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Flawed Conspiracy Theorist logic

Hercules56

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Had an encounter with some Global Warming Deniers today. Something struck me about their tactics and logic, that I think apply to many other CTists.

#1- Attack the opposition. The guys I was talking to referred to Liberals as "gullible" and "authoritarian" and "sheep".

#2- Lay seeds of baseless speculation. The guys I talked to asked "who is funding these climatologists who believe in man-made climate change???". They had no evidence of any funding sources that would lend to their motivations being dishonest or nefarious, but they still left their little baseless speculation for people to play with.

#3- Make it about Freedom of Speech. The guys, claimed this was about Freedom of Speech. Not science, or data, or facts, or research. They argued that disputing or disregarding their ideas, is an afront to free speech, and America was supposed to be all about free speech. So I guess we should therefore listen to their ideas, just because.

#4- Disregard consensus. The guys claimed that it doesn't matter that most climatologists and related scientists believe that man-made climate change is real. The mere fact that some obscure meteorologist or civil engineer or dentist thinks that climate change is a natural, cyclical event or isn't even happening, is enough reason to doubt the whole thing.

Seems that all conspiracy theorists use these tactics in one form or another. Whether its 9-11 Deniers, Holocaust Deniers, Moon-Landing Deniers, Flat-Earthers, they all use these tactics and flawed logic.

Why is this? What is it about the psychology of these tactics that CTists find so appealing?
 
Hercules56 said:
Had an encounter with some Global Warming Deniers today. Something struck me about their tactics and logic, that I think apply to many other CTists.

#1- Attack the opposition. The guys I was talking to referred to Liberals as "gullible" and "authoritarian" and "sheep".

#2- Lay seeds of baseless speculation. The guys I talked to asked "who is funding these climatologists who believe in man-made climate change???". They had no evidence of any funding sources that would lend to their motivations being dishonest or nefarious, but they still left their little baseless speculation for people to play with.

#3- Make it about Freedom of Speech. The guys, claimed this was about Freedom of Speech. Not science, or data, or facts, or research. They argued that disputing or disregarding their ideas, is an afront to free speech, and America was supposed to be all about free speech. So I guess we should therefore listen to their ideas, just because.

#4- Disregard consensus. The guys claimed that it doesn't matter that most climatologists and related scientists believe that man-made climate change is real. The mere fact that some obscure meteorologist or civil engineer or dentist thinks that climate change is a natural, cyclical event or isn't even happening, is enough reason to doubt the whole thing.

Seems that all conspiracy theorists use these tactics in one form or another. Whether its 9-11 Deniers, Holocaust Deniers, Moon-Landing Deniers, Flat-Earthers, they all use these tactics and flawed logic.

Why is this? What is it about the psychology of these tactics that CTists find so appealing?
Click to expand...

They have "Special Knowledge" and you don't. Who doesn't want to be on the inside and in the know?
 
Hercules56 said:
Had an encounter with some Global Warming Deniers today. Something struck me about their tactics and logic, that I think apply to many other CTists.

#1- Attack the opposition. The guys I was talking to referred to Liberals as "gullible" and "authoritarian" and "sheep".

#2- Lay seeds of baseless speculation. The guys I talked to asked "who is funding these climatologists who believe in man-made climate change???". They had no evidence of any funding sources that would lend to their motivations being dishonest or nefarious, but they still left their little baseless speculation for people to play with.

#3- Make it about Freedom of Speech. The guys, claimed this was about Freedom of Speech. Not science, or data, or facts, or research. They argued that disputing or disregarding their ideas, is an afront to free speech, and America was supposed to be all about free speech. So I guess we should therefore listen to their ideas, just because.

#4- Disregard consensus. The guys claimed that it doesn't matter that most climatologists and related scientists believe that man-made climate change is real. The mere fact that some obscure meteorologist or civil engineer or dentist thinks that climate change is a natural, cyclical event or isn't even happening, is enough reason to doubt the whole thing.

Seems that all conspiracy theorists use these tactics in one form or another. Whether its 9-11 Deniers, Holocaust Deniers, Moon-Landing Deniers, Flat-Earthers, they all use these tactics and flawed logic.

Why is this? What is it about the psychology of these tactics that CTists find so appealing?
Click to expand...
That sounds right, these do seem like common tactics of CTists. As to the psychology of it, here is what I came up with after one minute thinking about it:

#1 seems like an important part of CT belief systems. They have to explain why so many people disagree with them, without admitting that those who disagree might be right. "They're all stupid and/or evil," does the trick.

#2 probably works psychologically because as long as there are any unanswered questions (and there always are), there is always the possibility that the answer is nefarious. If they describe the possible nefarious answer vividly enough, it can seem much more likely and plausible than the evidence allows.

#3 I'm not as sure about. It always seems so pathetic and weird to me. "The law says I can't be arrested for saying what I'm saying!" Congratulations, dude. Awesome job voicing opinions that are not illegal. I'm proud of you. Why am I supposed to care?

I guess if they can successfully make the debate about freedom of speech, they are often saying something sane. And I suppose it feels like if they are right about their freedom to promote CT beliefs, then that is relevant to the debate about whatever theory they are promoting. Of course, the right to promote a theory is completely irrelevant to whether the theory is true.

#4 is almost the definition of a CT. So, what makes someone buy into CT's? I think there are a lot of answers to that one you can find here and elsewhere.
 
Isn't "Flawed Conspiracy Theorist Logic" a tautology? The word "flawed" is redundant.
 
One of the great certainties of life is that if you patiently explain why a conspiracy theorist's claim is highly implausible, using reasoning, examination of evidence and maths, the conspiracy theorist will respond with something like "All I ever hear from you is insults".
 
Robin said:
One of the great certainties of life is that if you patiently explain why a conspiracy theorist's claim is highly implausible, using reasoning, examination of evidence and maths, the conspiracy theorist will respond with something like "All I ever hear from you is insults".
Click to expand...

A certain conspiratorially-minder member here has already repeatedly criticised those who 'believe in numbers'.
The thing is, though, that it is a characteristic of CT thinking to respond to factual disagreement in an emotional manner. Part of the psychology of conspiracy thinking is that their identity is very much bound up in the ideas they espouse. Any criticism or attack on those ideas is perceived as an attack on that person's very identity, and the threatened ego lashes out in response to that.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
A certain conspiratorially-minder member here has already repeatedly criticised those who 'believe in numbers'.
Click to expand...
That's something that seems common for the Anti-Science crowd, they seem to have got the sum of their understanding of a subject from a pop-science book then build their whole, shaky, framework on that set of deliberately simplified and analogised knowledge.
 
It's about not thinking much at all in the clever disguise of appealing to be a deep thinker.

I recall long and repetitive videos on the evils of the EU and how it's a Illuminati type cabal. The Kennedy stuff and the faked moon landings.
If one knows nothing more than what these videos showed it appears mostly plausible under a smokescreen of mystery that cannot be broken yet.
But they carefully never stated it was the utmost truth in most of them.

The one that tipped the scales to something was wrong was the Obama is gay, Joan Rivers was killed for revealing it.

First, who cares unless the goal was to smear Obama. Second, what can the death of her do to change anything? His term was done and he was just another guy except with good bodyguards. It's all pointless but made up to be huge news and a credible construction.

Other vids related all came down to a " smear Obama " twist on the most basic of looking into the BS it seemed to be.
I was no fan nor hater, just bored watching videos.
( Later events proved clearly a president could be far worse than Obama by light years of magnitude.)

It's about being a sheep in the know, just watch and believe. No effort at all.
 
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Hercules56 said:
If they have Special Knowledge, and want to educate the masses, why be so rude about it? Why get so defensive? Why be so accusatory?
Click to expand...

Because when they "explain" it to you, you refuse to listen! They are inviting you to be on the inside and you keeping on bringing up (ir)rational reasons to not believe.

:whistling
 
On the "Free Speech" one, it's a simple deflection. When they're refuted, it's not because they might be wrong, it's because you're trying to silence them. For some people being disagreed with is the same as being muzzled.
 
Thing about Logic is it works on the GIGO principal:Garbage In,Garbage Out. You have bad premises, you will have bad conclusions.
 
I think a lack of humility has to be mentioned when talking about the flawed reasoning of conspiracy theorists.

People simply overestimate how much they think they know about the world. Some of us still believe wet hair causes the common cold. Many younger people seem to have been conditioned to think that firing a bullet at a car will make it explode (can it?).

Many people did not know what a coronavirus was before COVID-19 emerged. Much of the cynical speculation about the disease could have been quelled had people simply read a little bit on current events back in the SARS days or had some basic medical knowledge. They aren't the same condition, but we at least have something familiar to work with. Precedent seems to soften otherwise crazy speculation.

People who don't usually dabble in conspiracy theories still think the way Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself or how his bones looked in his X-ray images is supposed to mean anything. "Epstein didn't kill himself!" Okay who did? And wtf are you doing about it?? If you cannot give a straight answer, don't make a straight claim.

There was an idiot working security at an event last Sunday who pointed to ******* gas prices to say since Biden can't even fix gas prices everything else is moot. I asked him how exactly he thinks the president has anything to do with the price of gas in Indianapolis (I would have respected an actual well thought out argument, even if questionable), but the fool was walking away from me mumbling some incoherent ********!!

I think these little pet beliefs and misconceptions are so ingrained in most of us that we don't even try to examine how much of X subject we actually know. Of course when something weird happens to our computer or smartphone or kitchen appliance we typically will consult an expert. Folks need to start doing that for things they don't necessarily have a huge stake in or they'll keep "an open mind" :rolleyes: about everything.
 
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Most CTs fail, because they start out with a premise that "Group X (which I don't like) is powerful and has bad intentions for Group Y (which happens to be my group)".
Because of this, CTs start both with a premise and end with a conclusion before there is any data - information is sought only to fill in the blanks between Start and Finish.

The Magic of Q was to realize that if you dispense with Premise and Conclusion, you can fit way more people into your CT, letting them use the same info make a connection between their Premise and Conclusion.
 
Cosmic Yak said:
A certain conspiratorially-minder member here has already repeatedly criticised those who 'believe in numbers'.
The thing is, though, that it is a characteristic of CT thinking to respond to factual disagreement in an emotional manner. Part of the psychology of conspiracy thinking is that their identity is very much bound up in the ideas they espouse. Any criticism or attack on those ideas is perceived as an attack on that person's very identity, and the threatened ego lashes out in response to that.
Click to expand...

I agree.

Hercules56 said:
If they have Special Knowledge, and want to educate the masses, why be so rude about it? Why get so defensive? Why be so accusatory?
Click to expand...

CTers often tend to be a bit paranoid and feel victimized. They feel powerless and insecure so they gain comfort by being able to say "See? THEY are so strong that I can't do anything about it. It's not my fault I'm powerless. It's fill in the blank's fault." Then that feeling gets reinforced by having others tell them that they're right. They have this Special Knowledge that ordinary, less smart, people don't. They belong to a select group of smarter people who can see the Truth. That's ego boosting and makes them feel even better about themselves and more powerful/in control. They feel secure in that community. When that community is questioned, they feel attacked and become defensive. Defensiveness often manifests in anger.
 
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John Petrocelli has a new book out called:

The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bulls@*%t

Here's an excerpt, and it's beautiful:

https://lithub.com/why-flat-earther...ly: July 28, 2021&utm_term=lithub_master_list

As a social scientist, I take Kyrie’s claims very seriously. I don’t take them seriously because I think Kyrie is correct—I know his claims make as much sense as arguing that the Moon is made of cheese. I take them seriously because, as a researcher who studies bulls***t, Kyrie’s claims fit a pattern of behavior I see deployed over and over again. A belief in a flat Earth would make sense if there was genuine evidence of a worldwide conspiracy to fake decades of space exploration, a denial of many branches of science, or discoveries of new forces and laws of nature. But it doesn’t really take any of this—all it takes is a mindset that completely disregards truth and genuine evidence. In other words, all it takes is bulls***t.

Kyrie encourages us to seek the truth by finding concrete information and “doing some research.” That is a classic bulls***ter move—ignore the overwhelming and convincing evidence by implying the real answer is not based on commonly accepted evidence or is actually unknown. Although I won’t pretend to know what Kyrie meant by “research,” had he actually approached the question of the Earth’s shape scientifically, he would have determined that the answer is certainly not “flat.”
Click to expand...

I'm buying this book.:thumbsup:
 
The best part of CT logic is "the absence of evidence does not mean the evidence isn't there, and someone is hiding or destroyed it!!"

:)
 
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