Quote from thenewguy:
LOL, if it was anyone but you I'd have cared alot more....
But hey, I didn't know you were wandering these parts, must have been a shock to you to find out I'm a "conspiracy theorist", eh?
lol!
TNG
Ahhhhh, it's no big deal, you guys are basically harmless.
Because conspiracy theories lack readily verifiable evidence, they are not taken seriously by most people.
Many people tend to respond to events or situations which have had an emotional impact upon them by trying to make sense of those events, typically in spiritual, moral, political, or scientific terms.
Events which seem to resist such interpretationâfor example, because they are, in fact, unexplainableâmay provoke the inquirer to look harder for a meaning, until one is reached that is capable of offering the inquirer the required emotional satisfaction.
At other times, the unfolding of complex sequences of events such as political phenomena are explainable, but not in simple terms. Conspiracy theories are often preferred by individuals as a way to understand what is happening around them without having to grasp the complexities of history and political interaction.
Conspiratorial accounts can be emotionally satisfying when they place events in a readily-understandable, moral context. The subscriber to the theory is able to assign moral responsibility for an emotionally troubling event or situation to a clearly-conceived group of individuals. Crucially, that group does not include the believer. The believer may then feel excused of any moral or political responsibility for remedying whatever institutional or societal flaw might be the actual source of the dissonance.
In the late 20th century, falling election participation and declines in other key metrics of social engagement were noted by several observers. For a prominent example, see Robert D. Putnam's Bowling Alone thesis. Those who were most influenced by this period, the so-called "Generation X," are characterized by their cynicism towards traditional institutions and authorities, offering a case example of the context of political dis-empowerment detailed above.
In that context, a typical individual will tend to be more isolated from the kinds of peer networks that grant access to broad sources of information, and may instinctively distrust any statement or claim made by certain people, media, and other authority-bearing institutions. For some individuals, the consequence may be a tendency to attribute anything bad that happens to the distrusted authority.
For relatively rare individuals, an obsessive compulsion to believe, prove or re-tell a conspiracy theory may indicate one or more of several well-understood psychological conditions, and other hypothetical ones: paranoia, denial, schizophrenia, mean world syndrome.
