• aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    is what makes the conspiracy theory keep being a possible conspiracy theory. 🤷

    Conspiracy theories continuing to be conspiracy theories requires no causation, because spurious theorizing in general sits outside of logic and reason.

    We still have lots of assholes who think the earth being round is a conspiracy pushed on us by big science or whatever, or that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” (presumably they don’t understand how kindling works), or that 5g causes COVID, and even bizarrely that COVID is both a Chinese conspiracy at the same time as it is a hoax and/or harmless.

    Conspiratorial thinking isn’t driven by reason, logic, or facts. It’s tolerated most by people who have no issues with and/or sense of cognitive dissonance. It’s more similar to a distributed form of cultism. It’s one of creativity’s awful cousins.

    • jarfil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re conflating “conspiratorial thinking” with “conspiracy theories”.

      Conspiracies are a real thing, they happen all the time (and most are punishable by law); conspiratorial thinking is people coming up with, and believing, conspiracies no matter how impossible they are, which is way different from actual conspiracies.

      “Conspiracy theories” just happens to be a term that can be used in both cases, it doesn’t mean all of them are impossible.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Nah, I’m not.

        Conspiratorial thinking is what gives you the bunkum conspiracy theories, and the evidence or lack thereof has nothing to do with their production.

        As far as I can tell from my reading they come more from an environment of distrust often combined with disordered thinking.

        Sure there can be actual conspiracies, but they also usually come with accompanying evidence and more than hunches, hindsight, or temporally related events.

        • jarfil@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Sure there can be actual conspiracies, but they also usually come with accompanying evidence and more than hunches, hindsight, or temporally related events.

          Evidence is what turns a “conspiracy theory” into either a “proven conspiracy” or a “debunked conspiracy”. Without the former, there would be none of the latter… not sure how is that hard to understand.

          • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Still waiting for the actual evidence behind your conjecture.

            See the thing is that logical thinking follows the evidence rather than jumping to conclusions.