What Motivates Conspiracy Theorists?

[Graham2001]

An interesting article from a very unlikely source that may be helpful in getting this discussion back on track...

Right now a film is being cut for YouTube. Within the edit, clips from various media broadcasts of Monday's navy yard shooting in Washington DC are being selectively stitched together. The film will start by suggesting a deception has occurred, one wrought on the American people by shadowy, unseen forces. It will distance itself from other conspiracy theory videos, purporting to show "just the facts" about the events at the naval dockyard.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/pau...onspiracy-theory_b_3938569.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

The article uses the 'Navy Yard' CTs to explore the motivations of those who spread them. The comments are priceless.

 

[Bishop]

What's more, this ideological intensity brings about its own psychological rewards, offering a valiant self-image that plays to the ego, all of which can be attained without doing any fact-based research, investigation, travelling to the scene, interviewing the people involved or anything beyond sitting at a computer with a broadband connection and some rudimentary editing software.

A nice way of putting it.

 

[jakesteele]

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2010/02/jref-forum-posts-comprehensive.html

Here is the other side of the coin just to balance things out a bit. As long as debunkers persist in putting those who disagree in a labeled CTers, woo, etc. and hurling insults and personal attacks at the you will be put in a labeled pseudoskeptics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism#Truzzi

Psychiatrist Richard Kluft noted that pseudoskepticism can inhibit research progress:

".. today genuine skepticism of the benign sort that looks evenly in all directions and encourages the advancement of knowledge seems vanishingly rare. Instead, we find a prevalence of pseudo-skepticism consisting of harsh and invidious skepticism toward one's opponents' points of view and observations, and egregious self-congratulatory confirmatory bias toward one's own stances and findings misrepresented as the earnest and dispassionate pursuit of clinical, scholarly, and scientific truth."[9]

David Leiter, a member of the Society for Scientific Exploration, uses the terms 'pseudo-skepticism' and 'pathological skepticism' to refer to the "organized skepticism" he found in one group he had encountered. Leiter claimed that many of its members had an "unfortunate experience with a faith-based philosophy" at an earlier period in their lives, and that they had sought an organized skeptical group as a reaction to this. "Instead of becoming scientifically minded, they become adherents of scientism, the belief system in which science and only science has all the answers to everything" and that even many of these members are unwilling to spend the time to "read significantly into the literature on the subjects about which they are most skeptical". He goes on to characterize members of skeptical organizations as "scientifically inclined, but psychologically scarred."[10]

also, at the same link you can find "Characteristics of a pseudoskeptic" (by Proff TruziPoints courtesy of Proff Truzi, on the same site

If you think about it, it's almost like debunkers and woosters are each other's evil twin.

 

[Sceptic-PK]

Uh-huh. If you don't entertain nonsense ideas and ridiculous notions, you're a "pseudo skeptic" (as if any and all assertions are automatically deserving of consideration).

10 characteristics of conspiracy theorists

6. Inability to tell good evidence from bad. Conspiracy theorists have no place for peer-review, for scientific knowledge, for the respectability of sources. The fact that a claim has been made by anybody, anywhere, is enough for them to reproduce it and demand that the questions it raises be answered, as if intellectual enquiry were a matter of responding to every rumour. While they do this, of course, they will claim to have "open minds" and abuse the sceptics for apparently lacking same.

http://www.urban75.org/info/conspiraloons.html

 

[thedopefishlives]

Having an open mind does not mean that one must automatically accept as credible any old theory or opinion that comes down the pike. It does mean that one must be willing to listen to evidence and change one's mind if it becomes apparent that one has been wrong. Notably, conspiracy theorists refuse to listen to any evidence of their own incorrect assertions, choosing instead to maintain logical fallacies in the face of facts.

 

[Henri McPhee]

Conspiracy theorists don't always have right judgement, but at least they think for themselves. There is something suspicious about the death of President Kennedy, and unanswered questions about 9/11. Recently in the UK there have been questions asked, and even a book written, about the mysterious death of weapons inspector Dr. Kelly. It's possible that people get bumped off, and even suggestions that Mossad or the CIA, are sometimes involved.

I think if there had been more independent thinking in Germany before the last war, and a little less lunatic currency arrangements, then the rise of Hitler would have been more difficult. Neville Chamberlain always gets a bad press now from historians and journalists for so called appeasement. With what? but he was quite correct in saying that treaties and agreements can't be depended on to keep the peace. America never went to war over Austria or Czechoslovakia either. Chamberlain provided a year to get organised.

 

[LSSBB]

Conspiracy theorists don't always have right judgement, but at least they think for themselves. There is something suspicious about the death of President Kennedy, and unanswered questions about 9/11. Recently in the UK there have been questions asked, and even a book written, about the mysterious death of weapons inspector Dr. Kelly. It's possible that people get bumped off, and even suggestions that Mossad or the CIA, are sometimes involved.

I think if there had been more independent thinking in Germany before the last war, and a little less lunatic currency arrangements, then the rise of Hitler would have been more difficult. Neville Chamberlain always gets a bad press now from historians and journalists for so called appeasement. With what? but he was quite correct in saying that treaties and agreements can't be depended on to keep the peace. America never went to war over Austria or Czechoslovakia either. Chamberlain provided a year to get organised.

There is a difference between looking into unanswered questions, and shoving a huge sack of collected garbage forward as an answer to them.

 

[Sceptic-PK]

Conspiracy theorists don't always have right judgement, but at least they think for themselves. There is something suspicious about the death of President Kennedy, and unanswered questions about 9/11.

What's the point of thinking for yourself if you're an uneducated & untrained basement dweller? There are also very few "unanswered questions" re 9/11 for the sane people.

 

[Halcyon Dayz]

Conspiracy theorists don't always have right judgement, but at least they think for themselves.

That doesn't seem to be the case for many self-proclaimed "conspiracy theorists."

They just parrot what they heard on wootube, or read on some fringe website, or in badly researched books. (In that order of probability.)
Without applying critical thinking, or fact checking.

I call them conspirasheeple.

 

[TjW]

Conspiracy theorists don't always have right judgement, but at least they think for themselves. There is something suspicious about the death of President Kennedy, and unanswered questions about 9/11. Recently in the UK there have been questions asked, and even a book written, about the mysterious death of weapons inspector Dr. Kelly. It's possible that people get bumped off, and even suggestions that Mossad or the CIA, are sometimes involved.

I think if there had been more independent thinking in Germany before the last war, and a little less lunatic currency arrangements, then the rise of Hitler would have been more difficult. Neville Chamberlain always gets a bad press now from historians and journalists for so called appeasement. With what? but he was quite correct in saying that treaties and agreements can't be depended on to keep the peace. America never went to war over Austria or Czechoslovakia either. Chamberlain provided a year to get organised.

No, from my observation the vast majority don't think for themselves. What they do instead is look around for a guru or group, and then uncritically advocate that position as their own.

 

[Robrob]

I just spent a few hours on a facebook page devoted to "debate" between Truthers and debunkers. Can't speak to their motivation but boy do they all share similar emotional characteristics; giant ego, self aggrandizement, boasting, devolving into profanity and insults when thwarted, declaring victory and insisting they are not going to discuss things with you anymore because you refuse to accept their claims.

 

[Mark F]

Here's something fun I found surfing the interwebs. A survey being conducted by something calling itself the Centre for Investigative Research and Learning who claim to be doing a study to see if there is a link between conspiracy theories and religiosity.

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1430408/Correlation-between-Religiosity-and-Belief-in-Conspiracy

 

[Orphia Nay]

Here's something fun I found surfing the interwebs. A survey being conducted by something calling itself the Centre for Investigative Research and Learning who claim to be doing a study to see if there is a link between conspiracy theories and religiosity.

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1430408/Correlation-between-Religiosity-and-Belief-in-Conspiracy

I love doing surveys, and thought this would be fun.

I've answered question 4, but what do I do with the slider on question 5?

That makes no sense.

 

[SpitfireIX]

I take surveys like that all the time to get free credits on World Golf Tour, and I see mistakes like that fairly often. My assumption is that the "Moderately Active" and "Extremely Active" labels are reversed. I would suggest you answer the question under that assumption.