Why do regular people believe weird things?

[Mark Tyson]

I went by my parents house today to sit in while our plumber did some work. As usual we were BS'ing about guns, hunting, the gummint, etc.

Then the topic of politics comes up, and then he gets weird, and I mean weird. I mean grassy knoll weird. I mean black helicopters weird. In the blink of an eye I find myself sitting next to Oliver Stone speaking with a straight face about the freemasons and the new world order.

I waited in vain for the punch line. I listened with growing alarm as the conversation just got more and more convoluted, with conspiracies within conspiracies, and dark forces pulling the strings of power.
Everyone's involved: corporations, the media, the government, the UN, all in a centuries old conspiracy.

Now this is a guy I've known for quite a while. He's a smart, working class guy, very practical, works hard, got a stable family, steady job and(it seemed) a good head on his shoulders. He does not wear an aluminum foil helmet. But somehow he has all kinds of crazy ideas about the way the world works.

Do any of you guys know someone like this? Why do apparently normal people believe such outlandish ideas?

[I hope he's not reading this. I'm probably being added to his 'list' LOL]

"Are you so blind you can't see the truth . . . or have they gotten to you, too?!"

 

[Barbara]

Hehe. Yep, my old boss. Very picture of a modern business woman, very well-dressed, professional, and absolutely certain the Illuminati are in control. She almost had a tizzy over Coviscint.

 

[Wildalaska]

People with these type of wierd paranoias (and also rascists, homophobes and anti semites)while oestensibly normal are warped personalities that try to control their own feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy by blaming "others"...

WildjuniorpsycologykitfinishedhedAlaska

 

[w4rma]

IMHO, the folks with the most control are the board members, CEOs and plurality-owners of the Fortune-100 corporations. They "lead" from the smoke-filled backrooms and the corporate boardrooms. They rarely appear on TV and when they do, they are usually shown in a very positive light (remember, some of them own big media).

It is my observation that there really is a whole bunch of bad news stuff going on in the background. Conspiracy theories are various folks' attempts at trying to figure out how to explain some of these things.

 

[PlayTheAces]

I guess it depends on the definition of normal.

One guy I work with has been abducted by aliens twice, and claims next time they won't take him alive.

Another joined an Indian tribe to avoid being subjected to U.S. law. He spends a fair amount of time in court.

Another recent retiree got in a bit of trouble a number of years back for taking potshots at a neighbor about a quarter mile down the road. Claimed the neighbor's shortwave setup was actually a mind control system aimed directly at him. This guy honestly came to work with aluminum foil inside his welders cap.

I'm not making this stuff up, and these guys hold down jobs and more or less function in society. Sometimes I wonder if our plant isn't sitting on top of an ancient toxic dump.

 

[Parker Dean]

Conspiracy theories are various folks' attempts at trying to figure out how to explain some of these things.

I think that's it in a nutshell.

In times past people used gods and their capriciousness to explain the world. Now that having a god for every little thing is passe the replacement is conspiracies of powerful people that control everything.

 

[rock jock]

I would say that conspiracies give people a sense of control in a confusing world.

 

[geekWithA.45]

Conspiracies = Constellation Phenomena

Seeing conspiracies is a part of our human wetware. It combines a lot of individual elements of our psyches and the perceptual shortcuts our system takes.

Simply put, we are hyper attuned to extract signal from noise, and we don't always get it right.

The factors I've been able to isolate are:


-Constellation Phenomena: We see patterns in the stars. They aren't there, but we see them anyway.

-Our discomfort with emergent phenomena. Organizations and groups function differently than individuals, in some subtle and not so sublte ways. If you pile 100 honest men together, and give them the task of collecting taxes, you'll get the evil inherent in the IRS. It emerges from the macro system, even though no one put it there.

-The human tendency to ascribe events to intentionality. If something happens, it's easier to grasp the event as being the result of the intention of a single man, or a small group, than emergent behaviour, or the sum vector of arbitary circumstances. In other words, given a choice between conspiracy and cockup, humans will gravitate towards conspiracy.

-And finally, the existence of conspiracies is validated by the occassional, factual, actual existence of....conspiracies. In other words, sometimes, they really are out to get you.

 

[Sean Cloherty]

Don't bother trying to run Mark. We know where you live - bwah hah hah hah hah!

The word conspiracy or the phras conspiracy theory has been beaten to death so that even using those words in the appropriate application will get you a lot of hard stares.

Yes there are conspiracies. Yes there are theories about conspiracies. Some of each are true!

A father and son conspired to rob the local bank in my town (2nd time in 2 years , the 9/11 hijacksers were part of a large conspiracy that succeeded. FDR conspireed to pack the USSC.

You get the picture. I am not fond of whacked out theories with little substance, nor am I impressed with those who immediately dismiss them because the word (phrase) has been hackneyed and abused.

So what news of Jim Morrison in Africa?

 

[Bill Hook]

I only believe the conspiracy theories that revolve around the "democratic" party's attempts to undermine the 2nd amendment.


Seriously, some conspiracies are true, but it would be a cold day in hell that a plumber (or anyone not in the govt.) would be aware of them before they actually transpired.

 

[jimpeel]

I had a guy register here at the motel one night and we started BSing and he says "The thing that p---es me off is the Clintons giving our missile technology to the Jewish, Communist, ... (I went blank trying to digest Jewish Communists so missed the next three or four adjectives) ... Chinese."

I said "Jewish Communists?"

He says "Yeah, Jewish Communists."

I said "Now don't take me down some patriot mythology path."

He gets shaky, starts backing toward the door raising his voice "Go read about the Essenes. Look up the Essenes and read about them."

Out the door he goes.

Now I know a few things that I have picked up during my life and I have heard of the Essenes but don't know in what context. So off I go to my computer and look up "essenes". Checked with dictionary.com to make sure of the spelling just to be sure.

There it is, the Essenes. A jewish sect. The guys who historians believe wrote and stashed the Dead Sea Scrolls. They also ceased to exist as a sect in the second century A.D.

I felt bad that I didn't have this information at the tip of my tongue as it would have been highly entertaining to watch his face as I informed him that he was 1,800 years behind the curve.

Ah, well, lost opertunities.

 

[Psssniper]

The guys with all the conspiracy theories are just a step away from getting flushed out of the Matrix

 

[Khornet]

W4rma

all those CEOs and Fortune 500 types aren't running our lives.

Take a look in the mirror.

Those guys sweat bullets every day trying to read our minds and figure out what we'll buy so thay can make big bucks. If they guess wrong, it's billions down the drain. Think of the Edsel, for crying out loud. They are less free than we lowly consumers are. And we are free to buy their stuff, or buy the other guy's if we prefer. Their loyalty, thank God, is to the almighty dollar, and whatever sells. We have 'em by the you-know-what.

To think that the big corporations control us is like thinking the elephant has power over the mosquitoes which torment him. Sure he can squash a few, but it'll make no difference. The CEO conspiracy theory is as loony as any other.

 

[w4rma]

Respond to what I said, not a strawman that you set up, Khornet.

I said, "folks with the most control". I did *not* say, "folks who are running our lives".

 

[Khornet]

W4rma,

that's a distinction without a difference. Semantics, no more. The implication of your words is perfectly clear, and I responded to it. Now it's your turn to respond to me.

BTW, here's my point in better form from an old column I wrote:

SAVED BY THAT GRAY FLANNEL SUIT

Sloan Wilson's famous book The Man In the Gray Flannel Suit purports to deal with the stultifying conformity of 1950s business life -- the need to look, think, and act like everyone else in order to climb the ladder. It's often held up as the classic expose of corporate life in general and the 1950s in particular. Rereading it the other day, I drew a different and more optimistic conclusion: corporate America, gray flannel suits and all, is a natural consequence of liberal democracy.

It's true that conformity is a hallmark of totalitarian states, and even more so of socialist command-economy states like China, but it's a conformity imposed from above by a single leader or ruling elite. In the western capitalist democracies, however, success requires adaptation to the broad majority of citizens, whose wishes cannot be commanded from above. Because customers are free to purchase the competition's product, their leverage is an iron fist compared to the control of a Politburo. Elephants can be circumvented because there are few of them and they are easily seen, but clouds of mosquitoes can quickly break the will of the largest elephant.

Today's Corporate Man must not only provide a quality product at a reasonable price, but must show the customers that he's worthy. This can take some regrettable turns, as when clothing manufacturers take public stances on social and environmental issues, but nonetheless it provides a healthy check. We can't elect or impeach our captains of industry, but we can vote with our pocketbooks and our feet, which is both quicker and more merciless. If your quality, price, and public face don't meet the expectations of the masses, judgment is harsher and more swift than anything Congress can impose. No lawyer can find loopholes in the verdict of the buying public, and its loyalty cannot be bargained for in Senate back rooms. As long as there is no middleman, no buffer between the customers and the merchants, the voice of the people is perfectly heard. It's when Congressmen step in that the information becomes garbled and the force of public opinion is diverted from its target and used instead to purchase votes or to leverage unrelated political projects.

It's been remarked that in Communist countries that which is not specifically permitted is forbidden, while in Western democracies that which is not specifically forbidden is permitted. This distinction is nowhere more important than in the regulation of American business where, in theory at least, we are free to do as we wish so long as we do not violate certain laws designed to prevent criminal practices. In this climate the full potential of human creativity and enterprise can be realized, and it's the possible loss of this climate that's the most toxic fallout of this spate of corporate scandals. If we're not careful, our Congressmen will make political hay while shackling American business even more tightly than before.

The goose may have laid a few lead eggs this time, but the gold ones will be back if we can just keep Congress' hands off. Then the voice of the consumer and investor will be heard, and things will be set right. Punishment is even now being meted out to the offenders, as the financial pages show.

 

[JackShandy]

Sorry, not really firearms related, but...

I knew a guy sorta like that; just not quite right in the head. Came to work one day dressed as Hitler. No joke. I stupidly got into a fight with him over a cartoon the same day (I think).

 

[2dogs]

What if ALL the conspiracy theories are true?

 

[Chris Rhines]

Weird is in the eye of the beholder. Many of my friends, relatives, and coworkers believe in an unanswerably powerful supernatural being that compels them to act in a certain manner. I find this very weird.

- Chris

 

[BerettaNut92]

Everyone is normal until you get to know them...

At least that's what the government wants you to beleive....

They got to you didn't they?

 

[w4rma]

Khornet, I meant and said, "folks with the most control".

It is a distinction with a difference. I didn't mean your phrase, therefore I didn't say your phrase. I meant what I said, not your straw man. I specifically used that phrase because I will not go as far as to endorse your phrase, because your phrase, IMHO, is currently untrue.

 

[ravinraven]

My New Aluminum Helmet

Rats!

Did I buy that new helmet for nothing?

Actually, I think the weirdest theory out there is the theory that things will be great once the government finally grabs all the guns. I have three friends who are political basket cases who never tire of telling me this.

ravinraven

 

[Waitone]

Yea, I got a friend who defaults to a world conspiracy at every opportunity. He is like most people wanting to make sense of a lot of nonsensical happenings.

I do believe conspiracies are a fact of life. Reality is humanoids have been conspiring together since humanoids had a name. All government is is one big conspiracy superbowl. The prize for the winner is power until another conspiracy can unseat the victor. Grab your Cato copy of the Declaration of Independence and carefully read it. You'll see that alot of the beef the colonials had with Britain had to do with agents of influence exercising unjust authority of the colonies. Where I draw the line is I do not think it possible for transgenerational conspiracies to exist. Today's one world opponents and what I call the tinfoil hat crowd want to believe.

Everytime my friend descends into his tinfoil hat mode I offer an alternative explanation. Ferinstance, he is convinced this insanity we call illegal immigrations is caused the by George Soros and Maurice Strong issuing orders to Dubya to erase national borders. He thinks all of congress is in on it because it has done nothing to fix the problem. My response is yes Soros and Strong may think erasing borders is a good idea, but Dubya responds to a different set of pressures. I think he is counting votes. Congress won't act because 1>they count votes also, 2>most likely everyone is congress is the beneficiary of "guided investment advice". Corporatism makes congress all quite legally participants because they are the one's who benefit when their portfolio fatten because of the economic impact of illegals immigrants.

Can I prove it? Nope! But I do know "guided investment advice" is a reality. I know precious few congressmen leave congress without have accumulated a personal nest egg. I also know corporatism infests both parties.

Am I saying congress is working against the benefit of the American voter? Yep. Is it because of the Illuminait, Trilateralists, Bilderburgers, Maurice Strong, and George Soros. Nope. It is because of good ol' fashioned filthy lucre.

 

[Justin]

Khornet hit the nail on the head.

As for those who buy whacked out conspiracy theories about black helicopters, aliens, and shady organizations of cigarrette-smoking men, well I personally chalk it all up to a faulty or improperly tuned BS detector.

 

[Wildalaska]

Lets see we have:

The Priory of Zion
The Freemasons
ITT
The Rosicrucians
The Illuminati
the UN
ZOG
The Group of 7 (or 11 or 12)

Any missing?

WildmindcontrolAlaska

 

[corncob]

I love conspiracy theories,

the great part about them is that there is no way to know whether or not they are true...

That's why they call them "theories."

I agree with Geek. We can't help but look for signal amongst the noise, and different people have very different standards of proof. The entertainment value of conspiracy pushers is limitless. I think that's the REAL reason the internet was invented.


And who can fault these people for trying to convince everyone else? If they really truly believe it, then getting the word out makes perfect sense.