Why do People Believe in Conspiracies?

[Tiffany23]

After a public lecture in 2005, I was buttonholed by a documentary filmmaker with Michael Moore-ish ambitions of exposing the conspiracy behind 9/11. “You mean the conspiracy by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to attack the United States?” I asked rhetorically, knowing what was to come.

“That’s what they want you to believe,” he said. “Who is they?” I queried. “The government,” he whispered, as if “they” might be listening at that very moment.

“But didn’t Osama and some members of al Qaeda not only say they did it,” I reminded him, “they gloated about what a glorious triumph it was?”

“Oh, you’re talking about that video of Osama,” he rejoined knowingly. “That was faked by the CIA and leaked to the American press to mislead us. There has been a disinformation campaign going on ever since 9/11.”

Conspiracies do happen, of course. Abraham Lincoln was the victim of an assassination conspiracy, as was Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, gunned down by the Serbian secret society called Black Hand. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a Japanese conspiracy (although some conspiracists think Franklin Roosevelt was in on it). Watergate was a conspiracy (that Richard Nixon was in on). How can we tell the difference between information and disinformation? As Kurt Cobain, the rocker star of Nirvana, once growled in his grunge lyrics shortly before his death from a self-inflicted (or was it?) gunshot to the head, “Just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you.”

But as former Nixon aide G. Gordon Liddy once told me (and he should know!), the problem with government conspiracies is that bureaucrats are incompetent and people can’t keep their mouths shut. Complex conspiracies are difficult to pull off, and so many people want their quarter hour of fame that even the Men in Black couldn’t squelch the squealers from spilling the beans. So there’s a good chance that the more elaborate a conspiracy theory is, and the more people that would need to be involved, the less likely it is true.

Why do people believe in highly improbable conspiracies? In previous columns I have provided partial answers, citing patternicity (the tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise) and agenticity (the bent to believe the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents). Conspiracy theories connect the dots of random events into meaningful patterns and then infuse those patterns with intentional agency. Add to those propensities the confirmation bias (which seeks and finds confirmatory evidence for what we already believe) and the hindsight bias (which tailors after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened), and we have the foundation for conspiratorial cognition.

Examples of these processes can be found in journalist Arthur Goldwag’s marvelous new book, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies (Vintage, 2009), which covers everything from the Freemasons, the Illuminati and the Bilderberg Group to black helicopters and the New World Order. “When something momentous happens, everything leading up to and away from the event seems momentous, too. Even the most trivial detail seems to glow with significance,” Goldwag explains, noting the JFK assassination as a prime example. “Knowing what we know now ... film footage of Dealey Plaza from November 22, 1963, seems pregnant with enigmas and ironies—from the oddly expectant expressions on the faces of the onlookers on the grassy knoll in the instants before the shots were fired (What were they thinking?) to the play of shadows in the background (Could that flash up there on the overpass have been a gun barrel gleaming in the sun?). Each odd excrescence, every random lump in the visual texture seems suspicious.” Add to these factors how compellingly a good narrative story can tie it all together—think of Oliver Stone’s JFK or Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, both equally fictional.

What should we believe? Transcendentalists tend to believe that everything is interconnected and that all events happen for a reason. Empiricists tend to think that randomness and coincidence interact with the causal net of our world and that belief should depend on evidence for each individual claim. The problem for skepticism is that transcendentalism is intuitive; empiricism is not. Or as folk rock group Buffalo Springfield once intoned: Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep ...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-people-believe-in-conspiracies

Or to sum it all up...it's when you can't hear the bats, that is when the bats are coming!

Tiff

[tcsace]

After a public lecture in 2005, I was buttonholed by a documentary filmmaker with Michael Moore-ish ambitions of exposing the conspiracy behind 9/11. “You mean the conspiracy by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to attack the United States?” I asked rhetorically, knowing what was to come.

“That’s what they want you to believe,” he said. “Who is they?” I queried. “The government,” he whispered, as if “they” might be listening at that very moment.

“But didn’t Osama and some members of al Qaeda not only say they did it,” I reminded him, “they gloated about what a glorious triumph it was?”

“Oh, you’re talking about that video of Osama,” he rejoined knowingly. “That was faked by the CIA and leaked to the American press to mislead us. There has been a disinformation campaign going on ever since 9/11.”

Conspiracies do happen, of course. Abraham Lincoln was the victim of an assassination conspiracy, as was Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand, gunned down by the Serbian secret society called Black Hand. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a Japanese conspiracy (although some conspiracists think Franklin Roosevelt was in on it). Watergate was a conspiracy (that Richard Nixon was in on). How can we tell the difference between information and disinformation? As Kurt Cobain, the rocker star of Nirvana, once growled in his grunge lyrics shortly before his death from a self-inflicted (or was it?) gunshot to the head, “Just because you’re paranoid don’t mean they’re not after you.”

But as former Nixon aide G. Gordon Liddy once told me (and he should know!), the problem with government conspiracies is that bureaucrats are incompetent and people can’t keep their mouths shut. Complex conspiracies are difficult to pull off, and so many people want their quarter hour of fame that even the Men in Black couldn’t squelch the squealers from spilling the beans. So there’s a good chance that the more elaborate a conspiracy theory is, and the more people that would need to be involved, the less likely it is true.

Why do people believe in highly improbable conspiracies? In previous columns I have provided partial answers, citing patternicity (the tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise) and agenticity (the bent to believe the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents). Conspiracy theories connect the dots of random events into meaningful patterns and then infuse those patterns with intentional agency. Add to those propensities the confirmation bias (which seeks and finds confirmatory evidence for what we already believe) and the hindsight bias (which tailors after-the-fact explanations to what we already know happened), and we have the foundation for conspiratorial cognition.

Examples of these processes can be found in journalist Arthur Goldwag’s marvelous new book, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies (Vintage, 2009), which covers everything from the Freemasons, the Illuminati and the Bilderberg Group to black helicopters and the New World Order. “When something momentous happens, everything leading up to and away from the event seems momentous, too. Even the most trivial detail seems to glow with significance,” Goldwag explains, noting the JFK assassination as a prime example. “Knowing what we know now ... film footage of Dealey Plaza from November 22, 1963, seems pregnant with enigmas and ironies—from the oddly expectant expressions on the faces of the onlookers on the grassy knoll in the instants before the shots were fired (What were they thinking?) to the play of shadows in the background (Could that flash up there on the overpass have been a gun barrel gleaming in the sun?). Each odd excrescence, every random lump in the visual texture seems suspicious.” Add to these factors how compellingly a good narrative story can tie it all together—think of Oliver Stone’s JFK or Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, both equally fictional.

What should we believe? Transcendentalists tend to believe that everything is interconnected and that all events happen for a reason. Empiricists tend to think that randomness and coincidence interact with the causal net of our world and that belief should depend on evidence for each individual claim. The problem for skepticism is that transcendentalism is intuitive; empiricism is not. Or as folk rock group Buffalo Springfield once intoned: Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it will creep ...

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-people-believe-in-conspiracies

Or to sum it all up...it's when you can't hear the bats, that is when the bats are coming!

Tiff

In my best Beavis, " You said " buttonholed ", huh huh uh huh!! Sorry, couldn't resist. Good read. Lots of big words. I think we're all a little batty !!

[tyron]

Ah Tiff, Tiff, Tiff...

Some of the most brilliant minds have been aware of the hidden hands at work. Here are a few examples of those that actually dared speak of it.

The real rulers of Washington are Invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes. - Justice Felix Frankfurter - US Supreme Court Justice

The real menace of our Republic is the invisible Government which like a giant Octopus, sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states, and nation. - John F. Hylan - Mayor NYC 1918-1925

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know that a financial element in the large centers has OWNED the Government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson." (History points to the last truly honorable and incorruptible American President as "Old Hickory") - FDR to Col. E. Mandell House 11/21/1933

"Give me control of a Nation's money and I care not who makes the laws." - Mayer Amschel Bauer (Rothschild)

“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States —in the fields of commerce and manufacturing—are afraid of somebody. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” - Woodrow Wilson

“A financial element in the large centers has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson.” - Franklin Roosevelt

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.” - David Rockefeller

he United Nations is the greatest fraud in all History! Its purpose is to destroy the United States ." - John Rankin , U.S. Congressman

"The Technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more CONTROLLED society. Such a society would be dominated by ELITE, unrestrained by traditional values." - Zbigniew Brezhinsky , Advisor to 5 U.S. Presidents - Executive Director Trilateral Commission. "Between two Ages"

[DinarDebbie]

Common reply to a conspiracy (theory was added later) would be that too many people would know and they would spill the beans.

Well if that was true why didn't anyone talk about what really happened in the Gulf of Tonkin incident? It was later declassified years later,

and many knew what really happened yet said nothing. It cost over 50,000 American lives and many more Vietnamese, yet it never happened.

If these people running things can get away with killing a President, (yeah I know) most people would take their personal threats very seriously.

Who do you think is killing off the Iranian nuclear scientists? Makes one wonder.

Nice one Tyrone, some good names there..

Edited January 19, 2012 by DinarDebbie

[Tiffany23]

tyron, DD...I'm just a simple bumpkin...I can't even keep track of where I left my car keys...so you guys are talking about such complexities that it make me go

I think I will just wander back to my little fishbowl and enjoy the sunset.

[Anti This Anti That]

Jer 11:9 And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

[Shabibilicious]

That's a nice read Tiff. I'm curious though. Are the "men in black" forcing you to pass this along, to confuse or throw us off the scent? I enjoy the fish bowl, as long as, the water is changed regularly. Here are my thoughts on the whole conspiracy thing........I'll have to get back to you, I hea

[caz1104]

One of my all time favorite conspiracies was "the Ides of March". My question is why do most people associate conspiracy with murder? Best to all

[JREDinars]

That's a nice read Tiff. I'm curious though. Are the "men in black" forcing you to pass this along, to confuse or throw us off the scent? I enjoy the fish bowl, as long as, the water is changed regularly. Here are my thoughts on the whole conspiracy thing........I'll have to get back to you, I hea

Shabs! U okay? You "hea"....maybe 'heard men sliding from ropes and breakin in through your windows?' Did those men in black come and haul you off mid sentence!? Jeez....that was quick!

[Shabibilicious]

Shabs! U okay? You "hea"....maybe 'heard men sliding from ropes and breakin in through your windows?' Did those men in black come and haul you off mid sentence!? Jeez....that was quick!

I'm back. It was just the pizza guy.

GO RV, then BV

[Tiffany23]

Many wise words are spoken in jest, but they don’t compare with the number of stupid words spoken in earnest.

[RodandStaff]

That's a nice read Tiff. I'm curious though. Are the "men in black" forcing you to pass this along, to confuse or throw us off the scent? I enjoy the fish bowl, as long as, the water is changed regularly. Here are my thoughts on the whole conspiracy thing........I'll have to get back to you, I hea

I don't know Tiff... that last thing I remember was two guys in black suits knocking on the door and raising this silly black tube and ... "flash"... umm... who are you... and what am I doing here???

Edited January 21, 2012 by RodandStaff

[littlefeet]

Many wise words are spoken in jest, but they don’t compare with the number of stupid words spoken in earnest.

One of the virtues of being very young is that you don't let the facts get in the way of your imagination.

[divemaster5734]

Tiff,

Have you ever read a book, Order From Chaos?

by Paul Joseph Watson.

A very interesting read.

here's a link to a torrent download, it's only a few hundred pages.

My link

If that doesn't work I have it stored on a back up HD and can email it to you, it's 3-5mb.

Also, google Gulf of Tonkin.

There are many more actual conspiracies that have been proven.

No, I am not claiming every thing we hear is a conspiracy, there really is so much disinformation out there it causes people to become overwhelmed and just tune out, but that's the whole purpose.

Please, read the book, then get back to me and let me know what you think.

DM