RE: The psychology behind conspiracy theories
Is there a way to reason with them?
I love the way you distance yourself from the conspiracy theorists... Like they are a breed of mentally ill people, or that you are not a part of the same specie... Are you maybe trying to "maintain a positive self-image" ?
It's funny that most of this "research" are being pushed by BBC, CNN, MSNBC, psychology, and governmental agencies
http://www.antidiscrimination.justice.nsw.gov.au/Pages/legal-cases/Conspiracy-theory-belief-assumed.aspx
or
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180124-the-enduring-appeal-of-conspiracy-theories
@ura-soul I would love to hear your opinion on this, it's an interesting topic but it has been completely misinterpreted.
@zen-art , I think your vision of a conspiracy theorist is probably a mix between Alex Jones and a creationist.
What if I tell you that there's a lot of skeptics out there, that do not trust their government, as history has continuously proved that the trust can be breached.
I've realized that a lot of people are mocking conspiracy theorists, because it reassures them, it makes them feel righteous, it's really about your own image, and your own definition of truth and order.
They're often the same people mocking religious people (I am agnostic in case the insults start flying), belittling their belief system while imposing one truth to other through science. "Scientism" can become a dogma too, and I am saying that while still being a believer of science and a pragmatic, but everyone knows that data can be tempered with, changing the result of an experiment.
As @natubat suggested below, I strongly urge you to listen to James Corbett from @corbettreport , and if you don't I still respect your opinion as you have a lovely writing, and I promise to chill :) because it was an interesting article at the end of the day, and food for thought for a lot of people, so thanks for that.
I do not mock conspiracy people. A couple of my friends are really deep into it and I am only trying to learn and understand them. Skeptics and those who apply critical thinking are not in my mind conspiracy thinkers and I tried to explain that in the post. The difference is between questioning and seeing evil everywhere. The psychology is pretty clear on this, if a person is obsessed with a certain topic and sees evil skeems behind it then that is not healthy not for the person and not for the people around her. Questioning everything is important, it is what pushes the society forward but when people refuse to accept the answers simply because they do not understand them or because they are not in line with their world view or religious beliefs that is the moment when the problem arises.
I think you have mistaken me with someone. That kind of behavior is not found on my blog page, not from me and not from my readers. This is a safe place of love where you are accepted as you are.
I apologize, it was a little out of line, I can see that you are a kind person and I still enjoyed the mental stimulation to express myself this morning.
That's the problem, psychology is not an unilateral science, and a lot concepts are opened to interpretation. Modern psychologists for e.g rejects a lot of Freud's notions, it just show that the science evolve with time. It's probably important to add that most psychologists and therapists are themselves riddled with social and behavioral illness, and that the drug business is very lucrative, but quite inefficient to answer today's core issues with patients.(E.g: Opioid crisis.)
I couldn't agree more, but that's where statements to understand "the psychology of a conspiracy theorist" lead to the most dangerous type of assertions, and prevent people to "question everything" because they get stopped in their tracks right before explaining their argument.
That's for me where the real issue is, the word "conspiracy" is a word that was created in the US, and bastardized during "Operation Mockingbrid" in the 50s.
(All those infos are online to be found)
Every era had the establishment questioning the mind of individuals being out of the norm, minds with a different belief system than the general consensus, or just people thinking out of the box.
Before the 50s, the article could have very well been called "The psychology of a communist" in the beginning of the XXth century, or "the Mind of a revolutionary" in the XVII century, and prior to that "the faith of a heretic" in the XII century crusades... I am sure you get my point :)
My favorite quote comes from one of my favorite scientist, bongo player and theoretical physicist Richard Feynman:
What I cannot create, I do not understand.
Yup, that is the beauty of it, it grows.
Did it stop you from making or explaining your argument? I did not and I am glad for that. Just because I or anyone else says or writes anything does not mean that people should stop speaking their mind. The point is to continue talking and discussing. I see no problem behind "psychology behind" anything, you, me, theorists of this and that. There is beauty in understanding how the human mind works and what triggers our behavior.
I really learnt with time to be comfortable with my core belief, but in most cases, because of the witch hunt against "conspiracy theorist", I really stopped sharing my point of view, it always ends up the same way, with a belittling and very short sighted understanding, often due to misconceptions, misinterpretations, or just plain lack of interest on a subject.
I am glad to see we can have a nice conversation and respect each other's opinion.
Thanks for your article nonetheless, and the food for thought. Staying zen :) pays off !
That 'witch hunt' has already started some time ago, but on FaKebook they now take it to another level as they are now hiring people to search for 'fake news'. Because who decides what's fake and what's not? To me, it sounds more like more centralization and pushing their agenda forward. With 'their' I mean...well, you know what I mean. There, I said it. 😜 https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-is-hiring-fake-news-fact-checkers/
Yeah I couldn't believe this shit, and they even have ads for "journalists jobs" at Facebook, at what point we just admit that we live in George Orwell 1984 ahahah...
Staying zen always pays off. People do not believe me but happiness truly comes from within and when you are zen there is no person you can not talk to and appreciate for what she is. Thank you for being on my path today and brightening it up with our conversation 💚
I agree that this article is overly simplistic and biased in a few common ways. Firstly, 'conspiracy' is literally a crime - people are charged with conspiracy every day. There is absolutely nothing about conspiracy that is 'woo woo' or leftfield. Theories are a concept that is absolutely part of the scientific method. So given these two solid facts, it should be obvious to anyone with an open mind and heart that theories about conspiracies can themselves be 100% scientific. What do police do? One part of their role is to examine evidence of conspiracies and assess the possibilities. In fact, the judicial system also effectively deals with conspiracy theory all day long. Police can be described as professional conspiracy theorists and it is only the negative connotation that has been attached to the phrase 'conspiracy theorist' that has people associating the idea primarily with nonsense instead of accurate application of science.
Having both a background in science and having had experience in numerous industries at many levels, I have seen numerous real life conspiracies. Let's remember again here that a conspiracy is literally only an agreement, that is hidden from plain view, to do something criminal. It should be abundantly clear that this occurs all day long around the world.
This is false. What is a 'conspiracy mind'? Is a police officer who is professionally identifying conspiracy someone who has a 'conspiracy mind'? Does a 'conspiracy mind' only think about conspiracies? Are thoughts about conspiracies mutually exclusive with the rigour of the scientific method? In truth, conspiracies can be and are often assessed to a high standard and are indeed eventually proven to be real conspiracies. This should be obvious but apparently it needs to be spelled out.
In knowing yourself, you can come to know the extent of your own denial and also the extent you have towards bias. You can also come to know the extent to which such things can even play out in published scientific work.
I see, so to you, critical thinking and questioning things is rational and not paranoid, but if the result of that leads you to think in certain ways that you yourself don't agree with, then it is likely paranoia? What research have you done into the possibility of small groups of people meeting in secret to control the world? You mentioned that you leave car mechanics to the 'experts' - but what about the experts who study the activity of the world's most 'powerful' people? Do you allow them the same privilege? Or do you label them crazy?
As was already mentioned @thecorbettreport has put out many great and well researched pieces on conspiracies that really are better sourced than 99% of what passes for journalism and even some scientific studies. You will find among his work, months and months worth of evidence and testimony relating to numerous conspiracies and I challenge you to pull them apart, more than just a tiny chink here and there. For reference, you can also review my whistleblower series on Steem that contains over 30 testimonies, often from professionals and highly qualified and relied upon people in society - which show a vastly different reality to the one being portrayed by so called 'rational' thinkers who are the mainstay of mainstream thinking (this is the last post in that series, the rest are in the index at the bottom). 'Strangely', these whistleblowers are almost never heard in the mainstream. Perhaps Professor Udo Ulfkotte's testimony that as the editor of one of Germany's largest newspapers, he was under the pay of the CIA to lie about America has something to do with it? Perhaps his statement that pretty much every other ranking journalist was also under their pay has something to do with it? Perhaps his death soon after is irrelevant?
I specifically recommend looking at the work of ivy league historian Carroll Quigley, since it is he who was perhaps best placed to expose the real 'network' of wealthy people who literally have billions if not trillions of funds available to them and whose aim was to make anglo saxon men the rulers of the world. Carroll Quigley was a leading and highly respected academic historian who was privately tasked with recording the history of a highly secret society, but he actually published their records publicly, only for them to be removed from publication within 9 months (by penguin books). The work is mostly dry and historic, except that 5% of it is explosive in it's description of the way that democracy has been deliberately designed to be 100% fake and to ensure that most power in society is retained by a very small number of people. Anyone who wants to rebut this has a lot of work on their hands. You can review an introduction to his work here.
What a well thought out and on-point comment @ura-soul.
This, is what gets me the most in the post:
My experience that it is actually the other way around. Most people stamped as conspiracy theorists actually never stop researching, while arguing with the 'scientific' mind as described above, will always be a struggle where the latter has all the answers based on the research of (usually) someone else.
Thanks! The issue, from my pov, is inaccurate definition and poor logic. People can be 'conspiracy oriented' and non scientific or they can be scientific and not bothering to look at conspiracies - or they can be a mix. Any of them could be judgemental and unscientific while claiming to be thorough and scientific. Basically, an open mind has questions, doubts, curiosity and non judgement - plus a willingness to consider ALL ideas without bias. There is nothing that stops conspiracy researchers from being scientific and, in fact, I can point to a few published studies from high quality sources that absolutely back up some of the biggest 'conspiracy theories' going. Of course, the proponents of the idea that 'conspiracy theorists can't think properly' never see or reference these studies.
That's absolutely true. I think that if we just look at the world's history, that we can safely say that conspiracies happened more than we can count. And that it was proven to be. How many people were stamped as crazy in the past, when in reality all they did was question a government (action) or something that just didn't stroke, only to later discover that they were right. Personally, I have been researching all of the 'terrorist attacks' in the past few years and was lucky enough to make a copy of one particular video on youtube before it was removed. When I showed this video to someone who was calling me a 'conspiracy nut' they kept calling me crazy, while the evidence of my words was right in front of them. That's the problem with most people: the truth is too hard to take, so they'd rather play the role of the ostrich and stick their heads in the sand, rather than looking at the evidence and think for themselves.
I see the issue as being fear. We are dysfunctionally programmed to reject our own fear and to try to 'think positive' and deny that we even have fear. This causes havoc with our ability to see reality without lenses of bias. It is noticeable that often the mainstream thinkers will point the finger at those who think differently and specifically try to label them as 'paranoid' - a term directly referring to the influence of fear. I understand this more and more to be a reflection of the likelihood of their own un-owned and denied fears. It is much more palatable to blame a situation on the fear of someone else than it is to accept that maybe your own position is based on untruth and error. Emotional healing holds the keys to a brighter future.
Absolutely, emotional health is something we should all strive to achieve. And you're right: I see this often that people try to make it out like a critical thinker is paranoid. The thing that I realized in the past few years is that it is, as you say, the other way around. In my case, the subjects we're talking about should scare anyone, and of course, the possible outcome did scare me at some point. However, because after a while it's much easier to recognize 'what's real and what's not' and once things fall into place, there is the knowledge of things and that alone helps me to let go of any fear. Of course, there are quite some paranoid thinkers out there, but I think this is because: 1. they possibly already had mental issues before any of their search and 2. because there is such an amazing amount of misinformation and misdirection out there, it's hard to keep up and even harder to discover what's real or not. That being said: I don't believe in just any theory out there, but at the same time I keep an open mind and to be honest: nothing surprises me anymore. I believe that when someone keeps an open mind but is also critical, then there is absolutely no reason for unreasonable fear. 'Healthy' fear would be the kind of fear that makes a person want to learn more, and dive deeper into the subject.
I'm enjoying this conversation and it's a shame I never got to meet you at Steemfest.
I like the work of Sibel Edmonds too, who was a translator for the CIA and was the first one to coin the term "Gladio B" for being the continuation of operation Gladio.She did nemerous interviews with James Corbett. Have you ever done an article about it and if yes could you direct me to it?
Thanks for contributing to this conversation in the best way possible, with you usual calm demeanor, rhetoric, and well of knowledge...
I love that RT interview, very relevant, it chocked me the first time i watch it, now I look at it with a complete different eye, I see a bit of fear in the eyes of Udo Ulfkotte.
@edprivat and @ura-soul: thank you for giving me some more material to look into. James Corbett is awesome, but I hadn't heard the other names yet, so I'm checking these out now. I feel a post coming up about my 'theory' of 9/11. Researched since 2001...😜 And how about this? https://www.smh.com.au/world/africa/man-who-survived-9-11-killed-in-nairobi-terrorist-attack-20190118-p50s45.html
I feel that I need to look a bit more into this 'terrorist attack'.
So James Corbett is an English teacher in Japan, so he has the thoroughness that I think is required to talk about these subjects. A true warrior that probably has more freedom to speak due to his expat status.
That journal initial is smh, like "shaking my head", I feel that I am being trolled :D
You are welcome! I wrote this a while ago on the topic of commonly held limiting beliefs and false logic that are applied when examining conspiracies too.
I thought I had made a specific post on Gladio before, but I am not seeing it in google searches. I do have a few posts that mention it, such as this one where I attempted to look at the statistical probability of terrorist attacks taking place on specific numerlogically significant dates. I think Sibel has a smart mind and good resources available - however, I find her positioning a bit rigid and she needs to go through emotional processing to have better balance. ;)
It's unfortunate in a way that Udo was being interviewed on RT, since it is easy to discount it as false information. However, from what I have seen, the facts show his position to be truthful.
It was an interesting read thanks, a little bit far fetched for the unseasoned, you gotta love that dude in the comment starting talking probability. I do understand that a longer time frame would probably give a more accepted result as he is very right to admit that date can be interpreted to fit a narrative.
What you say about sibel is quite true, and it feels that she only speaks in the presence of James Corbett or Inforwars and would probably benefit from posting her own videos, however after making a deposition the way she did, there's probably pressure that we're not aware of too.
I want to add that I stopped watching RT , I still check from time to time their articles and video, but found it overall as biased as CNN and at first tapped into the alternative audience, then went more and more far right.
Meaning that there's no reliable source of info anymore across the board. Biased on each side
I like to look at maths since it produces data that cannot really be refuted without something substantial being presented to do so.
Sibel has her own news network - Newsbud - and regularly speaks independently there. She has hundreds of videos by now. Newsbud was intended to be an unbiased new source, but it has it's own bias too.