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Are There More Conspiracy Believers These Days?

James_H

James_H

And I like to roam the land
Joined
May 18, 2002
Messages
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Earlier today I was chatting with a colleague (~25 years old) and the conversation took a turn. She'd previously said things like 'do you really believe the pyramids were built by humans?' (yes) but today she got straight onto 'my ex-boyfriend was inducted into the illuminati' and 'Sam Smith is demonic and sold their soul to be famous'. She's otherwise fine and quite nice. It made me look back onto how many otherwise unremarkable-seeming colleagues I've had in the past few years who have espoused out-there, conspiratorial views (around 5 I guess, and with views on what I will call the Q-adjacent spectrum), and how I feel like I didn't really run into people with those kinds of beliefs in most situations in the past (I would in certain scenes which were more hippie/out there in the first place, not with people who seem very 'normal' at first glance).

Some of you have memories longer than I have; anecdotally, do you find you encounter more conspiracy believers these days than in the past?
 
@James_H - what a great observation! Yes, it is more widespread at least in the English-speaking world. I venture to guess that it is the same in most places.

The capacity for and emotional satisfaction in conspiracy theorists have not changed. However, the vast amount of social media, changing social mores about truthfulness, and almost instantaneous communication have made CT almost - I shudder to type - mainstream.

The resistance to facts, poor reasoning, and ganging together to defend their fellow CTs can be seen on some of the CT threads here.

When covid first hit my retirement community, I had some conversations with neighbors who up until then impressed me as normal. During those covid conversations, I realized that they were at least on the edges of actual mental illness - delusional - about the covid CT. Before I retired, I was a US Federal employee with responsibilities for response planning for national disasters, including epidemics. I know that some of what the CT folk are spreading is not true, has never been true, etc.

I assume that the CT movement will eventually dwindle with better education (a la Finland) and perhaps a few generations. It would be great if some Fortean sociologist would respond to this thread.
 
I blame t' internet. If anybody wants information now they Google it (other search engines available but you'd be pushed to know that) Anyone can set up websites post videos etc. about just about anything.

It was far more difficult to publish anything if you had to publish in a book or magazine, it was self publishing (which costs) or persuading a publisher to publish it (a risk for them)

In a book you would generally have some idea of the Author and their qualification or lack of, the date published and the publisher who had a reputation to keep. MacMillan IIRC had to drop Velikovsky because of the controversy over his work.

Also there doesn't seem to be any teaching about how to assess information. Stephen Hawking said that a nearby black hole would destroy the Earth but Tracey from Facebook thinks "their kool".
 
I think people are more willing to come out with views straight up. Before, they might have reviewed and discarded them more easily.

At the moment "it's my truth" seems to be having a day in the sun :jugg:
 
There’s actually fewer conspiracy theory believers nowadays as they have all been rounded up by men in black and replaced by pod-people…..the originals being exiled to a secret, secure underground facility in Antarctica….so I’m lead to believe!
 
I find it curious that 'the conspiracy theorist' is portrayed in the media as some type of sad nerd hunch over his pc in the early hours of the morning or similar and that every conspiracy theory is always wrong based on the label given.
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
I assume that the CT movement will eventually dwindle with better education (a la Finland) and perhaps a few generations. It would be great if some Fortean sociologist would respond to this thread.
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I should note that this colleague attended a prestigious private school and then a good university, so educational background isn't the problem!
 
Definitely more conspiracists these days. Probably down to www - anyone with a connection can post any old shit they like, hence Q, Alex Jones etc, & it’s spreading round the world before you can say Illuminati, flat earth, no moon landings or crisis actor.

That’s not to say there aren't real conspiracies of course.
 
I think without a doubt there are. Social media is the perfect platform that is accessible to anyone who wished to spread information be it true or false or simply rumour.
Anyone can start a blog, have a website, have a radio program, publish a podcast with little to no effort and little to no cost.
We have regular media that scrapes the bottom of the barrel in its attempt to appeal to the masses and t.v that competes for ratings often by telling it's audience what it thinks it wants or needs to know rather than the actual truth.
 
James_H said:
Earlier today I was chatting with a colleague (~25 years old) and the conversation took a turn. She'd previously said things like 'do you really believe the pyramids were built by humans?' (yes) but today she got straight onto 'my ex-boyfriend was inducted into the illuminati' and 'Sam Smith is demonic and sold their soul to be famous'. She's otherwise fine and quite nice. It made me look back onto how many otherwise unremarkable-seeming colleagues I've had in the past few years who have espoused out-there, conspiratorial views (around 5 I guess, and with views on what I will call the Q-adjacent spectrum), and how I feel like I didn't really run into people with those kinds of beliefs in most situations in the past (I would in certain scenes which were more hippie/out there in the first place, not with people who seem very 'normal' at first glance).

Some of you have memories longer than I have; anecdotally, do you find you encounter more conspiracy believers these days than in the past?
Click to expand...

As soon as she referred to Sam Smith as “their”, l would have automatically treated anything else she said as bollocks. (Tenuous pun not intended.)

maximus otter
 
This article may be of interest: https://news.miami.edu/stories/2022/08/study-debunks-rise-of-conspiracy-theories.html (tried to paste in a bit of info as a taster but it's acting up)

Personally I find it very hard to believe that conspiracy theories are NOT on the rise, as this study suggests. Some parts of the research feel a bit questionable, because it compares public perceptions of classic CTs such as aliens and JFK. They're practically old hat nowadays, popular when CTs almost felt fun. In this thread I think we're all talking about the emergence of fairly recent CT phenomena, such as vaccines, 5G, illuminati etc. There appears to have been an attempt to look at these topics but I don't think it's particularly comprehensive (granted I've read the article, not a research paper).

To some extent I think it's good and pretty healthy to question government policy, public figures and MSM. The problem comes when people cannot apply critical thinking and get all their information through an algorithm funnel on social media. If you think the government does not have your best interests at heart, why on earth do you think the tech giants do?
 
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Endlessly Amazed said:
I assume that the CT movement will eventually dwindle with better education (a la Finland) and perhaps a few generations. It would be great if some Fortean sociologist would respond to this thread.
Click to expand...
Why? Does no one from Oxbridge/Harvard/Eton/Harrow et al believe in any of the topics we discuss on here then?
 
eburacum said:
Fuck, no. They know where the real conspiracies are, because they are at the heart of them. Real conspiracies consist of people with influence changing the laws (particularly the tax laws) to benefit themselves.
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Who are those guys in black suits at your front door @eburacum ?
 
maximus otter said:
As soon as she referred to Sam Smith as “their”, l would have automatically treated anything else she said as bollocks. (Tenuous pun not intended.)

maximus otter
Click to expand...

We don't need to go down this road again; neither do we need to give attention whores the attention they crave.

Please satisfy yourself with internally believing it's all bollocks without posting about it.
 
Floyd1 said:
Why? Does no one from Oxbridge/Harvard/Eton/Harrow et al believe in any of the topics we discuss on here then?
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@Floyd: there is a difference between being well-educated, especially in critical thinking, being a graduate of a university, and the prestige of well-known universities. That someone is a graduate of Harvard does not make that person automatically well-educated.

I am glad you made the point you did, but I do not believe that you think a Harvard graduate is automatically going to be a good critical thinker.

@James_H: Exactly. Critical thinking is a specific skill set which is not automatically gained through university experience, even at the Ph.D. and post-doc levels.
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
@Floyd: there is a difference between being well-educated, especially in critical thinking, being a graduate of a university, and the prestige of well-known universities. That someone is a graduate of Harvard does not make that person automatically well-educated.

I am glad you made the point you did, but I do not believe that you think a Harvard graduate is automatically going to be a good critical thinker.
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Exactly my point!

James H said; I should note that this colleague attended a prestigious private school and then a good university, so educational background isn't the problem!
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
@Floyd: there is a difference between being well-educated, especially in critical thinking, being a graduate of a university, and the prestige of well-known universities. That someone is a graduate of Harvard does not make that person automatically well-educated.

I am glad you made the point you did, but I do not believe that you think a Harvard graduate is automatically going to be a good critical thinker.

@James_H: Exactly. Critical thinking is a specific skill set which is not automatically gained through university experience, even at the Ph.D. and post-doc levels.
Click to expand...
Iirc a study of college under-graduates on entry and after graduating showed that overall English language students were just about the best critical thinker on entry but were overtaken (a bit) by material science and maths students as the courses progressed. I've just tried to find the study, can't...I kept a few as I looked into whether critical thinking levels might make a person more likely to oppose authority for ethical reason, but could fine no such link. Turns out knowing 2+2=4, doesn't mean you'd be prepared to make any kind of stand when others say it's 2+2=5.

I have located a study I kept on how teaching critical thinking to humanities student reduces belief in pseudo-science:

Anne Collins McLaughlin, Alicia Ebbitt McGill. Explicitly Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in a History Course. Science & Education, 2017; DOI:
10.1007/s1119101798782

I also found a study which correlate critical thinking with FFM openness to new experiences and verbal skills, which makes sense as one has to be open to a new idea to evaluate it. That said, being open to a new idea doesn't mean believing it uncritically.

Clifford, J. S., Boufal, M. M., & Kurtz, J. E. (2004). Personality traits and critical thinking skills in college students: Empirical tests of a two-factor theory. Assessment, 11(2), 169-176.
 
Floyd1 said:
Exactly my point!

James H said; I should note that this colleague attended a prestigious private school and then a good university, so educational background isn't the problem!
Click to expand...
Glad we had this small discussion, as I wasn't sure of your point. :)
 
Coal said:
Iirc a study of college under-graduates on entry and after graduating showed that overall English language students were just about the best critical thinker on entry but were overtaken (a bit) by material science and maths students as the courses progressed. I've just tried to find the study, can't...I kept a few as I looked into whether critical thinking levels might make a person more likely to oppose authority for ethical reason, but could fine no such link. Turns out knowing 2+2=4, doesn't mean you'd be prepared to make any kind of stand when others say it's 2+2=5.

I have located a study I kept on how teaching critical thinking to humanities student reduces belief in pseudo-science:

Anne Collins McLaughlin, Alicia Ebbitt McGill. Explicitly Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in a History Course. Science & Education, 2017; DOI:
10.1007/s1119101798782

I also found a study which correlate critical thinking with FFM openness to new experiences and verbal skills, which makes sense as one has to be open to a new idea to evaluate it. That said, being open to a new idea doesn't mean believing it uncritically.

Clifford, J. S., Boufal, M. M., & Kurtz, J. E. (2004). Personality traits and critical thinking skills in college students: Empirical tests of a two-factor theory. Assessment, 11(2), 169-176.
Click to expand...
Thanks for finding and posting this. Very useful.

Back in the Dark Ages (late 20th century), when I was in a Ph.D. program, I was dismayed at how many of my fellow students were reasoning from ideology and not evidence. Also a few faculty members. It was the beginning of the new Dark Ages.
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
Thanks for finding and posting this. Very useful.

Back in the Dark Ages (late 20th century), when I was in a Ph.D. program, I was dismayed at how many of my fellow students were reasoning from ideology and not evidence. Also a few faculty members. It was the beginning of the new Dark Ages.
Click to expand...
The reason even material science folk use methodology is that we know we can too easily fool ourselves (as Feynman noted). this is such a good methodology that the first port of call for the dodgy and commercially minded is to game this process, as even just a little bit (like un-blinding a trial to the people giving out the pills) will skew the results.

But then I've seen engineering people 'test one, pass it, make 50'... and them find half them didn't work and never would...
 
Endlessly Amazed said:
Thanks for finding and posting this. Very useful.

Back in the Dark Ages (late 20th century), when I was in a Ph.D. program, I was dismayed at how many of my fellow students were reasoning from ideology and not evidence. Also a few faculty members. It was the beginning of the new Dark Ages.
Click to expand...
It is a worrying turn in academia. What hope is there for us all?
 
Coal said:
The reason even material science folk use methodology is that we know we can too easily fool ourselves (as Feynman noted). this is such a good methodology that the first port of call for the dodgy and commercially minded is to game this process, as even just a little bit (like un-blinding a trial to the people giving out the pills) will skew the results.

But then I've seen engineering people 'test one, pass it, make 50'... and them find half them didn't work and never would...
Click to expand...
Yes, I agree with you that using standard methods to qualify data types is certainly a good idea (slight irony in stating the blindingly obvious). What I saw in poor thinking originated in the cognitive stage before qualifying categories of data: the assumption set of what was appropriate to include in the data based in current cultural "fads" in thinking.
 
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