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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?
@Darkayne I am pretty sure like 90% of conspiracy theoriests, maybe more, are just paranoid schizophrenics and just arent capable of functional thought... i just cant explain it any other way... otherwise how do they feed themselves!
@freemo
It also doesn’t help many grew up watching the Discovery channel to further fortify their believe in “Ancient Aliens”
Yea that channel did soooo much harm.
Thi g is when i was younger i was into it and it was good for me as it gave me a "what if" mentality. I was mature enough to know it was speculative despite being sold as fact...
Despite that seems it was quite a bit more harmful for others it seems
@freemo
People think it's rather weird, considering what the show itself, but The X-Files is what created my skeptical mindset every night. I knew aliens or shapeshifters were bullshit but it was the way Scully and Mulder worked together. Two parties that seldom see eye to eye still getting shit done.
@Darkayne fantasy is good so long as we can understand its fantasy... and also nothing wrong for searching for fantasy in the truth, so long as we are objective enough to recognize we usually wont find it.
@freemo this is one of those cases where I'd say it's important to talk to [at least] a person who has the perspective to find out why they believe it.
Have you?
So very often when I talk to people who have perspectives that are so different from my own I figure out, through discussion, why they believe what they believe, generally because they're working with a different set of facts or premises.
I know a few people with really out there beliefs, and when I chat with them I figure out the factually disagreements we have, so their ideas are sometimes rather sensible, given their inputs.
> this is one of those cases where I'd say it's important to talk to [at least] a person who has the perspective to find out why they believe it.
>
> Have you?
A great many over the years... For like a week I joined a few flat earth FB groups for exactly this purpose.
> So very often when I talk to people who have perspectives that are so different from my own I figure out, through discussion, why they believe what they believe, generally because they're working with a different set of facts or premises.
They do indeed tend to have a different set of facts.. often ones very easily disproven, but most of them are too lazy to actually check the facts, they just hear it and adopt it... Why is often a bit unclear since they are the less logical choice of the facts presented.
> I know a few people with really out there beliefs, and when I chat with them I figure out the factually disagreements we have, so their ideas are sometimes rather sensible, given their inputs.
Given their facts as axioms, then yea, no doubt their conclusions track... thats not the part that baffles me. What baffles me is they adopted these nonsensical things as facts when they are so easily tested and dismissed or even in many cases common sense can invalidate it alone.
@freemo so I think that's the key, focusing on the different sets of facts, working on coming to some consensus with them over what is true.
You started by saying you were astonished by the theories, but given the alternative sets of facts, it shouldn't be so astonishing.
Its simply people working from a different playbook, and often having very predictable ideas based on the facts they're working with.
@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.
@ech |
> "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*.
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.
@freemo
I think it's not stupidity, more like soft disability, or religiosity of some kind when you have to believe in some mystery or hidden knowledge
@AncientGood religion isnt always a disability, neither is conspiracy theory... but when someone shows a certain trend in how they think about it it may be an indication of it.
@freemo I'll just be over here getting my daily dose of antimatter eating a banana. 😉
@freemo We elected not to have children due to my wife's health at the time, but I do have daydreams of tormenting my progeny with nuclear bananas and horrible dad jokes. I take it out on my wife instead.
@Romaq I dont want children but I feel my dad jokes require me to have some one day.
@freemo
I remember listening to some of Shermer’s lectures and then paying attention to some of the weird shit people believe. Some are definitely in the ‘I can’t believe my what my ears are hearing right now’ department.