The Problem of Conspiracy Theory and How to Solve It

​Conspiracy theory adherents have been associated with prejudice, unfair persecutions, revolutions, and genocide throughout history. Terrorists are keen supporters of conspiracy theories, and conspiracy theorists have rebuked public health measures such as vaccinations, causing nominally eradicated diseases such as measles to get their bands back together.  Currently, conspiracy theorists reject the science behind anthropogenic climate change and public health measures to address COVID, elevating two manageable problems to existential threats.

A conspiracy theory is a scheme that explains an event or set of circumstances resulting from a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators.

Mike Hughes, a Flat-Earther, Died When his Rocket Crashed

​

​Common conspiracy theories include:

• Enormous numbers of Anti-Semitic theories about media, financial, governmental, and world control.
• A United Nations invasion composed of troops in black helicopters will invade the United States and form a one-world government.
• NASA staged the moon landings.
• A chamber behind Mount Rushmore holds enormous secrets.
• All number of John F. Kennedy assassination schemas.
• The FBI assassinated Martin Luther King Jr.
• The FBI murdered Jimmy Hoffa and hid his body.
• Fluoride addition to public water supplies is a communist plot.
• There is a Loch Ness monster in Scotland and another at Flathead Lake, Montana.
• The United States military caused the Joplin Missouri tornado in 2011.
• An international Jewish conspiracy faked the Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
• The earth is flat.
• An atmospheric research facility in Alaska is a mind-control laboratory.
• The Illuminati, a secret society, seeks to control the world.
• Bigfoot and Yeti exist.
• Mattress Firm stores in Illinois are a money-laundering operation.
• Truman Capote wrote Harper Lee's famous novel ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’
• The Freemasons are a secret society aiming to control the world.

 
At their heart, conspiracy theories are mistaken beliefs using disparate facts duct-taped together with conjecture and generally are corrosive to society.  Suppression of conspiracy theory only adds to the allure and the sense there is an overlying plot to quiet the believers, and it would seem fully airing and discussing them is the only way to reduce their effects.
 
Interesting facts about conspiracy theories:

• Conspiracy believers were more likely to be male, unmarried, less educated, have lower income, be unemployed, be members of an ethnic minority group, and have weaker social networks.
• Higher levels of conspiracy thinking correlate with lower levels of education and lower levels of income.
• Conspiracy theorizing is most robust at the far left and right, although more substantial on the right.
• Adoption requires that conspiracy theories must align with a person’s existing set of predispositions.
• Conspiracy theories are common in extremist groups, and there is a great deal of overlap of similar views, even in radical groups at opposite ends of the political spectrum.
• People may compensate for threatened existential needs may compensate by adopting conspiracy theories.
• Conspiracy belief correlates with alienation from the political system and anomie—a feeling of personal unrest and lack of understanding of the social world.
• Conspiracy theories may assist people in maintaining a positive self-image.
• A conviction that others conspire against one’s group is more likely to emerge when the group thinks of itself as undervalued, underprivileged, or under threat
• Conspiracy theories are more likely to be prevalent among members of low-status groups attempting to explain their status.
• Motivated reasoning is integral with conspiracy theories, particularly with partisan political ideology.

Timothy McVeigh is an Example of when Conspiracy Theory Turns Harmful

​Conspiracy theorists have played outsized roles in the United States milieu.  Perhaps the most prominent example was the 1995 Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing. A disaffected Army veteran turned security guard, Timothy McVeigh, and cohorts, including Terry Nichols, blew up the building, killing 168 people, including 19 children, injured several hundred more.  McVeigh’s history included child psychological trauma and obsession with military activities mobilized by misinformation from the hate-mongering propaganda of the radical right.  Nichols sold out McVeigh in return for life in prison, and the government he abhorred murdered McVeigh six years later.
 
The United States is in the middle of an existential crisis due to the concentration and hoarding of wealth by the American oligarchy than politics, and the symptoms, polarization, radical philosophies, and exploitation of such for money by Infotainment media outlined in the work Hate, Inc.  

United States Senator Rand Paul is a Prominent Proponent of the Wuhan Lab Conspiracy Theory

Common current conspiracy theories in the political discussion include:

• QAnon theorists think Donald Trump is a heroic figure to eradicate a group of liberal pedophiles who also drink children’s blood.
• Anti-vaxxers say vaccinations contain microchips intended to track recipients, are inordinately dangerous or might cause autism.
• COVID theorists, including United States Senator Rand Paul, who think Anthony Fauci, in tandem with the Chinese government, fabricated the virus in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, who intentionally released it to hobble the rest of the world.
• 2020 presidential election fraud conspiracists, who in various theories maintain mysterious entities stole the election from Donald Trump.

 
While there’s not much virtue in supporting such erroneous ideologies, the real villains are companies and media and political figures who sew conspiracy disinformation or fan the flames of such movements to their means, whether to make money, gain political power or both.  An isolated person who believes in something implausible is forgivable if not understandable.  A United States president or a United States Senator using the gullibility of susceptible populations for political purposes is not.  A significant industry funding AstroTurf political movements and erroneous ‘research’ to refute climate change legislation, if not illegal, is at least immoral.
 
The solution to conspiracy theories and the existential threats posed by such require a thorough approach:

• Formal and informal instruction improves the general public’s media literacy so people can understand the difference between legitimate, unbiased presentation and slanted Infotainment.
• Fully airing conspiracy theories and examining the facts and publicizing the results.
• Civil lawsuits against purveyors of conspiracy theorists and outlets that disseminate their disinformation.
• Improving the economic circumstances of poor people provides hope for the future and some sense of control of their own lives.