Why do people believe conspiracy theories?

[Dirty Socialist]

Not just right wing ones, but all kinds of conspiracy theories?

[Lucky Luciano]

1. The dopamine they get from feeling special because they're "in the know".

They get a sense of superiority feeding their ego because they’re not some dumb sheep! Nope. They got it all figured out because they have the true inside knowledge that they were able to piece together due to their special skills!

[Johnny2X2X]

21. Agree

People like to feel included in something that is exclusive. People seem to think the world is more interesting with all of the mystery of conspiracy theories.

And while there are some legit conspiracies out there, the vast majority are nonsense. The one thing people are worst at is keeping secrets, it's virtually impossible to keep a secret with more than 2 people involved. To think that there are vast conspiracies with thousands or hundreds of thousands of people keeping secrets stretches reason.

[BlueIdaho]

29. Powerless People

Statistically, conspiracy nuts are more likely to be social outcasts and low achievers. They are born followers.

[Lucid Dreamer]

2. People DON't believe conspiracy theories...

That's just a rumor.

[Tickle]

4. Lol nt

[iemanja]

3. Because they are simpler than reality

and don't require any work to learn real information.

[Tickle]

5. Conspiracy theories are

a form of juicy gossip

[old as dirt]

6. Is this about WWE, or the Oscars?

Because I'm pretty sure that the former is a conspiracy.

[edbermac]

7. Because they might be true.

For example, I don’t believe Oswald acted alone.

[Midnight Writer]

25. Exactly. Was there a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election?

Was there a conspiracy to use the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" to escalate the Viet Nam war?

Was there a conspiracy to stop the vote count in Florida during the 2000 election?

Was there a conspiracy to manipulate intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion?

Conspiracies, large and small, go on around us every day.

I don't like the knee-jerk reaction to the phrase "conspiracy theory", a phrase coined by our government to ridicule people who questioned the Warren Report.

Of course, not all conspiracy theories are true, nor are they all of equal validity.

But bear in mind the old adage "The Devil's greatest trick was convincing people he doesn't exist".

[fightforfreedom]

30. There is a difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.

They are not the same.

[Iggo]

44. That thing you're calling a conspiracy theory is really just a suspicion of a conspiracy.

That suspicion can be a reasonable suspicion or an unreasonable suspicion.

[BlueTsunami2018]

8. Because there are actual conspiracies out there.

Lincoln’s assassination, Gulf of Tonkin, Operation Northwoods, MK-Ultra, the Tuskagee experiments, Project Sunshine and so on and so forth.

It’s pretty easy to suspect something is off about certain events like Kennedy and 9/11, less so about JFK Jr.’s reappearance, lizard people and some of the more ridiculous things Qanon puts out.

Government plots and nefarious people planning to or carrying out heinous schemes aren’t too far out of the realm of possibility but it’s also pretty easy to go down a rabbit hole.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Yes. A big discernment tool is to ask how many people are needed to make a CT work

Tuskagee, for example, a few doctors, a few ethically challenged quasi-scientists, a few bureaucrats. They depended on a compliant population of privileged whites and oppressed blacks blocked from ethical safeguards.

Watergate is another excellent example of how a few people did great damage; about four levels (burglars, operatives like Liddy, pols like Mitchell and WH exec staff, and president) and only a few people at each level. Biggest single group was the 7 burglars, and they were not part of the coverup or the bigger plans.

The more wild CTs like biological impossibilities (JFK Jr and lizards) are for fringe lunatics.

But MIHOP conspiracies (Make It Happen On Purpose) about 9/11 require huge teams of people to hide or kill people and to rig jet planes to fly by remote control and do preliminary weakening of buildings and to do demolition work on the day, etc. Vast numbers of people all doing big stuff that would be obvious to themselves as Not The Way Things Are Usually Done Around Here. Vast numbers who would know something is majorly wrong and bought into it or were drugged (vast numbers to drug them) or were threatened (vast numbers of security thugs threatening seemingly ordinary citizens), and it goes on and on.

LIHOP (Let It Happen On Purpose) requires tiny conspiracies by contrast, Watergate sized conspiracies.

[ProfessorGAC]

18. +1

The "faked" moon landing is another example. It would require 5,000 people to be in on the fake, but nobody ever came forward to say what they know? Yeah, sure.
It was easier to go to the moon than it was to fake it.

[RobinA]

37. Hah!

Good point! I never get the reason for the moon landing disbelief. I know the flat earthers need it to be a fake, but other than that... It's not the usual conspiracy concocted to explain an event. I KNOW why people need to believe that only Americans have the sophistication to pull off 9/11, rather than some guy in a turban sitting in a cave. Same with JFK - one dweeby little guy cannot just shoot the POTUS dead, it has to involve high level dark doings by multiple shady actors with their hands on the levers of power.

[betsuni]

9. Same reason people believe in religions.

You aren't responsible for anything, the mysterious establishment evil forces are.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Also it's way to direct blame away from self. "I woulda been a success if Trump got a second term"

... "but it was a Big Steal. So Biden made everything so much worse with ..." laundry list of things like gas prices, supposed tanking economy, war, supposed shaming of whites, etc. "And my business failed" or "So my kid didn't get into community college" or "I lost my job for defending de Santis against a coworker and raising a tire iron at them", .... On and on it goes.

It's always someone else, never their own actions.

[betsuni]

14. "No wait, 'some people say' if maybe the system was not rigged against me, I would've won the

nomination and defeated Donald Trump. That's what some people say." Another way to direct blame away from self. "I woulda been a success if the bad corrupt Democrats hadn't rigged elections." It's always someone else, never their own actions.

[Edim]

11. Conspiracies are ubiquitous.

Conspiracies are simply corruption. There is no corruption without some kind of conspiracy and vice versa.

[scarytomcat]

13. because they were raised to believe in nonsense

Santa, Easter bunny, justice, gods

[gab13by13]

15. Also, propaganda works,

conspiracy theories are contrived to serve a purpose, and when something is repeated over and over again it becomes a reality to many.

Most people here on DU don't know the difference between a wall and a fence.

[Silent3]

20. There's a big difference between lowercase conspiracy and Grand Conspiracy

When we talk about conspiracy theorists, it's the latter that's being discussed -- imagined all-pervasive, deep, complex conspiracies, not merely two or more people collaborating in a criminal act.

[Silent3]

35. It's the rest of us who've had enough. The people eating this shit up don't want to turn it off.

The reasons people gravitate toward crazy conspiracy theories are much older than Facebook, Facebook is just a convenient, addictive delivery mechanism.

[wanda4rafi]

40. Is the Big lie a grand conspiracy? How about restriction of voting rights?

Pretty grand in m y book.

[Silent3]

41. It's one of the few that's real and not nuts, but it's also pretty much out in the open

Unlike crazy conspiracies where, oh, world-wide satanic child trafficking rings are being run out of non-existent basements of pizza parlors, a lot Trump's conspiracy was conducted in plain sight, just daring people to ignore it.

To know that Trump was up to no good never, ever required belief in hidden cabals, scouring photos for secret hand gestures, counting buttons on people's jackets and plugging the numbers into Bible Code, etc. Sure, some of Trump's evil-doing was done behind closed doors, but the on-public-view behavior was more than enough to know the broad strokes of what was happening.

[wanda4rafi]

48. Of course much of their hamhanded tactics are evident to most sentient beings,

but there were organized strategies by many to spread the lie throughout the country.

[Torchlight]

19. The conclusions of forced sense from a chaotic world

allow a lot of us a comforting illusion of self-control and determinism in an otherwise turbulent and purposeless existence.

[wanda4rafi]

49. Why should existence have a purpose? No need, as you imply, to grasp for one

Being aware of one's true "feelings" is really all the control available, but it is enough for those willing to acknowledge it.

[wanda4rafi]

22. Because real conspiracies have been how mankind has operated forever.

Lordy folks. The world has turned on conspiracies. Just because there are crazy ones in abundance does not take away from the facts.

[Lucky Luciano]

24. We're implicitly talking about the cuckoo-bananas conspiracies.

I would posit that one of the biggest actual conspiracies out there is the “Meta-conspiracy conspiracy.” A conspiracy of conspiracies where so many ridiculous conspiracies are flooded across social media that discerning the real ones (a very small percentage overall) from the real ones is nearly impossible for the vast majority. People then squabble over bullshit and lose sight of the things they should have been paying attention to. The trouble is that the real conspiracies are a needle in the big haystack of theorized (fabricated) conspiracies.

Putin was the master of this.

[fightforfreedom]

26. When a big event takes place, some people believe something big must be behind it.

Many people do not believe Oswald could have killed JFK alone. He had to have help. No, Oswald could do it alone and that is exactly what he did.

There is a way to tell if a conspiracy theory is bullshit. When you have more than one theory. There must be at least 10 conspiracy theories about JFK. Nothing has been investigated more then the assassination of JFK. A thousand books have been written. No one has ever proved Oswald had help and no one ever will, because Oswald acted only. Oswald was a lunatic who learned Kennedys motorcade was going to drive by his place of work. He brought a gun to work and killed Kennedy. End of story.

My favorite was Obama wasn't born here. People were saying he was born in Kenya and Indonesia. Obamas mother must have been a special women to give birth to her son in two different places.

[Dial H For Hero]

27. Many people want simple answers to complex questions.

[Kaleva]

32. Or they want complex answers to simple questions.

It can't just be a lone gunman. It has to be a massive conspiracy.

[Dial H For Hero]

33. Fair point!

[wanda4rafi]

39. Well in the RFK assassination there were more bullets fired than Sirhan's gun

could hold. So yeah. no ;lone gunman there.

[Kaleva]

42. Other acoustic experts can only identify 7 or 8 shots fired

So there is no conclusive evidence that there was more then one shooter

[wanda4rafi]

47. When you count the bullets removed from Senator Kennedy, the bystanders and

bullets in the wall and ceiling tiles it exceeds the eight shots Sirhan's pistol held. I'm not going to get into a debate here about the event, except to make one more point. The shot that killed RFK was fired from 1-2 inches away and from behind. According to all of the eyewitnesses Sirhan never got closer than 2-3 feet and was always in front of RFK. Anyone with an open mind who seriously studies the evidence will find out the truth.

Lisa Pease wrote an extensively researched book on all the available and latest evidence in the case in her 2018 book "A Lie Too Big to Fail".

[Kaleva]

50. Despite decades of investigations, conducted by numerous prople

, the identity of of the other alleged shooter(s), cannot be proven.

Like TFG's claim the election was stolen, the evidence that proves there was a conspiracy to murder JFK and RFK remains just out of reach. Area 51 is similar.

Has Lisa Pease gone to the authorities or to court with her evidence?

[wanda4rafi]

53. LOL. Many people have gone to court and their motions have been denied.

And not because of lack of evidence, but because the authorities in both cases have no intention of allowing the facts to become public. Trump had zero evidence. There is overwhelming evidence that there were conspiracies in both cases. The people responsible for the crimes were powerful and so are the forces that wanted the truth covered up. They are not necessarily the same.

You do know that the House Assassinations Committee's HSCA in 1978 concluded JFK had been killed by a conspiracy. If not, you might try educating yourself.

[David__77]

28. Too broad - there are conspiracies.

The issue is something like getting lost in the details. A conspiracy is a tool- a means to an end. The ends are the key thing.

[Kaleva]

31. Confirmation bias

[fightforfreedom]

34. Trump and his enablers conspired to overturn the election.

That is not a conspiracy theory.

Castro killed JFK, the CIA killed JFK, the mob killed JFK, Johnson killed JFK, Oswald did not act alone. Those are conspiracy theories and they always will be.

[Kaleva]

43. +1

[SoonerPride]

38. DIY conspiracy theory play set

[BannonsLiver]

45. Makes them feel important and that they have special insight

Sort of like all the idiots who think the Oscars thing was staged.

[WarGamer]

46. It satisfies their pre-formed view of the world

Even after thorough debunking on this very site...

People believed that Rittenhouse was driven to WI by his mom with the rifle in the trunk.

On RWNJ sites, they believe Hillary was operating a child porn operation out of the basement of a pizza shop.

EVERYONE needs to have more fidelity to the TRUTH and reality.

[alphafemale]

51. But then there are the fake conspiracies mocking things like Q or woo

Like Birds aren't Real

Which is complete fun farce poking fun at idiots.

https://birdsarentreal.com/

[Raine]

52. Not all conspiracies are theories, some are real. A person just has have a healthy sense of

skepticism and reasoning to determine what's real and what isn't. 🤔