Listen to Experts

I came across the most astonishing article I have seen in recent memory by far. In this article, the writer implores us to, in summary, simply trust what scientists say and never attempt to come to our own conclusions. To be fair, the article is accurate in its description of "how we come to conclusions". The writer accurately describes the typical method through which we make conclusions, not just about science but about anything, really. Spoiler, it doesn't include "thoughtful and unbiased contemplation of both sides":

 

• formulating an initial opinion the first time we hear about something, 
• evaluating everything we encounter after that through that lens of our gut instinct, 
• finding reasons to think positively about the portions of the narrative that support or justify our initial opinion, 
• and finding reasons to discount or otherwise dismiss the portions that detract from it.
  

The fact of the matter is that we are actually driven first and foremost by our preexisting biases. The good news is that our preexisting biases are usually based on experience, pattern recognition, and survival instincts - these are actually all good things. Without these intuitions, you would make terrible decisions every day about an astonishing number of things. Our logical reasoning process is inseparably tied to our "emotional cognition", which is to say, how things make us feel, which we construct based on living day to day. This might feel icky to you if you regard yourself as an enlightened, rational thinker - which, funnily enough, is a fantastic example of our emotional, preexisting biases influencing our opinions on things. Amazing.

 

The largest flaw that the article has is ironically this exact explanation. The implication it attempts to make is that scientists - either through will power or kung-fu-master-like discipline - suppress their emotional cognition, their "formulation of an initial opinion the first time they hear something" step, as listed above. It may be surprising to you, but scientists are people, too.

As a church-goer, I have long understood that my religious teachers are not exempt from the same plagues of us common rabble. The priests and pastors are not magically more righteous and free from the temptations suffered by the rest of us. It appears that scientism worshipers - those who have made science their religion and scientists their priests - have yet to recognize that. My pastors have always encouraged me to read my bible and check behind them after a sermon, and yet the priests of scientism are doing what anti-theists accused the priests of old of doing to the peasantry - forbidding them from reading the source material, perhaps even hiding it behind a paywall, or at least writing it in a language that is difficult for the peasant class to read. The resemblance is striking, scarily so.

The second implication, then, if the first is that scientists can avoid their gut instincts influencing everything they interpret about a subject from that point forward, is that the peasantry cannot manage to recognize when their initial gut instinct was wrong. Indeed, the main idea here, in any other words, is that people who are not scientists are stupid, illogical, slaves to their biases, incapable of analyzing information like the esteemed scientist caste. Somewhere, in the process of being educated how to use lab tools and publish scientific studies, amongst the scramble to create a dissertation in order to cement your place in the union and continue to receive funding, a steadfast, mental acuity toward bias-rejection is magically instilled into the scientist - the creature who is identical in every way to the plumber or janitor. 

Of course, the article continues with some more amazing assumptions, which is to outright say we are all far too stupid to understand scientific data. A nebulous concept of "expertise" is invoked, insisting that scientists who study established scientific facts for awhile in between coaching on the politics and financial workings of actually being a scientist are naturally smarter than any given person. The implication here, of course, is that "professional" education via college makes you an expert. It is, as we all know, actually impossible to research anything online, the place where infinite knowledge is available to everyone who would seek it. Teaching yourself anything is, as we all know, literally impossible, a fevered dream of a madman, a person seeking to be their own teacher. Obviously, teachers are also magically better people, as they also had professional education. Normal, stupid people do not know anything. Indeed, anyone who is smart enough to be a scientist is already a scientist. No one who is smart is not a scientist, so we must assume anyone not a scientist is too stupid to understand things. The magical status of "being a scientist" is truly powerful. 

This particular line from the article is striking: "It’s absolutely foolish to think that you, a non-expert who lacks the very scientific expertise necessary to evaluate the claims of experts, are going to do a better job than the actual, bona fide experts of separating truth from fiction or fraud."

Astounding. The writer makes no attempt to avoid calling you stupid. The average prole is beaten down, an emotion-driven attack on their confidence and trust of their grasp on reality. Here, us peasants are gaslit against every conclusion we have ever come to through a logical analysis. 

The article has more to say, of course, about how misinformation becomes embedded in our minds. It speaks about vaccines and how, as we all know, there are people against vaccines, and thus, people who do not get vaccines. Within a paragraph about this, there is a very, very important line. The author creates a problem that I do not think he knows about. The following sentence reads, emphasis mine:

But if you “do your own research,” you can find a small percentage of online activists, and even a few medical professionals, who rail against the overwhelming science, pushing discredited claims, fear, and often unproven cures or supplements as well. 

 

Ah, but wait, I thought any scientist who dedicated years of their life to college education to acquire that magical scientific expertise was reliable? The problem inherent in the "trust the experts" mantra blares out of this line, a small dependent clause the author likely should have simply left out, but perhaps his own dedication to "appearing unbiased" caused him to reveal this flaw in his argument. The article states outright that people who are scientists have expertise. At no point in the beginning paragraphs does the author shed doubt on the concept that we can "trust the experts" (but not ourselves) because they have that mystical expertise. They, of course, got that expertise from years of scientific study. The medical professionals here, then, surely have the same accredited, respectable expertise as any other given scientist.

Except, clearly, the author does not think that. The author believes that only certain experts are actually reliable, while these "few medical professionals", for some reason, are not trustworthy. Why are they not trustworthy? Where is the difference between the college educated experts who agree with the author and the college educated experts who disagree with the author?

They are not to be considered trustworthy because they have gone against the majority opinion. This is not a conspiracy but an easily logically discernible conclusion. Allow me to lay it out easily for you:

1. There is a "majority opinion" where many scientists agree on Thing X
2. Scientist A says "I don't believe Thing X is true"
3. The majority opinion holders accuse Scientist A of not being a trustworthy expert, because they have said Thing X is wrong, and the majority opinion holders say it is right

Genuinely, no smoke and mirrors, the only thing that is happening here is "appeal to the majority". The author betrays their own assertions from the beginning with this quip here. If scientists can be trusted because they are experts, because they have graduated from college in their field, then we must trust when Scientist A says they don't believe Thing X is true. If we cannot, then, logically, there is no magical aspect of scientists that makes them any more reliable than anyone else. If Scientist A's expertise and scientific training did not magically teach them Thing A is true, then the author must admit, at the very least, that either 1. Thing A could be false, or 2. Being a scientist doesn't make you capable of magically divining the truth. (The trick is that both are true.) 

 

Furthermore, when disagreeing with the majority opinion causes irreparable harm to your career, causes your credentials to be revoked, and permanently brands you as a "dangerous lunatic" whenever your name is mentioned in the public sphere, the validity of the "majority opinion" should rightly be called into question. The entire history of scientific advancement came from the fact that people challenged the status quo. Imagine if we executed the first guy to question humorism. Imagine indeed, as all scientists would then agree unanimously with humorism, since the alternative is execution. We would still practice humorism today, even if a large number of people had a strong suspicion that it wasn't true. It's almost like this is not how science is supposed to be used.

The fact of the matter is that, in every single way, scientists are exactly like everyone else. Scientists are subject to their biases, they are subject to ingroup preference. They can be bought and sold, they will manipulate data to serve their own agendas, they will ignore evidence that goes against their beliefs. Absolutely nothing about being a scientist makes a regular human, subject to all the extensive mental faults that plague every other human, some sort of superhuman power thinker.

You may wonder, then, what are we to do? Surely, even if "expertise" from professionally educated scientists isn't perfect, it's better than nothing, yes? Well, unfortunately, it may be literally impossible to know what to believe. That's just my opinion, anyway. Stay tuned if you'd like to know why.

An article I read several years ago actually tells us exactly how big science is broken. An exact oppositely titled article says science is not broken, but they both actually make the same point. "Science" as a system, as a "corporation" so to speak, is nearly irreparably corrupted. 

 

The first article cites a "replication crisis" (simply view the actual article for details) wherein an overwhelming number of studies have not been or cannot be replicated. Replication, if you know things about the scientific process, is the method through which we confirm that a scientific finding is accurate. If you run a study and get a certain result, but can never get that particular result again, we can be nearly certain that the first result was "a fluke" and not, say, a scientific "rule" of reality. That means an overwhelming number of studies appear by every measure to be flukes. That would be like believing walking under a ladder was bad luck because exactly one time that you did it, you broke your wrist five hours later on the same day. That is, by all accounts, an exact parallel to believing the results of a scientific study that cannot be replicated.

If that weren't enough, there is evidence that scientists regularly engage in outright lying, or fraud as it were. This was done via a survey where they simply asked scientists if they had engaged in unethical acts, such as selectively choosing results that supported their beliefs, or straight up fabricating data. Considering such admissions mean that the scientists are admitting to doing things that are bad we can only assume the number is actually higher, as we can safely assume not everyone was keen to admit wrongdoing, even if the survey is anonymous.

Finally, the icing on the cake, the peer-review process that is supposed to weed out faulty data before studies get published? It's compromised, too. Even when scientists knew they were being tested via faulty studies, they still rubber stamped them for approval. The social-aspect failures continue, with an explanation that older scientists are as superstitiously embroiled into whatever their original biases were as any irrational religious zealot, resulting in younger scientists needing to submit to whatever the more established scientists say, or risk losing their union membership. There are even more articles about how peer-review is abused, citing new and exciting ways scientists are ruining science, including the practice of letting scientists choose the people who will peer-review their work. To believe this wouldn't be abused would be to quite literally put scientists on a pedestal, above any other given human, assuming all scientists are naturally, unwaveringly ethical and working from a mindset of advancing scientific progress rather than their own paychecks and status (or that it's not possible for them to convince themselves they're doing both).

There are plenty more astonishing facts about the state of "big science" in that article, but I'd like to move onto the second article. Herein we find a new sort of excuse for the absolutely destitute state of modern science, and that is - and bear with me - that science is very hard.

The article makes an excellent point - and supplies an interactive little chart, even! - that shows how easy it is to manipulate data to say whatever you want. Given we know that some scientists admit to fudging data to support their claims via a voluntary survey, it should not be surprising that it is as easy as the interactive data chart makes it appear. And that's the part that this article claims is "hard" - it's hard to work with such small numbers, such small differences, and not only find valuable, useful data, but interpret it responsibly. In fact, the only way to recognize if the conclusions pushed by scientists are merely borderline-statistically-insignificant manipulated data is to, phew, do our own research.

But wait, I'm not even done. Here is an article that discusses how a "phantom reference" infiltrated hundreds of otherwise real scientific papers. The reference in question is from a paper that is not real but was still managed to be cited 480 times. It goes on to discuss how most scientists who write papers and make citations do not even read the cited works, they simply cite works other scientists have cited, almost a game of "citation telephone" wherein you wind up with papers making claims and citing sources wherein the claim made is not written. Later in the article we find the approximation that "only about 20% of citers read the original". 

 

This means that those scientists we are supposed to essentially trust with our very lives are possibly manipulating data, lying, simply kowtowing to majority opinion for brownie points, or referencing studies they have not even read - or are reading papers that reference other studies that are nonexistent.

So what are we to do? It is, frankly, a bit much to expect the everyday person, the average Joe, to do painstaking research about so many things. The fact of the matter is that many people do simply "trust the experts", as the alternative is much more difficult. We often do not want to take our lives into our own hands, hoping a confident, trustworthy authority figure, looking out for our best interests, will simply tell us what is best. The fact of the matter is that there is no one looking out for our best interests. The experts do not care about us, they do not even care about the truth. I have been let down by doctors, people paid to care for my health, multiple times. Many people report doctors dismissing their problems and people have even died for it. Medical malpractice is an incredible killer. Those same pompous, educated "experts" in the form of scientists are no more interested in your health and well being. Scientists are bought and sold like anyone else, dissenting views are suppressed and attacked regardless of the validity of their methods. The only way to truly get a grasp on things is to explicitly do our own research.

Unfortunately, it will be pretty difficult to do even that. If the data is compromised, that means any research your look at could be compromised. This includes dissenting opinions. Yes, what I'm saying is all scientific research is suspect and it's nearly impossible to know which scientists lied or manipulated their data for their own ends. Regarding things we could not possibly hope to research ourselves, like whether the arctic is shrinking, we truly can have no idea what is the honest truth. 

 

In fact, a very interesting tweet I came across explained this problem well, but maybe without realizing it. The OP laments that it's nearly impossible to do research because there's conflicting data everywhere with no way of telling who is "trustworthy" or not. They ignorantly - but innocently enough - "miss the days of Encylopedia Brittanica". The ending sentence of the tweet shows that they miss the point - there was likely always dissenting science by any number of opponents to the majority consensus, but because all of our information was compiled into name brand books which were then the main staple of libraries across the country, no one knew about it. Now any dissenting scientist can publish their work and get noticed. This seems like a new problem, but it actually discounts the fact that dissenting scientific opinions could be right, and thus, the majority opinion in Encyclopedia Brittanica, may actually not reflect reality, but a misled majority opinion based in nepotism and brown-nosing. If we only had "majority opinion enforced" encyclopedias today, I can only imagine how much worse the status-and-money-grabbing state of science would be. In a way, allowing dissenting scientists a platform may actually be healthier for truth-seeking than it is unhealthy, though I'm not sure it's salvageable at all at this point, frankly.

 

There is good news, though it may not seem like it at first. Most things do not actually matter. It actually, despite the outcry and controversy, doesn't matter if you think the earth is flat. What difference does it truly make to you, the average person, if pluto is a planet? It is not important. I think, however, for the things that matter, we can get a pretty good idea of what is right. Unfortunately, one of the kinds of things that is very important to the average person is notoriously one of the most difficult things to research, and that is nutrition science. If you are going to dedicate hours of research into anything, don't worry about planets and icebergs - figure out what the food you are putting into your own body every day is doing to you. What is most amazing about this type of research isn't simply that it is applicable, but due to your very close, personal relationship with yourself, nutrition science is something you can easily study with the consent of the subject. You can, in fact, employ bona fide, grade-A science to your own life by making alterations to your diet and paying attention to the results! Amazing. In a real way, the science that truly matters to us is the most accessible, as it is personally testable.

It may never be possible for us to know particular things for certain, as science as an institution has been compromised. The things that personally affect us the most, however, we can figure out ourselves by utilizing the actual scientific process that professional scientists have left behind in favor of social status and wealth accumulation. You can lie about climate science all day and the average person cannot actually contest you with data of their own, only the data from other scientists. You cannot lie to someone about what certain foods are doing to them - they will find out on their own. What's important is not "listening to experts" but learning the mechanisms and functions behind what "science" actually is and applying them where it matters in your own life.

It's important to recognize that we do have biases, but it's also important to understand that our gut instincts are there for a reason. In this day and age, with the complete degradation of trust in "expert opinion", I would argue that you are better off trusting your gut instincts and your own judgements. Both systems are flawed, but at least you have your best interests in mind, where we cannot say as much for "the experts".

Purity Spiraling

Purity spiraling is a term that gained mainstream usage during the infamous gamergate days. It is defined quite well by urban dictionary here, where more or less it is the practice of trying to be "more pure" than the others in your ingroup, accompanied by everyone else doing the same, until nuance has been pummeled into a broken heap upon the ground. While the term was used to describe the behavior as it was perpetrated by those on the progressive side of things during the great gamergate controversy (and whether it existed before then, I couldn't tell you), any group can experience this, since "purity" in this case is described by the ideology of the group in question. If you're in an alt-right circle, a purity spiral may occur because one of your group chat friends is disgusted that you aren't fully onboard with a full and complete forcible deportation of all non-white people from the country. Another group chat member responds that the only true position is to execute them all, of course, and the purity spiral begins to see who is the most pure racist. By the end of the spiral, (which could take place over a day or over weeks) the ingroup's collective views become more extreme (another documented concept called "group polarization") and anyone who espouses a view short of total execution of non-whites is kicked out. Interestingly, the results vary - as it is equally possible for people to leave the movement due to this behavior as it is for them to become more radicalized and embroiled within it.

Purity spiraling also describes quite well the entirety of the progressive movement. The movement itself subsides off of a constant state of purity spiraling - everyone involved must move increasingly further left, the group itself imagining that it's modestly "solidly left" but no more, while they have long been advancing further left. In the same process, people who have been stagnantly moderate for twenty years become dangerous reactionaries in the eyes of the progressive movement as they continue to become further entrenched in being the wokest possible, accepting no less than complete and total purity within whatever their current metrics happen to be at the time.

 

From the outside looking in, it was truly bizarre to see opinions begin to pop up that, for example, it was not possible for a black man to rape a white woman, as rape is an expression of power, and black men as a group do not have power while white women do, thus any unwelcomed sexual interaction between these groups could not "legally" be considered rape. Everyone is supposed to understand that the concept of "power" as it relates to institutions and societal organization is different from the physical "power" one uses over another physically weaker person to commit rape, but that nuance was lost, here, because as a rule, critical theory disregards the individual and analyzes them only as a member of their hierarchical group. Hence the practice of viciously assaulting nuance until the bloody mess is unrecognizable - even nuance as simple and generally well understood as the concept that words can have two separate definitions that mean different things.

The fact of the matter is that, due to critical theory, these wild positions were inevitable. Back in the good ol' days, purity spiraling used to happen in relation to whether, for example, it was okay to say "retard". It seemed very justifiable to say, well, we simply cannot say rude words that denigrate a group of people, as it is impolite. The progressive movement's purity spiraling toward the consensus that it was not okay to say any mean words progressed to people finding the root usages of words like "dumb" and saying they were rude because they referred to people who could not speak, a disadvantaged group. This occurred over several years to the point where it's now very obviously not okay to say any even slightly maligned word - including words in different languages which are not rude at all, but sound rude in English. This seems like it should be something that is wrong to say is wrong, because now we're maligning a foreign language. The problem, of course, is that nuance was obliterated many years ago. Now we are running out of things to devolve into screaming outrage over, so words in other languages that sound like bad words in our language are the new purity vogue. The purity spiral from five years back has escalated into a purity tornado and it has torn through a very significant portion of our language.

Unfortunately, the purity spiral continues still. They have run out of words to designate rude after we removed half the English vernacular from acceptable usage. The purity spiraling must continue, however, as a rule, because that's a bare basic tenant of the progressive movement - progress, somewhere, anywhere, as long as you're moving somewhere (even if it's a descent into madness itself) you're progressing. Critical theory posits that if oppression exists, it must be because of existing power structures, and language is considered one of our social power structures. Thus, since oppression continues to exist, everything is suspect. This is also why everything is also white supremacy.

The problem for the average person who desires to be seen as a progressive member of the current leftism cult is that the purity spiral is nonsensical, and while they confidently agree with it, they usually do not actually have a justifiable reason for it. A member of the progressive ingroup thus often falls prey to the constant state of purity tornado that is whirling all around them, saying something they think will be acceptably pure, only to be accosted by the progressive wolves that what they have said was actually decidedly unwoke. We see here that David Hogg - a staunch gun control advocate - says something that makes complete sense as far as what his ideology is. He decries violent protests and gun usage, because he is for gun control. It is a sentiment that would probably have made it through without contesting in 2016, but because we are so far gone within the depths of the spiral, it was an offensive statement.

What's happening to the average, milquetoast progressive - the ones who are on board merely because they align most closely to them and would be aghast at being on the same side as any right-wing group - are losing their grasp of what is good and what is bad due to the chaos sewn by the overarching, constant state of purity whirlwind on which the progressive movement is centered. The progressive leftism cult resides within the eye of the purity tornado. As the tornado moves around - or, progresses, as it were - those who are unable to gauge the direction of the storm are caught in the winds. The eye itself becomes smaller and more difficult to find refuge in as people are no longer able to understand the terms of the purity whirlwind, where darlings of the mainstream left like David Hogg are suddenly attacked for views they've held without issue this entire time.

It should be obvious that the most recent developments as to what is good and what is bad were simply not always so. It is a clear progression from "it's certainly wrong to say retard, can we as a community please stop saying such offensive words," to "foreign words that sound offensive are fireable offenses". The problem is that not all the people within the group are fully cognizant that this is what has been happening, as they have - this entire time - merely been coasting along, cautiously taking social cues from their fellow progressives as to what was problematic or acceptable. The followers of popular leftism that are simply not sufficiently woke enough are being exposed by their own inability to keep up with the trajectory path of the purity tornado. These people are more or less imposter members of the woke mob - aligning with them out of necessity, since they would be sick to be perceived for even a moment as being anywhere other than solidly left.

A small interlude to this post, the inspiration in fact for it, is this thread seen here. What is essentially being said, here, is what I've pointed out. The "imposters" of the progressive movement reside there by necessity, attempting to take hints from the woke mob as to what is acceptable or not, hoping to blend in long enough to be "safe". It seems unnecessarily dramatic to word it this way - that they are almost hiding, even afraid to be judged as insufficiently woke, but that is the fact of the matter. Being perceived as right wing - or holding even a marginally right-of-center idea - gets you decidedly labeled a Nazi and white supremacist, something that the leftism ingroup sees as not simply bad, but devastating. They themselves view anyone right of center as being a literal monster, lacking any sense of humanity or empathy, the result of successful "dehumanization of the enemy" - a common tactic used during times of war to lessen the innate horror of murdering human beings. They could not bear to be considered anything less than a progressive or it would open them to attack, so they seek to avoid it as they would an electrical shock. They are aligned enough with progressiveness that they feel the same way about conservatives as the extremist radical progressive left does, but they are essentially fearful lemmings, attempting daily to navigate the winds of the purity tornado and avoid being thrown into the storm for a bad take.

They do not know why they believe what they do, they merely know that they must believe it or they will lose all they have accumulated by being a progressive grifter. The purity spiraling which was more or less intuitive before - words that are offensive are bad, respect all non-white culture, America is not the center of the world - are thrown into disarray now. It's impossible to know which "woke" position is going to be win out - do we respect a foreign language or condemn it for sounding like a slur in our language? Each progressive adherent wakes up not knowing whether their previously held convictions - gun violence is always bad - will be attacked for not accounting for people of color's utilization of power through violence, or some other concept that gained popularity the day before. No one knows whats going on anymore, an ideological chaos that is indiscernible to the average, typically consistent and thoughtful person. 

 

The intuitive positions - obviously it's wrong to judge non-white people's culture (which language is part of) - are in direct conflict with chaotic positions, such as how maligning a foreign language for sounding like an English slur most assuredly would be an "America is the center of the world" thought process, which we thought was wrong, but now it's okay, for this situation, but why is unknown. The progressivism cult will post hoc rationalize why it was wrong to say a foreign word that sounded like a slur, thus making up new "cues" that the imposters will try to mimic later, only to find in a similar but minutely different scenario, this argument loses out to yet another post hoc rationalization. All progressivism outrage is ultimately immediate, unquestionable feelings-based reactions and by its very nature cannot be discerned through logical pattern recognition.

The positions of progressive leftism change constantly as people attempt to one-up each other within the purity spiral. That is consistent with the defined driving factor of critical theory - dismantling systems of oppression. If oppression still exists, something is wrong in the systems, so they continue the spiral endlessly, trying to weed out all "white supremacy" within the systems, as that is their entire goal. We see here the outline for what is considered "white supremacy" - which is, as far as critical theory is concerned, merely the name for the system in which white people are perceived as having unfair levels of power. It is not, in this context, a malicious and brazen belief that white people are inherently superior. The issue, of course, is that "believing white people are inherently superior" is the colloquial understanding of "white supremacy" and the two become conflated - intentionally.

 

The usage of a term with such inherently negative connotations to describe the power system of the country is designed to cause the average person to turn away from association with the "power structure" in question and make it appear unquestionably bad. They did the same thing with "racism" - demand people accept that "all white people are racist" but insist that it only refers to unintentional happenstance that is almost never done intentionally, while simultaneously maintaining the colloquial understanding of "racist" as someone who hold malicious, intentional disdain for other races of people. To recognize that we are dealing with two separate definitions of a term that are being conflated as one in the same is too nuanced for the constant purity storm - thus it winds up being irrelevant that "white supremacy [as a power structure]" refers to more subtle, unintentional, almost nebulous concepts that are prevalent in society that is historically majority white. The term also means an active belief in inherent superiority of white people. The tenants of "white supremacy [as a power structure]" are thus "self-evidently" bad, because "white supremacy [as a belief in white superiority]" is bad, and we can see that they're the same thing because they're both called the same thing! Here is the same outline of what "white supremacy" is from a book - written in 2001.

The significance of it being from 2001 is heavy. The fact of the matter is that critical theory has been around in colleges for decades. It is only now bleeding so heavily into the mainstream culture as it's been more accepted and circulated. I have been online since 1998 - worried my hand me down junk computer would break for Y2K - and I have only just now seen this "white supremacy" outline last week, in 2020. The foundation for critical theory has been outlined for years, but as recently as 2-3 years ago, the purity spiral did not expel people who didn't understand it (yet). The postmodern critical theory concepts that were developed by pompous postmodernist pseudo-intellectuals twenty years ago are gaining more and more focus, but the people who pledged allegiance to progressivism in 2014-2016 did not actually know that. They simply knew lines were being drawn and drifted with the waves further left in order to maintain their social circles and online personas. 

What was intuitive purity spiraling before is now based around critical theory, which itself is not intuitive and based wholly on circular reasoning centered around the unprovable concept that "systems of power cause oppression and thus those systems must be changed". There is no factual, testable basis upon which this declaration stands - it is simply an assumed truth. Thus, the people who aligned with progressivism, but still believed in modernist concepts like "objectivity" - which is of course a system of white supremacy now - are not sure what to do. They cannot discern intuitively or through logic or reasoning what is good or what is bad, it is entirely up to the mob to decide. They must then take their cues from the mob - which is, itself, bickering back and forth over which is the most woke position, eventually deciding on one prevailing narrative based on what seems the least white-supremacisty. They haven't learned this, though, as they are unaware that the entire chaotic progressivism system is based on vapid, unprovable and simultaneously unchallengable assumptions. They continue to try and discern through patterns and logical reasoning what is woke and what is transgression, but there is no way to tell other than social cues by their ingroup. This method of only knowing what is right or wrong by being told is intentional, another part of critical theory, where truth is discerned by the voices of the oppressed, whichever one is loud enough to talk over the others being the winner.

This is one of the reasons why learning what critical theory is about, insofar as the history and purpose, is one of the best ways to free someone from its grasp. Unfortunately, many people continue to side with the adherents to critical theory out of what boils down to survival - to retain their following, continue their ad sponsorships, and maintain their social status. The average person may find it easy to escape, but these people who have based their lives and livelihood around their political personalities know very well they'll have their status torn to shreds if they don't double down on progressive ideology. They must continue the charade as long as possible, but are slowly being found out. Some will allow themselves to be bullied time and time again every time they lose their footing in the chaos of the storm, begging to be pulled from the torturous winds and back to the safety of the tornado's eye, without realizing they could simply leave the storm behind altogether. 

 

Much of this is due to ingroup loyalties, fear, peer pressure, and so forth - in other words, the normal kinds of social psychology that keeps people from thinking for themselves. It's hard for people to imagine that the people they thought were their friends are actually manipulating them - but it's likely that the people doing the manipulation do not realize they are, either. Many have checked in wholesale to the progressive leftism cult and could not fathom anything different. Life for them is simply constant mandatory conformity with the ever-present risk of ostracization at the smallest misstep. This hostile environment causes a situation where it becomes dangerous to question things that would be universally despised just four years ago - such as gratuitous sexual "education" for children who have only learned how to talk two years prior. If the mob thinks it's a good idea, opposing it is not a matter of "having a civil disagreement" but rather being entirely removed from your social circle - regardless of your political leanings, being forcibly outcast is often sufficient motivation to avoid stepping out of line. The thought of having to take refuge among the "others" of the outgroups seems degrading and repulsive. These are the social psychology blackmail tools that are being used to maintain the ever-present purity spiral of the progressivism cult. It's just a matter of how extensively you're willing to compromise your convictions and morals to retain your standing in your ingroup before you accept becoming an outcast as preferable.

Dystopian Food Future

Today I found quite the steamy take on twitter that prompted me to write. This particular person made two incredibly hot takes that required an astounding lack of awareness to make, but this particular one wound up winning out of the two. The main tweet follows, emphasis mine:

"Conservatives will really sit there and tell you ‘well broccoli is only 50p but an oven pizza is £1 so poor people only eat unhealthily because they’re lazy’ as if it’s reasonable to expect people to eat plain vegetables and nothing else for dinner. It’s so dystopian."

There is a large discussion to be had about how it's actually very easy to buy and eat healthy food in the majority of circumstances. I wrote about eating healthy and food accessibility briefly in another post, but that's not the main focus. Of course, I take the normal issue with the failure of diseducated people to recognize how to eat food, but that last remark. That last part there, is simply amazing. Absolutely breathtaking, in the worst possible way. This person whines as expected that feeding yourself is too confusing and difficult to understand, but then surpasses all expectations of rationality by claiming that eating broccoli, over a frozen pizza, would be dystopian.

I realized from this post and from some recent musings that people do not know what dystopian means anymore. They see reasonable cause to dislike billionaires and large companies that try to get away with dumping sewage into fresh water supplies, or whatever cartoon villain levels things Evil CEO Man tries to do, and proceed to believe they live in 1984. It was, in fact, quite the somersault that left-leaning people made when, following Trump's election, they took the milquetoast conservative POV that we've been heading toward 1984 since 2006 and proclaimed that, now, this, this is it. Now we're in 1984, while we weren't before. The obvious disconnect is that people do not recognize that governments create and are directly responsible for dystopias, typically while trying to control every aspect of a person's life, as opposed to reducing government meddling in day to day life (but not necessarily fully removing it). Dystopias rarely happen because the government is doing too little. Government is not evil by design necessarily, but the vast majority of dystopian narratives require that the government is behaving maliciously.

Left-leaning dystopian-criers will point to poverty, needing to work to live, and genuine social issues like lack of health care and food deserts and claim we're heading toward dystopia (or are already there). These are actually reasonable concerns, but this has been the normal state of the world for all of human history - it is not dystopian. To call these things dystopian would demand that the average life for all humanity for all of time has been decisively dystopian all along. The availability of health care and food has only increased in modern times. We see here that they view the utopia/dystopia question as if there is no middle ground - either we die from illness and thus are in dystopia, or the government magically fixes all of society's problems and we live in utopia. There is an alternative, which is where we just live our normal boring lives with expected levels of naturally induced suffering and aren't characters in a young adult fiction of the year award novel.

 

What's wild is, like any terminology left to the wolves of lukewarm pseudo-philosophers who think themselves intellectual, the term "dystopian" has been overused and is now destined to die and fade away into nothingness. Just as everything imaginable is white supremacy, thus robbing the term of any valuable meaning, "anything I think is bad or mildly uncomfortable is dystopian" is now the colloquial usage.

This OP makes this absolutely mind boggling conclusion not only to insist that something that, more or less, "doesn't sit right" with her immediate feelings is dystopian, but it is much worse than that. As we now as a society have to accept that "literally" sometimes means "figuratively", the "dystopian" thing here is actually the good thing while the purported "good result" (frozen pizza for dinner instead of broccoli) is the actual dystopian thing. We, in fact, live in processed food hell, where the very thing that is possibly the absolute most important choice of our day to day lives - the food we eat - is essentially poison. The OP here believes eating broccoli instead of pizza for dinner would be dystopian because, and literally only because, she likes pizza, and it tastes good, and it is pleasant and indulging for her. These are the exact reasons that we live in a society plagued by illnesses that result almost exclusively from poor diet, because a poor diet is tasty and easily accessible.

The health and developmental risks of poor diet are intense. They are understated, or worse, flat out ignored as "politically incorrect", since obesity (which means you weigh too much) is directly related to an intense amount of health problems, both things like illness and physical disability. The point made by these people is an emotional plea, that by telling someone who is overweight that it is bad they are overweight, you are making them feel bad about themselves. I do not word it this way to understate it - truly it is unfortunate to feel like you are of less value, or that you have failed yourself. It hurts to view the results of decisions you have made as being directly responsible for your suffering. But it is immature and irresponsible to ignore the vast importance of these things for those reasons. Poor diet kills - and that's very serious, and startlingly true. If you are spared death, the life you lead is rife with other maladies that were entirely avoidable. To look upon the choice of fresh vegetables that make you strong and energized, providing valuable nutrients that are absolutely essential to allow you to live and function day to day, and be disgusted, is jaw dropping. Being able to afford real, nutrient-dense food absent of additives that we have only experienced in our diets for mere decades, the potential damage and far reaching consequences of which have yet to be fully discovered, and declare such an objectively valuable privilege and freedom of the modern world as "dystopian" is simply astounding.

Indeed, this role reversal of which result is the true dystopia is a bad omen. Blue check mark hot take manufacturers want to call the US health care system "dystopian" (it is bad, surely, we can agree) and praise government run health care like the NHS. The inability to afford treatment is not good, but it's a result of government interference. If government meddling, kowtowing to lobbyists,`    1 and insurance price fixing were removed from health care, prices would plummet overnight. The doctor will not charge a price no one can afford, as then he will have not make money. We already see this happening with glasses and dentistry, as insurance companies suddenly decided to stop covering such services as readily. Innovative people willing to take risks opened businesses that will take your glasses prescription and send you real, genuine, prescription level glasses for $20. Many dentists operate independent of insurance and will do typically thousand dollar surgeries for a few hundred. While harder to find, even some independent general practice doctor's offices have begun rejecting insurance entirely and only taking direct payments, which are lower than the prices the doctors accepting insurance are charging.

 

Socializing things is what paves the way for dystopia - under the NHS I have read news articles more than once where they have refused treatment of a child because a panel of complete strangers, bureaucrats in an office elsewhere, looked at the prospects for this child, and said it "was not in their best interest". Worse yet I have seen them disallow the parents from removing them from the NHS system and bringing them elsewhere for treatment. A man was arrested for lashing out because the NHS panel told him they would let his daughter die. People will still defend such practices, despite their entire and complete lack of humanity and respect of the rights of the parents, which is as wretched as the practice in the first place. The idea that some disconnected man with no stake in my child's life other than how much it will cost him could possibly have the right - and more chilling, society's support and goodwill - to declare life or death over my child is viscerally disgusting in a way that no language exists to express the extent of this callous and grotesque possibility. This is what is meant by a "death panel". 

 

The left will deny up and down that "death panels" are a thing - but it is simply a dramatic name for the very system that exists. A group of disconnected people working for the government decide who lives and who dies via deciding who is worthy of treatment. People's health is micromanaged through a system where the people making the decisions see only sets of numbers and operate through a desire to maintain equilibrium in their various numbers. This is what is meant by death panel - and it results from government interference in the health care system. I would rather die because I cannot afford it than because the government has forbidden me to live. That is the true dystopia. Here we see that the government is deciding people who have cancer are less worthy to keep alive than people who get coronavirus. This decision of who gets to live and die is far more insidious than dying simply because things didn't work out your way. 

 

I would far rather die from circumstance than because a government run group of important looking men in expensive dress several cities away decided that I was not important enough to treat. If I have the freedom to save myself and fail, I am not in a dystopia. If the government owns the rights to my life, that is dystopian. The word is dead and has lost its meaning and purpose, as we live in a backward hellscape where a large chunk of people genuinely believe they would somehow live in a better world if the government controlled more aspects of their life. If only the government could micromanage their life as a liability to utilize in the gain or loss of money and power, then things would be better. This is, of course, the main criticism of capitalists, though the most important aspect is maintaining the free will choice making capabilities of the peasant caste. I would rather live under the intentionally malicious profit-seeking free market capitalist than under the boot of the government that pretends to have my best interest in mind. At least do me the decency of being honest when you're trying to abuse me than to attempt to gaslight me into believing letting my child die was "in his best interest".

Death panels and processed food maladies is the new "good society" we are apparently trying to aim for. Indeed, it should be quite obvious on the surface that "broccoli" is the good thing while "frozen pizza" is the bad thing considering the price point. If being poor and disadvantaged results in the most filling food available being a pizza full of ingredients you can't pronounce, then surely you should see the issue. This point is lost on most, of course, since frozen pizza tastes good, you see, and is somehow luxurious, despite being cheap and practically not even real. The genuine, actual luxury is nutrient dense food like broccoli being made massively available to nearly everyone for incredibly cheap prices in just-as-good-as-fresh packaging in the form of a frozen one pound bag for less than a dollar. It's astonishing how precisely the opposite of dystopian the availability of vegetables via modern technologies is, and yet this person could manage a mindset where she looks upon readily available high-class nutrition food and declares it to be peasantry, for the unwashed and undignified. Incredible. Let them eat cake, I suppose.

The "Conspiracy Theory" Conspiracy Theory

I have already written about how the habit of calling all ideas counter to the mainstream narrative "conspiracy theories", or especially "right wing conspiracy theories", is a form of gaslighting. It is a well established tactic that works quite easily to immediately, magically, and fully discredit your target and make them appear crazy with the least possible amount of work. Once a theory has been established as a conspiracy theory, it's a simple matter to discredit anyone who says anything even remotely similar by the power of association. This post further explores the tactic of calling everything a conspiracy theory, as well as why it works. It also explains the rational behind various conspiracy theories and psychological concepts that are at work within belief and disbelief of conspiracy theories - and why everyone is at risk of them.

The "conspiracy theory" discourse

I have looked into the origins and definition of the term "conspiracy theory". Apparently, there is a "conspiracy theory" that the term "conspiracy theory" was invented in 1967 by the CIA to discredit people who didn't believe the government's statement on JFK's assassination. This theory and the resulting discussion around it illustrates an important factor in the way the conspiracy theory label is used to attack every concept adjacent to "the official conspiracy" of any given theory.

 

The people seeking to discredit ideas outside of the mainstream narrative will define the theory in question with the most extreme possible attributes. They will find the craziest adherent with the most easily debunkable concepts and call that, for example, "the JFK conspiracy theory". This may occur naturally if someone is pushing a truly unbelievable idea, like flat earth. Any theory with possible validity behind it, unfortunately, will be defined by its craziest supporters. They will explain the conspiracy theory with very definitive terms and say that people who believe the US government assassinated JFK unilaterally agree on any given number of terms and concepts. They then move on to disprove any number of certain aspects of the defined and outlined theory. Once the "definitive JFK assassination theory" is debunked due to flaws in the official theory, they will declare that anyone who believes any adjacent concept of the official theory to be just as crazy as anyone who believes wholesale in the official theory. Thus, if you even mildly doubt that the US government is being honest about the events surrounding JFK's death, you are automatically considered as someone who believes "the official" JFK conspiracy theory (the crazy one). The person who seeks to discredit you will point to the debunked "official theory" and consequently discredit you as someone who is wacky enough to believe clearly disproven things. Any objections will be met with the same brick wall mindset, since you are now simply a crazy conspiracy theorist and are therefore unreliable, maybe even suffering from psychosis. 

 

Another current example of this issue is seen where, if anyone believes even a single politician may have been involved in child sexual abuse, they are thoroughly and undeniably "Q-Anon" and accused of believing the full and complete manifesto of Q-Anon supporters (even if you say otherwise, you're obviously just lying because you know Q-Anon is looked down upon and want to avoid the social alienation). Some people will even attack you as Q-Anon for acknowledging that child sex trafficking is real - it should be very obvious why this is a problem. It's worth mentioning that I do not believe the people doing this are actively attempting to cover up sex trafficking - but rather, they are so far radicalized in the complete other direction due to their intense aversion to Q-Anon that they believe all analogous concepts are related to it.

This is an applicable example of "false dichotomy" wherein, what is actually happening is that the most far-gone, fact and evidence ignoring concepts are touted as the theory, and thus anyone who says they think anything even resembling xyz theory is, obviously, a devout adherent to the official theory. This practice creates two perceived groups of people, wherein you for example either believe the outlined JFK conspiracy theory (which has been debunked, and therefore you are crazy), or you believe the official US government story. The idea that there is no possible alternative is heavily implied through the manner in which these things are addressed, the conspiracy theory discourse.

 

The train of thought you are manipulated into is "if the official JFK assassination conspiracy theory is wrong, then it's impossible that the US government was involved in JFK's assassination". This is actually not a logically sound conclusion, since it is actually still possible that the US government was involved in JFK's assassination, but simply in a way that is different from the "official" conspiracy theory. Whether there is weight to such a conclusion may vary - admittedly, I've been using this as an example, and yet I don't really care about the JFK assassination. I do believe, however, that it's entirely reasonable to believe it is possible that the government was involved in JFK's assassination because they have been caught being involved in illegal affairs before and have lied about all sorts of absolutely nefarious things. However, the crux of the matter is that believing unquestioningly in the official government explanation for JFK's assassination explicitly requires that you think it's simply impossible that the government would be directly involved in the assassination of a US president and then not admit it. As if they would be involved in assassinating JFK and then turn around and go, "yes, our bad, our sincerest apologies, we promise not to conspire against the duly elected president of the United States ever again, pwease don't execute us for committing treason." The people who would have been involved in this are still alive today and I'm sure they do not want to be executed for treason. At the end of the matter, though, it's mostly inconsequential, as there is not enough evidence to charge anyone.

 

This subconsciously accepted false dichotomy conclusion applies just as easily to most conspiracy theories. Moving back to the "the CIA invented the term conspiracy theory" theory, if the CIA did not invent the term "conspiracy theory" in 1967 to intentionally discredit people who don't believe the official JFK assassination story, then you should doubt whether "conspiracy theory" is being intentionally used to discredit possibly valid ideas. You see the "conspiracy theory" that the CIA invented the term, and see it debunked, and you are led to a conclusion wherein, if I say something like "the term conspiracy theory is being intentionally used to discredit certain ideas simply because the mainstream/government/organization in question wants to wholly discredit such idea" you think I'm an adherent of the "the CIA invented the term in 1967" group, which, seeing that theory has been debunked, discredits me as a wacky conspiracy theorist, despite the fact that I don't believe the CIA invented the term in 1967. It's close enough to the conspiracy theory in question to, not simply doubt, but fully and entirely dismiss my claim, despite being entirely reasonable. 

 

The unspoken possibilities between the extremes

 

My entire point here then is that, regardless of whether the CIA "invented" the term "conspiracy theory" in 1967 for use against alternative theories for JFK's assassination, it was utilized in this way. Is it truly crazy to believe that someone seeking to hide the fact that they did something illegal and punishable by death would go to great lengths to disguise and discredit people if the truth is at risk of being exposed? The utilization of the existent term of "conspiracy theory" is very reasonable to use if you wish to discredit a theory that's gaining popularity. If given to honest contemplation, the claim that it's reasonable to believe that certain ideas with reasonable cause for concern are being discredited through application of the term "conspiracy theory" is not even slightly crazy, but more akin to a simple observation. The point here is that it's important not to dismiss ideas out of hand because another group of people has designated it a conspiracy theory. This is a tactic being used on purpose to cause this exact reaction - but there is nothing crazy about being skeptical.

 

This is how the labeling and subsequent debunking of the most far-gone concepts is used to discredit similar, but conceptually different ideas. Unfortunately, you are being manipulated this way and likely do not even realize it - not by a shadowy cabal, but by simple psychology. The idea that the term conspiracy theory is intentionally used to discredit ideas that organizations do not want people to believe is not crazy in the least - people who believe in the "general goodness" of large, powerful organizations are naive, probably crazier than most "conspiracy theorists". In fact, they can simultaneously believe things like "the United States as an institution has intentionally exploited black people and other minorities throughout their history and gotten away with it due to institutionalized power," and then think it's simply absolutely wacky that they would be involved in other nefarious acts that would cause great harm to large groups of people. Why believe they would only ever do this one particular bad thing, insofar as believing they are still doing it, but then not see other questionable behavior by the government as suspicious?

The government is actually, definitely, lying - but about what specifically?

 

What happens is because "the government is lying" is tied to things that really are pretty crazy (flat earth is a good example), any person who says "the government is lying" is more likely to be viewed as a nutcase rather than someone who is noticing suspicious things and questioning them. We can even point to things that we know for a fact the government lied about, and say "given the evidence that the government has lied before, why do you believe unwaveringly that they simply could not possibly be lying about this?" but still have people dismiss it out of hand as "crazy". It is self-evidently much more crazy to believe governments are simply behaving themselves nowadays despite multiple proven situations where they did suspicious and malicious things quite recently, like how Obama's administration decided to consider all military aged men killed by drones in the Middle East as combatants, thus underreporting their "civilian" kill count. This is, by all accounts, not actually a very "crazy" lie - but the fact of the matter is that the government lies. It is not unreasonable to distrust someone who has a habit of lying - it is, in fact, quite smart to distrust someone who has a habit of lying, especially when they are in such powerful positions. People seem to have no issues with this conclusion, since it's not very hard to find someone who believes it's reasonable not to trust Trump since they believe he has a habit of lying. It should not be hard to attribute the same concept to all government organizations and politicians at large, and yet it is somehow "conspiratorial thinking" to believe any politician aside from Trump has lied, and likely could again, for their own gain.

 

In fact, they may believe that Trump has been conspiring with Russia and getting away with it for nearly four years without prosecution despite evidence, (which would imply a network of individuals within the government that were working to ensure Trump could get away with this and not be prosecuted - almost like there was a "deep state" working outside the confines of our constitution) but the very idea that any number of analogous situations may have happened or are happening is, why, simply absolutely crazy. If any given politician could manipulate such a situation, why doubt that anyone else could, or would? Throughout all of history, the elite ruling classes have lied to and abused their subjects and citizens for their own gain without regard to their humanity, with mass murder evidenced within the lifetimes of people alive today, but now, magically, governments just don't do that stuff anymore, obviously, because they said they don't. They would also benefit tremendously from getting you to believe that they are looking out for your best interests, but we just ignore that, because to be skeptical of the government is something crazy people who believe in a flat earth do. We, being generally good (or at least believing we are), assume everyone else is, too. This is called the false consensus effect and is an accepted psychological concept. The fact of the matter is that the rich and powerful are not like us. Narcissistic people who seek to manipulate and use others for their own gain of wealth and power have had thousands of years to figure out the best way to do it, but you simply believe they suddenly stopped, because, like, we just, progressed, as a society, or something. Us normal people generally lack the power, resources, motivation, and opportunity to perform egregious crimes against humanity - and so we assume everyone else does, too. "If I were president, I would simply not commit genocide", you say, without any perspective on how a person with unimaginable power views themselves and the world around them.

How people who believe they don't believe anything crazy view "conspiracy theory"

The inspiration for this post, of course, is the newest "conspiracy pyramid" graphic/video circulating around the internet, wherein this person commits the exact "guilty (of being absolutely insane) by association" concept that I have stated here, that I would have said any other day of the week before this graphic was released. That this person did indeed lump "flat earth" theory along with what they considered to be the absolute most "dangerous and deranged" theories was not surprising to me in the least. The aversion to being associated with flat earthers is strong, and people who may not have any issue believing that the government is lying to them or cooperating with other governments to push through policies and ideas that the general populace may dislike, would see the association pushed that "my belief that the government is not trustworthy is adjacent to believing the earth is flat," and then move away from their reasonable distrust in the rich and powerful elite that routinely exploit their position for their own gain to avoid social alienation.

 

Ironically, the argument is made that "if you believe some of these (the ones the author considers the most dangerous) conspiracies, you usually believe most" implying that once someone believes something like "George Soros is funding operations that push a radical left-wing agenda" which is actually easily believable (why would a rich and powerful man who believes himself to be a philanthropist not put money into funding operations that support what he believes to be a path to a better world?), you magically believe the earth is flat - when in reality, you never go in that direction. If you start from believing the earth is flat, then you would likely have little issue believing most of the other conspiracies - but believing rich and powerful people abuse their power and influence has little to do with denying observable realities about our universe, like the roundness of planets. This is explicitly done to make people adverse to these theories - social pressure is very real, as we will go into shortly.

 

It's an obnoxiously obvious tactic and, unfortunately, very successful. Through this method, they more or less make "contemplating the trustworthiness of the elite" conspiratorial in itself, on par with ignoring readily available, self-evident aspects of reality - for example, we can see the round moon in the sky and assume other planetary bodies are similarly round. Flat earth theory assumes something is wildly wrong with reality itself and we are being successfully lied to about it despite having the ability to discern otherwise through methods available to the everyday person. The level of coverup necessary to hide that the earth is flat is unimaginable, while theories surrounding the "deep state" assume malicious intent and cooperation by rich and powerful people. We are implicitly led to believe these two concepts are somehow similar. "How could you believe people with unimaginable power and influence would ever lie for their own personal gain? Why, the amount of effort to cover that up is unimaginable!" is the implied messaging - we understand exactly why a flat earth doesn't hold up to scrutiny, then unintentionally apply the same levels of disbelief to the concept of the "deep state" - yet they are not similar in composition in any measurable way. It implies that discovering malicious cooperation between the ruling elite class would somehow be "easy" to discern, as easy as looking upon the moon and seeing that it is round. Politicians have been caught doing nefarious things in the past, and yet we are to believe we have simply caught them every single time? Or, sillier yet, they have simply stopped trying to do those things? The implication here is "if the government were conspiring in a bad way, we'd have simply found it out by now". It took 40 years for the Tuskgee Syphilis experiment to be exposed, but for some reason people just have incredible faith in people today to be super good at discovering corruption, somehow, for reasons.

 

Most results are due to psychological aspects

 

The important thing to remember about all this is that there is no nefarious cooperation behind the useage of "they" or language that implies intentional, malicious action being taken. It is not a shadowy cabal of people manipulating on every level the narrative and ideas that are allowed to see the light of day. The vast majority of these people are independent actors who, for the most part, are unaware that they are actually providing a valuable service to the very small number of people who desire these outcomes. 

 

Culture and ingroup preferences drive most of the behavior of the majority of people. There is plenty of evidence that people often behave in ways that benefit themselves the most, as well as the documented concept that people often adopt extreme versions (going in either direction) of their beliefs when they are openly discussed within their ingroup. Who we associate with and what we associate ourselves with directly influence what we say and think. We also have the concept of "ingroup favortism" wherein anyone perceived to be in the ingroup is given the benefit of the doubt and people in outgroups are judged more harshly. We recognize these biases and would understandably then be adverse to being classified as part of the outgroup, knowing how poorly your friends in your ingroup perceive them. You are not poor of character, of course, as no one sees themselves as the antagonist of their story, so being part of the outgroup and thus being perceived to be poor of character, is something we instinctually would seek to avoid. Last but not least for our psychological concepts, we have general "group behavior" psychology that demonstrates things like "groupthink" (not to be confused with Orwell's "doublethink"), wherein people conform their beliefs to the those of their perceived ingroup. That's right - if you feel a strong connection to a particular group, you are more likely to begin to hold the same beliefs as them regardless of the defenses and explanations you've given yourself for your previous beliefs. This is not some wild pseudo-psychology, all of these things are documented phenomena that explain the ways in which we are manipulated every day by the environment around us.

 

These phenomena are exemplified in the realm of conspiracy theory discourse. It is not so grand a global plot as people think is meant when these things are discussed, but merely the psychology of the human mind viewed on a large scale. The people in power do not orchestrate these things with the help of ritualistically indoctrinated cultist initiates that they place in office buildings around the world, they merely utilize already present psychological phenomena to their advantage. Self-interest and ingroup preference are intensely powerful psychological concepts and to believe that they could not be manipulated for the advantage of another is, again, naive. Everything is downstream of culture, you do not actually need to control very much of society at large to get control of a considerable portion of the populace - and they will not even know they have been manipulated. It is simply normal day to day psychological reactions to our environment.

It sounds crazy because we have been conditioned to believe this is not possible because of various things we've attributed to society at large. We like to believe people are naturally good, that the people have the power because we can vote, and we ignore evidence of things if they are happening too far away from us or too long ago. We recognize the nefariousness of monopolies but don't stop to question how it might be dangerous that 10 food companies control almost every other food company in the world. Even more unbelievable, this writer at Forbes shows that the totality of market power can be consolidated down to just four total companies, in control of literally everything else. To make matters worse, here is Business Insider again letting us know that just six companies control all of the mainstream media we consume. This seems very suspicious considering my earlier points about how culture has a lot of control over the everyday person. Also, if you're "conspiratorial" enough to dare think it, it appears to give credence to the idea that the news media by and large is one big "ingroup" that may, perhaps, agree on a large number of ideas.

This very concept itself (it is bad that so few companies control so much) is seen as an "antisemitic conspiracy theory", yet there is not a single mention of Jews is in these publicly available, very normal "Business Insider" articles. The front page here as I'm seeing today has no fewer than three anti-Trump articles, including a very bluntly named Op-Ed "Donald Trump Doesn't Care About You". But, I suppose Business Insider is pushing a dangerous far-right antisemitic conspiracy theory by reporting these easily researchable facts. This is actually a beautiful example of my entire point - the people who don't want you to notice these things are trying very hard to make you adverse to seeing them. The antisemitism angle comes from the very same people fighting against the general public noticing this very suspicious behavior, as a method of causing aversion toward accepting this easily verifiable fact. Because, you see, it would be antisemitic to acknowledge it. The secret, here, is that it is not antisemitic to notice these monopolies and this label is simply being used to attempt to manipulate you into not believing that this is true, or at least not believing that it could be a large problem. Because you're not an antisemite, are you?

 

Going back to the new conspiracy chart linked above, we make some interesting observations. Indeed, the author of this chart is exhibiting some grade-A ingroup preference, as at least one of the "deranged crazy" theories is easily and without a doubt verifiably true and openly admitted - the "moisturizing with foreskin". It does sound crazy if you have never heard of it before, and taking this chart at face value will undoubtedly lead you to believe it's a crazy conspiracy theory, because you were told it was (by someone maybe you believed at face value due to your own ingroup preference?). Honestly, just look up "foreskin facial". I actually can't even find anything implying an underlying conspiracy when I search "foreskin facial conspiracy". This appears to be wildly irresponsible by the maker of this chart. Another commenter has brought up that "deep state" is actually closely tied to "COINTELPRO" (something in the "proven true" list), and yet "deep state" is in the "too far gone" category. This pyramid indeed tells us more about the ingroup biases of the person who made it than it does about true conspiracy theorists who believe these particular ideas. It appears, actually, to be an example of someone whose ideas became more extreme (all things called conspiracy theories are dangerous and antisemitic) due to ingroup discussion, evidenced by the person who was brave enough to point out that "deep state" is far more reasonable than it is shown here. Anyone within the ingroup and subject to the groupthink of the group would be under heavy pressure to dismiss "deep state" as a wildly inaccurate, dangerous theory, even when maybe they see evidence for it, as the "deep state" theory is mostly owned by the "outgroup" of Trump supporters.

 

Indeed, the association of reasonable theories with wilder theories like flat earth is done on purpose to cause people in various ingroups to avoid association with what they perceive as outgroup thinking. If believing rich and powerful people cooperate under the table or that a rich person who controls 20% of everything created on earth wouldn't utilize their position for their own interests is as crazy as "science denial" like flat earth, then they must avoid association with such ideas due to social pressure and ingroup identity.  We can see the expressed disgust of the commenters when they see particularly "science denial" theories - it's demonstrably a very strong tool to create aversion within an ingroup.

People with too much power do not behave like we do

Shame and manipulation is used to get people to do, say, and believe things all the time. The disbelief comes from the idea that it could be done on such a large scale, and yet the fact of the matter is that a very small number of companies - and, thus, a very small number of people - control unimaginably vast amounts of all of the kinds of things we see and consume every day. It is much crazier to assume these incomprehensibly powerful people who control levels of wealth and influence genuinely inconceivable to poor, average schmucks like us are behaving benevolently, and not in their own self-interests. We magically, for no reason, give the benefit of the doubt to these people who are - and I cannot stress this enough - incomprehensibly powerful, because the alternative is, admittedly, kind of scary. We simply do not want to accept that it is possible that rich and powerful people could, dare I say, be mean, because if they were mean, the levels of devastation they could bring upon us are chilling.

I'm not saying definitively that these people with unimaginable wealth and influence are doing any particular sort of nefarious thing. I'm trying to make you understand that it is entirely reasonable to believe that people with such power to do literally anything they desired, could, in fact, do anything they desired. If the thing they desired to do was detrimental to the vast majority of people, well, that would be quite unfortunate for us. Is it so farfetched to believe that a single person, so powerful and capable of anything they desired, could seek a manipulated vision of a world they personally perceive as "better", despite, perhaps, many people disagreeing? Could such disgusting levels of power and influence cause certain people to maybe see the world differently than we do? The failure to grasp the implications of the absolutely vast levels of power and influence these people has comes from our complete inability to apprehend the sheer levels of influence and power they have. This, in itself, becomes "conspiratorial" simply because the vast overwhelming majority of people do not understand that people with this level of power are absolutely nothing like us. Trying to convince the average person otherwise seems "crazy", with no small part played by the earlier mentioned false consensus effect (we simply believe most people think like we do, for no reason, our brains just do that).

 

Conspiracy theories are not unique to the right-wing

 

It's important to remember that there are things that are truly "conspiracy theories", which flat earth falls into. Indeed, certain left-wing originating concepts like the Trump-Russia connection are by their own merits conspiracy theories that have been thoroughly debunked by readily available public information. The people who believe it, however, simply ignore this evidence and continue to believe there is a nefarious connection between Trump and Putin. It's possible, surely, because Trump is a politician and the government does shady stuff all the time. It's even fully understandable that they would continue to believe in it due to the exact same reasons that people continue to believe in a flat earth - you can't trust the evidence because the people providing the evidence are lying. It's interesting to point out, in fact, that the "official" Trump-Russia conspiracy theory is as debunked as the "official" JFK assassination conspiracy theory. But that does not mean nothing nefarious is happening - however, there is little to be done about it, and what remains is only speculation. 

 

Just as I believe it's possible the government was involved in JFK's assassination, but we can't really know, it's also definitely possible that Trump colluded with a foreign power, maybe Russia. But if the overwhelming evidence that's claimed to exist really did exist, he would have long been prosecuted. Everyone on every level of the government hates him. That's the difference - one side claims the evidence is there, and yet no one has been held accountable. The remaining evidence for the government's involvement in JFK's assassination is only speculative. It's actually wild to see that people who believe the Russian collusion story don't believe unilaterally in the "deep state", since such concepts would go hand in hand. What else explains why Trump hasn't been prosecuted despite these alleged mountains of evidence? Just, y'know, because reasons. Or, just maybe, it's an ingroup preference for the Russian collusion theory and prejudice against the outgroup theory of the "deep state".

 

This is what's happening on a psychological level. The people who believe in all of the debunked Trump-Russia connections are showing ingroup preference. They believe in the theory because their ingroup does, and specifically because the outgroup - Trump and by association his supporters - are of course against the theory. Seeing as they are the lying, malicious outgroup, they cannot be trusted, and may even be in on it. Conservative outlets and right-wing pundits have no issue labeling this as a conspiracy theory, but the term simply does not catch on in the mainstream because the mainstream media who published these stories for so long are also suffering from the ingroup preference, along with the same problems any other conspiracy theorist suffers when they find their beliefs debunked. Aversion to admitting you were wrong is yet another psychological issue wherein we see ourselves as the protagonists and thus, often justified and in the right. Wholesale belief in a debunked conspiracy theory, then, isn't "being embarrassingly wrong" but, rather, an understandable mistake, due to all of these such and such reasons, and thus you will likely never see news outlets that pushed this theory admit outright that they were wrong.

 

The mainstream media outlets pushing these articles are run and operated by mere humans like any one of us and thus are subject to the same psychological issues that we all fight against. There is no magical attribute that journalists possess that make them immune to the same ingroup favortism and self-benefiting preferences as any other human being. They published the stories in the first place, so the Trump-Russia connection is okay in their ingroup. We do not hesitate to point out the outgroup's failures and label them derisively, but when our ingroup fails and makes a terrible error, it's "simply a misunderstanding" and all efforts are made to explain how it's very reasonable and understandable that they would make such a mistake, downplaying any harm it's caused. It's not because there is an invisible cabal of Satanists controlling the op-eds of every single NYT journalist through threats and blackmail - it is normal, every day psychology that every one of us experiences. If they feel they are part of an ingroup, they will adhere more strongly to the perceived beliefs of that ingroup. It is why we are so easily able to pinpoint and classify which news organizations we believe have left or right leaning biases - because they do. It's absurd to believe that they do not, because they are human like any one of us and subject to the same psychological phenomena. 

What this shows is less the idea that right-leaning people are subject to believing in conspiracy theories, and more that we are all susceptible to believing things that don't have very good evidence. A recent article came out actually wherein someone said they found out their hairdresser believed in Q-Anon - and they proceeded to be no less than shocked that they weren't also a raging racist who thinks Trump is a demigod. The failure for this outgroup person (the hairdresser) to not adhere unilaterally to all of the things that the author's ingroup told her the outgroup believes should have been an eyeopener to the author that "conspiracy theorists" are regular people like anyone else and aren't living in an alternative reality. They see the same evidence, or wild speculation perhaps, that everyone else sees, but interprets it differently due to their ingroup preferences and personal biases. This quote is at the very bottom so I will copy it here to share, the author says, "The hairdresser’s take on race, and anti-Black racism specifically, did not spiral into conspiratorial territory, nor did they hail Trump as the best thing to happen to Black people. I was actually shocked to find their ideas were similar to my own." Unfortunately, most people get here and think "this wacky conspiracy theorist is saveable", and not the more correct, "every normal person is subject to influence by particular ideas (and this means even myself)".

 

Theories around conspiracy theories and why people believe them ignore that every person is capable of being swindled by a theory or ideology that plays on their own personal biases. They attempt to paint "conspiracy theorists" with a broad brush as being irreconcilably crazy - something is mentally wrong with them (per wikipedia "Research suggests that conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—may be psychologically harmful or pathological and that it is correlated with psychological projection, paranoia and Machiavellianism."), but they are simply being manipulated by the same psychological influences that every person is suffering under, but in different ways. 

 

Who people identify with plays an enormous part in how they perceive themselves. The content we view will slowly alter our own perceptions, even if we think we are "above" such things. It takes an intentional effort to avoid indoctrination - but indoctrination occurs constantly without our express permission. It is subtle and works mostly in the background - and is not due to the intentional, malicious and cooperative actions by a shadowy cabal of elites, but simply due to what is more or less a "trickle down" effect in the culture pushed by them. I personally have been pulled back and forth by close calls with radicalization toward certain ideas. My personal foundation that keeps me from from straying too far into dangerous territories is my Christian faith. Many people without a foundation - that is to say, any foundation, regardless of whether it is Christian or otherwise - will fall victim more easily. With secularism on the rise, it appears people are more subject than ever to the subtle manipulation tactics that occur every day through psychological phenomena. It is not intentionally done by a malicious actor, and sometimes we even place ourselves there.

 

It's a little overwhelming to realize that we are nearly helpless to control where narratives and biases will lead us, and many people tend to believe they are simply too clever to fall for such ruses. It would be to your extreme benefit to recognize that you are susceptible to these forces, and act accordingly when you feel like your ingroup preferences may be leading you somewhere bad.