We live in the golden age of conspiracies. The Internet—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter—facilitates the spread of insanity and hokum at the speed of light. Flat earthers have conventions, vaccine deniers have presidential candidates, and New Age idiots have Gwenyth Paltrow.
And sometimes the obvious explanation is in fact wrong. Yes, people like to fill in the blanks when they think something’s fishy. Yes, people speculate based on incomplete information. Yes, people jump to conclusions that aren’t warranted by the evidence available. None of this means that the official explanation is true. Yes, it could be true. But saying that something must be true because you have no better explanation deserves just as much scorn.
I didn't say it *must* be true. I'm simply saying if you have an alternative explanation, it should be better than the official one. Pointing out flaws in an official story is fine, of course.
Not flaws, anomalies. Sometimes things just don’t add up. In the past I’d have taken your exact position. The simplest explanation is more likely true. But now I don’t believe that at all. Nor do I necessarily believe it’s not true. But in order to pick the simple, official explanation, the anomalies have to be accounted for. For example, I just can’t bring myself to believe that a decent swimmer can drown in eight feet of water. (And it may have been more like 3-4 feet) It just doesn’t make sense, unless there’s another factor - idk, maybe he was tangled in something. But no such explanation was offered. I’m not saying there is a scintilla of evidence of a nefarious action, I’m just saying it can’t be ruled out given what is known. I think there’s a deeper issue here. It’s not just what can and cannot be known. It’s about what you think is possible. Does it seem possible that the chef could have met with foul play? At one time I have found such speculation absurd. No more. But I don’t know. Not knowing is uncomfortable and accounts for much of the filling in of blanks. But those blanks wouldn’t be there to begin with if the official story was sufficient.
I believe are saying go with the default story in the absence of contradiction. But what if you ignore the contradictions? Aren’t you just as ignorant of the truth as someone who focuses only on the aberrant details? Both types are tiresome imo but I prefer those who at least consider the anomalies, even if the conclusions go beyond the evidence. Those who assume there’s nothing to see here have literally nothing to offer. That’s fine when all the relevant facts are known and all add up to the same sum. They often don’t.
Ugh. I hadn't followed any of this and now that I am caught up, I need to take a shower, maybe a brain shower. Look, I grew up among Pearl Harbor conspiracists, UFO conspiracists, JFK conspiracists, and even some flat earth conspiracists. They were all stupid then, their modern equivalents are all stupid now. And they thrive on both sides of the aisle, though conservative conspiracy nuts are easier to identify because they don't get any cover from CNN. Humans are bad at thinking, especially in groups. The best answer is economic growth because it removes the urgent need to explain why everything is going to hell in a handbasket.
I agree with much of what you wrote. I hadn't thought about the relationship between economic growth and being drawn in by conspiratorial thinking, but it makes sense. I've often suspected that some of what inclines people to believe in conspiracies is a sense of personal insignificance that is somewhat alleviated by the idea that they have special knowledge, or in the cases where a person believes themself a victim of said conspiracy, an excuse for why their life not turning out as they'd hoped was someone else's fault.
FWIW, Karen Douglas, a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent, believes there are three main motivations why people are drawn in by that style of thinking.
IMO, any or all of these motivations may be in play for any of us, when encountering a particular incident or pattern of incidents with no good explanation, murky official explanations, or plausible alternative explanations:
1. Curiosity and a need for an explanation: for "knowledge and certainty."
Pretty close to what Grape Soda has said here, methinks? Douglas asserts that "The first of these motives are epistemic motives ... to the need for knowledge and certainty and I guess the motive or desire to have information. And when something major happens, when a big event happens, people naturally want to know why that happened. They want an explanation and they want to know the truth. But they also want to feel certain of that truth."
2. Maintaining a sense of safety – and control.
The second motivation for such thinking has to do with "existential motives. And really they just refer to people's needs to be or to feel safe and secure in the world that they live in. And also to feel that they have some kind of power or autonomy over the things that happen to them as well. So again, when something happens, people don't like to feel powerless," and working out explanations for events can help provide us with some of those comforting feelings we're seeking. (Not knowing why a problem or incident occurred could potentially leave us personally or societally vulnerable, in some future situation.)
3. The desire to hold special knowledge, to obtain self-esteem, admiration, or group ties.
This one's closer to one of Kevin M's musings. Again, per Douglas, "The final set of motives we would call social motives and those refer to people's desire to feel good about themselves as individuals and also feel good about themselves in terms of the groups that they belong to. And I guess at the individual level, people like to feel... Well, they like to have high self-esteem. They like to feel good about themselves. And potentially one way of doing that is to feel that you have access to information that other people don't necessarily have." And as she goes on to note (if indirectly), sharing non-mainstream beliefs about the causes of events with other people in a group can strengthen the bonds, those connections, with those others.
I can definitely think of a number of high-profile conspiracy theories that have been borne out.
For example, Hunter Biden's old laptop being turned in at a computer shop. (I'll admit to believing that unlikely, at first.) Also, the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 could have been released via a Wuhan lab leak was widely dismissed by some officials, pundits, and journalists when first introduced, but now has become at least as plausible, if not more so, as the possibility of a release in the wild.
Also a fair number of such theories haven't withstood scrutiny.
For example, in the USA, fires at food processing plants and train derailments seem to have been running at normal levels in recent years, despite alarmist claims that they were skyrocketing, claims usually made in the aftermath of one high-profile incident or another. Some theories about those fires, specifically, went quite a bit further: implying or stating outright they were part of a plan to cut off food supplies and bring about depopulation.
This blog post, from someone with politics likely different from my own, does a nice job of pointing out that when assessing any such claims of sharp breaks from normal trends, you absolutely must first find out what the 'normal baseline' is, to understand whether recent patterns truly are different.
One problem is that we more prominently remember the "conspiracy theories" that 'hit' – that were validated by subsequent findings – but are far less likely to recall the (vast number, IMO) of others which were just "throwing mud against a wall and hoping something sticks for a few days, increases our clout, and furthers the 'trust no one' meme."
It'd be handy to have a running tally on a website, or in some Google Docs spreadsheet, Airtable, etc., of theories that got significant traction on say, Twitter/X, and either were borne out, are still plausible and not ruled out, are highly implausible, or were pretty thoroughly debunked.
From your perspective, what were some of the instances where "the conspiracy nuts have had a good run lately"?
Having hung around a lot on-line conspiracy forums and mailing lists in the mid to late 1990s, I'm genuinely convinced that conspiracy theories have somehow actually gotten even dumber over the past 30 years and that Gresham's Law applies -- bad conspiracy theories drive out good conspiracy theories. (E.g., chemtrailers were universally treated as kooks at the time, to the best of my recollection, whereas today they seem to be treated as being obviously correct to the extent that the subject comes up.)
What would Obama stand to lose if he was, in fact, gay or bisexual? His deal with Netflix? No. His legacy? Not that I can tell. Another key element of conspiracy theories is that they seek to elicit a fearful response from people hearing them. Fear causes the body to shunt blood from the brain to the large muscles in the body, inevitably reducing the brain's analytical ability. If a key element of believing in the conspiracy involves reduced cerebral computing power, it seems hard to refute the assertion that doing so is objectively dumb.
It's also unnatural (by which I mean contrary to the state in which we evolved to be adapted to our environment) for us to have immediate access to the details of all the worst human goings on across the globe. News travels fast and with internet access, we're subject to witness a number of things that might make us fearful and suspicious, leading to the conclusion that the world is a much more threatening place than it really is. Watching videos of murders or gruesome violence is commonplace on Twitter these days. I suspect it's not dissimilar, psychologically, to having witnessed such events in person, yet literal (presential) witnesses to violent crimes might have psychological services offered to them to help them cope afterward, whereas social media consumers don't, and might have something more similar to the opposite of a therapist (like catturd2).
Great piece, Carl! I hope I didn't write too lengthy a comment, but just in case I did, I'm going to make up for it by becoming a paying subscriber right after I hit "send".
Fear is useful to tell you about danger. Danger is real. Conspiracy happens. If you like the fairy tale, go ahead and be smug about never asking questions. The rest of us know that what is presented is often not the real story.
I think you're using faulty logic, here. If Obama did murder that guy to hide their sexual relationship, it doesn't justify the belief that you're in danger unless you're also in a secret sexual relationship with him. Amplified fear is useful when an imminent danger is present, but it's the enemy of sound reasoning. Would you say the risk of you being murdered by Obama is high or low? If you say high, please explain. If you think it's low, then why spend your time giving it any thought?
I’d say that if you were a servant of someone with power and the willingness to use it (I realize you might find this debatable in O’s case) I think you’d be entirely justified to fear doing something to cross them. Idk what would reach that threshold. I don’t even know if there was a murder, let alone why. What I’m saying is that it cannot be ruled out.
I agree with you on that point. There are plenty of people powerful enough to commit a murder and get away with it, and being a person with little power within their sphere would make crossing them seem potentially dangerous, although the ability of the powerful to inflict harm isn't without limits. What I haven't seen is any evidence that this chef ran afoul of the Obamas, and if I consider the incentives of the people pushing the gay love affair story, it seems likely to attract them a lot of attention, which can easily be monetized on social media accounts. To me, THAT seems more likely to be the conspiracy, to defraud people of their attention with what seems to me like undeserving nonsense and turn it into profit.
I can’t believe everyone is missing the most obvious reason the Obama’s chef got bumped off. I mean, he probably served them something with mint in it! You would’ve booted him off his board for that too.
And sometimes the obvious explanation is in fact wrong. Yes, people like to fill in the blanks when they think something’s fishy. Yes, people speculate based on incomplete information. Yes, people jump to conclusions that aren’t warranted by the evidence available. None of this means that the official explanation is true. Yes, it could be true. But saying that something must be true because you have no better explanation deserves just as much scorn.
I didn't say it *must* be true. I'm simply saying if you have an alternative explanation, it should be better than the official one. Pointing out flaws in an official story is fine, of course.
Not flaws, anomalies. Sometimes things just don’t add up. In the past I’d have taken your exact position. The simplest explanation is more likely true. But now I don’t believe that at all. Nor do I necessarily believe it’s not true. But in order to pick the simple, official explanation, the anomalies have to be accounted for. For example, I just can’t bring myself to believe that a decent swimmer can drown in eight feet of water. (And it may have been more like 3-4 feet) It just doesn’t make sense, unless there’s another factor - idk, maybe he was tangled in something. But no such explanation was offered. I’m not saying there is a scintilla of evidence of a nefarious action, I’m just saying it can’t be ruled out given what is known. I think there’s a deeper issue here. It’s not just what can and cannot be known. It’s about what you think is possible. Does it seem possible that the chef could have met with foul play? At one time I have found such speculation absurd. No more. But I don’t know. Not knowing is uncomfortable and accounts for much of the filling in of blanks. But those blanks wouldn’t be there to begin with if the official story was sufficient.
I believe are saying go with the default story in the absence of contradiction. But what if you ignore the contradictions? Aren’t you just as ignorant of the truth as someone who focuses only on the aberrant details? Both types are tiresome imo but I prefer those who at least consider the anomalies, even if the conclusions go beyond the evidence. Those who assume there’s nothing to see here have literally nothing to offer. That’s fine when all the relevant facts are known and all add up to the same sum. They often don’t.
Ugh. I hadn't followed any of this and now that I am caught up, I need to take a shower, maybe a brain shower. Look, I grew up among Pearl Harbor conspiracists, UFO conspiracists, JFK conspiracists, and even some flat earth conspiracists. They were all stupid then, their modern equivalents are all stupid now. And they thrive on both sides of the aisle, though conservative conspiracy nuts are easier to identify because they don't get any cover from CNN. Humans are bad at thinking, especially in groups. The best answer is economic growth because it removes the urgent need to explain why everything is going to hell in a handbasket.
I agree with much of what you wrote. I hadn't thought about the relationship between economic growth and being drawn in by conspiratorial thinking, but it makes sense. I've often suspected that some of what inclines people to believe in conspiracies is a sense of personal insignificance that is somewhat alleviated by the idea that they have special knowledge, or in the cases where a person believes themself a victim of said conspiracy, an excuse for why their life not turning out as they'd hoped was someone else's fault.
Nah. They are trying to figure out something that doesn’t make sense.
FWIW, Karen Douglas, a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent, believes there are three main motivations why people are drawn in by that style of thinking.
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/conspiracy-theories
IMO, any or all of these motivations may be in play for any of us, when encountering a particular incident or pattern of incidents with no good explanation, murky official explanations, or plausible alternative explanations:
1. Curiosity and a need for an explanation: for "knowledge and certainty."
Pretty close to what Grape Soda has said here, methinks? Douglas asserts that "The first of these motives are epistemic motives ... to the need for knowledge and certainty and I guess the motive or desire to have information. And when something major happens, when a big event happens, people naturally want to know why that happened. They want an explanation and they want to know the truth. But they also want to feel certain of that truth."
2. Maintaining a sense of safety – and control.
The second motivation for such thinking has to do with "existential motives. And really they just refer to people's needs to be or to feel safe and secure in the world that they live in. And also to feel that they have some kind of power or autonomy over the things that happen to them as well. So again, when something happens, people don't like to feel powerless," and working out explanations for events can help provide us with some of those comforting feelings we're seeking. (Not knowing why a problem or incident occurred could potentially leave us personally or societally vulnerable, in some future situation.)
3. The desire to hold special knowledge, to obtain self-esteem, admiration, or group ties.
This one's closer to one of Kevin M's musings. Again, per Douglas, "The final set of motives we would call social motives and those refer to people's desire to feel good about themselves as individuals and also feel good about themselves in terms of the groups that they belong to. And I guess at the individual level, people like to feel... Well, they like to have high self-esteem. They like to feel good about themselves. And potentially one way of doing that is to feel that you have access to information that other people don't necessarily have." And as she goes on to note (if indirectly), sharing non-mainstream beliefs about the causes of events with other people in a group can strengthen the bonds, those connections, with those others.
The conspiracy nuts have had a good run lately. Try to keep up.
I can definitely think of a number of high-profile conspiracy theories that have been borne out.
For example, Hunter Biden's old laptop being turned in at a computer shop. (I'll admit to believing that unlikely, at first.) Also, the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 could have been released via a Wuhan lab leak was widely dismissed by some officials, pundits, and journalists when first introduced, but now has become at least as plausible, if not more so, as the possibility of a release in the wild.
Also a fair number of such theories haven't withstood scrutiny.
For example, in the USA, fires at food processing plants and train derailments seem to have been running at normal levels in recent years, despite alarmist claims that they were skyrocketing, claims usually made in the aftermath of one high-profile incident or another. Some theories about those fires, specifically, went quite a bit further: implying or stating outright they were part of a plan to cut off food supplies and bring about depopulation.
This blog post, from someone with politics likely different from my own, does a nice job of pointing out that when assessing any such claims of sharp breaks from normal trends, you absolutely must first find out what the 'normal baseline' is, to understand whether recent patterns truly are different.
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/conspiracy-theorizing-about-food
One problem is that we more prominently remember the "conspiracy theories" that 'hit' – that were validated by subsequent findings – but are far less likely to recall the (vast number, IMO) of others which were just "throwing mud against a wall and hoping something sticks for a few days, increases our clout, and furthers the 'trust no one' meme."
It'd be handy to have a running tally on a website, or in some Google Docs spreadsheet, Airtable, etc., of theories that got significant traction on say, Twitter/X, and either were borne out, are still plausible and not ruled out, are highly implausible, or were pretty thoroughly debunked.
From your perspective, what were some of the instances where "the conspiracy nuts have had a good run lately"?
Having hung around a lot on-line conspiracy forums and mailing lists in the mid to late 1990s, I'm genuinely convinced that conspiracy theories have somehow actually gotten even dumber over the past 30 years and that Gresham's Law applies -- bad conspiracy theories drive out good conspiracy theories. (E.g., chemtrailers were universally treated as kooks at the time, to the best of my recollection, whereas today they seem to be treated as being obviously correct to the extent that the subject comes up.)
What would Obama stand to lose if he was, in fact, gay or bisexual? His deal with Netflix? No. His legacy? Not that I can tell. Another key element of conspiracy theories is that they seek to elicit a fearful response from people hearing them. Fear causes the body to shunt blood from the brain to the large muscles in the body, inevitably reducing the brain's analytical ability. If a key element of believing in the conspiracy involves reduced cerebral computing power, it seems hard to refute the assertion that doing so is objectively dumb.
It's also unnatural (by which I mean contrary to the state in which we evolved to be adapted to our environment) for us to have immediate access to the details of all the worst human goings on across the globe. News travels fast and with internet access, we're subject to witness a number of things that might make us fearful and suspicious, leading to the conclusion that the world is a much more threatening place than it really is. Watching videos of murders or gruesome violence is commonplace on Twitter these days. I suspect it's not dissimilar, psychologically, to having witnessed such events in person, yet literal (presential) witnesses to violent crimes might have psychological services offered to them to help them cope afterward, whereas social media consumers don't, and might have something more similar to the opposite of a therapist (like catturd2).
Great piece, Carl! I hope I didn't write too lengthy a comment, but just in case I did, I'm going to make up for it by becoming a paying subscriber right after I hit "send".
Fear is useful to tell you about danger. Danger is real. Conspiracy happens. If you like the fairy tale, go ahead and be smug about never asking questions. The rest of us know that what is presented is often not the real story.
I think you're using faulty logic, here. If Obama did murder that guy to hide their sexual relationship, it doesn't justify the belief that you're in danger unless you're also in a secret sexual relationship with him. Amplified fear is useful when an imminent danger is present, but it's the enemy of sound reasoning. Would you say the risk of you being murdered by Obama is high or low? If you say high, please explain. If you think it's low, then why spend your time giving it any thought?
I’d say that if you were a servant of someone with power and the willingness to use it (I realize you might find this debatable in O’s case) I think you’d be entirely justified to fear doing something to cross them. Idk what would reach that threshold. I don’t even know if there was a murder, let alone why. What I’m saying is that it cannot be ruled out.
I agree with you on that point. There are plenty of people powerful enough to commit a murder and get away with it, and being a person with little power within their sphere would make crossing them seem potentially dangerous, although the ability of the powerful to inflict harm isn't without limits. What I haven't seen is any evidence that this chef ran afoul of the Obamas, and if I consider the incentives of the people pushing the gay love affair story, it seems likely to attract them a lot of attention, which can easily be monetized on social media accounts. To me, THAT seems more likely to be the conspiracy, to defraud people of their attention with what seems to me like undeserving nonsense and turn it into profit.
Not too lengthy at all! And thank you! Incredibly appreciated. I shall waste it on kind women and funky board games. Or maybe reverse that?
I legit giggled and the made up story, thanks for brightening my day
Success! You're welcome!
Totally agree. But Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself.
I can't tell you what happened to Epstein because [redacted]
I can’t believe everyone is missing the most obvious reason the Obama’s chef got bumped off. I mean, he probably served them something with mint in it! You would’ve booted him off his board for that too.
Elsa! How dare you allege such an evil thing? What kind of monster would put mint in food?!? (Of course, if he did... )