legitimately curious what it is that draws people into conspiracy theories so strongly
i'm sure there have been studies about this
-F
semi-deep dive
John Oliver did an interesting deep dive on Conspiracy Theories last year, and at one point he discusses something called "Proportionality Bias", which is the tendency for people to believe that big events must have big causes.
As an example, take the JFK assassination vs the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. The idea of a lone gunman singlehandedly causing such a major world event is unsatisfying, but the idea of someone failing miserably isn't even remotely surprising. This is why you don't really hear conspiracy theories about the Reagan incident, but JFK conspiracy theories are kinda cliche.
If you wanna go down the rabbit hole with this, we highly recommend watching that John Oliver video and digging into the sources used. (https://youtu.be.com/0b_eHBZLM6U CW: Covid-centric)
re: semi-deep dive
@The1AndMany i don't think we know much about assassination conspiracy theories, are there ones around the jfk assassination?
-F
re: semi-deep dive
@Felthry
Yup, though we haven't really paid attention for obvious reasons. They're so common that it was a joke on Criminal Minds at one point.