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I don't believe in any conspiracy
theories unless you count the neo-conservatives. I know everyone
defends their own irrationality, but I think the neo-conservatives
don't count as a conspiracy theory because they're pretty open and
honest about who they are, what they believe, and how they want to
reshape America. As scary as they are, I mean the kind that don't really have evidence to back them up, like the idea that
the moon landing was faked, the government is secretly trying to kill
us, the pyramids were built by aliens, etc.
They are a hobby of mine, though. I
have an entire collection of 2012 Doomsday videos I downloaded just
for fun. I spend a lot of time watching videos on everything from
ghosts to Illuminati-based theories, and I used to wonder, why do
people believe things like this? How do people not only believe
things this stupid, but proudly push them out there to convince
others? After countless reviews of the videos, talks with the true
believers, and attempts to at least raise the shadow of skepticism in
the world, I've come up with four motives at the foundation of every
theory, either in concept or promotion.
1. Genuine Craziness Seeking a Common
Bond
For reasons science doesn't understand
yet, one of the most common delusions of people subject to delusions
is being contacted by aliens. I believed that myself when I was nine.
Because I was a kid, people thought it was cute. If it suddenly
overtook me now, people would realize I was crazy. The only people
who wouldn't think so were people who also thought they had been
contacted by aliens. If you've ever heard stories from people who
claim that, you probably noticed that there are usually some vague
things they all have in common (they always seem to happen at night,
to somebody who's alone and geographically isolated, who is usually
contacted by more than one being who appear out of nowhere, you get
the idea) and there are a lot of details that don't always add up.
For instance, the vague facial traits of most aliens in these
experiences are almost universal, but height, build, skin tone, other
physical characteristics, as well as details about the space ship if
there is one, all vary enormously.
What's more, if you ask someone about
the details of the story, they change over time, usually more and
more change as time goes by. But they don't realize their stories
don't line up. They usually don't even remember the previous version
of events. That's another trait common to delusional behavior –
since the brain is effectively creating a false memory, it also
deletes memories that don't match the current version.
Get enough people with the same type of
experiences together, at a UFO convention or on the Internet, and
they start to compare details. Some of them get eliminated, some of
them don't, some of them divide into separate theories. Looking at
the 2012 Doomsday theories, for example, the predicted cause and
effects of the end of the world were almost never the same. Some of
the predictions included:
A celestial body was going to appear
out of nowhere and crash into the earth
Aliens who bred humans into existence
were going to come back and kill us
Some sort of energy pulse from space
was going to wipe out the planet
There was no agreement on any details.
What was the celestial body? A comet? A rogue planet? A brown dwarf?
I heard all of these and more, and some variants that combined
others, such as the idea that it was going to be a rogue planet
carrying the alien overlords back into contact with Earth. But all of
these mismatched details are subject to change or be ignored, because
the root delusion is the same. Finding other people who believed “the
same thing” is a very powerful internal force. Finding a
justification that YOU were right all along is pretty strong
motivation. If the facts get mangled up a bit to make that happen, it
usually doesn't matter, and the people who don't believe you are (part of/victims of) the conspiracy to keep the evidence hidden.
2. People With Something to Gain
At the risk of oversimplifying, people
will lie to you if it benefits them. What lie they're willing to tell
you varies, but that quasi-rhetorical question “Why would he lie to
me?” can usually be answered with “Because he wants your money.”
In the Internet age, attention is worth at least as much as money.
We've had three mass shootings in America in the past two years, one
on Arizona, one in Colorado, and one in Connecticut, that were all
intended to get attention. If there are people willing to kill
randomly picked strangers for it, you know there are people willing
to do less despicable things for it.
The most common manifestation of this
reason is somebody who's either trying to (sell something to/win the
admiration of) the people in the genuinely crazy group. The second
most common is someone at the origin trying to profit from a
no-pretext-of-reality work of fiction (like Loose Change or The Da
Vinci Code) that gets its fictional context removed by someone
looking just for the attention.
I should point out here that there's no
such thing as “just” a cry for attention. When it works, they do
it again. When it doesn't, they do something bigger next time. Neither ignoring nor indulging them will fix anything. The only solution is to address the underlying problem with that person. Or shoot them first, depending on your point of view.
People who stand to profit one way or
another from conspiracy theories usually don't stick to just one, and
they work a lot harder to find things that look like evidence and
make subsequent “facts” up to support their theories than
delusional people do. When you believe because you believe, you don't
need proof. When you're trying to sell something, you need to give
the buyer an incentive.
A lot of JFK conspiracy theories hinge
on some letters written back and forth between the CIA (or FBI
depending on the theory) and Lee Harvey Oswald. In the sixties, with
the Cold War still raging impotently, the Soviets had some of their
best forgers write those letters. Why? They had something to gain
from stirring up distrust. They also had millions of dollars in
resources and effectively limitless manpower to put into doing so. Of
course their product convinced a few people. Apple computers was able
to sell an iPhone that doesn't make calls as an iPad Mini. You can
convince people of nearly anything if you work hard enough.
With so many people out there either
creating or repeating things, more and more people get convinced. If
you want a good, modern example, and don't mind some disturbing
imagery, look at some of the evidence out there for Slender Man. It's
so popular, it was the top suggested result when I entered just the
letters “sl” into an image search. Slender Man, if you haven't
heard of him, is a modern urban legend bogeyman that was deliberately
created as such. I really like it as a case study because you can
still see the exact moment and place it was created.
Now look around out there and see how many people have
already been convinced he's real.
3. People Want to Believe
I've said before that people have an innate need to believe in things. Faith and fear are different sides of the same instinctive coin. We need to believe in something bigger than we are, and we're usually scared of things that are bigger than we are. As long as there are governments, there will be people who don't trust them. Give them a good, sound reason that supports their instinctive need and they'll never let it go.
These days, cynicism rules all public communication. People will tell you they don't believe something like there's a prize for doing so. Many of us have become so insecure about the concept of belief, we have to constantly reassure ourselves and others that we're not gullible idiots and we don't believe the lies the rest of the world does. Sadly, there's a belief system and a market just for that.
Conspiracy theories provide a "faith free" way to satisfy our faith need, because the delusion they center around is usually one of distrust. Where religion provides a place for each and every one of us who follows the religion faithfully, conspiracy theories provide a place for everyone who believes in them, no matter what the ubiquitous THEY say. THEY are just stupid. THEY are blind to the truth. If THEY opened their eyes and looked around, THEY would see the truth as clearly as YOU do. Look at the type of person who usually expounds on their conspiracy theory publicly. For example, the woman I've heard argue the most fervently that Obama is a Muslim and part of an Islamist movement to seize control of the government is the same woman who also insisted the human spine has only four bones in it because it was an answer on a game show. People want to believe in secret information only they and their fellow believers have the sense to spot. They're not crazy, or even all that stupid, but they're insecure about their knowledge of the world, and end up having to make some of it up from time to time if they want to function.
4. Good Old-Fashioned Envy
This one took me a while to see. One of the most popular conspiracies has to do with the goverment, business, religion, the entertainment world, and nearly any other source of authority you can find. The idea is that people get into power because of some secret network of other people in power, and that you can't really accomplish anything unless you're part of that network because they're so intent on keeping the rest of us down. Part of the reason it was hard to see this for what it was is that it is partially true. No matter what area of influence you're in, there are always people at the top. They usually didn't get there by playing by the same rules as everyone else, and they don't want anyone else taking their power away from them. Sad, but true.
You can't get to the top of any field by just hard work and ability. It also takes quite a bit of luck, and a competitive spirit. You have to be willing and able to take out your competition to advance, and the higher you want to go, the more competitive (and lucky) you have to be. Both of those can be turned in your favor if you have friends who are already up there willing to help you. The result is that the top tier of any power struggle is only occupied by the people who did the worst stuff without getting caught and/or had help from people who did the same.
The thing is, we should be able to recognize the competitive nature of the world without having to read some sort of supernatural element into it. Most of the New World Order/Illuminati/Masonic conspiracies have some sort of Satanic pact worked into them. The ones that don't frequently involve that old stand-by, space aliens. Secretly inhuman lizard-people of possibly extra-terrestrial origin make up a few as well. It's depressing that most of us will never be what we dreamed, and it's harsh to realize that it's because the world is competitive and there's only so much awesomeness to go around. Quite a few of us judge ourselves as failures because we didn't get what we wanted, or more futilely, we didn't get what someone else got. A lot of times we want some excuse for our failure. The other guy got lucky, worked harder, and stabbed everyone else in the back seems like a valid excuse to me. The people who believe these theories go a little further - we never had a chance, because we didn't have whatever supernatural abilities the powerful exploited to get what they have.
While I can understand that position, I don't like it, and I am opposed to spreading it around, because it encourages people to give up without trying. Your life may never be what you think it should, but you can always work a little harder to make it better. If you're unhappy with your life, you have the responsibility for trying to improve it. It's not up to whoever you say victimized you to fix your problems. You can always do better next time. Failure is inevitable, but it never becomes permanent until you stop trying. I don't like competition myself, and I'd rather end up homeless and starving than push someone else out of my way. But it's just as reprehensible to just give up and blame someone else because that's easier.
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