How You Could Fall Victim To Conspiracy Theories

[boston bean]

How You Could Fall Victim To Conspiracy Theories

You don’t have to be a Lady Gaga fan to disagree with the Facebook video Alex Jones posted before the pop star’s Super Bowl performance this month.

Jones, a member of the so-called “alt-right” and founder of the conspiracy website InfoWars, told viewers to avoid watching Gaga’s performance because, he claimed, Gaga is part of a totalitarian “new world order.”

“She’s reportedly going to be on top of the Super Bowl, they’re saying she may cancel doing this, on top of the stadium, ruling over everyone with drones everywhere, surveilling them in a big swarm,” says conspiracy theorist Jones in the video. “To just condition them that I am the Goddess of Satan, ruling over you with the rise of the robots in a ritual of lesser magic.”

While this sounds ridiculous to the outside viewer, devotees will see this as yet another example of the powerful elite conspiring to overthrow the government.

In fact, conspiratorial thinking and social exclusion can trigger a vicious cycle that further isolates those who believe false narratives, according to a study published in the March edition of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology that’s already available online.

Link to tweet

[yallerdawg]

1. How COULD you?

It works like this: You feel socially excluded and begin believing conspiracy theories. Endorsing those theories, unsurprisingly, prompts your family and friends to exclude you even more. You’re left out again and again, so you double down on your conspiratorial beliefs.

The final stage of the cycle: You seek out a like-minded community that accepts and reinforces your conspiratorial beliefs.

 

[DURHAM D]

2. How did they survive before the internuts? nt

[yallerdawg]

5. It has always been 'out there,' hasn't it?

"Nessie."

"Roswell."

"The Magic Bullet."

"Paul is Dead."

"Kubrick Faked Moon Landing."

[politicat]

12. They had their own publishing systems and word of mouth

When I was in high school in the late 80s, I had a public high school "history" "teacher" who was a conspiracy nut. Gold-bugging, New World Order, Bo Gritz, the End Times, Mormon dominance, FEMA camps. Jade Helm would have been right up his alley. He was also devoted to alternative medicine, refused to allow his family to have dental fillings or drink water with fluoride, insisted his wife use no contraception, was anti-vax before that existed in the wider consciousness, delivered their 7, stair-step children at home and refused to register their births, wouldn't register his car or pay taxes, used no antibiotics, and on and on. While drawing a public school teacher's salary.

They lived across the street from us. Let's just say that neighborhood relations weren't great when I, 15 and female and one of 2 Gentiles in that class, kept walking out of his classes and going to the principal, because his conspiracy nonsense was not on the AP History curriculum he was being paid to teach. I also was protesting the fact that he was fairly clear that, father the fall of the US, when the Mormons came into control, I was going to be his slave (or possibly concubine; I think he had polyg tendencies, too). The school board was less than supportive, but the VP and I came to an agreement. I had to be in class for attendance and 5 minutes or whenever the conspiracy shit started. Then I could walk out, go to the VP's office and study for the test there. The VP got my assignments and graded my papers, and was fair. He was a better teacher, too. (I got a 5 on the AP test. The only one of my class to actually pass.)

The mechanics of this viral madness were the copy machine and audio cassettes and the US Postal System. They advertised in each others' 'zines, and for the price of a self-addressed, stamped envelope and a small money order, they built their distribution networks. They held small-town conferences all over the intermountain west, and they distributed a lot of their shit through Deseret Books and Mormon networks. I assume that Evangelical and Bircher networks worked similarly.

To be fair, being inoculated against that nonsense at an early age was good for me. And I remain quite proud of myself for being willing to stand up against it, because at 15, I had deeply abusive parents and had spent my earlier school years as a credulous praise monkey who would do almost anything for a teacher's approval. But he was nuts and evil, and I wouldn't take it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. The easiest way to fall victim to conspiracy theories

is to be uninformed about things. Only watch one source of news, although if that once source is PBS you'll be fairly well informed. Also, don't read books. Don't ever double check things you do read or hear. Gleefully embrace anything that conforms to what you believe in.

One of the things I truly love about the internet is how easy it is to fact-check stuff. From double-checking the highway a character in a novel is supposed to have used, to verifying what day of the week something occurred, it's lovely to find out all these things.

Oh, and if you don't think relevant credentials matter at all, it's quite easy to fall for stupid theories.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

4. Jones is far, far beyond alt-right

He's....well, there's just no category for him!

[meow2u3]

10. Alex Jones is alt-lunatic

Also, alt-paranoid, alt-fit for a straitjacket, etc.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

13. Yeah, I agree with all that!

[Rex]

6. Got to cross-analyse everything in the Information Age.

Gotta be a balance between pragmatism and ideology and where the two meet is where the spotlight should be.

[Dallasdem1988]

7. Some here on du

Need to read this and learn a thing or 2...

[Jamaal510]

8. K&R

[NightWatcher]

9. It's the fluoride in the water and the chemtrails that'll get ya.

Makes your brain all soft...

[Brother Buzz]

11. Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?

Vodka, that’s what they drink . . . on no account will a Commie ever drink water, and not without good reason . . . Have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rainwater, and only pure-grain alcohol? Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation of water? Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?