from Hacker News

Psychological Benefits of Believing in Conspiracy Theories

by sgfgross on 8/4/22, 2:26 PM with 73 comments

by jamal-kumar on 8/4/22, 3:20 PM
There's an author, Robert Anton Wilson, who started writing an influential novel called the Illuminatus trilogy which is a pretty fun read but basically if the whole point of his work was anything it would be that if you aren't doing something of your own kind of conspiracy and you're instead obsessing over real or imagined conspiracies that other people are doing, you're wasting your time. It's a fun thing to tell someone who's ranting at you about something you've probably just heard before and already checked out as inanity if anything. The other fun thing to do is see if they accept that the moon is a hologram (You'd be surprised how many people agree to this notion)
He has a quote about belief as a whole:
"My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is left to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have any need to think about anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended."
by recursivedoubts on 8/4/22, 3:39 PM
> Conspiracy theories can help people defend a fragile ego by exaggerating the importance of themselves and their groups;
So can identifying with the mainstream story: I'm not a crazy conspiracy theorist, I'm a serious person.
> Conspiracy theories can make people feel like legitimate actors by rationalizing their beliefs and behaviors;
So can identifying with the mainstream story: I'm listening to the experts, everyone is doing it.
> Believing in conspiracy theories entertains people by making them active participants in an exciting tale.
Most conspiracies are non-participatory. The federal reserve was created by a conspiracy[1]. I have no control over that or any ability to change the situation. It's simply depressing.
[1] - https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/jekyll-island-c... "A secret gathering at a secluded island off the coast of Georgia in 1910 laid the foundations for the Federal Reserve System."
by photochemsyn on 8/4/22, 3:01 PM
Consider the following theory:
> "There's an all-powerful, all-knowing entity watching everything you do and recording all your actions, and depending on that behavior you will be either rewarded with a post-life heavenly bliss, or a post-life eternal hellish punishment. A guaranteed way into heaven is absolute loyalty to your feudal lord and payment of a portion of your income to the church and its priests."
Yes, the original 'conspiracy theory' was religion. Just replace the supernatural entities with secret deep state cabals and black helicopters, or alien lizard-people and UFOs, it's basically the same kind of thinking.
Philosophically, there's no scientific way to disprove any of these theories, just as there's no way to disprove the notion that we're all living in a perfectly self-consistent VR simulation. Freedom of belief is also a human right, so whatever you want to imagine, go for it. (Note that believing that nothing exists until it is scientifically verified is also another of these belief systems, so don't start feeling superior, New Atheists).
by lettergram on 8/4/22, 3:34 PM
I do enjoy the fact "conspiracy theory" is a pejorative, although it's how we interpret the world as humans. The term only started to become a pejorative because the news / government started pushing the idea as a pejorative in the 50's.
https://www.routledge.com/The-Stigmatization-of-Conspiracy-T...
The term was particular pushed in a negative light onto those questioning the murder of JFK.
https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/cia/russholmes/104-1...
My favorite modern conspiracy that's true, not a theory. Is that there is a ring of elite pedophiles in washington and around the globe trafficking kids. We have confirmation of that with Epstein. Ghislaine Maxwell is currently in prison for the sex trafficking of minors... of course, they failed to prosecute or even mention to whom they were being trafficked; although there's a lot of politicians and wealthy business men who've been seen / visited their island (where the sex trafficking was taking place).
The point I'm making is that the negative connotation with this term comes directly because people in power want it that way; its a way to dismiss criticism and belittle those identifying failure. Identifying what's wrong with the world is good for us.Then sharing and discussing that belief builds a community and a shared identity. There's obviously a benefit to that.
by boredumb on 8/4/22, 3:11 PM
People and entities conspire constantly to benefit themselves, having theories about that is healthy and shows a healthy level of distrust. The general rule of thumb should be proving the benefit of the people conspiring together and if there is no tangible/provable benefit then there is little to no reason to believe in the theory.
Why are people pushing a globe model? Who does this benefit?
At the end of the day though, a conspiracy theory is a way to rationalize a situation that you perceive as bad without having to really dig into it and see the other side that is benefiting from it. It's easier to believe that there are a group of people controlling the strings in any situation than it is that there are a ton of people who are all acting in self interest and collectively tugging the strings.
by BrainVirus on 8/4/22, 3:41 PM
The problem with the concept of "conspiracy theories" is that it's essentially a label entirely controlled by the media. There are beliefs that (by any reasonable definition) should fit the label, and yet they are never referenced that way. There are other beliefs that have far more factual support and they immediately get slapped with the label. It's an inherently manipulative concept and I think any research that doesn't explicitly address is bogus.
by RappingBoomer on 8/4/22, 3:39 PM
I don't know why anyone would believe any of these crazy conspiracy theories... it's not as if the government, the media and the big corporations all work together or say the same things...not at all....
by notacoward on 8/4/22, 3:39 PM
This is very consistent with my own theory about why people like conspiracy theories. A lot of people feel like they've been insufficiently recognized or rewarded for their intellect. They want to find some idea that allows them to be not only right but right before anyone else is. They want to be that theory's representative, to be associated with the theory in peers' minds when the theory itself is recognized as insightful. They want to feel (or at least seem) a little bit prescient.
There's no reward for being right when everyone else is too. There's little penalty for being wrong a few times either, so they'll latch onto a bunch of wild theories in hopes that just one will get them the validation they seek. Note that their own belief is hardly necessary. Often it's actually quite weak. If an idea is fully discredited it's swiftly disavowed, and hopefully forgotten.
It's easy to spot this behavior online, of course. Reddit is full of it, and this site isn't exactly immune either. Strident, even aggressive, evangelism about a "contrarian" theory is usually the big tell. Accusing others of being "sheep" is solid confirmation. People who are pursuing an unconventional theory for its own sake, out of pure intellectual curiosity, tend to be quieter about it. The loud ones are just playing Russian Roulette with their reputations and sometimes their friendships. It's the same impulse that has led more than a few Nobel prize winners to start issuing grand pronouncements in unrelated fields where they're still rank amateurs, just like sports or entertainers trying to get into the spotlight one more time and usually embarrassing themselves. Or Rudy Giuliani, but the less said about him the better.
A few quirky ideas might make you an oddball, but a hundred, month after month and year after year, makes you a laughingstock and/or a pain in the ass. My father-in-law alienated most people around him by going this route. So did another of my own friends. I feel the temptation myself, and have to consciously reject that path. Some might say I've failed, and this theory itself is evidence of that failure. :shrug: In any case, there it is FWIW.
by motohagiography on 8/4/22, 4:38 PM
Should one interpret from this article that a healthier mind believes, a) it is unimportant and it is not a part of a group that is important, b) doubts its legitimacy, and c) should be a passive particpant in the narratives around it?
You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to see that some ideas are specifically designed to be pacifying and neutralizing, and concern about conspiracy theories seems to be one of them. Delegitimizing opposition is a standard propaganda tool.
If were to accuse you as a reader of being a propagandized zombie incapable of reason, divorced from reality, operating as an ideological automaton in a bubble of insidiously manufactured stimuli - I would suspect your response would be dismissive. Yet this is exactly what we accuse people of when we say they believe in conspiracy theories.
All ideologies are conspiracy theories, and the only thing that makes one more meaningful than another is their falsifiability and predictive power about reality - and not its post-hoc explanatory power. As a thinking person with intellectual and moral agency, you are capable of ascertaining whether one or more of your beliefs is the artifact of this one fallacy: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Affirmative_conclusion_from_a_... , and I'd argue that calling people conspiracy theorists is the most reliable indicator that someone has been fully atomized.
I can't defend all assertions of conspiracy, but to me the urge to articulate them at all is an indicator a person is not actuated by the much greater social danger of banal nihilism.
by olivermarks on 8/4/22, 4:00 PM
'Conspiracy Theory' is a junk media term that shouldn't be taken seriously. It is widely used to gaslight, discredit and confuse.
by nitini on 8/4/22, 3:12 PM
Everyone is just looking for meaning, but with social media our shared sense of reality is at risk - https://www.climaticthoughts.com/peak-reality-is-terrifying/
by lampshades on 8/4/22, 3:26 PM
What a horribly written article. Not the content, just the structure and flow.
In other news, I’m a very big believer in what many would consider “conspiracy theories” and it’s been nothing but detrimental to my life. I wish I was like the rest of you and didn’t believe them.
by thinkingemote on 8/4/22, 4:11 PM
Suspicion. "I have figured out this group. We can discount all other narratives. They are evil."
Comfort. "There is an (evil) organisation in charge of things, don't worry, we know what's going on. there's no chaos or ineptitude."
by dwringer on 8/4/22, 3:52 PM
This gets me thinking of a recent example I was going "down the rabbit hole" reading about, which is the supposed existence and subsequent coverup of a mid-90's movie starring Sinbad and a kid, possibly Jonathan Brandis.
Long story short, the comedian Sinbad hosted a Sinbad the Sailor movie (or movies) on some cable channel, and for the skit he was dressed in clothes similar to those a stereotypical genie might wear. IIRC there was one segment where a kid came on board his ship, and very well could have been Jonathan Brandis trying to cross-promote a show he was also on.
But "the internet" took this memory, combined with a vague similarity to the old Shazzan cartoon, and a vaguer similarity of that to the movie Kazaam, and decided there was a movie called "Shazam" starring Sinbad which explained everyone's vague memory of these sketches. I myself had this vague memory, so at first I found the idea of such a movie very plausible. Searching for evidence, however, turns up nothing, and then you find two prevailing schools of thought: One, that there was a movie, but it was so bad it tanked Sinbad's career, and because of that and/or Jonathan Brandis's death was completely removed from circulation and scrubbed from internet references. Or two, that the movie was real and pretty good, but only existed in a parallel universe, and some of us mysteriously got our consciousness transplanted from bodies in that universe to identical ones in this universe which has merely a few banal differences like that.
The second is not too unlike a lot of internet philosophy discussions, but the first is a good example of a conspiracy theory. The idea of a movie being so bad it's scrapped and all copies destroyed isn't too far fetched, so it takes a little bit of research to uncover a complete lack of any corroborating evidence, and the denial of those involved, to see that the theory falls apart.
When facing doubts about your own memory and experience, it can be tempting to accept an explanation that a prominent group in the community is giving you rather than doing your own research and forming your own opinions. I would not be surprised if it were a naturally evolved mechanism.

    "This reasoning, however, only emphasizes how conspiracy theories helped ancestors survive in a Pleistocene environment, and does not hold implications for possible psychological benefits in present-day society [20]. If anything, the evolutionary perspective implies macro-level societal benefits, by explaining why people possess mental systems that make them sensitive to signals suggesting possible collusion. Consistent with this perspective, citizens display stronger conspiracy beliefs in high-corruption than low-corruption countries [21,22]."

by notjes on 8/4/22, 3:20 PM
Conspiring, thinking and talking about conspiracies is normal human nature. Nothing to see here.
by yamrzou on 8/4/22, 3:35 PM
Another psychological benefit not mentioned in the article, is that a conspiracy theory alleviates the anxiety of uncertainty and allows one to feel safe due to understanding one’s environment.
by treebeard901 on 8/4/22, 3:41 PM
While the Roswell stuff is a dumb conspiracy, life has taught me that when money is available, and there is a goal of any kind among a group of people, that a conspiracy often follows.
by swayvil on 8/4/22, 3:42 PM
One tribe's fact is another tribe's conspiracy theory. It just depends on which authorities you favor.
Otoh, there's always the empirical approach.
by andsoitis on 8/4/22, 3:17 PM
When you can make them believe anything, you can make them do anything.
by swayvil on 8/4/22, 3:43 PM
Be a good person, support the current thing.
by yesdocs on 8/4/22, 3:22 PM
Well this explains the election deniers crazy batshit approach to ‘Stop the Steal’. It helps rationalize their belief that Trump flags and MAGA hats make an election. 60 rejected lawsuits doesn’t seem to break the fever. Why don’t we admit it’s a cult? This is how cults work, and they are dangerous.