“In case you haven’t noticed, this site (WIRED) is currently being bombarded with a certain strand of conspiracy theorist. I’m still not entirely sure what these people believe in, apart from being absolutely certain that the government is developing brain-eating vaccines, spiking the water with lithium and trying to subdue the population with “reactive” medicine. While it’s always sad to see so much angry ignorance on parade, it’s also a fascinating case study in cognitive dissonance.
The theory of cognitive dissonance – one of most influential theories in social psychology – was pioneered by Leon Festinger, at the University of Minnesota. In the summer of 1954, Festinger was reading the morning newspaper when he encountered a short article about Marion Keech, a housewife in suburban Minneapolis who was convinced that the apocalypse was coming. Keech had started getting messages from aliens a few years before, but now the messages were getting eerily specific. According to Sananda, an extra-terrestrial from the planet Clarion who was in regular contact with Keech, human civilization would be destroyed by a massive flood at midnight on December 20, 1954.
Keech’s sci-fi prophecy soon gained a small band of followers. They trusted her divinations, and marked the date of Armageddon on their calendars. Many of them quit their jobs and sold their homes. The cultists didn’t bother buying Christmas presents or making arrangements for New Years Eve, since nothing would exist by then.
Festinger immediately realized that Keech would make a great research subject. He decided to infiltrate the group by pretending to be a true believer. What Festinger wanted to study was the reaction of the cultists on December 21, when the world wasn’t destroyed and no spaceship appeared. Would Keech recant? What would happen when her prophesy failed?
On the night of December 20, Keech’s followers gathered in her home and waited for instructions from the aliens. Midnight approached. When the clock read 12:01 and there were still no aliens, the cultists began to worry. A few began to cry. The aliens had let them down. But then Keech received a new telegram from outer space, which she quickly transcribed on her notepad. “This little group sitting all night long had spread so much light,” the aliens told her, “that god saved the world from destruction. Not since the beginning of time upon this Earth has there been such a force of Good and light as now floods this room.” In other words, it was their stubborn faith that had prevented the apocalypse. Although Keech’s predictions had been falsified, the group was now more convinced than ever that the aliens were real. They began proselytizing to others, sending out press releases and recruiting new believers. This is how they reacted to the dissonance of being wrong: by becoming even more certain that they were right.
There is, of course, something deeply troubling about cognitive dissonance, since it suggests that we double-down on our beliefs even in light of conflicting evidence. While neuroscientists have begun to decipher the anatomy of this mental flaw – you can blame your anterior cingulate cortex – I sometimes worry that the internet is making things worse. Although we’re all vulnerable to cognitive dissonance – and the paranoid style has always been a loud presence in American politics – we seem to squander ever more time on worthless conversations about Obama’s birth certificate or the spurious link between autism and vaccines. After all, thanks to Google we can find “evidence” in support of practically any belief. If you can imagine the conspiracy theory, there is a website out there ardently promoting it, and a clan of fellow believers who share your peculiar obsession with fluoridated drinking water and the New World Order. The end result is that we never have to recant. We can always find another link to “prove” that the government is trying to “zombify” us, or that aliens are going to destroy the earth at midnight.”
Read More at Wired
The funny thing about conspiracies.. some of them actually exist (gasp), most of them are certifiably bullshit, and the one’s who try the hardest to persuade you one way or the other are either con-artists or self-righteous pricks.
The thing that people miss today is the greatest conspiracy of all time, which still exists today in a greater density than any other idea. Religion.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence to prove without doubt, christianity can not be as has been portrayed for thousands of years. There is also no evidence to support religion in any way.
Yet, Christians exist in greater numbers than agnostics and Christianity is greater than Atheism.
Indeed, the catholic pope is revered to have as much political sway than elected rulers and commands greater numbers of loyal followers. Yet to believe in the existance of an almighty being is considered perfectly plausible and acceptable, but belief in alien life (a much more sound scientific belief) is nonsensed. – - THE PERFECT cognitive dissonance!
I’m not a conspiracy theoriethical, but I know them well. The conspiracy theory is not even a theory actually, but a distorted way of the skepticism. The basic idea is to distrust in the information provided by official communiqués, by the government or mainstream media, allegedly because they lie and / or conceal the truth. The problem with these people is that by not trusting any “reliable” media, they accept of good degree any alternative information, and in some way, they believe everything what any of the conspiracy theory says.
The man did not went to the moon/the moon is hollow and inhabited / the earth itself is hollow and inhabited (on the inside I mean), they are some examples of this. I think of them as religious people with the believe of having a truth to reveal. Poor them.
Forgot to say: “Sorry for my english”
The greatest conspiracy of all is that there are no conspiracies………
*weg*
All this conspiracy isn’t based upon nothing at all. Yes, much of it is wild speculation, and often far fetched/misguided. But it is very naive to just brush it off as being nonsense! Who’s word should we believe? Have you seen JFKs speech on Secret Societies? Do his words account for nothing? Was he shot… for nothing? There are things going on behind the scenes, behind closed doors that are being discussed and put into action without the peoples involvement. Our Governments are meant to be accountable to the people. Sadly, that is becoming less and less true as time goes on.
We should be opening our eyes a bit more. There is corruption in Government at the local level. It is wishful thinking to believe that our supposed representitives in Big Government are not corrupt. It is very sad.
Oh, by the way… it is worth just putting in brackets who’s site the article refers to i.e. wired. Without any introduction it reads like Derrens blog “is currently being bombarded with a certain type of conspiracy theorist”.
Otherwise it is a little confusing until you get to the end of the reprinted article.
Why not put….
“In case you haven’t noticed, this site (WIRED) is currently being bombarded with a certain strand of conspiracy theorist.
Ta
Msg from Abeo: Point taken, i’ve updated it
Governments don’t lie? So there really were WMDs in Iraq? Lumping all conspiracy theories together, as Kris said, is naive. Most are nut cases, but there are some: http://www.cracked.com/article_15974_7-insane-conspiracies-that-actually-happened.html
Do conspiracy theorists never stop to think that cospiracy theories are a conspiracy to keep the worlds conspiracy theorists occupied ?!?!?!
n ‘ – missing from the above post – sorry – it must be a conspiracy!!
Beliving JFK was not shot by a lone Oswald is not beliving in a conspiracy theory, it’s believing in the basic pyshics of projectiles in combination with the basic theory of maths that concludes three bullets do not produce multitudes of entry and exit wounds from more than three angles. To go further, it’s believing that 101 highly irregular security threatening “coincidental” changes to a President’s normally untouchable security arrangements were not actually coincidences at all.
One day Jim Garrison’s name will be honoured and the history books changed. Not any day soon though I imagine.
Did the man that came up with Scientology write that the easiest way to make money was to start a religion? Still no Jesus or moon landings, will probably tell my little monster the opposite and keep conspiricies out of my 3 year olds education.
What are chemtrails?
Did Edward Bernays invent the Beatles?
What is HAARP really used for?
Why did Stanley Kubrick make so many illusions to the “Illuminati” in Eyes Wide Shut and die 4 days after the films release?
Was there any relevance to all the Illuminati/freemason symbolism in ‘Being There’, Hal Ashbys last good movie and also Peter Sellers(freemason) last movie?
What does Derren think of Aleister Crowley?
These are just a few things I am curious about.
‘The greatest conspiracy of all is that there are no conspiracies………’
That’s what THEY want you to think!
Cognitive dissonance explains why people cling to ludicrous beliefs in the face of conflicting evidence but apophenia explains how they come up with those theories in the first place.
The ability to detect patterns in the environment helped our ancestors spot tigers in the long grass but those same mental processes can confabulate any number of fairy tales from the information-rich landscape we have made for ourselves in the 21st Century.
If conspiracy theories were true, there would be real scientists backing them up. architects and engineers for instance. Oh wait, http://www.ae911truth.org/
We NEED conspiracy theorists, just like the ones who exposed Watergate. Remember that little conspiracy?
It is when ALL conspiracy theorists are bundled together and mocked regardless of what they are actually saying that is dangerous. Most conspiracy theories have at least an element of truth somewhere. Once the rabble that is the Internet gets hold of that truth, it sometimes gets lost.
I am PROUD to be a Conspiracy Theorist. Without people like me asking questions, the compliant, gullible masses, who blindly trample along behind whatever political agenda their leaders tell them, would be well and truly enslaved by now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Min1RzbRYMo
My theory is the vast majority of conspiracy theorists are people, who by their own standards, are under-achievers. They have seen their elders and peers and even their juniors excel in popularity or success. They have once too often been overlooked. They fail to reason objectively and say, I should be more co-operative, I should present my ideas more effectively, I need to improve at such and such. Instead they reason that there is something more sinister at work. These, powerful, popular people move in secret circles that I should be a part of but am not. Soon they see the same pattern everywhere and before you know it your successful neighbour is in fact (drum roll please) a reptile! People should research more, enquire more, observe more within and without and attach themselves to ideas less frequently.
is it normal for a financier, Nathan rothschild, to holiday with Mandelson and George Osborne and then threaten to destroy the supposed third most powerful politician (Osborne) ? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1079169/Osborne-criticised-David-Davis-Corfu-meeting-Mandelson.html
“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.” David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991.
@Amadán Mór This is a bit of a vague all-encompassing surmising of conspiracy theorists… I may be wrong, but I don’t think all conspiracy theorists believe EVERYTHING is somehow sinister and dark. However, faced with holey evidence and, with the benefit of much historical hindsight, thankfully some dreadful ‘conspiracy theories’ have come to light and been proven, shaming our ‘democratic’ and not so democratic governments. Take the blinkers off and investigate I’d say to anyone.
Oh, and I still think this is a vague piece by Wired.
In response to the Wired piece http://bit.ly/9ocwBt THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CONSPIRACY DENIAL
A lucid and robust explanation as to why conspiracy theories are formed and persist- of course, I’d expect nothing less from the High Magus Abominator of the Obliteron Empire.
I’m on to you scum, you think I wouldn’t notice? If you take that article, swap some letters round, add some, and take some away, it reads “All Humantiy will be enslaved by 2004″. Some people might point out that this date has already come and gone, but that’s all part of the plan isn’t it? What better way to lull us into a false sense of security? Fortunately I’ve discovered a way to beat them-the Obliterons have secreted the password to their database in our financial system, and all the people of earth need to do is email me their PIN numbers- I’ll handle the rest.
I have been reseaching Conspiracy and the Psycology of..for thesis to school. I must say I am having a very hard time with so MUCH info… SO MANY conspiracy theorists and theories… I am overwhelmed….
What’s the Italian movie in which two brothers around 1865 have a conversation in which one argues that human liberty has been advanced by secret societies (he is member of the Carbonari) while his brother favours openness and political parties?
When conspiracies succeed they cease to be conspiracies. From the Russian Democratic Revolution of February to the Soviet Coup in October 1917, the Bolsheviks came out of the shadows and set up a parallel state. Then after a putsch and a civil war they called it a revolution. Was it a revolution?
An interesting aspect of alien thing is how quickly it became a religion then split into sects! This shows that other religions could have been and probably were radically different right at the start and within one generation whoosh different.
only one criticism, The New World Order is fact research US presidential speeches