Let’s be clear: i’m not saying conspiracies doesn’t exist. By conspiracy theories, i mean the plots whose existence is at best highly unlikely, at worst totally senseless, notably if:
-They are breaking the laws of physics.
-They are too costly (logistically and/or financially) to be profitable.
-They are defended by untrustworthy sources (populist or cult leaders, random people, celebrities without expertise in the concerned domain, parodies taken seriously,…).
-They are often involving far-right’s scapegoats.
-They are involving a large amount of people.
-They reject science by principle.
-The interests of the supposed conspirators are unclear or incoherent.
-Their so-called proofs are incoherent, manipulated or are proving nothing at all.
-They would be funny if they were published as parodies in The Onion.
Not me, but a friend believed Obama was not American. Conversations over time (couple of months) changed them.
Not a proper conspiracy theory, but I used to be a dualist, thinking that souls exist and they’re separate from bodies. All of this changed with a long conversation with a materialist. He helped me see how my beliefs were historically determined, socially programmed, and not based on atemporal scientific principles. Overnight change to materialism.
I used to think the government was hiding evidence of alien UFO encounters to prevent widespread panic. Now I think they’re using general UFO encounters as a cover for weapons testing.
The military-industrial complex doesn’t need to cover up weapons testing with little green men conspiracy theories, because people susceptible to crackpot alien theories pose no threat or obstacle to them. I think those theories are largely self-inflicted.
I’ve known 2 conspiracy theorists IRL. Sad thing with both is that it was clinical paranoia.
Time really. After a while none of the conspiracies played out, or I just “researched” enough on my own using actual legitimate sources as opposed to YouTube schmucks and learned how to reason things out.
