Republic of Lies: the rise of conspiratorial thinking and the actual conspiracies that fuel it

boing
21

For some reason, my mind has lately been drawn to that section in the old Time-Life Nature book, The Sea where they give a detailed breakdown of the efforts to mine manganese nodules from the deep sea floor.

Which -I learned several decades later- was just a cover story for the attempted recovery of a submarine. So my 6 year old mind had a hole punched in it, just big enough to fit a military conspiracy.

Which has never really been replaced with the truth. Today I am wondering if there really ever was manganese nodules on the ocean floor, or maybe that was just part of the cover story.

Thats pretty small potatoes when it comes to gaslighting, but it makes Arab Spring easier to understand, when you see gaslighted citizens finally hear the truth about what the empire thinks of their regime.

Basically, people who insist that we have a robust, effective journalistic infrastructure, have a higher burden of proof to meet, than those who feel that its all a matter of opinion and nothing really matters.

With enough noise, emotional exhaustion, deliberate misinformation, you can force people to choose the conspiracy theory that is least painful to believe. Occam’s razor can bolster lies just as well at truth, if truth is in short supply.

9 Likes
22

This cuts to the heart of it. Especially since, at the time, there was so much ignorance and misinformation floating around, and people with HIV/AIDS were suffering in unnecessary ways, being abused by a medical system that was supposed to care for them. Between homophobia (which existed long before the crisis) and the fact that AIDS = death was the reality, things were goddamn ugly. Add thereal world conspiracy that secret experiments had been conducted on black people and the exposure of CIA-driven MK-Ultra and suddenly the theory that gay men were targets of something similar seems much more plausible.

Doesn’t mean it’s real, but a lot more plausible than a flat-earth or faking the moon landings and everything else since.

5 Likes
23

Have come to suspect that among the many potential contributing factors mentioned in the article - and in the comments, we should also be including neurochemical components in the analysis (particularly increases in (non-endogenous) modifications of these). The opioid crisis being top of mind.

I think I would have dismissed or downgraded the significance of this notion as further alarmist type thinking prior to an experience I had a couple of years ago.

After getting injured and requiring a bit of reconstruction, I got to experience life on heavy duty pain-killers 24 hours a day for about a week and a half. Never having had much experience with these particular compounds recreationally, (but being no stranger to other mind-altering chemicals) - aside from the blissful haze that masked the throbbing excruciating sensation of digital dismemberment, I noticed an entirely unexpected and subtly disturbing effect in my shifted mental state. This was most noticeable when reading pages of text, (got a fair amount of reading in while convalescing). When scanning a page - my brain would occasionally badly misinterpret a word, (this was a little weird, but kind of unremarkable on it’s own). The weirder part was, under the effects of the drugs I found that my brain was willing to accept these complete non- sequiturs without much question. (understand W. Burroughs better now though).

(from adjacent, related thread (Why do people believe the Earth is flat? - #7 by tuhu)) @Pseudothink :

IANAP, but based on these self-observations and the framing mentioned there, it seems plausible that euphoric mental states could correlate with decreased criticality, (granted in the anecdote stated it’s a bit of a gross generalization (very low sample size)), but I can’t help wondering whether there is some casual chain between the profits of Purdue and who we’ve got in the oval office.

4 Likes
24

Very well put.

1 Like
25

Right!?! Another crazy question that that story surfaces is - how did James Cameron know enough about it to coincidentally weave it into the basis of the plot of The Abyss in the late 80’s?

26

Agree with @burllamb. Much of this is essentially gaslighting, and ironic in the ‘would-be-funny-if’ way.

Gaslighting - there is no mafia, Enron conspiracy, or Oliver North. Anyone who thinks otherwise just needs a rest.

Irony - the CIA literally wrote this playbook. Annoyed that the Warren Commission hadnt sealed the deal on Oswald acting alone, in 1967 the CIA developed guidelines on how to gaslight ‘conspiracy theorists’. Although this has been declassified for decades, the methodology is still in use. A handy overview via Esquire:

We’re currently being treated to a conspiracy theory battle royale. On Side A is the theory that Trump conspired with Russian officials to influence the election. On Side B is the theory that Russiagate was weaponized, if not invented, by team Podesta / Mook. And conspirators in the DOJ tried to derail Trump’s campaign. Side B says Side A adherents are Conspiracy Theorists. Side A says Side B adherents are Conspiracy Theorists. Side C says that Trump conspired with Saudi Arabia. Other sides have other ideas. With the Ukraine information, sides are forming and realigning as we speak.

In a world where 1,600 German scientists were secretly and successfully brought to the US after WWII to counterbalance the Soviet Union, maybe we do all just need a rest.

3 Likes
27

A very detailed first person account with names, locations and dates of this conspiracy was spread through ECHO forums and text file uploads to BBS’s, and I remember reading it. My high school biology teacher could not dispute it. At the time, still very young, the CIA creation of AIDS within a lab myth/conspiracy theory seemed possible. It’s really unfortunate when these conspiracy myths are spread to young people, or people who have a low capacity to apply the critical thought needed to evaluate the plausibility of such theories—especially before the truth has been clearly revealed and accepted.

2 Likes
28

They started writing the books as an outlet for all the kooky letters they were reading as editors at Playboy - the idea being to stuff all the craziest consipacy theories into one book.

3 Likes
29

The kind of thinking that disturbs me the most is the “That can’t be true, because if it was, we’d have to do something to stop it. We are not doing anything to stop it (i.e. climate change, subversion of democracy) therefore it can’t be happening.” I hear that style of argument from a lot of nominally smart people.

2 Likes
30

I’ve been disappointed to learn people I actually respected have bought into nutty 9/11 conspiracies like the “controlled demolition” nonsense.

This one really irks me not just because it shows people are unable to discern credible sources from non-credible ones (for example, the vast majority of architects and engineers who have looked at the evidence and concluded the buildings suffered cataclysmic structural failure from the impacts & fires vs. the tiny minority of architects and engineers who say otherwise). It also shows that people can’t even follow through a basic thought experiment: “if I had the motive and resources to fake a huge terrorist attack, why blow up buildings with bombs but try to make it look like they’d been destroyed by airplanes? Wouldn’t it be far easier to either A) just blame terrorists for the bombs or B) carry out a real hijacking and blame the terrorists for that?”

5 Likes
31

…

This is why I wish more of the surveys on this subject made it clear who is responding to the questions. Are there differences in results based on gender? Do responses vary in different age ranges/stages of life or ethnicity? The identity of “The Other” depends on the identity of the “normal person.”

I could ask a group of women and The Other might be men in positions of power. That group influences their world. In the past year, articles geared toward Millennials have described Boomers as The Other responsible for the problems in their world. With the Haves vs. Have Nots, groups that have traditionally had power see The Other in any group that might reduce or eliminate their influence.

2 Likes
32

CALLED IT

3 Likes
33

Another factor for the spread of the theory was that it was part of a massive disinformation operation by Stasi and KGB - The New York Times has a nice video on Operation Infektion.

So there’s your meta-conspiracy theory, that conspiracy theories are often disinformation created by the powerful for their own ends. CIA assassinating JFK, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Birtherism…

4 Likes
34

Because the story was well known by then? The NYT wrote about the plan to raise the submarine in 1975. Like most real things that are considered “conspiracies”, it didn’t stay secret very long.

2 Likes
35

I don’t intend to come across as clever. Like you I was too young to properly assess the facts or come up with a reasoned refusal of the theory.
I just observed how emotionally gratifying it was to believe in it for those who did believe, and based my scepticism on that.

On the same note, while never really believing in the controlled demolition theory I recall finding it quite compelling at the time. I realize now that this was also an intensely stressful period in my life so there’s that.

1 Like
36

I think it is all down to arseholes; that we live in a world created by and for Alpha Personalities, right back to the Stone Age. A self-perpetuating “Man Up” culture that views self-reflection as weakness.

The simple impracticality of the “plot” seems enough that it should be unbelievable. Either, THEY were able to get a demolition team in to the two towers, going floor by floor, drilling load bearing structures and packing them with explosives connected by huge amounts of primer-cord (I doubt it would be a good idea to be using wireless detonators in a signal rich environment like Manhattan); or else tall buildings are all pre-wired for demolition in case of a catastrophic fire (I’ve read this as an explanation), in which case every major architect and building contractor is in on some multi-decade conspiracy that has remained totally secret… However, architects and building contractors are all linked to the Masons, right…?

2 Likes
37

Interesting! Had no idea there was such a crazy escapade beyond the more well known “Glomar Response” scenario.

38

Also fertilizing the field of conspiracy theories is the dishonesty of the establishment press.
Not Trump’s fake news a/k/a facts that make him look bad, but crap like legitimatizing Trump as well as decades of supporting the GOP where policies of exploitation and mass impoverishment and militarism that has nothing to do with national security. The coverage of the post-2008 recovery has been so dishonest – i.e. that there was a recovery for the masses good enough to be correctly called a recovery – that I’d dare say it helped push some voters into voting for Trump.
And let’s not get into the “both sides” bullshit. Undercutting their own reporting is, literally, by design.
They can’t save our democracy because they support the opponents of our democracy.
Point being that when the mainstream is so full of shit that the un- and poorly informed suspect something, of course conspiracies are easily found credible. And to reference one of Cory’s examples: By never really exposing as it were what happened in Mississippi in 1927, it’s simple to believe such a thing occurs again and again and again. (Of course continuing racism helps.)
And you can also add poor education so people don’t recognize BS when it’s thrown in their faces, such as the dopes that voted for Trump hopefully. I mean, anyone who couldn’t tell he’s per se garbage has problems (and now we all do!).

2 Likes
39

Matt Taibbi points out that the worst conspiracies (and the most blatantly-fake news) are all done out in the daylight. Few conspiracies in fiction could be worse than the Iraq War, or the Bank Collapse; and we watched both of those get set up before our eyes, with ignored voices saying “this will end badly”.

What really gets me is that the movie “Shock and Awe” was all about how that happened, how a few newspapers, non-partisan and respected, were hauling out the Iraq War lies about WMD. It wasn’t that they were attacked or denigrated, just not listened to.

Then at the end of the movie, the real Warren Strobel and Jon Landay are shown on a CNN “ten years later” thing in 2013, asked if they’d had anybody since bringing them out to say “hey, these guys were right all along”. Both shrugged, and Landay said, “actually, except for you in this show now, nobody”.

And to cap it all off:

Box Office
Budget:$18,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend USA: $45,856, 15 July 2018
Gross USA: $77,980
Cumulative Worldwide Gross: $182,415

…nobody wanted to see the movie pointing that out. A 99% loss on the investment is pretty spectacular for a movie with all those major stars participating.

I would call the “Iraq War Lies” conspiracy about 100% successful at this point.

The Great Bank Conspiracy, supported by two administrations and four Congresses, might suffer a backlash of sorts if Warren manages to pass some really significant financial legislation, but, a Warren win is uncertain and the legislation unlikely. But, as for “backlash” in the form of any suffering for the thieves, it’s another 100% success.

3 Likes
40

Crooked Media (the Pod Save America folks), have a new series of podcasts on conspiracy theories, at least one of which includes an interview with Merlan. Good stuff.
https://crooked.com/podcast-series/crooked-minis/