Thermal
August Member
Not unintelligent- just stupid, in the casual sense of not being able (or willing) to process information.
Flawed Conspiracy Theorist logic
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Cosmic Yak
Philosopher
This may have a degree of truth, but it is a profoundly unhelpful stance.
"You're wrong because you're stupid!" is never going to sway anyone.
An inability to process information is something that can be fixed with education. My now-infamous "Fox News viewers can be saved" thread (one of two or three threads, the reactions to which led to me being driven off this forum for a year) was about an experiment where they weaned Americans off Fox News and onto CNN. After a few weeks, they showed they were able to process information, and spot lies and disinformation, much better. I submit that this approach is more likely to achieve the desired results than simply dismissing large numbers of people as "stupid".
Thermal
August Member
Yes, and you're being more reasonable and fair about it than I was. Had a nasty case of troll inflammation going on at the time. But you're right, it's not helpful to be that way, because it burns bridges instead of building them. Mea culpa.
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Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
That's encouraging, but I'm not sure how it helps in practice. How would you go about persuading the people who choose to watch Fox News to watch CNN instead?
Cosmic Yak
Philosopher
Sorry, but this is straying back into one of the areas that drove me off this forum a year or so ago. I know that wasn't you, but I'm not going there again.
Axxman300
Philosopher
I'd argue the trick would be to get them to avoid both Fox News and CNN. CNN International is decent, still based in Atlanta, and covers the news like old-school CNN did, but CNN based in NYC is just a bunch talking head, just like Fox News. The issue is people once had access to the news both in print, and on TV. We got the headlines, we got most of the facts, and we got in-depth features. The difference now is there is almost no sourcing in news stories, few reporters get three independent sources for their stories. Far too many newsrooms simply report what other newsrooms are reporting without looking into those stories, and doing independent sourcing.
The most recent example of this is the New Jersey drone nonsense. In the US, all the big networks (CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC) all ran with the story while doing zero background investigation. They went for ratings and few facts. They ran videos which are CLEARLY COMMERCIAL AIRLINERS while claiming them as unidentified craft.
So I don't think most CTists are stupid. I wasn't dumb, my dad wasn't stupid. I was naive, I thought the people advancing these theories had done serious research, and leg work before they wrote their books. Turns out they didn't do any more research than parrot what other CTists claimed. And as I got older I noticed the JFK CTists wrote books about other CTs, and that became a red flag. Jim Mars wrote what is the Bible of the JFK Assassination CT, but he also wrote a book about the UFO government cover-up. And my dad? When he was six year-old my grandparents were hit head-on by a drunk driver, and this was before seatbelts. My dad was standing up looking over the bench seat, and went through the windshield. He was in a coma for three weeks (this was the late 1940s), and it left him with what we call traumatic brain injuries to a few brain centers. This left him with control issues, and mild paranoia. So CTs were his addiction.
And CTs are an addiction.
I got the same rush from the latest JKF CT book that I got from Jack Daniels or cocaine. Embracing CTs makes you feel special, you're smarter than everyone else because you know how the world really works. I quit drinking in 2006, and I look back my CT days and see the same problems. I thought I wasn't an alcoholic because I didn't drink on the job, or I didn't drink and drive. The same applied to things like UFOs. I wasn't a kook because I didn't believe I was in psychic contact with aliens, and didn't believe people who made those claims, so I'm obviously fact-based. Addicts were the first goal-post movers. You can try to reason with CTists, but that's it. The change has to come from them, just like getting sober.
Look at how many CTists have come and gone from this board. They come for the fight. They leave after members here make reasoned, logical arguments. And most of us long-timers can name a few CTs who gave up after thousands of pages of threads. It's easy to assume someone is stupid online, and I get that. But I was sucked into the CT world long before the internet. Back then CTs were advanced by a friend from church, a camp councilor, a social studies teacher (yes, really), a well dressed man at the coffee shop, and that guy at the bar. I looked them in the eye as they told their tales, and they were believers. And when they were done with their story the conversation went back to normal subjects where they demonstrated intelligence, and no signs of mental problems.
Anyway, that's my experience.