Can conspiracy theorists, sometimes be too stubborn?

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Thing is, technological advances can be stolen, copied or simply caught up to. Look at Japan 1890-1930. Being the first at something ensures your place in history forever.

Oh yes but that is exactly why I thought that being the first to invent camera technology that is 30-40 years ahead is worth taking credit for because then you are the first at that. So if NASA invented that technology to fake the moon landing, then they shot themselves in the foot by not announcing that new camera technology to the world and taking credit for that new technology.

It'd be the finest camera of its time, but it wouldn't be "the first camera" (that'd be the "Camera Obscura", first mentioned in 1604), and while it may take time, it would be replaced and fade into the background as technology advanced. We remember who made the first telephone, we don't really remember even the most significant steps from there to the borderline-Tricorders we fiddle with every day. And considering the hypernationalistic fervor at the time, claiming firsts and milestones for your side was a big thing.

Oh okay, but usually people are more interested in making money rather than be the first to do something it seems. Don't cameras have a lot more money making potential than going to the moon, which doesn't bring anything back to make money off of?

Sure, if it had been a private or corporate undertaking. NASA is a government agency whose whole deal is space and the various things therein, and I imagine their funding depends largely on how well they do space things.

Oh okay, I just thought if they had camera technology that advanced they would try to convince their funders that their is much more money to be made in the media entertainment business therefore.

Some British researchers have traced how exactly the Russians influenced the US elections via social media.
And lo and behold, it was through spreading conspiracy theories.
Not any one in particular, but all of them, basically.
One the one hand to make people distrust authorities, experts, scientists and the media, and on the other to just multiply their chances of a few theories sticking around.
Now that everyone can pick the cobspiracy theory of their liking, it seems the online world has become a battleground of factions of tinfoil hat wearing evangelists, and they are all stubbornly sticking to their theory.

Chances that any single one if these actually reflects the complexity of tax fraud and shell companies an share buybacks and derivative markets and, of course, quantitative easing, which are what academic economists make out to be the conspiracies shaping our world, are slim.
So, conspiracy theorists are fighting windmills.
If you are an authoritarian like Putin, it's great if all the angry people are busy fighting windmills and anyone they consider on the side of the windmills.
Since the 2016 election, the US is indulging in this collective paranoid schizophrenia, where people who are trying to do improve things have to put up with people who genuinely believe Hillary Clinton personally ran a child trafficking ring from the basement of a pizza place in New Jersey.
Under these conditions, societies become inoperable.

Oh okay, well it seems that a lot of people who believe in conspiracy theories are also paranoid of the government or perhaps too afraid of them, if that's often the case?

Huh?

What are you talking about?

Which would you rather have bragging rights to?

Being the first to invent a Coney Island novelty trick camera?


Or being the first to land a man on the Moon?


Do you really think that being the first thing would trump being the second thing?

<Tangent warning>

To think there aren't "things" hidden, from the general public is rather naive.
To think there aren't people or groups who wouldn't exploit a situation or weakness, for personal gain, is rather naive.
To expect neurotypicals to value the truth, as we on the spectrum tend to, is rather naive.

Someone passed me this article and I think Jules took it in a very good direction. He's a psychedelics and peak states researcher so I figured he'd handle it with proper nuance and due diligence.

‘Conspirituality’ — the overlap between the New Age and conspiracy beliefs by Jules Evans:
https://medium.com/@julesevans/conspiri ... 305eb92185

Also when he talks about the positive/euphoric side of the Millenarian schizotypy I can't help but think of people like Steven Pinker, Michio Kaku, and Ray Kurzweil.

Again, Considering Neuroscience Already Shows Humans
Basically Hallucinate Their Realities Based On Their Experiences;
Before That They Basically Hallucinate them too; the new Ingredient in 'Magical
Thinking' That is Obviously Part of this 'Beast of Hallucinating Reality at Core'
Is No-Holds-Barred-Cultural
Environment of the Hive of
Online Globe-Wide Now
Where still everything
Goes but not so
Much on YouTube
And Facebook Now that
The Wild-Wild-West has gone a bit too
Far in Ways that my take us so far away from
Order that we might kill each other to extinction along the way
of 'Online Hallucinating' every, which way of Loose in Both Positive
And Negative Synchronicity too as Natural Pattern Making Meaning and
Purpose Nature of Human Will do too; And Of course The 'Magical Feelings'
That Are Indeed Real and Mix With the 95 Percent of Our Mind or so that is our
Subconscious Reality are Real and Science Proved In terms of Healing Placebo;
And Real Voodoo Effects of Nocebo; Where this Power of Belief and Synchronicities
May Be Powered More By Humans Who Love Misery Loves Company As Their Lenses
of Hallucinations May be Colored more by all the "SH8T Sandwiches" they have
been Forced or Had Little Option to Avoid In consuming Dark Experiences of
Life More Negative than Positive Light More; Of course, Magical Thinking
continues to help the Species Survive, if Not only For those Who cure
With the Placebo Effect Real; CaLL iT Positive Prayer the Essence
Doesn't Change No Matter Which Science Lab-Coat Or Priestly
Robes; And Yes, sure, call the Nocebo Effect Real Voodoo
That Will Make Someone Ill through Negative Beliefs
And Those Corresponding Real Feelings and
Senses that take US down, down, down,
to even 'Trump Town' Paranoia of
Misery Loves Company Even Greater
As Generally Dark Folks in Feelings and
Senses are More Attracted Naturally to Folks
Who Live on 'That Side of the Moon' The Dark one In Deed...
Good News is We Will Change it and if A Person Will Believe Magically
Enough In A Sugar Pill to Heal them; It Will be Silly Not to take advantage
of Magical
Thinking
For those who
Can And Will In Positive
Synchronicities of Belief Co-Creating
More Positive Connections Of Life For Real..

Another good talk from Rebel Wisdom about the complex factors behind conspiracy theories including the narrative arcs in many cases being literally wrong / figuratively true, right in some sense but hitting the wrong levels of resolution or mechanisms, etc.:

Oh okay thanks for all the info, this is all very insightful.

Could it also be that some people just really hate government and hate authority, so this makes conspiracy theories much more easier for them to believe, as a result?

Another example is my sister, who believes that fluoride doesn't do any good for your teeth and that it's all a hoax. But her kids have had a lot of cavities over the years now, probably cause she doesn't get them to brush with fluoride. The dentist even advised her to give her kids fluoride toothpaste if she wants their teeth to improve, but she won't do it, and doesn't believe it.

I didn't say this to her, but I felt like asking "what did a dentist do to you that was so abusive, that it caused you to conjure up this delusion?". Or maybe it's just distrust of government?

If you want a really rough, unpolished estimate of human weaknesses, almost constitutional rejection of reason, and want to understand it in terms of OCEAN (five factor personality model), fast vs. slow life models (essentially r vs. K selection strategies), and the scarier / more dismal side of it - possible genetic components, there's a channel on Youtube by 'Dr. Ed Dutton / Jolly Heretic' that gets into that kind of thing.

I think your right in that if it were a simple distrust that doesn't seem like it's enough to engender irrational beliefs. What seems to happen then is that people who have a bad enough foundation (ie. early childhood divorce, neurotic parents, inherited neurosis, etc.) are in such a difficult place quite often psychology for staying alive that they need to round out the differences by projecting make-believe onto the world around them and that includes beliefs like the notion that people are fundamentally good, ideas that human evil would go away if x type of person or human activity could be removed from the human condition permanently by declaring and winning a 'war on x', and whether they go more toward fantasy to solve their problems like becoming Zacharias Sitchin or Celestine Prophesy nuts or whether they end up becoming radical left-wingers (or alt/far right) of some type is probably some combination of formative life experiences, genes, and where they shake out in the OCEAN model where the higher in trait neurosis they are the more likely it is that they'll be political authoritarians and need to force the rest of the world into conforming to their own standards.

Essentially this is not something that happy and well-adjusted people get trapped in and if they find their way in by accident or just enough contingencies hitting them at once they'll normally explore it, find it less consistent with reality than their previous beliefs, and leave relatively soon after.

Sometimes? It's more like they're too stubborn ALL the time. They make me absolutely sick and I cannot stand them nor can I stand the people who follow and believe their BS.

Apparently the government has some mind-control device in the masks people are wearing to protect themselves from covid-19 that are turning them into mindless sheep. I've been wearing handmade reusable masks so I guess I don't have anything to worry about.

I've heard that *some* theories have turned out to be true, but that doesn't mean all of them are true. And most of the people who claim they are in severe need of having their brains examined.