find the idea that those parables were invented by humans inoffensive?
There are religious people and then there are those who believe the Earth is 5000 years old, and that humans lived along with dinosaurs prior to the Deluge.
Whatever mechanisms that enable that kind of belief were useful in our evolution, but now are an existential threat to our species.
I dunno I still firmly sit in the 9/11 was an inside job camp. I've looked to be debunked and disproven many times over the years wondering if I was just young and naive.
Everytime I look I still arrive at the same outcome.
I don't think this is some faith I hold. I just can't see how the "truth" actually matches with the reality I saw with my own eyes and the reality I determine byaking a judgement call about the government's actions at the time.
I could actually let the twin towers go. Pentagon crash was just simply too unlikely. Doesn't help the evidence we needed was taken away and hidden never released.
The biggest danger our minds face, and I say this to you with all the kindness, is that our minds cannot be used reliably to measure themselves individually. Seen from the inside, insanity looks sane.
:-(
I have a dear friend who doesn't believe we landed on the Moon. Otherwise he's highly intelligent and successful. I joked with my therapist that his job was to help me debug myself, as nobody can do it alone.
We all are subject to small malfunctions. We just need to be aware of that.
Indeed. These facts are why I so highly value my own awareness and willingness to change my mind.
I'd love to have someone prove me wrong.
Over the years much of 9/11 has received reasonable doubt worthy mythbusting.
But at some point the arguments are just too overwhelming. To me, the "MythBusters" actually sound delusional. They're unwilling to confront evidence, and are guilty of most the things this article lists.
One of the problems with this case in particular is how isolating it all is. I don't tell people I'm a truther. You learn real fast how "wrong you are" from the screeching mother's about how dare you? As if questioning the so trustworthy media narrative is somehow offensive just because people died.
Yes they died, I'm disgusted by it. I'm more disgusted by the idea that the govt was behind it.
But the problem with this isolation is that you can't get dissenting ideas. I have to seek out confronting views this in itself is uncomfortable. Past this, I have to wade through the myth busters jokes and jabs at my expense, being compared to moon landing hoaxers and antivaxxers.
I can see how people fall into conspiracy theories and get shutout of society for it.
To this day I hope I'm wrong I hope one day someone can convince me. But to this day. Nobody has, and given how much evidence is now lost or destroyed there really isn't much chance of this happening.
Nobody is going to do that for you. Sorry, but truthers are in exactly the same bucket as moon landing hoaxers, antivaxers, and flat earthers. The burden of proof is on them. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. "I believe in X, prove me wrong" is Argument from ignorance [1], where one asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false.
I don't think that's a very representative view of what my post was about.
I actively search for contrary opinion and dissenting facts.
Hell this convo spurred me to re-watch and re-read a bunch of the old criticisms.
Regarding moon landing and antivaxxers being the same that is entirely false. There is plenty of evidence we landed on the moon, there is plenty of evidence vaccines work.
Truthers don't argue if planes hit the towers. They argue the people behind the act were not those you have been lead to believe with little to no evidence.
Truthers don't believe the narrative. And aside from the more extreme individuals that believe everything that Alex tells them, truthers don't disagree with facts.
In fact truthers seek fact. The only problem is that they we were met with obstruction at every turn.
When you're prevented from looking at the evidence, when the evidence is quickly cleaned up and destroyed without standard practice investigation taking place it leaves questions open for interpretation.
You can't tell then me the sky is green, no you can't look, and no, your argument that it is blue is an argument from ignorance, how dare you open these old wounds.
I've (sometimes) seen good results from people politely and respectfully challenging their friends' well-intentioned conspiraloon posts on Facebook. I've seen very few successful looking challenges of strangers, bad-faith arguers or full-on nutters.
The saddest part of conspiracy theories is when they simply support business activities. There was this woman in the US behind a very active anti-vaxxer group on Facebook. Membership numbers in tens of thousands.. So someone went digging to see what's going on there.Turns out the group owner sells vitamin C in huge quantities, literally bags, as an alternative solution for vaccines... Back at home we've got this tech millionaire, who recently started anti-vaxx campaign, across all possible channels from mainstream TV to YouTube..So was thinking why would he do that and what's the motivation...Turns out he's got alternatives medicines online store ....
From a scientific point of view, the problem is that there are no definition of what a "conspiracy theory" is.
Some theories are scientifically proved wrong (earth is flat), other are partially wrong (climate has always changed... yes but not that fast), and others are just far fetched ( hydroxychloroquin has been fought against by big pharmas to try and sell their own expensive drugs). And then there are theories or rumors that happened to be correct after all ( watergate, contras, etc).
The conspiracy label is not necessarily interesting or relevant. More to the point is the quality and directness of evidence and potential useful reactions.
For example, where novel coronavirus comes from does not change what it takes to avoid the virus. And if Antifa were to make a sustained effort to dominate rural lands then the same kind of efforts that might be used for defense of liberty against any other threat are still the first and best option.
Attempting to understand exactly who is involved and what their motivations are is the least effective way of handling modern life. It makes more sense to be measured and balanced with all information and to make use of best practices based on what is most likely.
> From a scientific point of view, the problem is that there are no definition of what a "conspiracy theory" is.
But there is, isn't it?
I mean, it's a theory regarding conspiracies.
And colloquially, the theory is supported by no rational basis or evidence, or it's basis is so twisted and convoluted that its main premise isn't even falsifiable.
> And then there are theories or rumors that happened to be correct after all ( watergate, contras, etc).
You're confusing hypothesis with conspiracy theories.
Hypothesis are open questions that are falsifiable and verifiable.
Conspiracy theories are illogical leaps of faith supported by barely any rationality.
There was evidence supporting the theory that Nixon was engaged in shady tactics to steal the election. There is absolutely no evidence that "the masked singer" was produced to condition the public to believe that wearing a mask was cool.
> This is not a black or white thing.
It pretty much is. At most, the shade of grey between the blackest of blacks and the whitest of whites is very thin.
If someone is presenting baseless assertions as facts supporting a conspiracy that is supported or hinted by no rational basis whatsoever then where's the doubt?
There are indeed theories about a secret organisation plotting to take over the world, and if we were rigourous that's the only time we should be talking about "conspiracy theory". This is clearly not what people are doing. The "protocol of the elder of zion" conspiracy theory is this kind of example, but there aren't a lot of them.
However, even with this definition it is still not clear-cut. If you were to say in the cold war that some US secret services were financing authoritarian regimes in south america to fight communism (or islamic extremists in afghanistan), this could easily qualify as a conspiracy theory today. Until you get the evidence that it is true.
At the moment, it looks to me like the only purpose of this label is to prevent people from trying to investigate into it. It's a concept that prevents you from thinking rather than helps you think better.
> There are indeed theories about a secret organisation plotting to take over the world, and if we were rigourous that's the only time we should be talking about "conspiracy theory".
No, not really.
There is a constant stream of idiotic and entirely baseless and outright irrational conspiracy theories popping up all the time, which is proportional to the amount of stupidity and ignorance in the universe.
Take for example the ridiculous conspiracy theory of how "the masked singer" is a psyops project designed to manipulate people into accepting mask usage. No one in their right mind would be pushing that gem of idiocy. But here we are, with lunatics selling that off as true.
> (...) It's a concept that prevents you from thinking rather than helps you think better.
It really isn't, and you are not helping your case by trying to shamelessly misrepresent your point and move the goal post.
The key aspect that you are trying to disregard and avoid is the fact that conspiracy theories share a common trait: misrepresent baseless assumptions and unfalsifiable assertions as unquestionable facts, no matter how silly or ridiculous or crazy they are.
That's what separates mere hypothesis or suspicions from the crazy train which are conspiracy theories: how they push baseless allegations and unverifiable brain farts as undisputable facts.
To make matters worse, the loons pushing conspiracy theories use all sort of sociopath tricks to force their conspiracy theories onto others, including but not limited to attacking those who dare point out logic flaws in their craziness.
That's the touchstone test that separates the conspiracy theory loons living in crazy town from those living in reality which recognize the fact that conspiracies do exist: how facts and hypothesis and proof are treated differently.
you seem to really forget that history is full of example of crazy things that people would have undoubtedly labeled as "baseless unverifiable brain farts" on their time.
You try to make a black / white distinction between "factual" and "idiotic", but reality is much more diverse (although there are some extreme cases for sure).
The things become even more complex when you consider that real scandals often start to be unveiled by thin hints, rather than obvious proofs.
My point is that it's a spectrum, not a binary thing.
> A conspiracy theory is something that the other political side believes in, but which your side rejects fully.
Not all conspiracy theories have political stratification. In fact, what is often incorrectly considered the Ur-conspiracy theory--the JFK murder--has adherents of every political descriptor under the sun.
You've got people thinking the once-communist Oswald was working on behalf of the USSR or Cuba. To which people would reply that the CIA would never allow a former Communist back in _unless he was willing to work for them_.
There are overlaps, certainly, but ideas labeled as "conspiracy theories" usually boil down to the instinctive left vs right values, but that is not always apparent at first sight.
Example: anti-vaxxers. Why would this be RW? Well, RW fear "being controlled" and have a deep distrust of the state. They like their freedom, and don't like to be told what to do, even if that would be in their best interest. So they reject this idea of being told "inject this into your body" and concoct stories about how the state plans to give everyone autism. Same with flouride in the water, etc.
At the same time, well-off mums that probably vote left or green reject vaccines too, but for different reasons.
I'm really confused at how you went from:
> A conspiracy theory is something that the other political side believes in, but which your side rejects fully.
to (paraphrase):
> both sides can harbor the same conspiracy
> There are overlaps, certainly, but ideas labeled as "conspiracy theories" usually boil down to the instinctive left vs right values, but that is not always apparent at first sight.
If any group of conflicting political adherents harbor the same conspiracy theory--e.g., JFK's murder was a conspiracy--then it indicates that the conspiracy theory isn't polarized, only that ideology changes how the event was perceived.
The conspiracy theory isn't what is polarized; the political implications of "resolving" the conspiracy are polarized.
Both of the left wing "conspiracy theories" you mentioned are inaccurate and not actually conspiracy theories. No one thinks that the gender pay gap is an actually motivated effort by men against women... it's purely the observation that there is a wage gap (perhaps due to historical gender roles?). So it does not involve a "conspirator", that is a big difference.
The same goes for the second one. It's not the belief that wealthier people are this evil group which acts against the lower class people, moreso a critique of the system that allowed them to rise into the position and situation they are in. They are not believed to be "conspiring" though.
You have to understand that one of the core beliefs of the left is that inequality is bad. The political goal is to create a situation/system where humans all have the same opportunities. It's not about punishing one group of people but instead about leveling out the playing field, making the game "fairer" in general.
That is at least how I understand it but I am sure there are also extremists with irrational ideas.
> No one thinks that the gender pay gap is an actually motivated effort by men against women
I assure you there are people that believe exactly this, because they publicly stated as much on Twitter threads, getting a considerable number of likes in the process.
I wouldn't be surprised if inside individual companies there are people aware of that and of the impact increasing women's salaries would have on their bonuses, so, it could be characterized as a conspiracy.
On the other hand, reading the (secret) minutes of the last (secret) meeting of Men International Organization, which was held on quantum encrypted holochat (a tech we got from the Roswell crash), there was no discussion on this matter.
Fair enough... but then stating that the "Left Wing" has that position would be a generalization. Undoubtedly this type of generalization happens for the "Right Wing" as well, however it would be irrational to form conclusions based on it.
I think it is interesting that you mentioned Twitter, because in my opinion that somewhat highlights how conspiracy theories might form and spread.
Because Twitter is a proprietary platform where content might be aggregated or filtered, filter bubbles and echo chambers can form. Because of this, it is dangerous to assume that the people on Twitter accurately represent society. Thus, such assumptions can lead to conspiracy theories.
> there is a conspiracy by men to oppress women and make them earn less money, resulting in the Gender Pay Gap: clearly untrue
It is some A class gaslighting to paint this as being considered a conspiracy instead of a systemic problem that is being perpetuated by those (some unwitting) who benefit from it.
I could take your exact response and apply it to countless other conspiracy theories - many of which would be wild conspiracy theories in your eyes.
I suppose it's a great example whichever way you look at it: either as a textbook conspiracy theory, or of the effectiveness of attaching that undesirable label to inconvenient truths.
Yes you could ignore the absolutely immense amount of scientific study and evidence for this topic and compare it to other ones that lack such evidence.
That also conveniently sidesteps the exact thing that makes it not "a textbook conspiracy theory".
I encourage you to investigate the timeline of Hydroxychloroquine. From its scientific support for effective use in the 2003 SARS outbreak. From early tests in China showing positive results it also worked for SARS-CoV-2 when applied early on to mild cases (not to terribly sick pneumatics as a cure). From Trump stupidly talking about things he has no authority to speak on, carelessly misleading public. From how the media started attacking HCQ afterwards as a proxy for Trump bashing. From how a singly shoddy retracted study with possibly faked data, caused all WHO tests to cancel HCQ trials world-wide (when these very trials were designed to test adverse and positive effects, and not part of the shoddy study).
HCQ. Like mask-wearing. Like sensible quarantine methods. Are all incredibly polarized, political, and vague regarding to truths.
But any credible research on HCQ shows its effect or potential, still. And even for the vaccines, we see involvement of politics (Trump would definitely have abused a vaccine release to gain votes), and economic incentives of big pharmas and countries GDP/unemployment, to muddy what is factual and helpful, and what is ill-motivated and cause for suspicion.
For instance: I have no proof that there are PR departments of public health organizations and stock-market listed companies who are actively suppressing negative information on vaccines (contents, adverse effects, low-but-sufficient efficiency).
I think it is highly likely that there are economic, panic-management or public health incentives to against dangerous, yet partly true, ideas, and that big pharma and CDC could be conspiring to manage and control this information and what opinions I form. That, well-intentioned, Google and Youtube and Facebook and Twitter and WHO and some other elites sat in a secret meeting room, and wrote the playbook on how to deal with people proposing multi-vatimins as a cure, or even as a help for improving immune system. That such people are banned (or even arrested if they have medical authority) for things that in a normal situation people would have a right not to mistreated as such.
You have no proof that big pharma does not conspire to suppress half-measures and inconvenient situations (people refusing to mask up until vaccine is released). But what makes you think that? You looked at the history of big pharma, at the history of capitalism, at the history of public health controversies and attempts from the top to manage that and politicize it, and you see nothing of suspicion for extrapolating that to the uncertain future we live in? Or you trust them on their blue eyes or because believing it would make you feel bad?
Very rarely do I see people in good faith believing in the content of the conspiracy theory. It's usually a tool to mount some war against a thorn jabbed in the speaker's side that they cannot articulate in polite company, so a conspiracy group is the next best place to hob nob and chin wag about this malefic thorn in their side, poisoning their thoughts and feelings and yet difficult to discuss without putting everybody to sleep with yet another impossible to solve fear.
The changes in view I've seen is when the underlying need to quell a fear has been met, the story they discuss openly tends to change a bit.
When a side is able to conjure almost majority of a huge population, there are real unresolved issues these people care deeply about. Democracy is still the best measure we have that confounds even expert opinions. As it is self-integrated, it co-depends on the larger self and identity of the population.
What is needed is to resolve those issues, while not succumbing to populists who seek to create enemies and destruction.
In a R/D party system, you "buy" a party wholesale, with all the opinions and policies that it currently holds. Some of which are repulsive even for you.
MJ legalization was almost entirely achieved through ballot initiatives, because both R and D elected politicians were afraid to touch it.
Something need to be fixed for sure. Full-on direct democracy in the digital age could be wild. It'd require high knowledge, deep thought and empathy among citizens. Something need to break the stalemate of two party system. Maybe a new great leader will do it, or maybe restructuring the political system. The problem today is most politicians themselves not fairly representing the people, even the so-called "rebels".
> I am sure the flat earth stuff and the 5gs are manufactured conspiracies, for the sole reason of developing a mechanism to basically discredit any public suspicion once something gets slapped the "conspiracy theory" term.
Also "vaccines cause autism". There was well documented fiasco around swine flu vaccine (pandemrix) that seems to have given narcolepsy to some people, but more often than not bringing that up labels you as an anti-vaxer and noone wants to listen. It's ironic that article speaks about "thought-terminating cliches" where some conspiracy theories are used as such to cover actual issues.
My point here is that most issues are subtle: I'm happy I was given polio vaccine when I was a child, but I don't trust pharma that much and I'd rather not take anything that didn't go through years of testing and I think big pharma's bad reputation is well-earned.
They do release the details—-both to the FDA (and the equivalent organizations in dozens of other countries) and in their patent applications.
But if you want to base medical decisions on an ill fitting analogy because it sounds catchy, then go ahead.
As for your article, the phase 3 trials for COVID vaccines can’t be cherry picked because they were registered before hand with preselected success criteria, and they have been intensely followed by the media.
Your argument is actually addressed in the article:
> It may be worth acknowledging the fact that certain conspiracies – like Watergate – have occurred in the past, but they were supported by incontrovertible evidence rather than rumour and supposition.
Even if they turn out to be true, those were all conspiracy theories before there was sufficient evidence for it. And you would have been a conspiracy theorist had you believed any of them without sufficient evidence.
Being a conspiracy theorist is not about whether your theories are true or not. It's about what kind of evidence you use to support your theories.
> Without evidence there’s no proof that something is true. But without evidence on the contrary there’s no proof it isn’t true either.
You are arguing that the conspiracy theory label is unjustified. But if the proof for your theory is primarily based on absence of proof to the contrary, then it would rightfully be labelled a conspiracy theory.
Even if a conspiracy theory turns out to be true that does not make the label unjustified.
Ye. Many conspiracy theories are probably conspiracys to discredit conspiracys. It is funny how even the term conspiracy has something cracy over it when it surely is very common ...
Recall that the WHO were misinformation spreaders early after the COVID-19 outbreak.
"Conspiracy theorist" is basically a label for anybody who does not rely on argument from authority. Half of the time they get it wrong, the other half of the time, the authority gets it wrong.
There are some people who believe anything they are told. They might be on either end of this spectrum: Believe anything that an "authority" tells them, or believe anything that the "anti-authority" tells them. The rest are somewhere between: You have incomplete information and must draw your own conclusions.
They’ve just tried the ‘trumpet medicine as effective, then discredit it as ineffective’ cycle for the second time, now with remdesivir. I don’t know if this is malice or incompetence but I do know that taking their stories at face value, without verifying yourself, is not the smart thing to do.
"Conspiracy theorists" rejects logic and facts that do not support their theories. They believe some authority more than reason. It happens that official point often stands for a reason.
Fact: WHO claimed that flights from China should not be banned, because China has it under control, and a travel ban would do nothing against spread.
Fact: Flights from China, including tourism, contributed to the spread of the coronavirus world-wide.
Fact: Instead of acknowledging this fact, the media blamed Trump for being a racist, for banning flights early on, despite what the WHO said.
Fact: WHO downplayed the role, responsibility, and severity, and their level of access/transparency of China. Since there is no health reason for doing that, that reason was economic (WHO decision makers being bought or hired), or political (WHO decision makers bowing to China's one-country policy).
So we have facts establishing: WHO lied, China lied and is in damage control, media lied and invoked racism over a lie, WHO can't be fully trusted to act in the public's health best interest, and can't be depended on for individual health best practices ("Don't wear mask, unless you are sick.").
Some may call those facts conspiracy theories. And if it is a fact that the media did not paint Trump as a racist for making a sane decision, then this just does not support my theory, that the media is biased against Trump, or being played by Trump to become emotional and make bad decisions. I can find other evidence that does support it. Just because the media behaves one time, disproofs nothing, unless my theory is "The Media is 100% anti-Trump". Which would be a poor straw-man theory, easily debunked.
Authority is who you decide to be. If I only believe my local cultist, that is my authority and nobody else. This is in the hands of the people themselves.
One thing that has annoyed me this year is the inability of (some) scientists to pour scorn where it is deserved. Instead they cower behind technically accurate phrases like "there's no evidence 5G can cause Covid".
We would have to throw out vast amounts of science to make that true. It's basically magic, but scientists and the media tend to be so cautious that to some people it may seem that there is genuine doubt.
I understand that we don't want scientists and the media being overconfident - saying "there's no evidence the covid vaccines have any significant side-effects" is fine, you couldn't say "there is no conceivable way this vaccine could cause a problem". But I do think the distinction between science and fantasy should be made clearer.
There’s not a whole lot of science about the effects of radiation on life and there’s not a lot of science about factors that influence how bad a corona case turns out.
Of course its far fetched to say 5G causes corona, but I would say it’s only unlikely it influences it. There is no proof either way. Ignoring that uncertainty is not science.
> Of course its far fetched to say 5G causes corona, but I would say it’s only unlikely it influences it.
That's a popular strawman or a fake argument. People weren't saying that 5G causes corona. It was more about how corona is used as a distraction while 5G towers were being put up illegally (while people weren't allowed to be outside to notice), and how it is powerful enough to track chips in humans.
The distinction is that one is unlikely given the evidence and caveats, and one would require completely rethinking the knowledge we have of how viruses work and how radiation works.
It's the difference between 1e-2 and 1e-10. I would trust my life to one, but not the other. Scientists (and the media) should be able to explain the difference.
So, does the fact that eating too much fat gives a person less chance of surviving a coronavirus infection, or the fact that receiving radiation therapy does the same, require a different rethinking of that ‘knowledge’?
Similarly there’s research that indicates that purportedly safe levels of radiation from power lines cause disease. Why is it beyond doubt different radiation can’t do this?
Making unsubstantiated claims would go against science and be anti-scientific. That can and will be abused. It's almost impossible to validate a negative, while it only takes one good sample to start questioning a positive.
The problem isn't media or science not being open or not mostly telling it as it is. While there's always some bias, the problem is people overstuffed with information overload and seeking quick-fixes in social media and authority-based sources claiming fantastical mythodology. It's a House of Cards, and also inspired by that very series by those seeking to take advantage for own gains.
The claims would not be unsubstantiated. Science allows you to make predictions about the world. Here we can "predict" that 5G does not cause Covid with near-certainty. We have a vast amount of evidence that it is true. Reducing this confidence to "there is no evidence to the contrary" is an appalling failure of communication, as it lumps this conspiracy theory into the same category of many other more-plausible-but-uninvestigated theories.
That people seeking lies as their information source would somehow listen to statements of scientists and doctors, doesn't seem plausible. The incentives for specialists and experts to become public targets for statements that later could be falsified, also seems dubious and unprofessional. Unfortunately such populist moves could remove one from "good company" in a profession.
Is there a solution there in your mind. Why would anti-science people listen to scientists in the first place?
There are many ways people think, the minority think like you do.
I'm just showing how such statements can be tweaked. You'll always fight an uphill battle trying to convince people with "logic", especially when people subscribe to religion, superstition, fear and conspiracy theories. This no matter the "scorn". The other side can muster up much more of that anyways. Unfortunate yes, but it's a call for much needed creativity also. Condemnation has already been thoroughly tried now.
I find this a good read overall. Not because it's perfect, but because we simply can't tolerate lies to go unchecked. We've witnessed one of the most advanced democracies in the world, susceptible to unsubstantiated claims, wild conspiracy theories and workplace abuse. This can only stop when people know what they're truly dealing with, and speak up, using their freedom of speech and can do so without undue reprecussions.
I have not heard an effective way to address the empirical fact that lies are easier to make than truth. It is quite easy to make up a conspiracy, as ill-defined as that term is, and spread it. It is much harder to craft an argument against conspiracies, since it requires adherence to the truth. It is easier to create chaos than order. Then there is the additional factor that onlookers might just see it as baseless arguing---whom do you trust unless you do careful fact-checking (but which repository of "facts" can you trust?). Somewhat related is that "common sense" thinking is often flat out wrong. Sometimes, truth is counter intuitive.
Humans will always fall prey to grifts. And the problem of conspiracies in our age seem to be grifting at scale.
Conspiracy theories are about creating order where there is chaos.
It's a story of a secret goings on that explains unknowns.
It's more scary to know that no one is in control and that things happen because of random chaos. It is comforting to believe that there is a secret reason behind the chaos.
There are not conspiracy theories that have a secret group of people increasing chaos and confusion for its own sake (except possibly the discordians!)
Society is a conspiracy between groups of people. The fact they don't document their schemes doesn't vanish those conspiracies.
Nobody who has looked into COVID-19 can say with certainty that it isn't a bioweapon. Wuhan has 3 virus labs (China has 40), including one that's world famous with published virology papers. Yet no vaccine was developed in the past 18 years since SARS-1, speaks volumes.
What were they doing for the last 2 decades?
When experts are asked whether COVID-19 is natural or engineered, the answer is always, "I think it's 50/50 at this point."
> It is troubling enough to see these ideas on social media
I think the attempts to censor conspiracy theories are far more troubling. They are works of political fan fiction or at worst someone's erroneously held opinion. Sometimes they even turn out to be true. Censorship is completely indefensible in any case.
I always tell liberals who advocate for suppression of "misinformation" that they are attacking the very roots of liberalism and that they actually may tear it down. Without personal freedom, liberalism degenerates into a "status quo preserving mechanism", and status quo is subject to severe outside challenge in every economic downturn and every conflict of values on Earth.
I hope you find that fun, at least, because it's otherwise a complete waste of your time. It's an exercise in power- they don't care for the immorality or hypocrisy because they don't need to when every government, corporation, and organisation with any power or influence is singing from the same hymn book.
After witnessing the head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases blatantly lying to people and admitting it, I wonder why there are not more conspiracy theorists in the US.
So I'm a conspiracy theorist and at this point I have no hope of stopping to be one.
Simple example that resonates well with current situation - when covid broke out I was spending a lot of energy ingesting everything I could. To my surprise, the vast majorities of predictions made by experts did not come true. I remember back in April-May-June media would predict that cases will skyrocket in two-three weeks and everything will go to hell. But it did not; in "two-three weeks" someone else would again say "we are two-three weeks away from disaster". No one ever retracted their pieces or issued a correction, everyone just forgotten about predictions that never came true. Most of my friends are happy to keep on listening to such experts. The media are happy to promote the experts further.
So how am I supposed to not be... heavily sceptical when we don't held opinion makers accountable for what they say?
(I know what I'm saying is not 100% related to article, but I just want to see through media bullshit, and need to vent somewhere.)
The response to this way of thinking is "we didn't know stuff we know now back then", "we learnt things as we went along, and updated our models, advice, warnings"
The mask thing is hardest to justify as the whole of Asia was saying they worked back then and the reasons given for why they said "they don't work" back then is "well they had to lie because we didn't have enough masks to go around and we didn't want you to panic" which admits a lie.
Then back then they said "masks do work, but we don't have enough" which implied they were lying initially but can be explained by saying " we didn't know the full facts" again.
So an outsider might see these messages as a kind of benevolent way to effect behaviour change amongst PPE shortages and to stop panic, and another sees behaviour modification as lying and manipulation common in conspiracy theories.
Sure, I know experts may not know everything. However I'd like people taking responsibility for what they said. I don't see anyone admitting "Yes, I was wrong but I did my best to approximate the truth". I don't see anyone explaining what exactly they were wrong about and how their thinking has changed few months later; what they would have said in hindsight. That's what I'd expect from true authorities but it never happens.
For me, "the media publishes things that are not true" does not count as a conspiracy theory. I've never seen eg. Chomsky's Propaganda Model[1] described as a conspiracy theory.
Edit: After brief googling apparently it has totally been described as a conspiracy theory. I guess this illustrates an issue with the term "conspiracy theory".
Edit2: Like other posters, I'd like to know what predictions you're talking about. The big, scary one I recall was the Imperial study that predicted 500k total deaths in the UK in a completely unmitigated scenario, or much lower numbers with various mitigations. As it is we've had 60k deaths so far, with very severe mitigation measures. Which doesn't look like a wildly wrong prediction to me.
Probably some small scale predictions were right, but I did not maintain a complete log of everything that was said. The general picture about when and how things will go to hell did not play out. This is the single thing I care about most - that disaster scenario did not happen in two-three weeks, despite being predicted many times. And most of the time it wasn't a "balanced" prediction like "if we are unlucky millions die, but most likely only few thousands"; it was more often than not pure fear mongering.
Also, I think it's really uncharitable to use the word "fixate" here.
I have not seen anyone make unqualified predictions of "disaster in 2-3 weeks".
It is easy to imagine you are referring to tabloids exaggerating claims to make them clickbaity ("Y2K will cause problems in traffic systems" -> "your car might explode on Jan 1st 2000!"), or twisted interpretation of the reports where a qualified statement is turned absolute ("X might happen unless we take precautions" -> "X will happen!"), fabricated alt-right news meant to politicize and divide, or any number of other confusions.
> I have not seen anyone make unqualified predictions of "disaster in 2-3 weeks".
Unqualified predictions of "disaster in 2-3 weeks" was the narrative of the (I guess progressive left-dominated) science and experts, to cement and aid with the "flatten the curve" meme, to help mandate mask wearing. "Why should I wear a mask? Well, because if not, in 2 weeks we will have seen exponential growth and your grandparents could die. Why didn't our grandparents die? Well... just wait 2 more weeks, or its simply proof that mask wearing helped". I feel, partly in response to the politicization of the conservative right complaining about overreactions, strict curfews that made no logical sense, and government mandating their religious services.
Because the conservative right very much started out believing that this was the Apocalypse. Even when contained to China, they were talking of upcoming Pandemics, about buying supplies if you needed to go into the woods, about procuring N95 masks or gas masks for when COVID inevitably arrived in their country.
While the left was still doing photo ops in the China towns of their cities, deriding people who were afraid as racists or unsupportive/anti-social. Opposing drastic measures like banning flights as anti-immigrant. To complain that you were saying "just wait two more weeks" two weeks ago in January. Parroting authorities that masks were only to be used by sick people, and not protective for general public.
This narrative completely flip-flopped around April. In part due to new information (The left is more acceptable to science). In part due to politics. In part because COVID now was mainstream and authority, so new avenues for conspiracy and suspicion turned up (COVID's not so bad as they would like you to believe. Vaccines will be forced and change DNA, Bill Gates wants to give mark of the beast, in form of microchip).
It was interesting to see, and should make finding sources possible, but difficult (for instance, find authoritative websites debunking Vitamin D, before the randomized trial studies came out, you need the internet archive now, but these existed for sure!). Many poor (but qualified/we-should-listen-to-this) predictions and articles, supposedly accepted and common knowledge, were deeply flawed/ill-motivated in short-term hind-sight and this cemented distrust. Especially because the people that made such poor claims, are the arbiters of truth and in charge of managing the "infodemic".
Consider the so-called Great Barrington Declaration, an online document that argues we should aim for herd immunity, while protecting vulnerable people from infection. The authors of the original are three scientists, but the declaration was accompanied by a petition that did not verify the credentials of the signers, many of whom used false names or are real people with no expertise in this area. In reality, the document represents a fringe view, which is unsupported by most epidemiological research, and thousands of other researchers have rejected the basic premise of their argument that herd immunity is achievable without a vaccine. The declaration certainly doesn’t reveal widespread dissent among real experts, yet it is often cited by professional conspiracy theorists such as David Icke and “lockdown sceptics” such as Toby Young and Allison Pearson.
I want to be clear that I don't agree w/ Barrington Declaration, and given the hopefully now under 2 weeks away arrival of initial vaccinations in the USA herd immunity looks like an especially poor idea.
But I completely detest this style of argument, where a bunch of extraneous guilt-by-association is tossed on top of "most experts disagree" written by someone who doesn't seem to understand what the hell they're talking about but writes in the most condescending, let me explain it to these dumb plebs manner possible.
To be clear, "epidemiological research" cannot really answer the public policy question of how to respond to a pandemic - this is ultimately a political choice and in a democracy must be subject to some degree of public input. For example I think evidence strongly suggests China's draconian responses have been incredibly effective tools and yet would be completely intolerable in our political culture.
Beyond that, all evidence I have seen suggests the author's own authoritative claim rejecting the idea "that herd immunity is achievable without a vaccine" is itself not correct. The reality is we are dealing with a novel virus so it's difficult to make any claim about long-term immunity, but all the data we have on mutation rate, lasting immune response from those infected, low rates of reinfection, some pre-existing immunity in select populations, and, importantly, really the entire idea that these vaccines will work ... is predicated on the idea that herd immunity would be achievable without a vaccine.
Perhaps the above paragraph is arguable, but it is certainly not some Qanon 5G pizzagate conspiracy theory. You can be entirely opposed to let-it-rip herd immunity on public policy grounds while believing it is scientifically possible.
What disturbs me more than crank randos online believing nonsense is western mainstream media's increasingly neurotic and self-discrediting attempt to label anything that disagrees with perceived expert consensus as some completely insane disproven earth-is-flat falsehood, belief in which is akin to a mental illness, and that the ideas must be suppressed and/or re-educated out of those afflicted. Especially given that SARS-Cov-2 was treated by many of these same people as akin to a conspiracy back in January and February.
One of my favorite examples is from Cass Sunstein[1], Obama oracle of nudging the hoi polloi away from their dumb irrational choices. But there were many others[2]:
As psychologist David DeSteno wrote on 11 February in the New York Times, “our fear distorts our thinking about the coronavirus”. Two days later, the same newspaper picked the brains of several eminent psychologists in a piece titled, “Coronavirus 'hits all the hot buttons' for how we misjudge risk”. And finally, in a Bloomberg article on 28 February, Cass Sunstein (co-author of the bestseller Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness, published in 2008) summed up the advice of many cognitive experts by saying that “a lot of people are more scared than they have any reason to be.”
I love how people are taking the opportunity here to go from the topic this article talks about (the virus) to just generally shitting on anyone who believes anything they deem unworthy enough to be derided as "conspiracy theory"... despite the fact that the term itself was part of a conspiracy and that the purpose is often the very same fallacy referenced in #5 ("The thought-terminating cliche"). The many people who have and are sure to reinforce this with claims like "conspiracy theories are just attempting to create a reason where there is none", or "conspiracy theories and theorist completely reject logic" and the many variations thereof are doing the same thing.
I find it promising though how at least some people see through articles like this. On the topic of conspiracy theories on hn, I generally keep my comments meta to avoid devolving conversation, which I will do here as well to demonstrate how this article itself is full of fallacy.
1. The strawman fallacy and false consensus. Almost always articles of this sort, henceforth generally referenced to as "tfa", start off with or contain some variation of the strawman fallacy, wherein the weakest versions of any given conspiracy theory or set thereof are used to establish the baseline expectance that you the reader also should assume there is no merit to any of this, because there is no nuance. The article does this in the first paragraph. It attempts to use the false consensus effect to solidify the strawman.
2. The cherry picking, texas sharpshooter, and composition fallacies. Via rhetorical devices like "Since many conspiracy theories arise from feelings of uncertainty and fear..." tfa creates an illusion that there is no truth to be had in any of said conspiracy theories. The use of the word "many" softens this effect only slightly, and most readers will glaze right past it and fall for the rhetorical trick. It creates a false consensus that conspiracy theories aren't arrived at by those searching for truth based on the evidence, but rather by some faulty reasoning or cause. Of course uncertainty and fear contribute, and may sometimes play a part in the origins of conspiracy theories, but very often there are many kernels of truth (ignored by detractors) that are the true origins, with uncertainty and fear only being mechanisms by which they are spread to those who didn't understand the at least partially true origins in the first place.
3. The meta-dragon. By ignoring the very real issues with scientific incompetence and malice, the part about invisible dragons applies to itself.
4. Appeal to authority. The great irony of the fake authority section is that it itself is a logical fallacy in an apeal to authority. Even more convienient when they get to predetermine who the authorities are worthy to appeal to. Even more ironic in this part is the reference to the tobacco industry using the tactic they speak about in an attempt to explain why pharma industry wouldn't ever do that.
5. Begging the question about bandwagons and black and white fallacies with some straw thrown in. Section 3 does them all. I tend to lean towards Michael Parenti's views in the way he turns the ridicule around on what he calls "coincidence theorists". It's used all the time to dismiss arguments, and almost never stands up to scrutiny. Phrases like "most people had the good sense to dismiss" (bandwagon), "electromagnetic waves caused the disease" (strawman), and "you could just as easily point to the 2011 film Contagion and argue that director Steven Soderbergh has been plotting the whole thing." (the fallacy fallacy) all together turn section 3 into a version of the black and white fallacy.
All in all, the entire article is an explosion of fallacies attempting to show how fallacious the conspiracy theories around the topic are. I shouldn't have to say this, but please note, I'm not defending any of the particular ...
Great comment. Thank you for spending your time writing it.
A number of things occur to me when I run into articles like this.
1. "Conspiracy theory" is simply the study of illusion, which our society is replete with because..
2. Over-classification and a culture of secrecy by institutional actors who have an "us vs them" mentality who seem so surprised when..
3. People take offense to being talked to like children who "can't handle the truth" and are automatically classified as "one of the them or the enemy" from which the truth is to be withheld
4. People, not having authoritative sources of information to rely on, then speculate attempting to approximate, extrapolate, and backwards engineer the truth. Sure, they can get it wrong, and sometimes really wrong but really, what else would you expect?
5. Like it or not there is a bell curve, or distribution of intelligence in the population. People gravitate towards different levels of interpretation, and I often see arguments like "you can't argue with stupid" without acknowledging the perfectly rational impulse as defined above and that whatever level of interpretation they're using probably wasn't meant for them.
Thank you for making this comment. It says most of what I feel, but was unable to express in a done-to-earth uncontroversial manner. I hope to learn a lot from it.
Let's not move twitter here with these kinds of trash articles: full of strawmans, disingenious,etc.
It just doesn't help at all.The discussion about conspiracies is useless itself unless you're willing to talk about limiting free speech/freedom of thought.
Instead of shaming people and further pushing them into corners you can't pull them out of, just promote the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.
It's interesting to see the cognitive dissonance in the article, they give out examples of how the tobacco industry conspired and pushed experts to promote their agenda yet we are supposed to trust the experts now blindly without any skepticism?
I have spent a lot of time with people in the psych ward the fact of the matter is everyone has a truth and that truth in their life drives them. Might be a religion might be quote on quote conspiracy theories. That's how powerful conspiracy theories are that they're a driving force on par with religion they require faith sometimes leaps of faith in the label itself was designed to sound shocking. It's not shocking we just all have different driving factors if diversity really is our strength then we need free thinkers we don't need everyone thinking the exact identical thing that CNN is telling us.
Way back in the 20th Century, there existed an activity called "investigative journalism", which was immensely socially valuable at bringing to light abuses of power by influential people in the media, the security state, and industry.
Even though conspiracy-theorizing is an essential (if only preliminary) part of this socially beneficial activity, in the 21st century we have outgrown the need for investigative journalism, because we've outgrown the need for self-government.
In a post-9/11, post-Covid world, we trust our leaders, and we trust our experts.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadI wish we could build an Internet bot to go around and address this one.
The argument "against climate change" is more so an argument against immediate action. It's a silly argument since prepping for climate change involves R&D into ultimately more profitable energy solutions, like nuclear, electric, solar, etc. People are deterred by the cost of change.
You can't fight a misinformation campaign by attacking the simple truths that keep it functional as a conspiracy theory.
The climate is always changing. Even if we survive the local warming period, we're just as likely to fall into a brutal ice age right afterwards, of which humanity will not survive unless we very quickly learn how to do planetary-scale geoengineering and terraforming.
My problem with the whole "climate change is fake" conspiracy nuts is... why aren't they just going for the obvious one that the governments just don't care and aren't fixing the larger issue? The amount the US government spent on the endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan could have ensured the survival of the human race.
A nice big juicy conspiracy right there, and none of them are going for it. Government fucked up? Check. People profited from war? Check. Media is refusing to cover it? Check. Come on, take the fucking bait and run with it.
As someone you'd probably describe as a climate skeptic, I think governments are capitalising expertly on this. They have hysterical populations literally begging for bigger and broader taxation; all they have to do is not be greedy. Exploit as much as they can get away with, and no more. That means pandering to the cronyists and greenies begging for taxes (that they won't pay) under the guise of environmentalism, without getting so carried away that the working class father decides enough is enough. That's what they're doing.
How is a conspiracy around government inaction going to work when I read about new regulations, committees, levies and taxes every time I open a newspaper?
It’s an irrelevant fact that doesn’t apply to the problem.
If anyone needs to be told that difference between the climate changing over 200 years and 10,000 years...
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/troll-farms-macedonia...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/21/groups-f...
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore
They used Obama's image to make it more palatable to the resistant Western Europeans...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788559
If you model the conspiracy theorist as being similar to yourself, I think you'd have to assume there is roughly equal likelihood that you will convince them that covid is caused by a virus (or whatever), as there is that they will convince you that it is caused by their cell phone - that is, not much chance at all of changing people's minds by discussion like this.
The only way to deal with stupid is more stupid.
The best example I have heard of this is countering anti-vaxers with "Is is possible anti-vax is miss-information spread by insert "enemy" country to destabilise the health of this country's population?"
Or "I wear a mask as it makes the government cameras and microphones harder to track me" (which actually isn't all that stupid probably)
When the first soft lockdown was in place in Germany I stumbled into a small anti-mask/anti-corona discussion. There was a leader type (a medical doctor who should know better) that was unreachable. And there were some clear disciples of his. But there was also one guy who presented numbers and stats printed on paper about how much more deaths the flu season 17/18 caused.
Gladly I knew my numbers and could point him to some facts about the numbers. First he only had data about said year. That some few years before there were only two-digit flu death numbers in Germany he didn't know (and I could point him to the same source of original data he was quoting showing this).
The more and more I took his arguments seriously and only was arguing in a fact based manner based on his sources, the more I saw that he started to think about what he said. I also was clearly not putting him down and even stating, that some of the government's measures seem illogical to me (as they were at the time and still are), but that I - from the values I was raised with - valued the knowledge, that I do everything not to endanger people who cannot protect themselves as good as I can (they were mostly arguing against masks).
I argued that I am guided above all by the value of humanity and that I therefore follow the principle of caution and prefer to wear the masks in a store where I might accidentally get too close to other people, even if I find it unpleasant, rather than taking the risk of possibly endangering someone in the risk group.
While we talked, more and more people of this group as well as bystanders started to listen and I saw that at least in some parts the seemingly homogeneous group split into disciples and people starting to think.
Do I think I was able to argue somebody out of believing? Clearly not - but I am hopeful, that I was able to plant a seed. One would need more time and more real talks to really pull someone away from the fringes of a conspiracy. Someone captured deep within is imho sadly lost.
[Edit:] Forgot - I really like your irrationality approach. Will copy it and try it.
On illogical governments I’ve managed to calm friends down by saying “yeah, not all lock down rules seem sensible but you know what? We’ve not done this before, we’ve not been through a pandemic in about 100 years and the world is very different now. We are all making this up as we go along and so inconsistencies will arise, mistakes will be made and we will all get through this together by playing our role. Don’t rage at the system, realise the system is flawed but the end goal is the same, stop the virus spreading until we have a vaccine” it seems to have helped a number of my friends who were on the “it’s like these rules are designed to get us in trouble” train
“Never assign to malice what can be explained by incompetence” - is a happier way to live in my books
Your first example isn't entirely unlikely (I'd make it part of my effort if I were trying to destabilise a country) and as you said, the second example isn't too stupid.
A friend of mine dated a woman recently and she was partial to some qanon business. When he carefully probed with an argument to see how firm her thinking was, she said literally "I don't want to change my mind," which is likely quite insightful.
If you have a religious person, think how almost impossible it would be to convince them that their faith is a human created fiction.
Even in the Islamic world the number of secret atheists is growing. [0][1][2] It is not too hard to become disillusioned in faith if you witness entire countries pulverized in the name of God.
[0] https://insidearabia.com/the-rise-of-atheism-in-morocco-and-... [1] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/1/atheists-in-... [2] https://thearabweekly.com/iraqs-growing-community-atheists-n...
Whatever mechanisms that enable that kind of belief were useful in our evolution, but now are an existential threat to our species.
Everytime I look I still arrive at the same outcome.
I don't think this is some faith I hold. I just can't see how the "truth" actually matches with the reality I saw with my own eyes and the reality I determine byaking a judgement call about the government's actions at the time.
I could actually let the twin towers go. Pentagon crash was just simply too unlikely. Doesn't help the evidence we needed was taken away and hidden never released.
:-(
I have a dear friend who doesn't believe we landed on the Moon. Otherwise he's highly intelligent and successful. I joked with my therapist that his job was to help me debug myself, as nobody can do it alone.
We all are subject to small malfunctions. We just need to be aware of that.
I'd love to have someone prove me wrong.
Over the years much of 9/11 has received reasonable doubt worthy mythbusting.
But at some point the arguments are just too overwhelming. To me, the "MythBusters" actually sound delusional. They're unwilling to confront evidence, and are guilty of most the things this article lists.
One of the problems with this case in particular is how isolating it all is. I don't tell people I'm a truther. You learn real fast how "wrong you are" from the screeching mother's about how dare you? As if questioning the so trustworthy media narrative is somehow offensive just because people died.
Yes they died, I'm disgusted by it. I'm more disgusted by the idea that the govt was behind it.
But the problem with this isolation is that you can't get dissenting ideas. I have to seek out confronting views this in itself is uncomfortable. Past this, I have to wade through the myth busters jokes and jabs at my expense, being compared to moon landing hoaxers and antivaxxers.
I can see how people fall into conspiracy theories and get shutout of society for it.
To this day I hope I'm wrong I hope one day someone can convince me. But to this day. Nobody has, and given how much evidence is now lost or destroyed there really isn't much chance of this happening.
Nobody is going to do that for you. Sorry, but truthers are in exactly the same bucket as moon landing hoaxers, antivaxers, and flat earthers. The burden of proof is on them. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. "I believe in X, prove me wrong" is Argument from ignorance [1], where one asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
I actively search for contrary opinion and dissenting facts.
Hell this convo spurred me to re-watch and re-read a bunch of the old criticisms.
Regarding moon landing and antivaxxers being the same that is entirely false. There is plenty of evidence we landed on the moon, there is plenty of evidence vaccines work.
Truthers don't argue if planes hit the towers. They argue the people behind the act were not those you have been lead to believe with little to no evidence.
Truthers don't believe the narrative. And aside from the more extreme individuals that believe everything that Alex tells them, truthers don't disagree with facts.
In fact truthers seek fact. The only problem is that they we were met with obstruction at every turn.
When you're prevented from looking at the evidence, when the evidence is quickly cleaned up and destroyed without standard practice investigation taking place it leaves questions open for interpretation.
You can't tell then me the sky is green, no you can't look, and no, your argument that it is blue is an argument from ignorance, how dare you open these old wounds.
Some theories are scientifically proved wrong (earth is flat), other are partially wrong (climate has always changed... yes but not that fast), and others are just far fetched ( hydroxychloroquin has been fought against by big pharmas to try and sell their own expensive drugs). And then there are theories or rumors that happened to be correct after all ( watergate, contras, etc).
This is not a black or white thing.
For example, where novel coronavirus comes from does not change what it takes to avoid the virus. And if Antifa were to make a sustained effort to dominate rural lands then the same kind of efforts that might be used for defense of liberty against any other threat are still the first and best option.
Attempting to understand exactly who is involved and what their motivations are is the least effective way of handling modern life. It makes more sense to be measured and balanced with all information and to make use of best practices based on what is most likely.
But there is, isn't it?
I mean, it's a theory regarding conspiracies.
And colloquially, the theory is supported by no rational basis or evidence, or it's basis is so twisted and convoluted that its main premise isn't even falsifiable.
> And then there are theories or rumors that happened to be correct after all ( watergate, contras, etc).
You're confusing hypothesis with conspiracy theories.
Hypothesis are open questions that are falsifiable and verifiable.
Conspiracy theories are illogical leaps of faith supported by barely any rationality.
There was evidence supporting the theory that Nixon was engaged in shady tactics to steal the election. There is absolutely no evidence that "the masked singer" was produced to condition the public to believe that wearing a mask was cool.
> This is not a black or white thing.
It pretty much is. At most, the shade of grey between the blackest of blacks and the whitest of whites is very thin.
If someone is presenting baseless assertions as facts supporting a conspiracy that is supported or hinted by no rational basis whatsoever then where's the doubt?
Please explain what you personally interpreted as bias.
However, even with this definition it is still not clear-cut. If you were to say in the cold war that some US secret services were financing authoritarian regimes in south america to fight communism (or islamic extremists in afghanistan), this could easily qualify as a conspiracy theory today. Until you get the evidence that it is true.
At the moment, it looks to me like the only purpose of this label is to prevent people from trying to investigate into it. It's a concept that prevents you from thinking rather than helps you think better.
No, not really.
There is a constant stream of idiotic and entirely baseless and outright irrational conspiracy theories popping up all the time, which is proportional to the amount of stupidity and ignorance in the universe.
Take for example the ridiculous conspiracy theory of how "the masked singer" is a psyops project designed to manipulate people into accepting mask usage. No one in their right mind would be pushing that gem of idiocy. But here we are, with lunatics selling that off as true.
> (...) It's a concept that prevents you from thinking rather than helps you think better.
It really isn't, and you are not helping your case by trying to shamelessly misrepresent your point and move the goal post.
The key aspect that you are trying to disregard and avoid is the fact that conspiracy theories share a common trait: misrepresent baseless assumptions and unfalsifiable assertions as unquestionable facts, no matter how silly or ridiculous or crazy they are.
That's what separates mere hypothesis or suspicions from the crazy train which are conspiracy theories: how they push baseless allegations and unverifiable brain farts as undisputable facts.
To make matters worse, the loons pushing conspiracy theories use all sort of sociopath tricks to force their conspiracy theories onto others, including but not limited to attacking those who dare point out logic flaws in their craziness.
That's the touchstone test that separates the conspiracy theory loons living in crazy town from those living in reality which recognize the fact that conspiracies do exist: how facts and hypothesis and proof are treated differently.
You try to make a black / white distinction between "factual" and "idiotic", but reality is much more diverse (although there are some extreme cases for sure). The things become even more complex when you consider that real scandals often start to be unveiled by thin hints, rather than obvious proofs.
My point is that it's a spectrum, not a binary thing.
Right-Wing:
- 5G causes Corona: clearly untrue
- vaccines cause autism: clearly untrue
- the state is controlled by a colluding elite cabal: hard to disprove
Left-Wing:
- there is a conspiracy by men to oppress women and make them earn less money, resulting in the Gender Pay Gap: clearly untrue
- because capitalists exploit the working class, communism results in the best overall outcomes for everyone: clearly untrue
- can't think of a hard-to-disprove one: anyone got ideas?
"Capitalism does not make the poor richer."
Both could be disproved with stats, but as it's politics it will be argued and so it's not easy to disprove.
What capitalism does is to make the poor more efficient, by extracting ever increasing amounts of value while keeping wages mostly constant.
Not all conspiracy theories have political stratification. In fact, what is often incorrectly considered the Ur-conspiracy theory--the JFK murder--has adherents of every political descriptor under the sun.
You've got people thinking the once-communist Oswald was working on behalf of the USSR or Cuba. To which people would reply that the CIA would never allow a former Communist back in _unless he was willing to work for them_.
Example: anti-vaxxers. Why would this be RW? Well, RW fear "being controlled" and have a deep distrust of the state. They like their freedom, and don't like to be told what to do, even if that would be in their best interest. So they reject this idea of being told "inject this into your body" and concoct stories about how the state plans to give everyone autism. Same with flouride in the water, etc.
At the same time, well-off mums that probably vote left or green reject vaccines too, but for different reasons.
to (paraphrase): > both sides can harbor the same conspiracy
> There are overlaps, certainly, but ideas labeled as "conspiracy theories" usually boil down to the instinctive left vs right values, but that is not always apparent at first sight.
If any group of conflicting political adherents harbor the same conspiracy theory--e.g., JFK's murder was a conspiracy--then it indicates that the conspiracy theory isn't polarized, only that ideology changes how the event was perceived.
The conspiracy theory isn't what is polarized; the political implications of "resolving" the conspiracy are polarized.
The same goes for the second one. It's not the belief that wealthier people are this evil group which acts against the lower class people, moreso a critique of the system that allowed them to rise into the position and situation they are in. They are not believed to be "conspiring" though.
You have to understand that one of the core beliefs of the left is that inequality is bad. The political goal is to create a situation/system where humans all have the same opportunities. It's not about punishing one group of people but instead about leveling out the playing field, making the game "fairer" in general.
That is at least how I understand it but I am sure there are also extremists with irrational ideas.
I assure you there are people that believe exactly this, because they publicly stated as much on Twitter threads, getting a considerable number of likes in the process.
On the other hand, reading the (secret) minutes of the last (secret) meeting of Men International Organization, which was held on quantum encrypted holochat (a tech we got from the Roswell crash), there was no discussion on this matter.
I think it is interesting that you mentioned Twitter, because in my opinion that somewhat highlights how conspiracy theories might form and spread. Because Twitter is a proprietary platform where content might be aggregated or filtered, filter bubbles and echo chambers can form. Because of this, it is dangerous to assume that the people on Twitter accurately represent society. Thus, such assumptions can lead to conspiracy theories.
It is some A class gaslighting to paint this as being considered a conspiracy instead of a systemic problem that is being perpetuated by those (some unwitting) who benefit from it.
I suppose it's a great example whichever way you look at it: either as a textbook conspiracy theory, or of the effectiveness of attaching that undesirable label to inconvenient truths.
That also conveniently sidesteps the exact thing that makes it not "a textbook conspiracy theory".
HCQ. Like mask-wearing. Like sensible quarantine methods. Are all incredibly polarized, political, and vague regarding to truths.
But any credible research on HCQ shows its effect or potential, still. And even for the vaccines, we see involvement of politics (Trump would definitely have abused a vaccine release to gain votes), and economic incentives of big pharmas and countries GDP/unemployment, to muddy what is factual and helpful, and what is ill-motivated and cause for suspicion.
I think it is highly likely that there are economic, panic-management or public health incentives to against dangerous, yet partly true, ideas, and that big pharma and CDC could be conspiring to manage and control this information and what opinions I form. That, well-intentioned, Google and Youtube and Facebook and Twitter and WHO and some other elites sat in a secret meeting room, and wrote the playbook on how to deal with people proposing multi-vatimins as a cure, or even as a help for improving immune system. That such people are banned (or even arrested if they have medical authority) for things that in a normal situation people would have a right not to mistreated as such.
You have no proof that big pharma does not conspire to suppress half-measures and inconvenient situations (people refusing to mask up until vaccine is released). But what makes you think that? You looked at the history of big pharma, at the history of capitalism, at the history of public health controversies and attempts from the top to manage that and politicize it, and you see nothing of suspicion for extrapolating that to the uncertain future we live in? Or you trust them on their blue eyes or because believing it would make you feel bad?
The changes in view I've seen is when the underlying need to quell a fear has been met, the story they discuss openly tends to change a bit.
What is needed is to resolve those issues, while not succumbing to populists who seek to create enemies and destruction.
In a R/D party system, you "buy" a party wholesale, with all the opinions and policies that it currently holds. Some of which are repulsive even for you.
MJ legalization was almost entirely achieved through ballot initiatives, because both R and D elected politicians were afraid to touch it.
Also "vaccines cause autism". There was well documented fiasco around swine flu vaccine (pandemrix) that seems to have given narcolepsy to some people, but more often than not bringing that up labels you as an anti-vaxer and noone wants to listen. It's ironic that article speaks about "thought-terminating cliches" where some conspiracy theories are used as such to cover actual issues.
My point here is that most issues are subtle: I'm happy I was given polio vaccine when I was a child, but I don't trust pharma that much and I'd rather not take anything that didn't go through years of testing and I think big pharma's bad reputation is well-earned.
But if you want to base medical decisions on an ill fitting analogy because it sounds catchy, then go ahead.
As for your article, the phase 3 trials for COVID vaccines can’t be cherry picked because they were registered before hand with preselected success criteria, and they have been intensely followed by the media.
> It may be worth acknowledging the fact that certain conspiracies – like Watergate – have occurred in the past, but they were supported by incontrovertible evidence rather than rumour and supposition.
Even if they turn out to be true, those were all conspiracy theories before there was sufficient evidence for it. And you would have been a conspiracy theorist had you believed any of them without sufficient evidence.
Being a conspiracy theorist is not about whether your theories are true or not. It's about what kind of evidence you use to support your theories.
Without evidence there’s no proof that something is true. But without evidence on the contrary there’s no proof it isn’t true either.
You are arguing that the conspiracy theory label is unjustified. But if the proof for your theory is primarily based on absence of proof to the contrary, then it would rightfully be labelled a conspiracy theory.
Even if a conspiracy theory turns out to be true that does not make the label unjustified.
"Conspiracy theorist" is basically a label for anybody who does not rely on argument from authority. Half of the time they get it wrong, the other half of the time, the authority gets it wrong.
There are some people who believe anything they are told. They might be on either end of this spectrum: Believe anything that an "authority" tells them, or believe anything that the "anti-authority" tells them. The rest are somewhere between: You have incomplete information and must draw your own conclusions.
Fact: Flights from China, including tourism, contributed to the spread of the coronavirus world-wide.
Fact: Instead of acknowledging this fact, the media blamed Trump for being a racist, for banning flights early on, despite what the WHO said.
Fact: WHO downplayed the role, responsibility, and severity, and their level of access/transparency of China. Since there is no health reason for doing that, that reason was economic (WHO decision makers being bought or hired), or political (WHO decision makers bowing to China's one-country policy).
So we have facts establishing: WHO lied, China lied and is in damage control, media lied and invoked racism over a lie, WHO can't be fully trusted to act in the public's health best interest, and can't be depended on for individual health best practices ("Don't wear mask, unless you are sick.").
Some may call those facts conspiracy theories. And if it is a fact that the media did not paint Trump as a racist for making a sane decision, then this just does not support my theory, that the media is biased against Trump, or being played by Trump to become emotional and make bad decisions. I can find other evidence that does support it. Just because the media behaves one time, disproofs nothing, unless my theory is "The Media is 100% anti-Trump". Which would be a poor straw-man theory, easily debunked.
We would have to throw out vast amounts of science to make that true. It's basically magic, but scientists and the media tend to be so cautious that to some people it may seem that there is genuine doubt.
I understand that we don't want scientists and the media being overconfident - saying "there's no evidence the covid vaccines have any significant side-effects" is fine, you couldn't say "there is no conceivable way this vaccine could cause a problem". But I do think the distinction between science and fantasy should be made clearer.
There’s not a whole lot of science about the effects of radiation on life and there’s not a lot of science about factors that influence how bad a corona case turns out.
Of course its far fetched to say 5G causes corona, but I would say it’s only unlikely it influences it. There is no proof either way. Ignoring that uncertainty is not science.
That's a popular strawman or a fake argument. People weren't saying that 5G causes corona. It was more about how corona is used as a distraction while 5G towers were being put up illegally (while people weren't allowed to be outside to notice), and how it is powerful enough to track chips in humans.
It's the difference between 1e-2 and 1e-10. I would trust my life to one, but not the other. Scientists (and the media) should be able to explain the difference.
The problem isn't media or science not being open or not mostly telling it as it is. While there's always some bias, the problem is people overstuffed with information overload and seeking quick-fixes in social media and authority-based sources claiming fantastical mythodology. It's a House of Cards, and also inspired by that very series by those seeking to take advantage for own gains.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=5g+does+not+cause+covid&ia=we...
So it seems your claims are false.
That people seeking lies as their information source would somehow listen to statements of scientists and doctors, doesn't seem plausible. The incentives for specialists and experts to become public targets for statements that later could be falsified, also seems dubious and unprofessional. Unfortunately such populist moves could remove one from "good company" in a profession.
My claim is that "inability of (some) scientists" - the "some" is in the original.
You then separately say that "It's almost impossible to validate a negative" (in relation to something else).
You then say that some scientists do in fact pour scorn, therefore my original claim is false?
There are many ways people think, the minority think like you do.
I'm just showing how such statements can be tweaked. You'll always fight an uphill battle trying to convince people with "logic", especially when people subscribe to religion, superstition, fear and conspiracy theories. This no matter the "scorn". The other side can muster up much more of that anyways. Unfortunate yes, but it's a call for much needed creativity also. Condemnation has already been thoroughly tried now.
Humans will always fall prey to grifts. And the problem of conspiracies in our age seem to be grifting at scale.
Conspiracy theories are about creating order where there is chaos.
It's a story of a secret goings on that explains unknowns.
It's more scary to know that no one is in control and that things happen because of random chaos. It is comforting to believe that there is a secret reason behind the chaos.
There are not conspiracy theories that have a secret group of people increasing chaos and confusion for its own sake (except possibly the discordians!)
Society is a conspiracy between groups of people. The fact they don't document their schemes doesn't vanish those conspiracies.
Nobody who has looked into COVID-19 can say with certainty that it isn't a bioweapon. Wuhan has 3 virus labs (China has 40), including one that's world famous with published virology papers. Yet no vaccine was developed in the past 18 years since SARS-1, speaks volumes.
What were they doing for the last 2 decades?
When experts are asked whether COVID-19 is natural or engineered, the answer is always, "I think it's 50/50 at this point."
I think the attempts to censor conspiracy theories are far more troubling. They are works of political fan fiction or at worst someone's erroneously held opinion. Sometimes they even turn out to be true. Censorship is completely indefensible in any case.
Simple example that resonates well with current situation - when covid broke out I was spending a lot of energy ingesting everything I could. To my surprise, the vast majorities of predictions made by experts did not come true. I remember back in April-May-June media would predict that cases will skyrocket in two-three weeks and everything will go to hell. But it did not; in "two-three weeks" someone else would again say "we are two-three weeks away from disaster". No one ever retracted their pieces or issued a correction, everyone just forgotten about predictions that never came true. Most of my friends are happy to keep on listening to such experts. The media are happy to promote the experts further.
So how am I supposed to not be... heavily sceptical when we don't held opinion makers accountable for what they say?
(I know what I'm saying is not 100% related to article, but I just want to see through media bullshit, and need to vent somewhere.)
The mask thing is hardest to justify as the whole of Asia was saying they worked back then and the reasons given for why they said "they don't work" back then is "well they had to lie because we didn't have enough masks to go around and we didn't want you to panic" which admits a lie.
Then back then they said "masks do work, but we don't have enough" which implied they were lying initially but can be explained by saying " we didn't know the full facts" again.
So an outsider might see these messages as a kind of benevolent way to effect behaviour change amongst PPE shortages and to stop panic, and another sees behaviour modification as lying and manipulation common in conspiracy theories.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model
Edit: After brief googling apparently it has totally been described as a conspiracy theory. I guess this illustrates an issue with the term "conspiracy theory".
Edit2: Like other posters, I'd like to know what predictions you're talking about. The big, scary one I recall was the Imperial study that predicted 500k total deaths in the UK in a completely unmitigated scenario, or much lower numbers with various mitigations. As it is we've had 60k deaths so far, with very severe mitigation measures. Which doesn't look like a wildly wrong prediction to me.
Also, I think it's really uncharitable to use the word "fixate" here.
It is easy to imagine you are referring to tabloids exaggerating claims to make them clickbaity ("Y2K will cause problems in traffic systems" -> "your car might explode on Jan 1st 2000!"), or twisted interpretation of the reports where a qualified statement is turned absolute ("X might happen unless we take precautions" -> "X will happen!"), fabricated alt-right news meant to politicize and divide, or any number of other confusions.
Can you give some sources, to help clear it up?
Unqualified predictions of "disaster in 2-3 weeks" was the narrative of the (I guess progressive left-dominated) science and experts, to cement and aid with the "flatten the curve" meme, to help mandate mask wearing. "Why should I wear a mask? Well, because if not, in 2 weeks we will have seen exponential growth and your grandparents could die. Why didn't our grandparents die? Well... just wait 2 more weeks, or its simply proof that mask wearing helped". I feel, partly in response to the politicization of the conservative right complaining about overreactions, strict curfews that made no logical sense, and government mandating their religious services.
Because the conservative right very much started out believing that this was the Apocalypse. Even when contained to China, they were talking of upcoming Pandemics, about buying supplies if you needed to go into the woods, about procuring N95 masks or gas masks for when COVID inevitably arrived in their country.
While the left was still doing photo ops in the China towns of their cities, deriding people who were afraid as racists or unsupportive/anti-social. Opposing drastic measures like banning flights as anti-immigrant. To complain that you were saying "just wait two more weeks" two weeks ago in January. Parroting authorities that masks were only to be used by sick people, and not protective for general public.
This narrative completely flip-flopped around April. In part due to new information (The left is more acceptable to science). In part due to politics. In part because COVID now was mainstream and authority, so new avenues for conspiracy and suspicion turned up (COVID's not so bad as they would like you to believe. Vaccines will be forced and change DNA, Bill Gates wants to give mark of the beast, in form of microchip).
It was interesting to see, and should make finding sources possible, but difficult (for instance, find authoritative websites debunking Vitamin D, before the randomized trial studies came out, you need the internet archive now, but these existed for sure!). Many poor (but qualified/we-should-listen-to-this) predictions and articles, supposedly accepted and common knowledge, were deeply flawed/ill-motivated in short-term hind-sight and this cemented distrust. Especially because the people that made such poor claims, are the arbiters of truth and in charge of managing the "infodemic".
I want to be clear that I don't agree w/ Barrington Declaration, and given the hopefully now under 2 weeks away arrival of initial vaccinations in the USA herd immunity looks like an especially poor idea.
But I completely detest this style of argument, where a bunch of extraneous guilt-by-association is tossed on top of "most experts disagree" written by someone who doesn't seem to understand what the hell they're talking about but writes in the most condescending, let me explain it to these dumb plebs manner possible.
To be clear, "epidemiological research" cannot really answer the public policy question of how to respond to a pandemic - this is ultimately a political choice and in a democracy must be subject to some degree of public input. For example I think evidence strongly suggests China's draconian responses have been incredibly effective tools and yet would be completely intolerable in our political culture.
Beyond that, all evidence I have seen suggests the author's own authoritative claim rejecting the idea "that herd immunity is achievable without a vaccine" is itself not correct. The reality is we are dealing with a novel virus so it's difficult to make any claim about long-term immunity, but all the data we have on mutation rate, lasting immune response from those infected, low rates of reinfection, some pre-existing immunity in select populations, and, importantly, really the entire idea that these vaccines will work ... is predicated on the idea that herd immunity would be achievable without a vaccine.
Perhaps the above paragraph is arguable, but it is certainly not some Qanon 5G pizzagate conspiracy theory. You can be entirely opposed to let-it-rip herd immunity on public policy grounds while believing it is scientifically possible.
What disturbs me more than crank randos online believing nonsense is western mainstream media's increasingly neurotic and self-discrediting attempt to label anything that disagrees with perceived expert consensus as some completely insane disproven earth-is-flat falsehood, belief in which is akin to a mental illness, and that the ideas must be suppressed and/or re-educated out of those afflicted. Especially given that SARS-Cov-2 was treated by many of these same people as akin to a conspiracy back in January and February.
One of my favorite examples is from Cass Sunstein[1], Obama oracle of nudging the hoi polloi away from their dumb irrational choices. But there were many others[2]:
As psychologist David DeSteno wrote on 11 February in the New York Times, “our fear distorts our thinking about the coronavirus”. Two days later, the same newspaper picked the brains of several eminent psychologists in a piece titled, “Coronavirus 'hits all the hot buttons' for how we misjudge risk”. And finally, in a Bloomberg article on 28 February, Cass Sunstein (co-author of the bestseller Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness, published in 2008) summed up the advice of many cognitive experts by saying that “a lot of people are more scared than they have any reason to be.”
Journalists ...
I find it promising though how at least some people see through articles like this. On the topic of conspiracy theories on hn, I generally keep my comments meta to avoid devolving conversation, which I will do here as well to demonstrate how this article itself is full of fallacy.
1. The strawman fallacy and false consensus. Almost always articles of this sort, henceforth generally referenced to as "tfa", start off with or contain some variation of the strawman fallacy, wherein the weakest versions of any given conspiracy theory or set thereof are used to establish the baseline expectance that you the reader also should assume there is no merit to any of this, because there is no nuance. The article does this in the first paragraph. It attempts to use the false consensus effect to solidify the strawman.
2. The cherry picking, texas sharpshooter, and composition fallacies. Via rhetorical devices like "Since many conspiracy theories arise from feelings of uncertainty and fear..." tfa creates an illusion that there is no truth to be had in any of said conspiracy theories. The use of the word "many" softens this effect only slightly, and most readers will glaze right past it and fall for the rhetorical trick. It creates a false consensus that conspiracy theories aren't arrived at by those searching for truth based on the evidence, but rather by some faulty reasoning or cause. Of course uncertainty and fear contribute, and may sometimes play a part in the origins of conspiracy theories, but very often there are many kernels of truth (ignored by detractors) that are the true origins, with uncertainty and fear only being mechanisms by which they are spread to those who didn't understand the at least partially true origins in the first place.
3. The meta-dragon. By ignoring the very real issues with scientific incompetence and malice, the part about invisible dragons applies to itself.
4. Appeal to authority. The great irony of the fake authority section is that it itself is a logical fallacy in an apeal to authority. Even more convienient when they get to predetermine who the authorities are worthy to appeal to. Even more ironic in this part is the reference to the tobacco industry using the tactic they speak about in an attempt to explain why pharma industry wouldn't ever do that.
5. Begging the question about bandwagons and black and white fallacies with some straw thrown in. Section 3 does them all. I tend to lean towards Michael Parenti's views in the way he turns the ridicule around on what he calls "coincidence theorists". It's used all the time to dismiss arguments, and almost never stands up to scrutiny. Phrases like "most people had the good sense to dismiss" (bandwagon), "electromagnetic waves caused the disease" (strawman), and "you could just as easily point to the 2011 film Contagion and argue that director Steven Soderbergh has been plotting the whole thing." (the fallacy fallacy) all together turn section 3 into a version of the black and white fallacy.
All in all, the entire article is an explosion of fallacies attempting to show how fallacious the conspiracy theories around the topic are. I shouldn't have to say this, but please note, I'm not defending any of the particular ...
A number of things occur to me when I run into articles like this.
1. "Conspiracy theory" is simply the study of illusion, which our society is replete with because..
2. Over-classification and a culture of secrecy by institutional actors who have an "us vs them" mentality who seem so surprised when..
3. People take offense to being talked to like children who "can't handle the truth" and are automatically classified as "one of the them or the enemy" from which the truth is to be withheld
4. People, not having authoritative sources of information to rely on, then speculate attempting to approximate, extrapolate, and backwards engineer the truth. Sure, they can get it wrong, and sometimes really wrong but really, what else would you expect?
5. Like it or not there is a bell curve, or distribution of intelligence in the population. People gravitate towards different levels of interpretation, and I often see arguments like "you can't argue with stupid" without acknowledging the perfectly rational impulse as defined above and that whatever level of interpretation they're using probably wasn't meant for them.
It just doesn't help at all.The discussion about conspiracies is useless itself unless you're willing to talk about limiting free speech/freedom of thought.
Instead of shaming people and further pushing them into corners you can't pull them out of, just promote the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs.
Shame them for seeking "alternate facts" when the real truth always seems work out in someone else's favor and it only reinforces their beliefs.
Why does this article prefer the latter?
Even though conspiracy-theorizing is an essential (if only preliminary) part of this socially beneficial activity, in the 21st century we have outgrown the need for investigative journalism, because we've outgrown the need for self-government.
In a post-9/11, post-Covid world, we trust our leaders, and we trust our experts.