How Conspiracy Theories Happen

[Glennfs]

For Christmas one of my kids gave me a great present. It is a book with every front page New York Times beginning on my birthday April 5th 1958 then every April 5th through 2022.

April 5th 1967 front page story lower left hand side. "King urges Vietnam Boycott "

April 5th 1968 Dr King Assaniated

[ZoWie]

The human brain is a connection machine. Its facility for finding connections is an essential survival tool. Unfortunately the ability to tell the valid connections from the hypothetical ones depends on testing that can't always be done safely.

This failure is, indeed, how some conspiracy theories get started. It's a connect-the-dots problem. It's important to connect dots, but the hard part is finding the right ones. Conspiracists often connect the wrong ones, drawing erroneous conclusions. One needs to do a lot of analytical thinking, which some people are better at than others.

There seems to be something more afoot however. I think right now a segment of the population has rejected analytical thinking for magical thinking. The idea that JFK will rise from the dead in Dealy Plaza and lead the Q to the promised land comes to mind. I am reminded of the notion among some Rastafarians that Heile Selassi was either the Second Coming of Jesus or a harbinger of same.

Analysis of history yields the working hypothesis that magical conspiracy theories proliferate when a group of people feels as if their way of life is being unjustly taken away from them. I don't know whether those are the best dots to connect, but it sure seems like a good place to start looking, in view of current economic and ecological issues and the response to daily doom prophecies. Magical thinking seems to be the essential content of many web sites.

[gounion]

So, Glenn, how did the GOP come up with the theory that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex slave operation out of a DC Pizza Joint's basement?

[ZoWie]

That's "the madness of crowds," aka "moral panic." It's a form of magical thinking in which a group of people hears some random speculation or a deliberately planted lie and spreads the idea that some fairly marginal group is in fact a major conspiracy, usually involving some kind of Satanic and/or subversive activity. The McMartin Pre-School episode in LA was pretty similar. A lot of otherwise normal people were convinced there were tunnels under Manhattan Beach where thousands of little kids were being systematically molested.

There weren't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

[ZoWie]

That's "the madness of crowds," aka "moral panic." It's a form of magical thinking in which a group of people hears some random speculation or a deliberately planted lie and spreads the idea that some person or group they don't like is in fact a widespread major conspiracy, usually involving some kind of Satanic and/or subversive activity. The McMartin Pre-School episode in LA was pretty similar. A lot of otherwise normal people were convinced there were tunnels under Manhattan Beach where thousands of little kids were being systematically molested.

There weren't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

[Motor City]

The human brain is a connection machine. Its facility for finding connections is an essential survival tool. Unfortunately the ability to tell the valid connections from the hypothetical ones depends on testing that can't always be done safely.

This failure is, indeed, how some conspiracy theories get started. It's a connect-the-dots problem. It's important to connect dots, but the hard part is finding the right ones. Conspiracists often connect the wrong ones, drawing erroneous conclusions. One needs to do a lot of analytical thinking, which some people are better at than others.

There seems to be something more afoot however. I think right now a segment of the population has rejected analytical thinking for magical thinking. The idea that JFK will rise from the dead in Dealy Plaza and lead the Q to the promised land comes to mind. I am reminded of the notion among some Rastafarians that Heile Selassi was either the Second Coming of Jesus or a harbinger of same.

Analysis of history yields the working hypothesis that magical conspiracy theories proliferate when a group of people feels as if their way of life is being unjustly taken away from them. I don't know whether those are the best dots to connect, but it sure seems like a good place to start looking, in view of current economic and ecological issues and the response to daily doom prophecies. Magical thinking seems to be the essential content of many web sites.

like 1899

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulOOON_KYHs

[Glennfs]

So, Glenn, how did the GOP come up with the theory that Hillary Clinton is running a child sex slave operation out of a DC Pizza Joint's basement?

Thar wasn't the GOP which came up with that. Please try and not lie so much and so often

[Glennfs]

That's "the madness of crowds," aka "moral panic." It's a form of magical thinking in which a group of people hears some random speculation or a deliberately planted lie and spreads the idea that some person or group they don't like is in fact a widespread major conspiracy, usually involving some kind of Satanic and/or subversive activity. The McMartin Pre-School episode in LA was pretty similar. A lot of otherwise normal people were convinced there were tunnels under Manhattan Beach where thousands of little kids were being systematically molested.

There weren't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

Good point. I have noticed in my life that if a person says the company they work for is horrible nearly everyone believes them.
However if you say the company you work for is a great place to work you are considered an ass kisser.

[ZoWie]

Presumably there's a spectrum of irrational behavior which is augmented when others agree on some supernatural or simply unlikely analysis of the problems of the moment.

Lots of archetypes here. Archetypes are a big deal in movie schools. It's a very mythic medium. Theatrical presentation draws on the church service experience, which is one reason why I still think real movies are presented on 50' screens in large buildings. The good thing about it is that it encourages magical thinking. The bad thing about it is that it encourages magical thinking.

Red scares really are a form of witch hunt. The term "witch hunting" became bound up with gender in Western culture, so now we look for better names for it. "Moral Panic" seems more neutral, but it's not universally accepted as the reason for the behavior. Maybe we're just not as rational as we think.

In the US, it's easy to blame the president for all evil in the world. I know I tend to do it, especially when some Republican is on the rampage again. Glenn seems to think Biden is the cause of all our problems. Poor old Joe, who couldn't hurt an ant even were he inclined to do so. Meanwhile TFG rants and raves and throws his lunch at the wall, and starts REAL coups d'etat, and not a word.

Not a rational process, folks.