Can conspiracy theorists, sometimes be too stubborn?

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Some people I know believe in conspiracy theories, such as 9/11 being an inside job, the moonlanding being faked, or OJ Simpson being framed...

But when I have conversations with these friends in friendly gatherings, I will politely point holes in theories, if they ask what I believe, but then they really say that any holes that are found are all BS, even if the holes are actually believable, and plausible, and worth maybe considering.

So maybe if they immediately dismiss some of the plausible hole explanations as BS, perhaps they can be too stubborn, or is it just me?

Almost all conspiracy theorists I have met are never even able to consider that there might be another way to view the event.

Conspirationism is all about some strong belief one won't give up no matter how much information suggesting otherwise they encounters.

^

It’s not that conspiracy theorists can sometimes be too stubborn, it’s that being stubborn is a prerequisite for being a conspiracy theorist.

People don’t believe in conspiracy theories because they have rationally considered the evidence. They believe in conspiracy theories because they’re idiots who don’t care about the evidence.

Rational Person: "Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity."

Conspiracy Theorist: "Never attribute to coincidence that which can be attributed to Obama, the Koch Brothers, the LGBTQ Community, Shadow Governments, the CIA, Liberals, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Feminism, Wall Street, Socialists, Communists, Space Aliens, Hillary, the FBI, Lizard People, Sheeple, Greys, the HAARP Project, NASA, FEMA, The Left, Illegal Aliens, the NSA, and people of African, Asian, Hispanic, or Middle-Eastern ancestry."

It's Worth Noting (to me at least) That Neuroscience Shows That No Matter How much Humans Refuse to Admit it;
The Most so-called Logical Among Us Still are Directed First by Our Older Brains: Namely, Our Reptile Brain
For Fight And Flight and Reproduction that are tightly intertwined in Pleasure and Pain and Dominance And
Submission; for the same flavor of Behavior We Witness in The Wildest of Animals in Their Passion For Living
Through Both Pleasure and Pain as 'normally' Life is full of Challenge and Instant Gratification is rare
everywhere, Except for When a Species Moves out of Balance With Nature and Rapes and Maims and
Pillages The resources to the detriment of Balance; 'Magic Rule of Nature Best' for all to Survive; And
Built to what Otherwise may look like Chaos to us; Like the Evil some folks call a Hurricane still that
Naturally Distributes Heat where it is Needed for the 'Circle of Life' for literally the Gift of Life as is;
as it is We who adapt to Environmental Challenge who Thrive; truly this Chaos that is an Untamed Forest
by the tools of Human is Magic for the Existence of Life on this Planet; so this is a Problem; Humans in all
Their ways of Hallucinating Their Realities as Neuroscience Also Shows is what we do based on what We Cognitively
In Intent Believe We Control of Our Environment in Challenge; And Subconsciously Actually Do in the Chaos
Magic of Our Mind; beyond the Reasons We Believe We Cognitively Control, Seek to Create Order out of what
We Don't understand; as we have the ability to create limitless illusions of Fear to Consume ourselves now out
of even
Living
in Basic
Balance of
Animal Homeostasis
After the Work to Eat
And Exist is temporarily fulfilled;
Oops, Left Out the Name of the Second
Brain, the Emotional One, the Limbic System Social Love Brain
For Cooperation; Lots of the Folks on This 'Wrong Planet' with
Great Educations Past Grade School Get What the Limbic System
Is; but folks less educated May Have no clue of how much Order
There actually is in Nature that We don't 'Normally' Notice in Day-to-Day Life.
The Truth really will set Us Free unless We Get Stuck on one Part of Nature like
Rogue Waves and Are Afraid to go on a Cruise Ship; although People often get sick in a Sardine packed ship.

That's a lot of Background Information; but it helps to have the Roots of why We as Humans Do things the way
we do; in this Case Magical Thinking; both Positive or Negative quells the Fear of Many for the other wise Chaos
of Life they see and fear out of control; whether that fear is really justified; or just Manufactured by the Nature of
a Mind That Naturally Hallucinates a Reality More in Peace and Harmony for Animal Homeostasis out of Fear Or
not to Just Survive; And Even Thrive, Respectively, Living so, with Yes and No; Illusory Fears Dominating or Not.


It's Amusing, Social Acceptable Conspiracy Theories that the Majority of Humans Believe in through the course
of History is considered 100 Percent Truth Just because Folks are told things to Quell illusory Conspiracy Theory
Fears Manufactured to Control Folks for Order of what they see as Chaos in Life. Of course, Religions Develop all
Kinds of illogical Conspiracy Theories to control folks this way; Labyrinths and Labyrinths of Manufactured Fears.

For instance, here's a Big one; A Poster Boy of Modern Conspiracy Theories, to date really one of the biggest ones
to Control The Behavior of Human Beings In Fear; I'll Try to Tactfully Illustrate it in the Following Way; the way i see it, at least.

On a Beautiful Day At The Beach; All Living in Peace And Harmony And What it takes to Eat and Survive in Nature;
Where Really that's all We as Human Beings Need to be Worried About to; with enough Reproduction too; and
of course with our Complex Neo-Cortex Minds the Creation of Enough Meaning and Purpose in Life that
keeps our Brains Focused day-to-day this way as well in Common Binding and Bonding Purpose of life too;
Humans Will take advantage of this propensity for Purpose and Meaning in life to Create the Strangest
Conspiracy Theories of all to control other folks; It is Fascinating to Study all of this Through History, at
Least to me.

Basically, These Theories they are built around the fear of the Unknown and More specifically the Fear of Death; as
Our Neo-Cortex Develops a bit of a Mental Illness through Creating Our Awareness of a Beautiful
Balancing Natural Beach as a Nightmare instead, in a place of Desert Scarcity, Where Fears rule ugly
over the Beautiful Balance otherwise of Green Nature; Truly Such a Beautiful Place to Just Breathe...

We Are Still 'Playing' the Price of Desert Scarcities in Both Education for Critical Thinking and
Economic Disparities in places of Natural Abundance Where Fear and Ignorance Lives,
Weak Conspiracy Theories Naturally Thrive to Master others in Control And Subjugation
More than Thriving.

Imagine this: Walking on a Beautiful Beach With Happy Close to Naked Foot Prints of so many Other Human Beings.

There are other Humans Walking in Fear of Darkness Who are Taught they are Born Sinners; And if they Don't
Worship One Human Sent By God Who Is God to Judge them and send them to Eternal Torture that is just what
they get from an 'All Loving God'. That's Literally A Biggest Hell of a Conspiracy Theory Ever Developed and Quite
Honestly from the perspective of Nature in Chaos Magic Balance, it is totally irrational which just goes
to Show:

Science
is correct;
Humans Left to
their 'own devices' are not Rational, overall.


No, it's NOT Just the '911 kinda Truther folks' who believe in Conspiracy theories.

They are everywhere where Humans are left to their own devices of Hallucinating their realities.

As the Carl Sagan Inspired Movie 'Contact' Relates So Truthfully; Humans Are A Strange Mix of Three
Brains Fighting Against Each Other For Survive and Potential Thrive Each and Everyday; Truly the Biggest
War We Wage is the War Within. Master Emotions in Regulation and Integrate Senses in Peace And Harmony
And there is really no Need to Hallucinate Conspiracy Theory Beliefs to Dominate Order on What is Chaos
Magic
as Beautiful
And Peaceful in
Harmony as a Day on the
Beach; if A Seagull Cr8ps on
ya, Just Wash it away; in other words;
You aren't gonna force other folks to unplug from their Self-fulfilled 'Chaos Order'.

Humans are Capable of the Most Beautiful Dreams Fulfilled and Most Ugly Nightmares
Manufactured into Fruition too; My God, The Evidence is Now Present More than Ever Before What
Hallucinating Ignorance Will do for a Self-Fulfilling 'Trump Hell on Earth'. Nature out of Balance Now In us
Does Whacky Stuff; Welcome to The DisEase of the Human Species Clothed in Veils of Ignorance as much as ever before.

Again; some folks find a way to take the Clothes oF iGnorance off; And others develop layers and layers and layers more
to protect themselves from 'iLLusionary Fears' They Create as well; Oh Lord, the Modern Birds, the Dinosaurs who still
exist haven't evolved for so much Lunacy Still at this point. It's Fun to Be A Human; but only if you Master The Chaos
Magic Art for Beautiful Dreams Come to Fruition in Harmony and Peace now Like A Giver More than a taker; Yes Just
A Human River In Peaceful And Harmonious Flow As Water Drops Make Ocean Whole So Wonderful to Breathe Now;
Just Human Waves in the
Breeze Changing Raging
Grey Skies Now to BLacK
Abyss of Living Storms;
Please Do stay away
from the
Instant
Gratification;
for Heaven is the
Highway to Hell too..

And if You Wanna Stay More
Shallow in this Subject Do Scroll
By As This is how one lifts oneself out of the Depths of 'Twitter Ignorance';
For It is true, i dealt With 'Conspiracy Theories' in College Master's Level Sociology
Courses that said it was Foolish to Believe i could do Stuff Like Jack LaLane As i Approached
60 too; but no; i didn't Pay Heed to Couch Potato Averages of Human Science; As True CuLTuRaL
Clothes
Weigh us
down into
All Kinds of
Hells oF iGnorance
of what Naked Chaos
Magic of Nature Still exists Within for us to fulfill;
So Again 'Class', By Very Nature, CuLTuRE is Overall A Conspiracy
Theory for what we Might otherwise come to be Wild And Free NoW;
LoVinG LiFE with NO ILLUSORY FEARS; So Far Away From THE SEaGULL CR8P
of 'Human Twitter Life';
At Least, "smART
LioNs" do
NOT
agree......

Last edited by aghogday on 19 May 2020, 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

While some conspiracy theories may be true, most are false.  How can one tell the difference?  The more the conspiracy theory manifests the following characteristics, the less likely it is to be true.

• Alleged "proof" of the conspiracy supposedly emerges from a pattern of "connecting the dots" between events that need not be causally connected.  When no evidence supports these connections except the allegation of the conspiracy, or when the evidence fits equally well to other causal connections -- or to randomness -- the conspiracy theory is likely false.

• The agents behind the pattern of the conspiracy would need nearly superhuman power to pull it off.  Most of the time in most circumstances, people are not nearly so powerful as we think they are.

• The conspiracy is complex and its successful completion demands a large number of elements.

• The conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep silent about their secrets.

• The conspiracy encompasses some grandiose ambition for control over a nation, economy or political system.  If it suggests world domination, it's probably false.

• The conspiracy theory ratchets up from small events that might be true to much larger events that have much lower probabilities of being true.

• The conspiracy theory assigns portentous and sinister meanings to what are most likely random and insignificant events.

• The theory tends to commingle facts and speculations without distinguishing between the two and without assigning degrees of probability or of factuality.

• The theorist is extremely and indiscriminately suspicious of any and all government agencies or private organizations.

• The conspiracy theorist refuses to consider alternative explanations, rejecting all dis-confirming evidence for his theory and blatantly seeking only confirmatory evidence.

Last edited by Fnord on 19 May 2020, 8:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

To be fair: we are all prone to confirmation bias, our brains naturally cherry-pick whatever fits their beliefs and discard whatever doesn't fit them.
"Conspirationism" is just this tendency stretched significantly further than typically.

To be even more fair: Once you become aware of your own baseless prejudices and biases, you become more able to see and understand things as they really are, and not as others want you to see and understand them.  You also become better able to spot conspiracy theorists and their crackpot ideas.

On the other hand:
Of course various parties try to secretely push their agendas whenever they can't push them openly for various (typically PR) reasons.
If someone sponsors some research, you need to watch if they doesn't have interest in publishing only particular results.
I would be greatly disappointed if Russian intelligence didn't at least try to interfere with US politics.
However, plain incompetence is typically the most likely explanation for various bad things happening.

Just A Rhetorical Question For A so-called Rational and Very Logical Person (not necessarily you).

Pay me no mind; Keep Your Promise to Ignore me please; but this is illustrates my point well, again, at least to me.

Did/Does God Send His Only Son As God To Earth To Judge Us And Eventually Send Us to Hell or Not as an all Loving
And Merciful God; Depending On If We Worship That One Man Out of All the Life Born in the Universe So Far as Is.

Or Is that A Greatest Recorded Major Current Conspiracy Theory of the Human Species to Keep Us the
Same and Not Evolving in one Lifetime as a Much Greater Potential of Natural Life; The Same Applies
to Last Prophets, With Last so-called Words of So Called God too Limited to pages of Old Books.

Again,
Humans
Are Not Rational;
Answer the Rhetorical Question, Yes or no;
i understand you Don't have an Answer; logic is in if you have one or not.

Those Who Will Successfully Defend their Logic Have it; Those Who do not;
Do not; The Same Applies to 'Faith'.

Just Don't Believe (if you will) one Will Champion Rationality if one Cannot
Defend one's Beliefs or are even too afraid to Clearly Relate Them (in Art or Science).

My God is the Rational God of ALL; There is no Way to Disprove the Faith of ALL Exists;
This God Subsumes All Smaller God's; And Giggles At Only Man God's for the Ignorance
of Those Who MaNuFacTuRE (Hallucinate) Them into Stories Where Words Become Only God's too.

Humans Are So Thick In Forests And Jungles of Face Palms As Shallow As Deep Refuses to Go Ocean WHoLE.

Questions to ask about a conspiracy theory can determine if a conspiracy theory has any validity or not.

• Are there enough alleged conspirators involved to carry out the alleged conspiracy?

• Does belief in this theory require accepting that the conspiring entities are incredibly competent, organized, and clever while simultaneously being bone stupid, disorganized, and hopelessly incompetent -- all at the same time?

• How do they leaders of the alleged conspiracy keep track of membership?

• How large is the alleged conspiracy?

• How likely is the alleged conspiracy to be covered up if has gone on a long time?

• How many people are part of this alleged conspiracy?

• How much time and money did the alleged conspiracy take and where did this money come from?

• If many alleged conspirators are dead, why have none of them told the truth on their deathbeds, or in their wills?

• If one government is allegedly running a global conspiracy, why have the other governments' intelligence agencies never revealed it?

• If there are many thousands of alleged conspirators, how are they organized?

• If there are thousands of alleged conspirators, and the alleged conspiracy has gone on for decades, why have none of the alleged conspirators defected or leaked the story?

• If the the alleged conspirators are organized through known channels or entities, how do they keep non-members who work there from uncovering the alleged conspiracy?

• Is maintaining the alleged conspiracy the easiest way of gaining reward? If not, why was it chosen over the easiest way?

• What if any implausible contradictions do this the alleged conspiracy depend upon?

• What infrastructure and resources does the alleged conspiracy need?

• Where are the secret conferences of the the alleged conspirators held?

• Who gains what from maintaining the alleged conspiracy?

• Who gains what from the alleged conspiracy and for what price?

Conspiracy theorists often slip up when confronted with their lack of valid and detailed evidence; in which case, they will most likely label you a "sheeple", a "shill", or one of the conspirators themselves!

Don't ever count on converting or educating a conspiracy theorist. The best you can hope for is to identify them and possibly isolate them from the more vulnerable members of your household or community.

I have met, in person, a woman who was convinced that the moon landing never happened. Her reasoning was mostly based on that fact that, she thought, no one had gone to the moon after the original Apollo 11 expedition. I'm not sure how that would have proved anyting even if it were true, but I digress. She remained convinced of this even after I showed her the list of people who have walked on the moon (12), all of whom were still alive then (four remain now). Somehow that was fake, too.

TL;DR yes.

Well I'm not one of those people who dismiss the idea of conspiracies theories as BS without researching them first. I always give some benefit of the doubt that I don't know what happened. So I become interested and research it, but then will often find holes, holes that maybe are too big or too significant to ignore.

The moonlanding one... I have a friend who thinks the moonlanding is faked, but there are holes in that one, the biggest one being that they did not have the camera technology to fake slow motion for 143 minutes uncut, which is how long it was broadcasted for, or at least I heard. It's been difficult to find all 143 minutes uncut to watch this to confirm. But if it was 143 minutes uncut, it couldn't have been faked in slow motion with the video technology back then. But maybe NASA has some special camera, that is 30-40 years ahead of it's time and they will keep this technology from the world, and wait for someone else to discover it on their own later.

But if they have this groundbreaking camera technology, then why would NASA be so concerned with faking a moonlanding, when they could have gone into the moviemaking camera business, and taken the whole world by storm? Wouldn't they have made a lot more money off that, compared to faking a moon landing?

Also, when I went into this whole explanation to my friend, explaining how video technology works, more specifically, he dismissed it all without even thinking about it, as BS. And his explanation as to Stanley Kubrick faking the moon landing was that Kubrick admitted it, in the movie The Shining, because the boy in the movie wears a sweater that says 'Apollo 11 USA' on it.

And I'm thinking, that's it?? That's all you have, compared to a good portion of video technology I explained, that you immediately dismissed as obvious BS, over a sweater?

Well, the short answer to why faking it would be "to one-up the Soviets", since they had already put the first living creature in orbit (Laika, 1957. R.I.P. Space Dog.) and the first man in orbit (Yuri Gagarin, 1961). But yeah, I've seen a video on YT explaining in-depth why the film technology of the time wouldn't have been up to the task, and how it would be easier to actually go to the moon than it would be to fake it.

But let's say that NASA actually did have this new camera technology that was way ahead of it's time. Would they care to beat the Soviets at going to the moon? If the Soviets reached the moon first, wouldn't NASA say, we got camera technology that is 30-40 years ahead of your's, USSR, so beat that?