Leifer
Senior Member.
Distrust in government has been around ever since someone thought a government might be a good idea.
Instant global communication via the internet, not only allows fabulous continued learning well past a person's college years, but as most of us here know, includes within it: incorrect facts, bunk science, and other pseudo-knowledge.
What I'm interested in here is.....the free-form invention and dissemination of governmental conspiracies that become true beliefs to an increasing number of people, even though there is no real evidence of such conspiracies.....via the internet.
It seems to me, in mostly all cases, these conspiracies can be called "suspicions"....but conspiracy theorists claim them to be "true".
I suppose there are different levels of belief (or disbelief):
1) There are those that only "suspect", and genuinely admit that.
2) There are others that "suspect", but announce "they know".
3) Then there are others that demand they "know", and alter their lives around that belief.
#1....is a decent segment of the population, and may alter their political views because of such suspicions, and chat-up their thoughts at the internet water cooler.
#2....these people are armchair proclaimers, the most gullible, and therefor spread the most bunk on the internet. I say they only secretly "suspect", because if they genuinely thought these things were true, they would be in the next category (3). -- (or they're just lazy.)
#3....These are the protesters, web/blog builders, and podcast/radio hosts/lecturers....who lead and spread the conspiracy ideas.
Is there a 4th ?....the truly delusional stage, that are willing to act-out criminally ?
With the majority of #2 and (all of)#3 distrusting science and true evidence, I believe this is building to an "internet mob-mentality" that is going a bit viral, and this worries me.
Here is where I am asking for your thoughts....
I have not been debunking long, but the subject interests me.
I have not delved too deeply on the mind-science of distrust (yet), so I remain open to altering my views.
Instant global communication via the internet, not only allows fabulous continued learning well past a person's college years, but as most of us here know, includes within it: incorrect facts, bunk science, and other pseudo-knowledge.
What I'm interested in here is.....the free-form invention and dissemination of governmental conspiracies that become true beliefs to an increasing number of people, even though there is no real evidence of such conspiracies.....via the internet.
It seems to me, in mostly all cases, these conspiracies can be called "suspicions"....but conspiracy theorists claim them to be "true".
I suppose there are different levels of belief (or disbelief):
1) There are those that only "suspect", and genuinely admit that.
2) There are others that "suspect", but announce "they know".
3) Then there are others that demand they "know", and alter their lives around that belief.
#1....is a decent segment of the population, and may alter their political views because of such suspicions, and chat-up their thoughts at the internet water cooler.
#2....these people are armchair proclaimers, the most gullible, and therefor spread the most bunk on the internet. I say they only secretly "suspect", because if they genuinely thought these things were true, they would be in the next category (3). -- (or they're just lazy.)
#3....These are the protesters, web/blog builders, and podcast/radio hosts/lecturers....who lead and spread the conspiracy ideas.
Is there a 4th ?....the truly delusional stage, that are willing to act-out criminally ?
With the majority of #2 and (all of)#3 distrusting science and true evidence, I believe this is building to an "internet mob-mentality" that is going a bit viral, and this worries me.
Here is where I am asking for your thoughts....
I have not been debunking long, but the subject interests me.
I have not delved too deeply on the mind-science of distrust (yet), so I remain open to altering my views.