So, yeah, this post may live in infamy children, let me ask you a question? What happens when you're not aware of your cognitive bias but insist on searching for some "truth"? What happens when you use bad or pseudo-science to explain what happens around you? What happens when your distrust of science is so great that you can't accept any evidence against your ideas? CONSPIRACY THEORIES HAPPEN!!! That's right my dear dummies, we're going to make a lot of people angry and possibly lose some followers go in hard on this one, so buckle up and tuck in your tinfoil hats, this is gonna be a wild ride!!!
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Really tinfoil a hat?
First, let's define what a Conspiracy Theory is, and to make it short and perhaps boring we can always trust our friendly Wikibruh, take it away!
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation when other explanations are more probable. The term has a pejorative connotation, implying that the appeal to a conspiracy is based on prejudice or insufficient evidence.
Good job Wikipedia, you're on point and this time I didn't fell asleep, this is basically it guys, you take a mundane situation, overthink it really hard and crack the political and power scheme to 11, and if you ever find something contradicting what you think, remember, they are working for the Illuminati and you can trust them!
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This shit ain't new guys, Conspiracy Theories are a weird part of human society, some scholars have found that even the signing of The Declaration of Independence the OG freedom paper was a counter-measure for a British Conspiracy that... well... never happened... awkward... but with the rise of mass media and the internet, Conspiracy Theories have found a new place to spread and reproduce, some studies in the USA suggest that between 20% to 30% of Americans believe on some sort of conspiracy theory, may it be Chem Trails, the Flat-Earth, the Moon landing was a Hoax, Vaccines cause autism or the believe that the Queen of England is an immortal lizard alien poised to control the planet! guys, this is why we can have nice things...
Why tho
Why? Well, my first answer would be, CUZ THEY'RE FUCKING DUMB!!!, but in fact not all these conspiracy theorists have the IQ of integral bread, some of them are really smart, smart enough to run scientific experiments to find evidence to prove their theories right, evidence that they later shit on if they don't show what they want to believe, but that's another subject so experts on psychology, sociology, and other areas have some theories real and scientific ones this time about how conspiracies come to life and why are they a thing!
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One of these hypothesis says basically that our monkey brains are hardwired by evolution to see conspiracies everywhere, in an attempt to keep us save from a dangerous world the best way is to be safe than sorry, say you're walking through a forest and HOLY SHIT A FUCKING BEAR!! RUN!! But actually was a big rock in the form of a bear, close one right? But what happens if you see a big rock in the form of a bear but wait, ACTUAL BEAR!!! You just became Yogi's lunch!
Mathematician Theodore Motzkin used to say that in the universe disorder and chaos are more probable, but the complete and absolute disorder is completely impossible and if you combine that with our paranoid monkey brains searching tirelessly dangers everywhere, it is completely reasonable that patterns and conspiracies start popping up from seemingly out of nowhere, that's why your grandma and her church friends keep finding Toast Jesus every other breakfast obviously is not Jesus, it is Obi-Wan ladies, that's a Jedi right there!
Another approach to Conspiracy Theories is that in a universe full of chaotic and random events, theorist try to explain these events in a way to give meaning, purpose, and order to a rather uncontrollable and chaotic universe and that's not bad at all, but when you try to argue that the moon landing was directed by Kubrick ignoring that even the Russians THE MOTHERFUCKING RUSSIANS, THE GUYS THEY WERE RACING AGAINST accepted NASA got there first... you have to stand down buddy
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But, they can't be wrong, rightomgfreespeech!!!!
Yeah, they are very wrong, VERY WRONG, one of the fundamental aspects of Conspiracy Theories is that all of them are at odds with any evidence of any kind, for them evidences works in their favor or is simply created to diminish or hide the truth and keep control of the population, keeping them dumb or something... honestly I don't really follow these guys, it's all too weird and culty... iugh
An example of this evidence denial plagues the Flat-Earth Society, my favorite conspirators... I hate you all they see the horizon at the beach and BOOM that's evidence enough, the earth is flat, but when they design an experiment and the results show that the earth is IN FACT NOT FLAT then something must have gone wrong, perhaps heavenly rays this is an actual quote from a flat-earther when his experiment failed, go check Behind the Curve in Netflix is hilarious to see them fail to prove the earth is flat
When you can't find any evidence that contradicts your statement you'll find that it doesn't have any Falsifiability, this is a term coined by philosopher Karl Popper, this Falsifiability is when you can find a logical argument or event that can show how your beliefs are wrong, this is one of the pillars of the philosophy of science and most of the scientific arguments work that way, let's say you think that birds are just surveillance drones the government set up, a logical counter-argument would be, grab a bird and studied it, if you open up a bird and it is not a robot but a really evolved dinosaur #BirdsAreDinosaurs then your argument is falsifiable but if your theory is immune to falsifiability or any kind of logical refutability, then sadly is not worthy of discussion sorry, not sorry
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But, c'mon, what could go wrong?
You may think, but these people are harmless, just leave them be, no, I won't and to some degree they are harmless, but they could become a real danger to every society shit, now I sound like one of them for example, the anti-vaccine movement has so much influence right now that old, almost extinct diseases are coming back, and the seed of distrust they spread is taking a heavy toll on scientific communities to the point where major governments just ignore these communities, and that my friends are really bad news, it's a bit terrifying, can you imagine living like in the movie Idiocracy?... Science saves us!
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I mean, I'm not saying that you should believe everything you see at first glance, some conspiracy theories hold a bit of truth on them, like the Roswell Accident, an object crashed on a farm near Roswell? Yes, the government tried to hide what was all about? YES, IT WAS ALIENS? BURNING FUCKING HELL NO!!! It's never aliens, guys, it was a high altitude Baloon prototype to spy on the Russians, this was the cold war guys remember? If you find a conspiracy theory think, is this the most probable explanation for this? If not, I'm 99.99% sure that's bullshit!
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Final advice, think critically, this is paramount in these weird times we're living in, we're all prone to fall in cognitive biases, you think you don't? Well, let's imagine that you have a crush on someone and that someone tells you she/he has a crush on you as well, the first thing you will think is that is some kind of prank or something, right? That's a cognitive bias, you have the evidence right there and don't believe it! what's that? You don't have to imagine that because your crush confessed to you?... Yeah right, as those things could happen, lmao
Other Sources
Conspiracy theory | Wikipedia
Falsifiability | Wikipedia
There's a Damn Good Chance Your Neighbor Thinks Chemtrails Are Real | GIZMODO
The origin of countless conspiracy theories - PatrickJMT | TED-Ed
The real reason conspiracy theories work | AsapSCIENCE
Why You Can Never Argue with Conspiracy Theorists | Argument Clinic | WIRED
How Conspiracies Changed (Flat Earth, Anti-Vaxxers) | Wisecrack
Flat Earth: What Makes REAL Science? | Wisecrack
THANKS FOR READING!
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THANKS FOR READING!