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Conspiracy theories and their effect upon political discourse

Discussion in 'Too Hot for Swamp Gas' started by Trickster, Aug 6, 2023.

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  1. Aug 6, 2023 #1
    Trickster

    Trickster VIP Member

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    Sorry if it's paywalled, though there are ways to Google around it if you're interested in the topic.
    Opinion | Even Conspiracy Theorists Are Alarmed by What They’ve Seen

    "Over the past year, I’ve been part of an academic research project seeking to understand how the internet changed conspiracy theories. Many of the dynamics the internet creates are, at this point, well understood: We know its capacity to help users find one another, making it easier than ever for people to get involved in conspiracy networks; we also know how social media platforms prioritize inflammatory content and that as a result, ideas and information that make people angry travel farther.

    "My team has been speaking to researchers and writers who were part of this world or connected to it in the pre-social media era. And we’ve learned something surprising: Many of the people we’ve interviewed told us they, too, have spent the past few years baffled by the turn conspiracy culture has taken. Many expressed discomfort with and at times outright disgust for QAnon and the related theories claiming the 2020 election was stolen, and said that they felt as if the very worst elements of conspiracy culture had become its main representatives.

    "It’s worth noting that our sample was biased by who agreed to speak to us. While all of conspiracy culture can be characterized by its deep skepticism, that skepticism doesn’t always point in the same direction. Although we’ve approached as many people as possible, so far it’s mostly been those on the left of the political spectrum who have been interested in talking to university researchers. (They’ve also been overwhelmingly men.)

    "Still, what our interviewees had to say was striking: The same forces that have made conspiracy theories unavoidable in our politics have also fundamentally changed them, to the extent that even those who pride themselves on their openness to alternative viewpoints — Sept. 11 truthers, Kennedy assassination investigators and U.F.O. cover-up researchers — have been alarmed by what they’ve seen."

    I found it fascinating, and balanced, as any researcher should be.
     
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  2. Aug 6, 2023 #2
    duggers_dad

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    A conspiracy theorist is a person who’s tired of being right all the time.
     
  3. Aug 6, 2023 #3
    Emmitto

    Emmitto VIP Member

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    I mean, that’s accidentally spot-on.
     
  4. Aug 6, 2023 #4
    okeechobee

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    The 2020 election was most certainly rigged, but Biden won under the rules that were in place. It’s not a coincidence 19 states added voting restrictions in 2021.
     
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  5. Aug 6, 2023 #5
    Trickster

    Trickster VIP Member

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    I don't like to curse, but that's total Bullshit unsupported by a shred of evidence. You probably also believe Antifa was behind January 6, and that Trump is being unfairly prosecuted.
     
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  6. Aug 6, 2023 #6
    Trickster

    Trickster VIP Member

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    It's certainly not. Can't have blacks, moderates and progressives voting to kick the nation's worst president ever out of the Oval Office.
     
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  7. Aug 6, 2023 #7
    ncargat1

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    Conspiracies are born out of the minds of the truly stupid, and prosper due to people who are so uneducated that they need to be led around by their noses and told what to think. Thus...conspiracies stoking the baser natures of mostly simpletons and making the mental midgets even more easily manipulated.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2023
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  8. Aug 7, 2023 #8
    VAg8r1

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    And how was it rigged? Inquiring minds want to know.
     
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  9. Aug 7, 2023 #9
    FutureGatorMom

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    They'll point to dead people voting and hidden ballots under the table. :emoji_laughing:They got nuthin'.
     
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  10. Aug 7, 2023 #10
    murphree_hall

    murphree_hall VIP Member

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    To me, conspiracy theory is more about the need that some people have to think they "know more than" the average person. They have a desire to believe they have some special understanding or awareness than the rest of the population, which leads to a feeling of intellectual superiority. They view those who don't prescribe to the conspiracy theory as less informed or willfully ignorant. I wouldn't necessarily call all the people who believe in them stupid, but I would call the ideas they believe in stupid.
     
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  11. Aug 7, 2023 #11
    ajoseph

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    It was rigged because Trump said so. And then people just made crap up to support it. There’s no dispute that the theories have been disproven factually over and over, and of course the corollary that they have never been proven (despite the offers of tens of millions of dollars as an award incentive, despite the tens of millions (and likely far more) into the wasted judicial resources, despite the tens of millions of audits and re-audits and re—re-audits, despite that we know with 100% certainty that Trump and his Team propagated this myth from whole cloth.

    Only someone deeply invested in being “correct” on the buy-in would believe the election fraud nonsense at this point. Only someone deeply betrothed to The Orange King would believe in the lies.
     
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  12. Aug 7, 2023 #12
    ajoseph

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    No, it wasn’t. You lost. And the “voting restrictions” were enacted by Republican apologists who needed an excuse to explain why they supported a big loser.

    By the way, how is it that all the widespread election-rigging you people fantasize about ONLY occurred where Trump lost? If widespread election fraud was so prevalent, why didn’t it happen in the states where Biden lost?
     
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  13. Aug 7, 2023 #13
    ajoseph

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    They got nuthin? Nah …. They’ve got each other …
     
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  14. Aug 7, 2023 #14
    okeechobee

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    [​IMG]
     
  15. Aug 7, 2023 #15
    Trickster

    Trickster VIP Member

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    LOL! I remember kids doing that in 3rd grade.
     
  16. Aug 7, 2023 #16
    Trickster

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    Man, you hit the nail on the head!
     
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  17. Aug 7, 2023 #17
    WC53

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    Certainly don’t google conspiracy and religious views
     
  18. Aug 7, 2023 #18
    staticgator

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  19. Aug 7, 2023 #19
    duggers_dad

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    After all that has transpired of late, the fact that ‘conspiracy theorist’ is still being used, as an insult, is laughable.
     
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  20. Aug 7, 2023 #20
    VAg8r1

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