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Sometimes im just astonished by how out there some conspiracy theories are... like not landing on the moon, I guess i can get that cause we are so far removed from it and there isnt any good way to verify it personally... its all trust...
But flat earthers and stuff like that... i just cant get how someone can be that level of stupid...
Apparently it is a conspiracy theory (at least with one person) that nukes dont actually exist and were never used. I mean... i could build you a geiger counter from scratch, i could literally prove nuclear fission with very little parts... how can this stuff even be doubted?
@freemo – "isnt any good way to verify it personally" that's part of it, I think – an unwillingness to believe anything you didn't personally verify. Like, go outside and look at the ground or whatever: it looks flat. So to accept this premise that it is round instead of what it obviously looks like, they'll want to see something *personally*.
At some point, to function at a certain level, so to speak, you need to take some stuff on trust: like things you learned in science class and so on.
Also: I think there's also a personality that wants to find meaning in everything – so like the idea that something happening implies somebody did it by design.
Both of these are maybe related by failure to apply Bayes' theorem. You kind of know this subconsciously: you think something is true with some probability, but then as you see evidence that probability in your mind changes according to the evidence. Basic underpinning of science, right? But you need to have some way of evaluating these probabilities and adjustments. If there's something missing in you that makes it hard for you to do it, then you're going to have the kinds of problems that I'm outlining.
Re. moon landings, you really need to be conspiratorially-minded (or wildly ignorant): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_evidence_for_Apollo_Moon_landings – if this is a conspiracy, then just wow.
I agree and I think this is the core of it. There are three stages of effort as I see it.
1) I believe what I superficially believe with my eyes and wont do any digging or investigation beyond this.
2) I only beleive things I can personally verify experimentally, but I will go through the effort to test things… whether i do so in an intellectually honest way or not is another matter
3) I will rely on other experts and their network of endorsements/citations/whatever as an authority and honest source that I can use to draw conclusions, or agree with.
#1 is suspect because its either out of extreme intellectual laziness, or as a scapegoat to justify some underlying less logical reason you just wont admit, usually religion, or a prejudice
#2 is where most people are comfortable
#3 is the hardest because it requires you learning about an entire body of knowledge and people and make subjective judgements about authority… the subjectivity of judging the chain of trust is ultimately where failures can occur here.