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billvon

Conspiracy theory mitigation

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In one of the threads here the topic of conspiracy theories came up, with one poster claiming that his conspiracy theory was not a theory, it was a real conspiracy.  It made me think about conspiracy theories in general and how technology is enabling them.

I got into a bit of an argument recently with an old friend of mine over the flat Earthers.  He was of the opinion that any flat Earther either had a mental illness or was pulling someone's leg.  I spent a little time listening to some Youtube videos about that (including one debate between a flat Earther and a regular person) and came to the conclusion that there are really people who believe this.  Further, it seems like the number of people who believe this (if you go by the number of organizations who tout it, and the number of celebrities who support it) has gone up over the past 40 years, not down.

In a way that's a good test case for conspiracy theories in general, because it's the easiest to disprove.  (Indeed, nowadays rich people can buy a ticket into space and see for themselves.) Conspiracy theories exist - and seem to be growing.  And easy availability of proof of their falsity seems to matter very little.

And that's a problem beyond the general dread one feels when hearing that large numbers of people can completely disregard reality and substitute their own woo.  It is now causing both societal and actual physical damage - people are burning down 5G towers, destroying vaccines, shooting up restaurants, blocking bridges, vandalizing and looting the US Capitol and trying to kill US politicians based on various conspiracy theories.

So why are they growing?

To start answering that you have to start from why they exist in the first place.  Karen Douglas (PhD) is a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent, and mentions three reasons people believe in conspiracy theories:

1) Epistemic (having to do with knowledge.)  People have varying levels of education, but the concept that "knowledge is good" is pretty universal, and people want access to it.  When education does not supply it (and perhaps more importantly, does not supply the tools to let someone determine what good information is) people can turn to alternate sources for their knowledge - because there is a strong desire to get that knowledge.

2) Existential (having to do with continued existence.)  People have a basic need to feel safe and to feel like they have some kind of control, however limited, over things that affect their life.  After 9/11, a lot of people's worlds were shaken, because they had not contemplated that a few terrorists could kill thousands of people in the US.  Having a conspiracy theory that explained that that is NOT what happened was very reassuring to these people, and filled an important emotional need for them.

3) Social.  People's social standing is improved (at least in their own minds) when they can claim special knowledge of events.   "WAKE UP SHEEPLE!" is a common way to announce that the theorist feels his knowledge is superior to everyone else's.

All of these have been factors pretty much forever.  In 1790, Jedidiah Morse, a Massachusetts minister and author, claimed that the "Bavarian Illuminati" was working in America “to root out and abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government.”  He claimed they were working with Thomas Jefferson, who belonged to the opposing political party, to “abjure Christianity, justify suicide (by declaring death an eternal sleep), advocate sensual pleasures agreeable to Epicurean philosophy, decry marriage, and advocate a promiscuous intercourse among the sexes.”  Change the language and names a bit and that would fit in nearly any decade in US history.

What's changed today is the ease by which a conspiracy theorist can surround himself with confirmatory material.  Older depictions of conspiracy theorists often show them living in homes with paper covering the walls, literally surrounding themselves with evidence of their theories.  This was important back then because there wasn't as much of it available - you had to get the printed paper, then ensure you had access to it.  In that way you could convince yourself of the overwhelming strength of your evidence, since it's literally what you saw every day on your wall.

Today conspiracy theorists need not go to such lengths. Simply watching the right set of Youtube videos, or doing the right Google searches, gives you access to nearly unlimited confirmatory evidence to any conspiracy theory out there.  As an experiment I searched for "proof the Earth is flat" and got 715,000 hits - including videos, documentaries, reviews of documentaries, articles, even a list of "200 proofs" that the Earth is flat.  People who have little experience at validating research can see such a mountain of "proof" and take it as evidence that what they want to believe is true.

So how do we deal with this?  There is a good argument that conspiracy theories have become a pretty significant public health problem - that vaccine refusal, refusal to participate in NPI programs and refusal to test/quarantine/get treatment are significantly increasing morbidity and mortality among the general population.  There are any number of guidelines out there on how to deal with it on a personal level (i.e. "what to do when Uncle Larry says that 5G towers cause COVID at Thanksgiving dinner") - but what can we do at a higher level?  My takes:

- Change public health approaches based on feedback.  Several studies have shown that if people take part in the planning process for things like NPI's (non pharmaceutical solutions, like masking) they are far more amenable to the outcome.  Even if a less-effective solution is chosen (i.e. face shields instead of masks) a higher acceptance rate may result in a better overall outcome.

- Educate people on the scientific process.  There are a lot of misconceptions about the scientific process (exemplified by memes like "they laughed at Einstein, too!"  "Gotta think out of the box - far out of the box") and a better understanding of how ideation, experiment, discovery and review works could help people separate real science from wishful thinking.

- Get conspiracy-theory experts on popular media.  There are very competent psychologists and sociologists who understand the drive behind conspiracy beliefs, and talking about that topic publicly may make people more aware of how attractive such theories are.

- Support fact checking on social media.  There is value to those warnings that say "incomplete information" or "not really true" that appear on social media sometimes.  They are preferable to outright bans for misinformation (IMO) because the warnings allow the person to remain part of the discussion.  They are widely hated by the theorists themselves, of course, but I think they play an important role in encouraging other people to not get sucked in.


https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/conspiracy-theories

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17 minutes ago, billvon said:

Support fact checking on social media.  There is value to those warnings that say "incomplete information" or "not really true" that appear on social media sometimes.  They are preferable to outright bans for misinformation (IMO) because the warnings allow the person to remain part of the discussion.  They are widely hated by the theorists themselves, of course, but I think they play an important role in encouraging other people to not get sucked in.

Unfortunately, fact checking is now seen as yet another biased liberal plot. 
The monetization of interchange (like the ad basis for FB — the more engagement, the more money FB gets) has some to do with it. People go looking for stuff that makes them feel superior, or angry, or shocked — it gets them going. 
Wendy P. 

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Publicity/attention/money is also a reason why people believe in conspiracies, like flat earth. One example is Mad Mike - he raised money from other people and built rockets at home and tried to go to space( to see for himself if earth is sphere or flat) He eventually died in a rocket crash and his representative said he actually was not a flat earther, the whole rocket thing was a PR stunt for publicity. What's funny and ironic is that Mad Mike actually wasn't invited to the flat earth conference. 

"Many in the flat-earth community, which has grown in the age of YouTube and includes hundreds of thousands of adherents, were not happy about Hughes’s rockoon plan. If he went up to the Kármán Line and (inevitably) proved that the world is a sphere, that could end the gravy train for flat-earthers who make money from merchandise, books, conferences and the like." (from the article linked below)

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mad-mike-hughes-flat-earth_n_5e597924c5b60102211080c8

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(edited)
3 hours ago, billvon said:

In one of the threads here the topic of conspiracy theories came up, with one poster claiming that his conspiracy theory was not a theory, it was a real conspiracy.  It made me think about conspiracy theories in general and how technology is enabling them.

I got into a bit of an argument recently with an old friend of mine over the flat Earthers.  He was of the opinion that any flat Earther either had a mental illness or was pulling someone's leg.  I spent a little time listening to some Youtube videos about that (including one debate between a flat Earther and a regular person) and came to the conclusion that there are really people who believe this.  Further, it seems like the number of people who believe this (if you go by the number of organizations who tout it, and the number of celebrities who support it) has gone up over the past 40 years, not down.

In a way that's a good test case for conspiracy theories in general, because it's the easiest to disprove.  (Indeed, nowadays rich people can buy a ticket into space and see for themselves.) Conspiracy theories exist - and seem to be growing.  And easy availability of proof of their falsity seems to matter very little.

And that's a problem beyond the general dread one feels when hearing that large numbers of people can completely disregard reality and substitute their own woo.  It is now causing both societal and actual physical damage - people are burning down 5G towers, destroying vaccines, shooting up restaurants, blocking bridges, vandalizing and looting the US Capitol and trying to kill US politicians based on various conspiracy theories.

So why are they growing?

To start answering that you have to start from why they exist in the first place.  Karen Douglas (PhD) is a professor of social psychology at the University of Kent, and mentions three reasons people believe in conspiracy theories:

1) Epistemic (having to do with knowledge.)  People have varying levels of education, but the concept that "knowledge is good" is pretty universal, and people want access to it.  When education does not supply it (and perhaps more importantly, does not supply the tools to let someone determine what good information is) people can turn to alternate sources for their knowledge - because there is a strong desire to get that knowledge.

2) Existential (having to do with continued existence.)  People have a basic need to feel safe and to feel like they have some kind of control, however limited, over things that affect their life.  After 9/11, a lot of people's worlds were shaken, because they had not contemplated that a few terrorists could kill thousands of people in the US.  Having a conspiracy theory that explained that that is NOT what happened was very reassuring to these people, and filled an important emotional need for them.

3) Social.  People's social standing is improved (at least in their own minds) when they can claim special knowledge of events.   "WAKE UP SHEEPLE!" is a common way to announce that the theorist feels his knowledge is superior to everyone else's.

All of these have been factors pretty much forever.  In 1790, Jedidiah Morse, a Massachusetts minister and author, claimed that the "Bavarian Illuminati" was working in America “to root out and abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government.”  He claimed they were working with Thomas Jefferson, who belonged to the opposing political party, to “abjure Christianity, justify suicide (by declaring death an eternal sleep), advocate sensual pleasures agreeable to Epicurean philosophy, decry marriage, and advocate a promiscuous intercourse among the sexes.”  Change the language and names a bit and that would fit in nearly any decade in US history.

What's changed today is the ease by which a conspiracy theorist can surround himself with confirmatory material.  Older depictions of conspiracy theorists often show them living in homes with paper covering the walls, literally surrounding themselves with evidence of their theories.  This was important back then because there wasn't as much of it available - you had to get the printed paper, then ensure you had access to it.  In that way you could convince yourself of the overwhelming strength of your evidence, since it's literally what you saw every day on your wall.

Today conspiracy theorists need not go to such lengths. Simply watching the right set of Youtube videos, or doing the right Google searches, gives you access to nearly unlimited confirmatory evidence to any conspiracy theory out there.  As an experiment I searched for "proof the Earth is flat" and got 715,000 hits - including videos, documentaries, reviews of documentaries, articles, even a list of "200 proofs" that the Earth is flat.  People who have little experience at validating research can see such a mountain of "proof" and take it as evidence that what they want to believe is true.

So how do we deal with this?  There is a good argument that conspiracy theories have become a pretty significant public health problem - that vaccine refusal, refusal to participate in NPI programs and refusal to test/quarantine/get treatment are significantly increasing morbidity and mortality among the general population.  There are any number of guidelines out there on how to deal with it on a personal level (i.e. "what to do when Uncle Larry says that 5G towers cause COVID at Thanksgiving dinner") - but what can we do at a higher level?  My takes:

- Change public health approaches based on feedback.  Several studies have shown that if people take part in the planning process for things like NPI's (non pharmaceutical solutions, like masking) they are far more amenable to the outcome.  Even if a less-effective solution is chosen (i.e. face shields instead of masks) a higher acceptance rate may result in a better overall outcome.

- Educate people on the scientific process.  There are a lot of misconceptions about the scientific process (exemplified by memes like "they laughed at Einstein, too!"  "Gotta think out of the box - far out of the box") and a better understanding of how ideation, experiment, discovery and review works could help people separate real science from wishful thinking.

- Get conspiracy-theory experts on popular media.  There are very competent psychologists and sociologists who understand the drive behind conspiracy beliefs, and talking about that topic publicly may make people more aware of how attractive such theories are.

- Support fact checking on social media.  There is value to those warnings that say "incomplete information" or "not really true" that appear on social media sometimes.  They are preferable to outright bans for misinformation (IMO) because the warnings allow the person to remain part of the discussion.  They are widely hated by the theorists themselves, of course, but I think they play an important role in encouraging other people to not get sucked in.


https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/conspiracy-theories

Great piece. Thank you. But honestly, I despair anymore of trying to change crazy minds. I also think that until misinformation can be demonitized by regulation, unlikely in a free speech society, for reallsie fact checking on social media is just wishful thinking. Like it or not we are not becoming the mutually respectful heterogeneous society we (well at least me) were hoping was the future. 

I'm thinking we have an insurmountable communication problem: some of us are reading "Sometimes a Great Notion" and too many others are reading "Never Give an Inch". I am not hopeful.
 
Edited by JoeWeber

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12 hours ago, billvon said:

Support fact checking on social media.

Good post, but one thing to help this situation - get rid of Facebook. Like, the entire thing.

Facebook corporate has been alarmed that it's losing an entire generation of young people (https://www.theverge.com/22743744/facebook-teen-usage-decline-frances-haugen-leaks) but it's actually hope for the future.

Facebook's rise has coincided with the resurgence in conspiracy theories, and it's degenerated to ads, "suggested posts" which promote extreme political positions, and I'm watching whatever friends I have left there slowly descend into conspiracy theories.

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16 minutes ago, olofscience said:

Good post, but one thing to help this situation - get rid of Facebook. Like, the entire thing....

That runs contrary to the facts. Instead ban the GOP and send their right leaning followers to school.

spacer.png

Unless of course you think the whole covid experience was some sort of a planned left wing/Chinese conspiracy to "steal the election".... But WAIT...hold the press!

Perhaps you're right after all(no pun intended).

Right-wing populism is always more engaging," a Facebook executive said in a recent interview with POLITICO reporters, when pressed why the pages of conservatives drive such high interactions. The person said the content speaks to "an incredibly strong, primitive emotion" by touching on such topics as "nation, protection, the other, anger, fear."

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4 hours ago, olofscience said:

Good post, but one thing to help this situation - get rid of Facebook. Like, the entire thing.

One thing I don't understand about Facebook is that the people who are the most vocal about how bad it is are also Facebook's biggest supporters (in terms of them contributing material that gets Facebook ad clicks.)  Facebook would collapse within six months if such people simply stopped posting there.  

So why all the support from them?

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1 hour ago, billvon said:

One thing I don't understand about Facebook is that the people who are the most vocal about how bad it is are also Facebook's biggest supporters (in terms of them contributing material that gets Facebook ad clicks.)  Facebook would collapse within six months if such people simply stopped posting there.  

So why all the support from them?

Hi Bill,

Re:  So why all the support from them?

Also:  Why does anyone believe anything Trump says?

And:  What is beyond the universe?

IMO some things are simply unanswerable.

Jerry Baumchen

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Looking at other threads like Biden's critics corner, woke is a joke, covid-19 - it looks like the right wingers are just using this forum to spew a steady stream of youtube videos, memes and misinformation articles that they themselves get from Facebook.

Very few of them (if any) actually have any independent capability to analyse* data. One reason so many of their posts are just videos or links, and little (coherent) commentary or discussion.

(*Yes, even just taking averages. Don't even mention bayes' theorem or any serious statistical analysis.)

Imagine if the "posts video without any comment" rule was implemented more...but in any case, it supports my theory that a lot of this, not all, but a lot, will go away if Facebook went away.

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1 hour ago, olofscience said:

.....my theory that a lot of this, not all, but a lot, will go away if Facebook went away.

Nice thought, but sadly if it's not facebook, it'll be the next thing, or the next thing. Sadly, I think some of the posters here are more than capable of analysing information, they just don't care and would rather "own the libs" independent of any factual information. (It's either that or their collective IQ is only in double figures, and I prefer to believe that most people are smarter than that.)

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11 minutes ago, Stumpy said:

Sadly, I think some of the posters here are more than capable of analysing information, they just don't care and would rather "own the libs" independent of any factual information.

An additional problem is that if some of those people actually applied critical thinking to the theories they espoused, the theories would tend to fall apart.  (Hence the push by the right to cancel anything that has to do with critical thinking lately.)

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56 minutes ago, billvon said:

An additional problem is that if some of those people actually applied critical thinking to the theories they espoused, the theories would tend to fall apart.  (Hence the push to call into question anything that has to do with bullshit masquerading as critical thinking lately.)

FIFY.

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2 hours ago, Stumpy said:

Nice thought, but sadly if it's not facebook, it'll be the next thing, or the next thing. Sadly, I think some of the posters here are more than capable of analysing information, they just don't care and would rather "own the libs" independent of any factual information. (It's either that or their collective IQ is only in double figures, and I prefer to believe that most people are smarter than that.)

Hi Stumpy,

Re:  their collective IQ is only in double figures, and I prefer to believe that most people are smarter than that.

Well, half are.

Jerry Baumchedn

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12 hours ago, Stumpy said:

Nice thought, but sadly if it's not facebook, it'll be the next thing, or the next thing. Sadly, I think some of the posters here are more than capable of analysing information, they just don't care and would rather "own the libs" independent of any factual information. (It's either that or their collective IQ is only in double figures, and I prefer to believe that most people are smarter than that.)

Some 50% of the people have IQ in double figures.

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