What kind of person is drawn to conspiracy theories?

[LastThursday]

I'm not sure I believe that a supernaturalist tendency makes you more prone to be a conspiracy theorist. I think anyone can be drawn to it, and even change their minds over time. 

I think most of it comes down a confluence of things, such as how naturally paranoid or anxious one is, or how much one believes what others tell them. Also, it comes from ignorance of how things actually work in real life; conspiracy theorists are uninformed in many different areas and so draw wrong conclusions.

There is often an esoteric or weird vibe to conspiracy theories, in the same vein as folk tales, and that does make them stick in the mind more. In other words it's survival of the fittest conspiracy theories, the ones that stick around are the most memorable, weird and wacky.

[Christoph Werner]

"What kind of person is drawn to conspiracy theories?"

Why is that a question that you find is important?

All kinds of people are drawn to conspiracy theories. A lot of fools off course. But even more fools dont take conspiracy theories seriously.

The wanting to put conspiracy theories and people who are drawn to it into a box just shows someone who is invested in certain beliefs and who easily needs to explain away alternative theories.

And Leo is certainly guilty of that.

Imagine you voluntarily play lab rat for a company that had to pay the biggest pharma fine in US history, a company that is well known for it's corruption. Just because you got triggered by fear and group pressure, the most obvious way of psychological manipulation. And then you even go to your blog to promote your sheepish behaviour... lmao

 

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I'm not sure I believe that a supernaturalist tendency makes you more prone to be a conspiracy theorist. I think anyone can be drawn to it, and even change their minds over time. 

Notice I laid out the cognitive style that underlies supernaturalism and conspiracy theorist thinking. In a culture like ours, overt supernaturalism (in terms of traditional religiosity) is naturally suppressed, so you would expect less people to be overtly supernatural but perhaps they start gravitating toward conspiracy theories to fill that need for narrative-based cognition. Traditional religion is of course considered a meta-narrative that explains everything, gives a history or a plan for everything in reality (teleology, escatology). You could see how that can be replaced by the belief in the Illuminati or repetilians or hidden global world order or something like that.

 

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I think most of it comes down a confluence of things, such as how naturally paranoid or anxious one is, or how much one believes what others tell them.

Paranoia and anxiety actually links to narrative-driven cognition (or are sort of the core ingredients of it, but with negative valence). Paranoia is driven by suspicion ("this thing could be indicative of this thing, that would be really bad"; assumption -> conclusion, a micro-narrative), and anxiety is driven by worry ("what if this thing happens in the future? That would be really bad"; similar assumption and conclusion).

Paranoia and anxiety is associated with mentalistic cognition (drawing inferences based on sometimes very little information), i.e. more psychotic-like cognition, while more concrete cognition requires more details or facts and often very obvious inferences, i.e. more autistic-like cognition. Mentalism is more holistic, narrative-driven, suspicious, again drawing loose inferences based on less information, while more concrete cognition is more analytic, fact-driven, stable, drawing very few inferences based on very obvious connections. 

So you're really touching on the same phenomena (of course in a bit of a peripheral way). And when the meta-narrative of conspiracy theories is control, domination, deception, then naturally the narratives become negatively valenced and thus suspicious, paranoid, anxious, worried.

 

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Also, it comes from ignorance of how things actually work in real life; conspiracy theorists are uninformed in many different areas and so draw wrong conclusions.

Which can be driven (among other things) by a lack of fact-driven approach and drawing more loose inferences based on less information. Of course lower intelligence is also relevant, but that also feeds into facts-acquisition and inference-making (how fast do you do it, how much information can you handle at one time, how is your pattern-identifying skills, perhaps refinement and precision; IQ and working memory, pattern-recognition, intellectualism, all that).

 

6 hours ago, LastThursday said:

There is often an esoteric or weird vibe to conspiracy theories, in the same vein as folk tales, and that does make them stick in the mind more. In other words it's survival of the fittest conspiracy theories, the ones that stick around are the most memorable, weird and wacky.

Hmm, narratives? Narrative-cognition being more efficient and appealing to the mind? Hmm.

Edited March 13 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Christoph Werner said:

"What kind of person is drawn to conspiracy theories?"

Why is that a question that you find is important?

I had an insight and I wrote about it.

 

3 hours ago, Christoph Werner said:

All kinds of people are drawn to conspiracy theories. A lot of fools off course. But even more fools dont take conspiracy theories seriously.

The wanting to put conspiracy theories and people who are drawn to it into a box just shows someone who is invested in certain beliefs and who easily needs to explain away alternative theories.

Notice I put both conspiracy theorist thinking and the opposite tendency roughly equally in their own boxes. But of course the former is more salient as a societal question (it brings up more feelings, because of the negative valence as @LastThursday brought up, but also because there is a societal or cultural bias or stigma against that kind of thinking, again because we're culturally embedded in an analytic and post- traditional-religious framework). That's probably mostly why I put it as a title.

[danniel]

Human primitive curiosity, mixed with a part of being right, seeing justifications in the given pieces of "facts", the joy of putting 2+2 together, which gives a sense of accomplishment. 

My thought on this is rather materialistic, in a sense. But I believe this because it is the same reason why reels/shorts/tiktoks are addictive, The algo, prioritizes "did you know..." format of content, and at the end an open ended finish, such as "only time will tell"

But someone wrote, people who want a boogeyman to blame on, is the esoteric strand of it. Something not happening/going right in an individual's life, and with enough pieces of information, they can deceive themselves into theorizing stuff, which brings it to the first point I said, justification and so on and so forth.

I say this because I have experienced it and have fell in trap in believing random stuff lol

[LastThursday]

@Carl-Richard a good unpacking of what I wrote there, thanks.

Isn't most cognition of a narrative style? I mean, the whole of science is narrative, but it doesn't appeal to all minds. It's definitely more to do with the content of the narrative, and the most memorable, lowest common denominator content wins out, which is where conspiracies sit. People are extremely prone to believing stories of all shades. Most of them are harmless because people "know" they're just stories, but the dangerous ones are the ones people don't recognise as stories, but as "reality". I think even very sensible even-minded people can slip from one state to the other.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, LastThursday said:

@Carl-Richard a good unpacking of what I wrote there, thanks.

Isn't most cognition of a narrative style? I mean, the whole of science is narrative, but it doesn't appeal to all minds. It's definitely more to do with the content of the narrative, and the most memorable, lowest common denominator content wins out, which is where conspiracies sit. People are extremely prone to believing stories of all shades. Most of them are harmless because people "know" they're just stories, but the dangerous ones are the ones people don't recognise as stories, but as "reality". I think even very sensible even-minded people can slip from one state to the other.

You can have a narrative which is more dense in facts (data points) and one more dense in connections or inferences and conclusions. That's the salient difference I'm pointing to. When a conspiracy theorist is like "look at how weird the videos look of the moon landings -> it must be staged", the anti-conspiracy theorist is like "but what about this fact, and this fact, and this fact, and this fact; that surely doesn't yibe with your theory?".

[Leo Gura]

Conspiracy theorists are always falling for confirmation bias. They only cherrypick data that confirms their theory while ignoring falisfying data. This is because they never learned scientific method.

Most conspiracy theorists simply never completed university. They are uneducated to a dangerous level. They operate from pre-rational cognition. They don't understand what rationality is because no one ever taught them.

To a conspiracy theorist there is no such thing as coicidence or accident. Everything is part of a grand narrative. It is the thinking of a child.

Edited March 14 by Leo Gura

[Raze]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Conspiracy theorists are always falling for confirmation bias. They only cherrypick data that confirms their theory while ignoring falisfying data. This is because they never learned scientific method.

Most conspiracy theorists simply never completed university. They are uneducated to a dangerous level. They operate from pre-rational cognition. They don't understand what rationality is because no one ever taught them.

To a conspiracy theorist there is no such thing as coicidence or accident. Everything is part of a grand narrative. It is the thinking of a child.

Then how do you explain the multiple conspiracy theories that were later proven true 

[Wilhelm44]

Why not just be open to evaluating everything on it's own merit. After all we now openly talking about the eating of placenta etc. Few years ago if someone brought up a topic like that on the forum, it probably would have been shut down immediately. 

[Joshe]

It depends on the conspiracy and what it offers.

Most ordinary people get sucked in by intellectual intrigue. Things like curiosity, playing detective/cracking a puzzle, shiny object. Also, pre-existing motivations like distrust in institutions. 

Things start to turn weird when they admit they believe the theory and then get pushback. That's the point when identity enters the chat and often becomes "I can see what others can't", "people are asleep/sheep" and when motivated reasoning becomes dominant.

And this arouses the rational person's identity defenses, who then feel compelled to flaunt their epistemic superiority, which humiliates the pre-rational and causes them to double down.

It's often both who are using epistemic superiority to stabilize identity. "I can see what others can't"

Rational people unwittingly play a large role in the epistemic breakdown.

Edited March 14 by Joshe

[Uddi]

@Leo Gura For me I see the hidden agenda as more of a grand overall sense as it makes sense that elites want absolute control because the ego's dream is to become god without dying or dissolving to the absolute. I do have a veteran friend who has witnessed countless times that the US government has lied to the public intentionally. I trust certain conspiracies such as suppressed free energy technologies, frequency war much more than others as I can see why elites would want to do that. Free energy technologies will completely collapse billion dollar industries which is why it is hidden. And while 5G waves are non-ionizing, from what I know they can make it harder to relax however it is so hard to prove it because current modern science is terrible at truly predicting if something can create long term harm or not. What's your thoughts on this perspective?

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Uddi said:

@Leo Gura For me I see the hidden agenda as more of a grand overall sense as it makes sense that elites want absolute control because the ego's dream is to become god without dying or dissolving to the absolute. I do have a veteran friend who has witnessed countless times that the US government has lied to the public intentionally. I trust certain conspiracies such as suppressed free energy technologies, frequency war much more than others as I can see why elites would want to do that.

Imagine you're a normal person in your own life, working a job and barely keeping your head above water and a homeless person looks at you and says "the workers just want to keep us down, it makes sense as they would want more control". You would be like "I'm just trying to do my job, I ain't got the time or resources for this shit".

Do you think the elites have less responsibility, more time, more actual resources than you, to plot a plan of world domination that requires other people like them to be aligned with their interests and in on their plan and not preoccupied with their own interests? The higher up you get in the rungs of power, the more strings are attached to you, the more of your time is valued, the more of your time is needed, if not, you get outcompeted by those that have that time. You think Jeff Bezos has time for your shit? Just playing the anti-conspiracist devil's advocate.

If you look around, you see arguably much more division than cooperation, certainly across country lines, across company lines, across different competing agents. And you conclude that at the very top, at the very highest levels of organization, beyond all countries, beyond all companies, there is perfect and synchronous cooperation? This is the fact-driven position (criticizing the narrative by pointing to dissonant facts; real concrete things grounded in the real world). The narrative-driven position is "but the elites are creating all that division to benefit them, to keep us under control; it's all an epic plot, a play, a deception". These are connections that could make sense but are less grounded in concrete things. They are more general and more like possibilities than actual facts. What appeals more to you and why?

Edited March 14 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

8 hours ago, LastThursday said:

Isn't most cognition of a narrative style? I mean, the whole of science is narrative, 

You can also flip it around and ask "but doesn't a conspiracy theorist also find facts for their narrative?". And that's true, but the difference might be they might be more likely to start with the narrative and then find the facts (i.e. confirmation bias like Leo pointed out), rather than walking around and consuming facts after facts after facts until a narrative pops out.

An example that comes to mind of choosing the narrative first and then the facts would be Terrence McKenna's Timewave Zero. He essentially created a graph by deriving some mathematical equations from the I-Ching, and then he postulated that the graph represents fluctuations in novelty in world history. And then he looked at the peaks and trophs and tried to find a fact (an event in the real world) that corresponded to the graph at that moment in time.

Doing it that way makes it much easier to find facts that fit the time wave, rather than sorting through facts and then concluding what would be the time wave. That's one of the reasons why narrative cognition is more efficient. And narrative cognition is used in science all the time like you say. It's in fact virtually always a requirement, as you virtually always want to go from a theory (narrative) to a hypothesis to then confirming or disconfirming that hypothesis with data.

But of course science (or specifically quantitative science) addresses this problem partially with repeated measurement and control of confounding variables. But there are still problems with narrative-driven cognition even in quantitative science (problematic research practices like HARKing/post-hoc hypothesizing, multiple comparisons, p-hacking), which fuels the replication crisis in particularly the behavioral sciences.

After all, the scientist's livelihood and career depends on the narrative being correct, as that is what gets published and what gets the university money. So there is a massive incentive to skew the results in favor of the narrative being correct. And that may unfortunately never change unless we either get infinite resources in society (perhaps UBI would help a little) or just less prestige-based publication practices.

Edited March 14 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

6 hours ago, Raze said:

Then how do you explain the multiple conspiracy theories that were later proven true 

How many times must I say that it's about the process, not the answer.

If you get the right answer on a math test but show the wrong work, you are still wrong. Because you fail to understand math.

Edited March 14 by Leo Gura

[zurew]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

How many times must I say that it's about the process, not the answer.

Yeah, its about putting yourself back in time when the claim was made, and then checking given the avalaible info back then whether making the inference that the conspiracy is true is reasonable or not (and most of the time it is not).

If you want to check with a relatively quick heruistic how good and reliable their epistemology is - just collect their past predictions and check what % of them turned out to be right.

You can also check how vague and unfalsifiable their predicitions are (to the point where there is no possible state of affairs that could disconfirm their predictions or hypothesis)

Edited March 14 by zurew

[Hojo]

7 hours ago, Raze said:

Then how do you explain the multiple conspiracy theories that were later proven true 

If you were given a multiple choice question and didnt know the answer but picked one and it was right, were you intellectually intelligent because you got the answer right? Or did you have no idea but picked one?

You dont delve into the conspiracies you dont pick to be right. If the one you happen to pick was true you doing it has no bearing on the matter, and you dont know the ones you dont delve into.

So if you dive into a conspiracy, when you do make sure you know its true before going into it.

Dive into a conspiracy you already know to be true to help prove it, or its just making up shit.

Almost every conspiracy I go into has direct relation to experiences I have had.

Except the Jews controlling states, but I have information of the Jews controlling or having influence with the republican party.

Edited March 14 by Hojo

[Christoph Werner]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Conspiracy theorists are always falling for confirmation bias. They only cherrypick data that confirms their theory while ignoring falisfying data. This is because they never learned scientific method.

Most conspiracy theorists simply never completed university. They are uneducated to a dangerous level. They operate from pre-rational cognition. They don't understand what rationality is because no one ever taught them.

To a conspiracy theorist there is no such thing as coicidence or accident. Everything is part of a grand narrative. It is the thinking of a child.

"Conspiracy Theorists", "always", "only" So all of them are the same?

Are you telling us there is no rational, responsible way of considering conspiracies?

For me if you someone doesnt consider conspiracies, they often become very naive. They start to think the doctor is interested in their health. They start to think USA IS going to war for Democracy and anti terror...

They think they live in a Democracy and voting is important. They think if there is Something important to know, everyone would know about it. 

 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

6 minutes ago, Christoph Werner said:

Are you telling us there is no rational, responsible way of considering conspiracies?

That's not what I said.

I am describing conspiratorial thinking.

[Christoph Werner]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Conspiracy theorists are always falling for confirmation bias. They only cherrypick data that confirms their theory while ignoring falisfying data. 

"Conspiracy Theorists" So anyone who engages in considering conspiracies?

"Always" and "only" 

this sure makes it sound Like to me. there is Not even one conspiracy Theorist who is rational, responsible or reasonable.