I'm still having trouble drawing a line in the sand between "healthy skepticism" and "overriding suspicion".
When someone like michael moore does "bowling for columbine", people didn't accuse him of being a conspiracy theory advocate.
Yet, if he were to do a documentary today on the influence of pharmaceutical lobbying on the way the world handled covid (or the influence of china), he would surely be suspected.
I don't think this category is useful in any way to think about a given issue / theory.
Bowling for columbine never suggested any type of conspiracy. Lobbying for guns and interest group cooperation is not a conspiracy in that sense. Propaganda, PR and political influencing is not conspiracy in the conspiracy theory sense.
School shootings are not part of anyone's plan (except the shooters).
Moore tried to reveal the extend of influence and manipulation, not to reveal some new sinister group with secret plot or "everything is connected" in some completely new way that explains shootings. Advancing ones own interest and that having a negative side effect of school shootings is not a conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theories have the belief that certain events or situations are secretly manipulated behind the scenes by powerful forces with negative intent.
Unproven theories that threaten someone's worldview are typically met with the same reaction as an opposing political opinions, and for similar reasons. Rarely is it based in logic and consideration, since adjusting one's worldview takes a lot of energy.
My advice is to foster a worldview in which you accept that the world is poorly understood and many things are possible, and then you won't have to do significant reorganization (or denial and attack) every time an interesting new idea comes your way.
There have been a lot of posts about conspiracies lately, but they have all been pretty tame (or things that were previously considered conspiracies and later proven true). Here are a few more that show that the USA is and has been capable of horrific things since it became a superpower. Now imagine what an autocracy might be doing. Or what things we might be doing that haven't been proven yet/the government actually makes an effort to cover up.
No matter what Snowden uncovered, people who believe the CIA is controlling their thoughts with orbital lasers are wrong, even when they cite Snowden or MKULTRA as "proof." Adopting a worldview that accepts every claim, however absurd, as equally valid to all others is foolish. The world isn't flat, nor hollow. COVID isn't part of a New World Order plot to harvest your adrenochrome, we did on the moon, Hillary Clinton doesn't bathe in the blood of child sex slaves to maintain her human form, Sandy Hook was not a false flag, there are no FEMA death camps, no aliens at Area 51, HAARP doesn't control the weather, CERN didn't hack the Matrix, "cultural marxism" doesn't really exist, and neither does the "Deep State."
You can accept that the world is more complex than you understand, and that conspiracies exist, while still having a standard for obvious bullshit. Or at the very least, while being dubious of extraordinary claims presented without extraordinary proof.
> Unproven theories that threaten someone's worldview are typically met with the same reaction as an opposing political opinions, and for similar reasons. Rarely is it based in logic and consideration, since adjusting one's worldview takes a lot of energy.
This is the proverbial two-way street: unproven theories that reinforce someone's worldview are typically met with the same reaction as supporting political opinions and for similar reasons. Rarely is it based in logic and consideration, since adjusting one's worldview takes a lot of energy.
While paranoid conspiratorial thinking does definitely exist, accusing others of conspiratorial thinking is a very handy way to dismiss other points of view. And as you rightly point out, what you consider to be a conspiracy theory depends often on your opinions on a subject.
Climate change activists have claimed for a long time that our failure to address climate change is partly due to conspiratorial behaviour by oil companies- but this is of course perfectly fine.
There are plenty who would accuse him of being part of the conspiracy theory to take away their guns, but the reason he wasn't accused broadly of being a conspiracy advocate then is that he advocated something that the media broadly wanted, whereas an expose of the failures of handling COVID will be attacking in part the media and in a great part the FDA which is not something the media is interested in, hence it would be labeled a conspiracy theory.
Writing endless books and articles about how you’re engaging in wrongthink by questioning official narratives isn’t the solution, never has been, and never will be. For as many words that are written about the rise of conspiracy theories, I haven’t read a single one that tries to explain their appeal and origin in a neutral way, without having a condescending tone throughout. At some point you have to ask yourself: is your goal to actually persuade people, or is it to make them feel stupid?
To me it seems like a basic failing of psychology. If you want to stop people believing in fringe theories, then understand how they arrived at their position, engage them on their own terms, and acknowledge that (usually) there is a kernel of (often metaphorical) truth at the center, even if it’s been warped beyond recognition into a bizarre conspiracy theory.
About 13 months ago, there was this conspiracy theory about a pandemic in China. Conspiracy theorists and untrustworthy alternative news outlets were trying to sow dangerous misinformation about the Chinese government doing mass lockdowns and roundups of its own citizens. Even if this pandemic does exist, it isn't transmissible human to human. And wanting to close our borders and prepare is just xenophobic alarmism. The tens of thousands of Chinese people pouring into our airports are just tourists. The preponderance of video evidence of Chinese soldiers in hazmat suits rounding people up was just created by Russians in a sound stage somewhere, and can be dismissed without watching them.
There was even more elaborate fake news, like expat Facebook groups in China coordinating getting foreign citizens out of the country -- all carefully choreographed lies.
Luckily, I was banned in late January for telling people that they should wear masks as a precaution. Facebook and Twitter protected you.
In all seriousness, I am actually sure that a year ago there were smug academics and journalists having meetings about how they could counter these "lies".
Maybe I inhabit a different world from others, but this was not a conspiracy theory - at least if you had at least one friend from mainland China.
However, I think that people were right to push back against strong claims about a novel virus. At the time it was unclear whether this was another SARS or MERS, not quite as bad, or something worse. We didn’t even know for sure whether it bound ACE2 or DPP4 before mid February.
Hindsight is 2020 and I am very skeptical of anybody who claims they knew anything about the SARS-CoV-2 virus with any degree of certainty back in January.
>Writing endless books and articles about how you’re engaging in wrongthink by questioning official narratives isn’t the solution, never has been, and never will be. For as many words that are written about the rise of conspiracy theories, I haven’t read a single one that tries to explain their appeal and origin in a neutral way, without having a condescending tone throughout. At some point you have to ask yourself: is your goal to actually persuade people, or is it to make them feel stupid?
I'm unsure if you meant this to be read as a criticism of the book, or a general statement. The book seems to embrace the ideas that you're suggesting are missing. E.g.:
>Show empathy. Approaches should be empathic and seek to build understanding with the other party. Because the goal is to develop the conspiracy theorist’s open-mindedness, communicators must lead by example.
> Avoid ridicule. Aggressively deconstructing or ridiculing a conspiracy theory, or focusing on “winning” an argument, runs the risk of being automatically rejected. Note, however, that ridicule has been shown to work with general audiences.
One book that took on the subject in a neutral way was Des hommes, des dieux et des extraterrestres: Ethnologie d'une croyance moderne by Stoczkowski, Wiktor (I'm not sure if it was published in english). Unfortunately I can't recall much of the book - I've read it ages ago.
It was an anthropologist's study of groups who believed people originated in outer space.
the point isn't to understand conspiracy theorists -- the point is to crush and humiliate them such that the owners of society can safely continue engaging in hostile endeavors without criticism or awareness.
As insane as this sounds, we've seen time and again that conspiracy theorists are fundamentalists. It's like trying to convert a Taliban member to Christianity. It is not going to happen no matter how hard you try with soft methods.
One tactic I've found that works (with people I know): From the outset, insist on
1. answers and not questions.
2. positive evidence, and not hypotheses.
For the first, that means that statements like "Don't you think it's strange...?" statements are not permitted. Generally, conspiracy theorists won't provide answers, they will merely provide doubt to demonstrate a gap in your understanding, and then will happily try to fill the gap with a plausible (but usually wrong) theory.
It will start with "Don't you think it's strange/unlikely...?" regarding some aspect of the official narrative, and then follow with statements like "The only way it could make sense is if ..."
I point out that while he may have a compelling hypothesis, he didn't point to any proof of his hypothesis whatsoever. They are much more likely to point out absence of proof in parts of the official narratives, so use this same strategy with them. Positive proof means something actually demonstrated, not inferred.
It works really well. Most of them will fail right at step 1: "You've asked a lot of reasonable questions, but have not provided any proof for your theory."
Providing proof is hard. Coming up with ideas is easy.
Not sure if it'll work with random people though. It may have worked only because I know these people personally.
Edit: One more important tactic. Most of them rely on the "If you're wrong I must be right!" strategy[0] (or rather, they fall for it). So be very open to accepting that the official narrative is wrong. Say (sincerely) "I can believe the official narrative is problematic or even wrong, but I'm not sure I see a reason your narrative is correct. It's quite possible the true explanation is something else entirely."
[0] See the movie Thank You For Smoking for a good reference to this.
This does not work when one with the slightest bit of discomfort in arguing wants to cease and put an end to further discussion.
A lot of conspiracy theorists are fundamentalists. It's like faith. You can't muscle through it with logic, reasoning and data. Answers and positive evidence will lead you nowhere.
Public embarassment, mockery and comedy are the society's ways of dealing with this. Not saying this is a good idea as it bolsters them even further, but this is all we've got.
> This does not work when one with the slightest bit of discomfort in arguing wants to cease and put an end to further discussion.
I find that to be a positive outcome :-)
Of course, if your goal is to change their mind, then my strategy won't work well (or at least is not sufficient on its own). However, paradoxically, the first rule in influencing people is You cannot change people. You'll see this in most communications and negotiations books. The more they sense you are trying to change them, the greater the walls they'll put up. Change almost always comes from within, and you can only help them be making it easier for them to change.[1] Instead, you have to bring down their defenses, which includes accepting them as they are, whatever their perverse beliefs. That itself will be a major step towards change. The sort of person who cannot stomach a climate change denier is the sort of person who should exit the conversation first - their prejudices will usually do more harm than good.
> You can't muscle through it with logic, reasoning and data.
In that sense, they are merely ordinary people. If you've studied the discipline of influence, you'll find that changing people via logic, reason and data is the exception, not the rule. From my time in academia, I can tell you that even amongst highly respected academics, it tends to work only within their narrow discipline, and mostly not in other areas of their life. It's not hard to find someone who is in the top of their field adhering to weird beliefs. And my former academic self who knew little about influence in those days can assure you that logic, reasoning and data almost never swayed top scientists from conspiracy theories. I know because I tried, as did many of their colleagues.
> Public embarassment, mockery and comedy are the society's ways of dealing with this. Not saying this is a good idea as it bolsters them even further, but this is all we've got.
It may be all you've got, but it's a really ineffective way, and simply closes them off to you. If you read the handbook, they too caution not to use this. Not only that, it alienates even those who are on your side. As an exercise, go find people who used to believe in a conspiracy theory and changed their mind. I'd wager at least 80% of them did not change their mind through mockery and embarrassment. For bonus points, ask them what they think about that strategy.
[1] Ridiculing does the exact opposite - it makes change more difficult in their minds.
I really like this breakdown, and I’ve employed it (to some extent) with various people. In my experience, however, it’s not so much that it worked with them; rather, they found the discussion frustrating and became despondent only within the conversation between myself and them. In other words, I didn’t so much change their mind as help them decide to not engage me on whatever particular topic.
I find that incredibly frustrating. Maybe I’ve rubber-ducked myself into realizing I’m not doing something right.
In my experience, it works if people accept the two conditions as reasonable before the discussion starts. At the outset, the conditions are fairly reasonable. Yes, it's a trap, but a reasonable trap.
BTW, I'm not claiming this changes their mind in the long run. It does provide for a good conversation in the moment, though.
Or just admit that you don’t know enough to be confident in any explanation.
Maybe you try listening and maybe they will too.
Maybe realize that it’s more important to understand the person in front of you than score points in your own head.
Maybe start with establishing some common values rather than convince them that you’ll never agree on anything.
Maybe realize that some of the things that you are most concerned about are the things you are least rational about, and this may be that thing for them.
But the thing is that these people are the ones whose main prerogative is to score points. They are largely uneducated and disinterested, the world around them is complex and they feel inadequate. So they read something that tells them all the scientists and educated people in the world are either evil or sheeple and with the blink of an eye they have found superiority to you, when in reality, deep down, they know they don't have a position with regards to the big conversations of the world.
Rather than putting work in to maybe get to a point where they still have to be corrected by those they feel jealous of, those they resent for their cultural capital, they instantaneously put themselves above and beyond all of them.
Reasoning with and understanding them is impossible for two reasons. Everything I've said above and also how infuriating they are. There is only so much going around in circles listening to complete and utter tripe that the most patient of us can deal with. And that is what you'll spend your time doing, because reasoning and explanation is precisely what these people resent about you and it is precisely the driver of their beliefs.
The problem, I believe, is that the ridicule just isn't enough. They have each other as a force field. If they all of a sudden came up with a new piece of half-baked tripe which was ridiculed in their own circles, they would backtrack faster than they've ever adopted any of their views. The ridicule needs to be drilled in.
I note this focuses on climate change, and doesn't really stray beyond that. I'd be more interested in something that also addressed conspiracies that turned out to be true, like 'government surveilance' conspiracies from pre-snowden times, and could identify the difference.
It's important to note that often, suspicions of malfeasance by people in authority turn out to be wrong; but sometimes they are not. Claiming that people in power never conspire to do wrong - as this article seems to do - is pretty hard to back up.
The opening and closing lines are "real conspiracies do exist". Because of that, I didn't feel like the article claims that "people in power never do wrong".
Theories about conspiracies that turned out to be true are not conspiracy theories. The main characteristic of a conspiracy theory is that it cannot be disproved.
(It is unfortunate that the term "conspiracy theory" adds another meaning to the already confusing word "theory".)
> The main characteristic of a conspiracy theory is that it cannot be disproved.
Then my government surveilance example fits your definition. "If there's no evidence, then it's well hidden."
However, I would also say that in practice your definition leads to fallacy. In general use, what I've noticed is that literal 'theories about a conspiracy' are labeled as "conspiracy theory", and then dismissed because "conspiracy theories can't be disproven and are therefore crazytalk." (I think there's a term for that fallacy, but I can't find it.)
A seemingly mysterious (but probably trivial) feature of our universe is that there's only one kind of reasoning. There's no special 'anti-conspiracy' method of reasoning, nor any other special-puprose method.
Likewise, there's only one way a theory can be wrong. No theory has ever been wrong because it was a conspiracy theory.
What's actually being discussed here is how to make other people believe (or claim to believe) something. That's fine, as long as it's not muddled with how the truth is discerned.
I agree that calling something a "Conspiracy Theory" is basically name-calling. Calling something conspiracy theory doesn't tell us much if anything about what is true or not.
But many times it's justified name calling. Because it's not the conspiracy in the theory that is the issue but the lack of evidence in proportion to the strength of their beliefs. And in place of evidence their is paranoia. The problem is conspiracies by their nature are very hard to prove so your evidence for them will likely be weak
Another feature of the universe is that the truth can never actually be discerned.
At any point in time a new observation can be found that actually invalidates a previous hypothesis. Every single hypothesis ever made by mankind has the potential to be invalidated this way and therefore no hypothesis has ever been proven to be definitively true. Thus nothing can be proved to be true in science and by extension nothing can be proved to be true in reality as we know it.
The scientific method is based on two axiomatic foundations which we can only assume to be true: Logic and Probability. When you apply these axioms to an arena with an unverifiable amount of entities/primitives the result is a universe where nothing can be proven.
Perhaps no hypothesis has ever been proven to be definitively true, but it is possible to proof that at hypothesis is false, e.g. the moon is not made of cheese, the earth is not flat. Also you can estimate the likelihood that a hypothesis is true or false, e.g. hypothesis that Covid-19 is caused by a virus is extremely likely to be true, that is is caused by 5G signals extremely likely to be false.
Conspiracy theories thrive when true information is suppressed for political purposes. If you want to stamp out conspiracies stop lying to people about things they obviously know are false and they will be more willing to believe you when there is more uncertainty.
What makes you confident that is the reason? Are all people equipped to work out what is obviously false?
It is one thing to be distrustful of official sources and another to believe that Bill Gates is injecting nano particles into vegetables based on a video you saw on YouTube.
People don't just start believing Bill Gates is injecting nano particles though. They get there through a gradual process.
Edit: And I am confident this is the reason because I have observed people go down this process. People who are intelligent, and not the caricatures they are made out to be.
This. When information is suppressed, people fill in the gaps. Some people do it with wilder and wilder ideas, but there _is_ a gap, and those who think the information suppression is totally benign are naive, considering both historical precedent and the obvious question of, "what are they hiding that they don't want people to know about?" If it was benign, a government by the people and for the people would be transparent to the people. Lack of transparency hints that it is neither by nor for the benefit of the people.
No conspiracy theories thrive when the truth nuanced and complex, and takes more than two sentences to explain.
For example, rare and unforeseeable side effects from vaccines. They exist. Information is not being suppressed. However, the risk-benefit calculation from both a personal and societal standpoint is just complex and muddy enough to be exploited by some snake oil salesman hawking nutritional supplements that boost “natural immunity”.
Conspiratorial thinking is often an in-kind response. For instance, the theory that the virus came from a lab was common, but had no particularly strong conviction to it until every authority source became 100% certain that it did not. If they had just accepted the lab origin story as a possibility, it wouldn’t be a conspiracy theory, it would just be a theory. But what you saw was a well-dressed layman spokesperson on every major news channel telling you that only stupid and evil people disagree with them, and they are all plotting against you. This handbook reads like a guide to script writing in the popular media. Everything that ever happens is always a conspiracy that is far more widespread an nefarious than anybody would have assumed from normal experience. It’s never just one random accident that affects only a few people in billions. Until there actually is an event that affects billions of people, and then it’s just a random accident, until election time, and then it’s a conspiracy again. And if you question any of this, you’re an extremist. And I don’t think anybody cares if it came from a lab or not. That’s not the conspiracy part of the theory.
Readit News
When someone like michael moore does "bowling for columbine", people didn't accuse him of being a conspiracy theory advocate.
Yet, if he were to do a documentary today on the influence of pharmaceutical lobbying on the way the world handled covid (or the influence of china), he would surely be suspected.
I don't think this category is useful in any way to think about a given issue / theory.
School shootings are not part of anyone's plan (except the shooters).
Moore tried to reveal the extend of influence and manipulation, not to reveal some new sinister group with secret plot or "everything is connected" in some completely new way that explains shootings. Advancing ones own interest and that having a negative side effect of school shootings is not a conspiracy theory.
Conspiracy theories have the belief that certain events or situations are secretly manipulated behind the scenes by powerful forces with negative intent.
My advice is to foster a worldview in which you accept that the world is poorly understood and many things are possible, and then you won't have to do significant reorganization (or denial and attack) every time an interesting new idea comes your way.
There have been a lot of posts about conspiracies lately, but they have all been pretty tame (or things that were previously considered conspiracies and later proven true). Here are a few more that show that the USA is and has been capable of horrific things since it became a superpower. Now imagine what an autocracy might be doing. Or what things we might be doing that haven't been proven yet/the government actually makes an effort to cover up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoodshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Sprayhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltrahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incidenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n_Flight...https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22500231https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPROhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_A119
You can accept that the world is more complex than you understand, and that conspiracies exist, while still having a standard for obvious bullshit. Or at the very least, while being dubious of extraordinary claims presented without extraordinary proof.
This is the proverbial two-way street: unproven theories that reinforce someone's worldview are typically met with the same reaction as supporting political opinions and for similar reasons. Rarely is it based in logic and consideration, since adjusting one's worldview takes a lot of energy.
Dead Comment
Climate change activists have claimed for a long time that our failure to address climate change is partly due to conspiratorial behaviour by oil companies- but this is of course perfectly fine.
Interest and advocacy groups exist and make no secret of their agendas. Do these pass for conspiracies now?
To me it seems like a basic failing of psychology. If you want to stop people believing in fringe theories, then understand how they arrived at their position, engage them on their own terms, and acknowledge that (usually) there is a kernel of (often metaphorical) truth at the center, even if it’s been warped beyond recognition into a bizarre conspiracy theory.
There was even more elaborate fake news, like expat Facebook groups in China coordinating getting foreign citizens out of the country -- all carefully choreographed lies.
Luckily, I was banned in late January for telling people that they should wear masks as a precaution. Facebook and Twitter protected you.
In all seriousness, I am actually sure that a year ago there were smug academics and journalists having meetings about how they could counter these "lies".
However, I think that people were right to push back against strong claims about a novel virus. At the time it was unclear whether this was another SARS or MERS, not quite as bad, or something worse. We didn’t even know for sure whether it bound ACE2 or DPP4 before mid February.
Hindsight is 2020 and I am very skeptical of anybody who claims they knew anything about the SARS-CoV-2 virus with any degree of certainty back in January.
I'm unsure if you meant this to be read as a criticism of the book, or a general statement. The book seems to embrace the ideas that you're suggesting are missing. E.g.:
>Show empathy. Approaches should be empathic and seek to build understanding with the other party. Because the goal is to develop the conspiracy theorist’s open-mindedness, communicators must lead by example.
> Avoid ridicule. Aggressively deconstructing or ridiculing a conspiracy theory, or focusing on “winning” an argument, runs the risk of being automatically rejected. Note, however, that ridicule has been shown to work with general audiences.
Deleted Comment
1. answers and not questions.
2. positive evidence, and not hypotheses.
For the first, that means that statements like "Don't you think it's strange...?" statements are not permitted. Generally, conspiracy theorists won't provide answers, they will merely provide doubt to demonstrate a gap in your understanding, and then will happily try to fill the gap with a plausible (but usually wrong) theory.
It will start with "Don't you think it's strange/unlikely...?" regarding some aspect of the official narrative, and then follow with statements like "The only way it could make sense is if ..."
I point out that while he may have a compelling hypothesis, he didn't point to any proof of his hypothesis whatsoever. They are much more likely to point out absence of proof in parts of the official narratives, so use this same strategy with them. Positive proof means something actually demonstrated, not inferred.
It works really well. Most of them will fail right at step 1: "You've asked a lot of reasonable questions, but have not provided any proof for your theory."
Providing proof is hard. Coming up with ideas is easy.
Not sure if it'll work with random people though. It may have worked only because I know these people personally.
Edit: One more important tactic. Most of them rely on the "If you're wrong I must be right!" strategy[0] (or rather, they fall for it). So be very open to accepting that the official narrative is wrong. Say (sincerely) "I can believe the official narrative is problematic or even wrong, but I'm not sure I see a reason your narrative is correct. It's quite possible the true explanation is something else entirely."
[0] See the movie Thank You For Smoking for a good reference to this.
A lot of conspiracy theorists are fundamentalists. It's like faith. You can't muscle through it with logic, reasoning and data. Answers and positive evidence will lead you nowhere.
Public embarassment, mockery and comedy are the society's ways of dealing with this. Not saying this is a good idea as it bolsters them even further, but this is all we've got.
I find that to be a positive outcome :-)
Of course, if your goal is to change their mind, then my strategy won't work well (or at least is not sufficient on its own). However, paradoxically, the first rule in influencing people is You cannot change people. You'll see this in most communications and negotiations books. The more they sense you are trying to change them, the greater the walls they'll put up. Change almost always comes from within, and you can only help them be making it easier for them to change.[1] Instead, you have to bring down their defenses, which includes accepting them as they are, whatever their perverse beliefs. That itself will be a major step towards change. The sort of person who cannot stomach a climate change denier is the sort of person who should exit the conversation first - their prejudices will usually do more harm than good.
> You can't muscle through it with logic, reasoning and data.
In that sense, they are merely ordinary people. If you've studied the discipline of influence, you'll find that changing people via logic, reason and data is the exception, not the rule. From my time in academia, I can tell you that even amongst highly respected academics, it tends to work only within their narrow discipline, and mostly not in other areas of their life. It's not hard to find someone who is in the top of their field adhering to weird beliefs. And my former academic self who knew little about influence in those days can assure you that logic, reasoning and data almost never swayed top scientists from conspiracy theories. I know because I tried, as did many of their colleagues.
> Public embarassment, mockery and comedy are the society's ways of dealing with this. Not saying this is a good idea as it bolsters them even further, but this is all we've got.
It may be all you've got, but it's a really ineffective way, and simply closes them off to you. If you read the handbook, they too caution not to use this. Not only that, it alienates even those who are on your side. As an exercise, go find people who used to believe in a conspiracy theory and changed their mind. I'd wager at least 80% of them did not change their mind through mockery and embarrassment. For bonus points, ask them what they think about that strategy.
[1] Ridiculing does the exact opposite - it makes change more difficult in their minds.
I find that incredibly frustrating. Maybe I’ve rubber-ducked myself into realizing I’m not doing something right.
BTW, I'm not claiming this changes their mind in the long run. It does provide for a good conversation in the moment, though.
Maybe you try listening and maybe they will too.
Maybe realize that it’s more important to understand the person in front of you than score points in your own head.
Maybe start with establishing some common values rather than convince them that you’ll never agree on anything.
Maybe realize that some of the things that you are most concerned about are the things you are least rational about, and this may be that thing for them.
Rather than putting work in to maybe get to a point where they still have to be corrected by those they feel jealous of, those they resent for their cultural capital, they instantaneously put themselves above and beyond all of them.
Reasoning with and understanding them is impossible for two reasons. Everything I've said above and also how infuriating they are. There is only so much going around in circles listening to complete and utter tripe that the most patient of us can deal with. And that is what you'll spend your time doing, because reasoning and explanation is precisely what these people resent about you and it is precisely the driver of their beliefs.
The problem, I believe, is that the ridicule just isn't enough. They have each other as a force field. If they all of a sudden came up with a new piece of half-baked tripe which was ridiculed in their own circles, they would backtrack faster than they've ever adopted any of their views. The ridicule needs to be drilled in.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25616311
It's important to note that often, suspicions of malfeasance by people in authority turn out to be wrong; but sometimes they are not. Claiming that people in power never conspire to do wrong - as this article seems to do - is pretty hard to back up.
(It is unfortunate that the term "conspiracy theory" adds another meaning to the already confusing word "theory".)
Then my government surveilance example fits your definition. "If there's no evidence, then it's well hidden."
However, I would also say that in practice your definition leads to fallacy. In general use, what I've noticed is that literal 'theories about a conspiracy' are labeled as "conspiracy theory", and then dismissed because "conspiracy theories can't be disproven and are therefore crazytalk." (I think there's a term for that fallacy, but I can't find it.)
2. Just because something cannot be disproven doesn’t mean it can’t be proven.
3. There are many theories that can be disproven, but haven’t yet been. These are still theories until such a time.
Likewise, there's only one way a theory can be wrong. No theory has ever been wrong because it was a conspiracy theory.
What's actually being discussed here is how to make other people believe (or claim to believe) something. That's fine, as long as it's not muddled with how the truth is discerned.
At any point in time a new observation can be found that actually invalidates a previous hypothesis. Every single hypothesis ever made by mankind has the potential to be invalidated this way and therefore no hypothesis has ever been proven to be definitively true. Thus nothing can be proved to be true in science and by extension nothing can be proved to be true in reality as we know it.
The scientific method is based on two axiomatic foundations which we can only assume to be true: Logic and Probability. When you apply these axioms to an arena with an unverifiable amount of entities/primitives the result is a universe where nothing can be proven.
It is one thing to be distrustful of official sources and another to believe that Bill Gates is injecting nano particles into vegetables based on a video you saw on YouTube.
Edit: And I am confident this is the reason because I have observed people go down this process. People who are intelligent, and not the caricatures they are made out to be.
For example, rare and unforeseeable side effects from vaccines. They exist. Information is not being suppressed. However, the risk-benefit calculation from both a personal and societal standpoint is just complex and muddy enough to be exploited by some snake oil salesman hawking nutritional supplements that boost “natural immunity”.