I’m going to put this here, even though, for me, it relates to other conversations. Others might not see it my way, so I’ll keep this isolated for now. It’s so great to find an academic who understands conspiracy theories, so if you want a connection from the ancient idea of “blood libel” to pizzagate, she explains that. But what I really enjoyed was her quick synopsis of how a conspiracy theorist thinks. It comes at 29 minutes and doesn’t take long.
There is stuff around it, so you might want more. Before, she is talking about how woodcuts were once used to spread theories, and how they really took off with the invention of the printing press. I think that’s important, to understand that what we are seeing now isn’t new in the broad sense of how humans deal with reality. There have always been people who gain or solidify power by lying to people who don’t know how to determine what’s true.
If you’re busy, or need more of teaser, here’s her explanation of the story that conspiracy theorists make up that keeps them detached from reality.
There once was a time when we were safe and in charge of our environment. The “monsters” took over. They did it in secret, so we didn’t notice, and they remain secret now. The conspiracy believer, let’s call him Bob, is the embattled hero who has enough of the goods on the monster to justify his actions and is fighting for the right side. There is no reasoning with Bob because this is about the literal destruction of the world, or at least that safe environment that needs to be restored. All outside information is suspect, there is no democratic or scientific path to fixing this, it’s Bob’s personal gut feelings. If violence is required, then it’s justified based on all of the above.
Yesss, arrest all Russian officials in the US and put them in jail until Russia releases Brittney Griner who is a US citizen and was not a threat to their country in any way.
The only way to deal with authoritarian governments is to make any hostile action on their part cost so much that it doesn’t pay to even try.
Says the person who lives in the land of the free and the brave which holds 20% of the worlds prison population and where possessing 16 oz of marijuana can get you 3 to 15 years in gaol.
More justified , yes. Saddam Husein was a brutal dictator who first tried to annex Kuwait, an ally of US and then used chemical warfare on the Kurdish people. He was a ruthless criminal, just like Putin.
Are you comparing this unjustified sentence of a person with a prior criminal record by the government of an individual state where MJ is still illegal to Russia’s sentence of 9 years for some legally obtained medical oil for pain by a sportswoman who competes in a very physically demanding sport like basketball?
Great you just compared Russia to one of the US lowest ranking states of the US.
Going back to the OP. Here’s the problem with that - it all depends. Here’s a blurb about Galileo:
Galileo’s championing of Copernican heliocentrism (Earth rotating daily and revolving around the Sun) was met with opposition from within the Catholic Church and from some astronomers. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was foolish, absurd, and heretical since it contradicted Holy Scripture.
Pretend we don’t know the truth about the solar system, i.e. pretend you’re just an average person during that time period, you go to church, do normal everyday things, the church is your authority etc.
Then someone tells you about this conspiracy theory some nut in Italy is spouting, something about the earth, which clearly is not moving, is actually moving at unimaginable speeds around the sun, which obviously moves around the earth.
Oh those lousy conspiracy theorists are just nuts, trying to bring down the church, my family, corrupt our kids.
My point is, in those times Galileo was a nutcase conspiracy theorist. (Please don’t say the church was wrong in this case, that’s not the point.) As long as a large enough group of people believe X, then anyone believing not-X can be labeled a conspiracy nut.
In the case of the church, they handled Galileo stupidly, given their goal (which of course I disagree with). What they should have done is brand him as a conspiracy nut just. Mission accomplished. 911 anyone?
