Are There More Conspiracy Believers These Days?

[Ronnie Jersey]

Well this is the 'age of information' - the more information available, the more thoughts on it.
Not all information can be correct.

 

[Trevp666]

It was implied in his post #10,

No it wasn't. James H hasn't mentioned 'critical thinking' or alluded to it, just simply remarked regards a persons educational background not being relevant.

I should note that this colleague attended a prestigious private school and then a good university, so educational background isn't the problem!

The chap that lived across the road from me was reasonably bright with 'street smarts' but he hadn't had a Uni education. Far from it. He was all over the 5G stuff and tinfoil hattery.
Equally I knew a chap that was very well educated, and he was also always trying to tell us his various views about all sorts of half-baked conspiracy stuff.
The prevalence of extensive conspiracy theories on all subjects is most likely, as others have mentioned, a product of the modern ability to communicate more easily with others, via phones, texts, apps, the internet etc etc, and the speed at which the info can now get around the world, to a much bigger audience.
'Back in the day' you had to rely on the more downmarket rags to see a piece on 'Nazis on the moon', or 'The Royal Family are Lizards' etc.

 

[Lobeydosser]

Well... of course their are more conspiracy theories, that how "they" hide the real conspiracies in plain site. Obvious innit ?

 

[charliebrown]

It is so bad today that you don’t know if one should believe the supposedly truth or the rumor.

This is probably due to more world population and tons of social media.

 

[JaneD]

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 agree. Anyone can get onto Facebook and read any old sh*t that would have been laughed off by a newspaper editor

 

[kesavaross]

I've noticed that when conspiracy theorist are discussed there's a type of pattern to the discussion that is basically the same every time. If I didn't know better I'd think that people in general have been programmed to look at this subject matter in a particular way.

I think I've just invented a new conspiracy theory.

 

[hunck]

I've noticed that when conspiracy theorist are discussed there's a type of pattern to the discussion that is basically the same every time. If I didn't know better I'd think that people in general have been programmed to look at this subject matter in a particular way.

Do you include yourself in this?

I think I've just invented a new conspiracy theory.

Spread the word..

 

[kesavaross]

Do you include yourself in this?

Spread the word..

I've been programmed to be immune from being programmed.

I am spreading the word, on here.

 

[Floyd]

It's funny; we're told that the moon landings/pyramids/twin towers/Nessie et al are 'off limits' and some (Forteans) say that we shouldn't even have threads on these topics as they're so 'ridiculous'. But, we've got hundreds of threads on 'ghosts'. People who have died, but are still around. Who made these rules?

 

[Frideswide]

Who made these rules?

Pass! I've been happily unaware of them

 

[kesavaross]

I suppose really this forum is full conspiracy believers as after all there is no 'scientific' proof, and how I hate that word when applied to things beyond our sense of material energy, of ghosts, time slips, and the rest of it.

I live in a tower block and as anyone will tell you who is or has lived in tower block, tower blocks are full of gossip. If I'd have kept a diary from when I moved in 12 years ago, few people would believe it to be true.

Gossip is usually a form of conspiracy theory and the amount of times I've heard such gossip and the person dishing the dirt believes it to be true is incredible. They are conspiracy believers until it doesn't happen or the next thing comes along.

The latest one is that the council (it's council owned tower block) has sold the land for redevelopment and we're all going to have to move out. The amount of people that have said it to me as a fact believed by them is incredible.

Mind you the land would be worth a fortune for a developer........

 

[Shadowsot]

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?

There's a differencd between being skeptical and being cynical. I see much more cynicism compared to a couple of decades ago. And conspiracies are much more mainstream.
And just personally they used to be fun. Lately they're either mind numbing and easy as spot to disprove, or downright malevolent.
Both were true before, don't get me wrong. But you used to have fun whacky ones like would pop up on X Files.

 

[Shoegazer]

Bloody awful beer.

You’re thinking of John Smith’s surely?

 

[Yithian]

You’re thinking of John Smith’s surely?

 

[Aether Blue]

I keep telling my friends that the Age of Enlightenment ended some time ago. As a global civilization we have entered another Age of Faith, though currently there seems to be a great deal of disagreement about what exactly it is that we should believe in.

My impression (as a scientist) is that, in the eyes of the public at large, Science has had its day, and failed to deliver. People blame on Science the horrors of industrial warfare; unchecked pollution; and the disconnection of most people from one another and the natural world. Perhaps because of risk compensation, people fail to appreciate enormous breakthroughs like vaccination, safety belts, refrigeration, etc.

By their nature, facts are not comforting. So, people blindly put their faith into anything that DOES seem comforting.

I do wonder whether some new faith or ideology will become dominant by amalgamating various CTs into a more or less coherent whole.

 

[Zeke Newbold]

I would like to take issue with the oft-repeatted (on this thread, at least) idea that the ascension of conspiracy theories is due to the increased use of the interweb.

Obviously, the interweb will be a factor but I actually don't think it was the decisive one.

My memory goes back to the early to mid-Nineties, which, as far as I can see, is when a lot of this conspiracy stufff was birthed and became popular. That was when David Icke started his career (as a conspiracist, that is) and back then I am not even sure that he even had his own website - he made his name through selling hard copy books in bookshops, getting on the radio nand TV and touring with shows.

I loosely knocked around in UFO circles in those days - and conspiracy theories were seeping into that sphere of life (and were a factor in me drifting away from it, in fact). I remember at a conference in Blackpool, I think, I encountered an earnest young man who solemnly informed me that the royal family were composed of shape shifting lizards. I literally thought he had a srew loose, but would be hearing much more of the same kind of talk.

The thing is: most people were not internet connected in those days. It was expensive and technical and a lot of people- like me - used pu blic libraries to log on every now and then. (I seem to recall a Seinfeld episode in which one of the jokes was that Jerry had a new girfriend...who used the internet!) Meanwhile, other forms of media were available: there was things like Talk Radio, magazines (anyone remember magazines?), zines, public meetings (!) and Channel 5 would air some wacky stuff now and then - such as a `documentary` expressing the view that the moon landing was hoaxed. (I remember getting on the James Whale radio show to denounce this!)

So there was plenty of soil for conpiracy theories to grow in. And as for what was prompting them - well, just take a look at the Nineties. It was a time of confusion and disorientation. The Cold War came to an abrupot end with the collapse of the Soviet Union - so the Communist bogeyman was no more. In South Africa apartheid ended and Mandela was the new leader - so one of the principal bugbears of the left suddenly wasn't there. So it was harder to be a Bufton-Tufton style Tory on the one hand, and a Citizen Smith lefty on the other. And yet, peiople need something to believe in,.

On top of all that, it was plain that we were purely and simply being lied to by our giovernments. the big claim at that time was that mass unemployment was a thing of the past and that there were jobs galore for those that wanted them. And yet I - and many graduartes that I knew - were really struggling to be offered a break and could tell that this just wasn't so.

The interweb put a lot of heat under conspiracy theories that were already out there - but didn't create them.

 

[Floyd]

Benjamin Disraeli was openly talking about 'conspiracies' back in the 1800s, it's just that only a handful of 'certain members of society' would have known about them, or even understood them at the time.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

I suppose really this forum is full conspiracy believers as after all there is no 'scientific' proof, and how I hate that word when applied to things beyond our sense of material energy, of ghosts, time slips, and the rest of it.

I live in a tower block and as anyone will tell you who is or has lived in tower block, tower blocks are full of gossip. If I'd have kept a diary from when I moved in 12 years ago, few people would believe it to be true.

Gossip is usually a form of conspiracy theory and the amount of times I've heard such gossip and the person dishing the dirt believes it to be true is incredible. They are conspiracy believers until it doesn't happen or the next thing comes along.

The latest one is that the council (it's council owned tower block) has sold the land for redevelopment and we're all going to have to move out. The amount of people that have said it to me as a fact believed by them is incredible.

Mind you the land would be worth a fortune for a developer........

This was/is my general experience with working class communities, they seem to be fertile ground for conspiracy theories. People are insular, tend to "know their place" - which means they also know yours - which is being the same as them, they are hostile to change and difference - up to a point at least and furthermore there is a perpetual feeling of "them and us."

There was and likely still is a generalised suspicion of formalised learning - so school, university and by extension academia in general. Working class kids tend to do less well at school, taught by teachers who usually are either middle class or have middle class values or are at least more middle class than the kids than they teach. I can see how people who reject this learning as "not for likes of them" are going to to be drawn to other information systems, combine this with a knowledge that you are not respected and valued and the system is designed to either fuck you over, or at least not really help you, results in conspiracy theories of varying sorts being taken up by the working class, especially those at the very bottom.

Poorer communities are also vulnerable by virtue of their poverty: social problems that are mitigated (often to the point of non-existence) by relative wealth in more comfortable places are common or rife. The rumour that you have heard of is understandable in a council owned tower block, it's not unrealistic and we all know of the greedy scramble for property derived wealth that has turned rabid in recent decades.

The aggressive anti-intellectual stance I've encountered amongst many working class people: against reading books (or at least those not written by 'Slebs or Footballers), using long words, taking an interest in the wider world or learning in general might result in a lack of critical thinking that leads to belief in nonsense. Though both middle class people and the educated (not necessarily the same thing) are prone to this too.

Conspiracy theories remind me of religion: we are united against them, the unbelievers, whilst simultaneously castigating the "sheeple" with their ignorant belief in more widely held paradigms. The self congratulatory pretension of the term "mainstream media" is telling.

To reiterate, these factors are not exclusive to the working class but might be more prominent than amongst the middle class.

 

[Tunn11]

I would like to take issue with the oft-repeatted (on this thread, at least) idea that the ascension of conspiracy theories is due to the increased use of the interweb.

Obviously, the interweb will be a factor but I actually don't think it was the decisive one.

My memory goes back to the early to mid-Nineties, which, as far as I can see, is when a lot of this conspiracy stufff was birthed and became popular. That was when David Icke started his career (as a conspiracist, that is) and back then I am not even sure that he even had his own website - he made his name through selling hard copy books in bookshops, getting on the radio nand TV and touring with shows.

I loosely knocked around in UFO circles in those days - and conspiracy theories were seeping into that sphere of life (and were a factor in me drifting away from it, in fact). I remember at a conference in Blackpool, I think, I encountered an earnest young man who solemnly informed me that the royal family were composed of shape shifting lizards. I literally thought he had a srew loose, but would be hearing much more of the same kind of talk.

The thing is: most people were not internet connected in those days. It was expensive and technical and a lot of people- like me - used pu blic libraries to log on every now and then. (I seem to recall a Seinfeld episode in which one of the jokes was that Jerry had a new girfriend...who used the internet!) Meanwhile, other forms of media were available: there was things like Talk Radio, magazines (anyone remember magazines?), zines, public meetings (!) and Channel 5 would air some wacky stuff now and then - such as a `documentary` expressing the view that the moon landing was hoaxed. (I remember getting on the James Whale radio show to denounce this!)

So there was plenty of soil for conpiracy theories to grow in. And as for what was prompting them - well, just take a look at the Nineties. It was a time of confusion and disorientation. The Cold War came to an abrupot end with the collapse of the Soviet Union - so the Communist bogeyman was no more. In South Africa apartheid ended and Mandela was the new leader - so one of the principal bugbears of the left suddenly wasn't there. So it was harder to be a Bufton-Tufton style Tory on the one hand, and a Citizen Smith lefty on the other. And yet, peiople need something to believe in,.

On top of all that, it was plain that we were purely and simply being lied to by our giovernments. the big claim at that time was that mass unemployment was a thing of the past and that there were jobs galore for those that wanted them. And yet I - and many graduartes that I knew - were really struggling to be offered a break and could tell that this just wasn't so.

The interweb put a lot of heat under conspiracy theories that were already out there - but didn't create them.

Good point but doesn't fame play a part? Icke was some sort of sports pundit media personality which probably got him a deal more initial exposure for his ideas ravings than if he had just been "Joe Public".

The net, or more specifically social media has given wider exposure to people not otherwise famous and who would have had a problem getting wider publication for their ideas (good or bad TBF)

If you can build a following by You Tubing about your journey to health through broccoli or some such then you have a ready audience, often uncritical when you start introducing your ideas about amphibiodes from the hollow earth controlling Fox news* or whatever. As you say the ideas were probably always there, the interweb has added the heat by widening exposure.

* Remember you heard that here first.

 

[Shadowsot]

I keep telling my friends that the Age of Enlightenment ended some time ago. As a global civilization we have entered another Age of Faith, though currently there seems to be a great deal of disagreement about what exactly it is that we should believe in.

My impression (as a scientist) is that, in the eyes of the public at large, Science has had its day, and failed to deliver. People blame on Science the horrors of industrial warfare; unchecked pollution; and the disconnection of most people from one another and the natural world. Perhaps because of risk compensation, people fail to appreciate enormous breakthroughs like vaccination, safety belts, refrigeration, etc.

By their nature, facts are not comforting. So, people blindly put their faith into anything that DOES seem comforting.

I do wonder whether some new faith or ideology will become dominant by amalgamating various CTs into a more or less coherent whole.

I think the ignorance of more mundane things like fridgerators are overlooked because they become mundane parts of life. The real successes of science don't take long to just be a part of normal life. Just part of how life is.
So when these major events happen they stand out.
It's similar to how there's more people that are decent to each other most of the time. But you only notice when someone does something jerkish or terrible to someone else.

 

[Shadowsot]

This was/is my general experience with working class communities, they seem to be fertile ground for conspiracy theories. People are insular, tend to "know their place" - which means they also know yours - which is being the same as them, they are hostile to change and difference - up to a point at least and furthermore there is a perpetual feeling of "them and us."

There was and likely still is a generalised suspicion of formalised learning - so school, university and by extension academia in general. Working class kids tend to do less well at school, taught by teachers who usually are either middle class or have middle class values or are at least more middle class than the kids than they teach. I can see how people who reject this learning as "not for likes of them" are going to to be drawn to other information systems, combine this with a knowledge that you are not respected and valued and the system is designed to either fuck you over, or at least not really help you, results in conspiracy theories of varying sorts being taken up by the working class, especially those at the very bottom.

Poorer communities are also vulnerable by virtue of their poverty: social problems that are mitigated (often to the point of non-existence) by relative wealth in more comfortable places are common or rife. The rumour that you have heard of is understandable in a council owned tower block, it's not unrealistic and we all know of the greedy scramble for property derived wealth that has turned rabid in recent decades.

The aggressive anti-intellectual stance I've encountered amongst many working class people: against reading books (or at least those not written by 'Slebs or Footballers), using long words, taking an interest in the wider world or learning in general might result in a lack of critical thinking that leads to belief in nonsense. Though both middle class people and the educated (not necessarily the same thing) are prone to this too.

Conspiracy theories remind me of religion: we are united against them, the unbelievers, whilst simultaneously castigating the "sheeple" with their ignorant belief in more widely held paradigms. The self congratulatory pretension of the term "mainstream media" is telling.

To reiterate, these factors are not exclusive to the working class but might be more prominent than amongst the middle class.

My thought is a lot of people are waking up to the things we were raised with. Ideas about hard work, loyalty, so on, don't really play nearly as much of a role in success as we thought.
And meanwhile several major changes to how we work and what we need to function in society, and the associated costs, have really increased.
Add to that the changes in culture, how small the world has become, and you have a melting pot where people are primed to believe there's an intentional, coordinated evil at work against them in general and specifically.
A single reason is something easy to address. A real evil is something to align yourself against and push back on.
People are stressed, overworked, and the issues are complicated.
It's hard to dedicate the time needed to really dig into these things when you're already tired and have a family you want to spend time with.
So short cuts like I reckon get more weight. What you're presented with on TV gets more weight, or YouTube, or podcasts.

 

[Tunn11]

My thought is a lot of people are waking up to the things we were raised with. Ideas about hard work, loyalty, so on, don't really play nearly as much of a role in success as we thought.
And meanwhile several major changes to how we work and what we need to function in society, and the associated costs, have really increased.
Add to that the changes in culture, how small the world has become, and you have a melting pot where people are primed to believe there's an intentional, coordinated evil at work against them in general and specifically.
A single reason is something easy to address. A real evil is something to align yourself against and push back on.
People are stressed, overworked, and the issues are complicated.
It's hard to dedicate the time needed to really dig into these things when you're already tired and have a family you want to spend time with.
So short cuts like I reckon get more weight. What you're presented with on TV gets more weight, or YouTube, or podcasts.

Actually people are continually told that they are overworked and stressed (and who's going to disagree?)

Compared to a Victorian labourer with a family, who is too ill to work and faces starvation or the workhouse I doubt they are actually that stressed - A generalisation even in the Western world to be fair.

Telling people how stressed they are could also be a conspiracy........

 

[hunck]

It's funny; we're told that the moon landings/pyramids/twin towers/Nessie et al are 'off limits' and some (Forteans) say that we shouldn't even have threads on these topics as they're so 'ridiculous'. But, we've got hundreds of threads on 'ghosts'. People who have died, but are still around. Who made these rules?

Eh?.. There’s threads on all of these so how are they ‘off limits’ - where’s the conspiracy? Twin towers may have gone because Politics, I’m not sure - but the others are open & you’re welcome to post on any of them.

The only rule here is ‘no politics’. No-one has made any other rules.

 

[Trevp666]

AFAIK, along with the 'muh...politics' thing, 'other rules' relate to posting about ongoing court cases anything which could lead to a charge of 'sub judice', or indeed posting anything libellous, especially anything that could bring the CFI into disrepute.
A look at 'good posting practices' would most likely have some pointers on that.

 

[Shadowsot]

Actually people are continually told that they are overworked and stressed (and who's going to disagree?)

Compared to a Victorian labourer with a family, who is too ill to work and faces starvation or the workhouse I doubt they are actually that stressed - A generalisation even in the Western world to be fair.

Telling people how stressed they are could also be a conspiracy........

Different types of stress on the one hand to the other.
I switched to reading my news online from watching it mainly because how prevalent news about murders, as one example, are part of the news cycle.
Why?
What can I do about a murder that happened in another state hundred of miles from me?. Do they give you a "Here's where you can find a relief fund dedicated to the family of the victim, a moderated inbox to send messages of support, or give me anything to do about it at all?
Nope.
It just sits there. Something I can't do anything about while a family's pain is broadcast in HD.
That stuff is stressful.
Local news is slightly better since of you know the area you can try to lend aid and maybe you know something useful.
But how often does the news update unless it's a particularly awful event?

As for overworked.
Yeah compared to a Victorian laborer the actual difficulty of the work isn't as much. But the time spent away from families while working two jobs (or in my case working constant overtime) or more is roughly the same.
And speaking as someone who's done white collar and blue collar work, while one is more physically demanding both lead to burnout. Making it hard to have interests and hobbies and spending time with your family.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

Actually people are continually told that they are overworked and stressed (and who's going to disagree?)

Compared to a Victorian labourer with a family, who is too ill to work and faces starvation or the workhouse I doubt they are actually that stressed - A generalisation even in the Western world to be fair.

Telling people how stressed they are could also be a conspiracy........

Victorian labourers weren't also bombarded with information and disinformation though. They clearly lived appalling lives in a way few of us can imagine, not sure how helpful the comparison is. We could also compare ourselves to people during The Plague in the Middle Ages or Jewish people in Germany and surrounding countries during The Holocaust.

We are also materially better off than most in the poorer parts of the world but they will have a variety of experiences not all are starving and/or working 15 hour days in sweatshops or diamond mines. Some poor materially poor people may have quite pleasant lives doing a job and living a comparatively simple life which might not involve much money but may be satisfying.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

My thought is a lot of people are waking up to the things we were raised with. Ideas about hard work, loyalty, so on, don't really play nearly as much of a role in success as we thought.
And meanwhile several major changes to how we work and what we need to function in society, and the associated costs, have really increased.
Add to that the changes in culture, how small the world has become, and you have a melting pot where people are primed to believe there's an intentional, coordinated evil at work against them in general and specifically.
A single reason is something easy to address. A real evil is something to align yourself against and push back on.
People are stressed, overworked, and the issues are complicated.
It's hard to dedicate the time needed to really dig into these things when you're already tired and have a family you want to spend time with.
So short cuts like I reckon get more weight. What you're presented with on TV gets more weight, or YouTube, or podcasts.

You mean if do don't clean toilets really well and are loyal to your boss you won't become a millionaire?

Next you will be telling me that investing my life savings in Bigfootcoin and Royalsarereptilescoin won't make me a billionaire!

 

[Tunn11]

Different types of stress on the one hand to the other.
I switched to reading my news online from watching it mainly because how prevalent news about murders, as one example, are part of the news cycle.
Why?
What can I do about a murder that happened in another state hundred of miles from me?. Do they give you a "Here's where you can find a relief fund dedicated to the family of the victim, a moderated inbox to send messages of support, or give me anything to do about it at all?
Nope.
It just sits there. Something I can't do anything about while a family's pain is broadcast in HD.
That stuff is stressful.
Local news is slightly better since of you know the area you can try to lend aid and maybe you know something useful.
But how often does the news update unless it's a particularly awful event?

As for overworked.
Yeah compared to a Victorian laborer the actual difficulty of the work isn't as much. But the time spent away from families while working two jobs (or in my case working constant overtime) or more is roughly the same.
And speaking as someone who's done white collar and blue collar work, while one is more physically demanding both lead to burnout. Making it hard to have interests and hobbies and spending time with your family.

Yes, we get bombarded with things to make us feel stressed. Most, as you say we can do nothing about which only adds to the stress.

Victorian labourers weren't also bombarded with information and disinformation though. They clearly lived appalling lives in a way few of us can imagine, not sure how helpful the comparison is. We could also compare ourselves to people during The Plague in the Middle Ages or Jewish people in Germany and surrounding countries during The Holocaust.

We are also materially better off than most in the poorer parts of the world but they will have a variety of experiences not all are starving and/or working 15 hour days in sweatshops or diamond mines. Some poor materially poor people may have quite pleasant lives doing a job and living a comparatively simple life which might not involve much money but may be satisfying.

We are pressured to be materially rich which adds to our stress whereas we would probably be happier without the latest trainers or whatever.

There are different types of stress, often types we put ourselves through or get put through. Perhaps I was on to something with my comment about "them" wanting us to be stressed.

I remember hearing that Magnus Magnussen when he was presenting Mastermind used to walk in to where all the contestants were waiting, all looking stressed out, and say to them: "It's only a bloody game you know."

 

[Ogdred Weary]

We are pressured to be materially rich which adds to our stress whereas we would probably be happier without the latest trainers or whatever.

There are different types of stress, often types we put ourselves through or get put through. Perhaps I was on to something with my comment about "them" wanting us to be stressed.

I remember hearing that Magnus Magnussen when he was presenting Mastermind used to walk in to where all the contestants were waiting, all looking stressed out, and say to them: "It's only a bloody game you know."

"They" probably do want us stressed and tired - easier to manipulate and trample on.

Do "they" want to tell us we are overworked though? Pointing out the issue that "they" are at least partially causing? No, not really, they would prefer red herrings and scapegoats, surely?

 

[Shadowsot]

I think that implies they care enough to think about it at all.