legitimately curious what it is that draws people into conspiracy theories so strongly
i'm sure there have been studies about this
-F
@packbat wrong link, I think!
-F
@Felthry 🤦🏽♀️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
it's an hour and sixteen minutes long, though, so not the most convenient resource
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A lot of conspiracy theories tend to involve Big Massive Events and we've seen it argued that a lot of the conspiratorial thought comes from this feeling that
Things that changed the world and had such a massive effect can't be, say, just one guy with a firearm, that's too... small to have that much effect.
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
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.
@Felthry I don't know that it's the most elaborate explanation, but I think "In Search of a Flat Earth" from Folding Ideas - https://awoo.space/@Felthry/106246112682696608 - gets at some of functions that right-wing conspiracy theories specifically serve for the adherents
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