Interesting read, Slate "Why People Believe in Conspiracy Theories"

[NRaleighLiberal]

It's long - I will post 4 of the (seemingly) most pertinent paragraphs

https://slate.com/technology/2021/01/conspiracy-theories-coronavirus-fake-psychology.html

2020 was a banner year for conspiracy theories. First there was the proliferation of QAnon, whose followers insisted that Donald Trump was all that stood between us and a “deep state” cabal that was running a global sex trafficking ring and harvesting a chemical from children’s blood. Then the COVID-19 pandemic provided fodder for a whole array of new fantasies: The outbreak was intentionally caused; the virus was created in a lab; the virus was caused by the rollout of the 5G cellphone network; the virus was spread by Bill Gates so that he could use a vaccination program to implant microchips into people that would let him track and control them; and, of course, the virus isn’t even worth worrying about. For a grand finale, we got the myth that the presidential election had been stolen—a “myth” that triggered an invasion of the Capitol.

These are not obscure beliefs, confined to a group of tin-hat-wearing crazies. Almost 4 out of 10 Americans believe that the death rate from COVID-19 has been “deliberately and greatly exaggerated,” while 27 percent think it’s possible that vaccines for COVID-19 will be used to implant tracking chips in Americans. One in three Republicans (33 percent) says they believe that the QAnon theory about a conspiracy among deep state elites is “mostly true.” Thirty-six percent of registered voters think voter fraud has occurred to a large enough extent to affect the election outcome.

snip

What does predict belief in conspiracy theories? A cocktail of personality traits. Those who believe these theories typically show high levels of anxiety independent of external sources of stress, a high need for control over environment, and a high need for subjective certainty and, conversely, a low tolerance for ambiguity. They tend to have negative attitudes to authority, to feel alienated from the political system, and to see the modern world as unintelligible. Conspiracy theory believers are often suspicious and untrusting, and see others as plotting against them. They struggle with anger, resentment, and other hostile feelings as well as with fear. They have lower self-esteem than nonbelievers and have a need for external validation to maintain their self-esteem. They may have a strong desire to feel unique and special, and an exaggerated need to be in an exclusive in-group. Belief in conspiracy theories often also goes along with belief in paranormal phenomena, skepticism of scientific knowledge, and weaknesses in analytic thinking. Proneness to belief in conspiracy theories is also associated with religiosity, especially with people for whom a religious worldview is especially important. These traits are hardly universal among or exclusive to conspiracy theorists, but they help create a vulnerability to belief.

snip

last paragraph

Conspiracy theories such as these are especially dangerous when they’re believed by people who actually have power, who set an example and make policy decisions. As columnist Paul Krugman wrote, “Unlike the crazy conspiracy theories of the left—which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe—the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people: powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences.” The widespread belief on the part of Trump supporters that Biden won the election only because of voter fraud, egged on by Trump himself despite the lack of any significant evidence, may leave a legacy of delegitimating the Biden administration and of delegitimating government and normal political processes themselves. And that, in fact, may be the point

lots more to read. NOTE - posting articles like this does not imply I agree with everything in them - but it is food for thought.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Person's

Receptors are conditioned by Religion. Thing about it,starting as a young person you are bombarded with the Sky Person Myths and Writings of a Drug Adeled Monk exiled to some Island.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. there's a great book recently written on it is related to the very Calvinist beginnings of the

country - the book was about how Americans are particularly prone to believe in conspiracy theories.

I think it's this one https://www.amazon.com/United-States-Paranoia-Conspiracy-Theory/dp/0062135562

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Yes,our Eldest Son lent us

that book way back when. Fascinating Historical read. Lived in a state that was controlled by one of Calvinist Religion. Every Chapter and verse of the book,we were tolerating in real time.

[shrike3]

10. Actually, I know very religious people who are following Covid to the letter and stone-cold atheists

who think it's all a conspiracy. I think it may be a personality type. Anti-authority. One thing they have in common, the conspiracy-minded folks I know. Deep distrust of authority, an insistence that any expert is in on the big lie, and a belief that the real truth lies in obscure corners, i.e., youtube videos, personal websites.

[Wellstone ruled]

12. That is great.

Good on them. I was referring to Mental Conditioning and Receptiveness to anti authoritarian skisems .

[shrike3]

13. It's very bizarre to me, the numbers of people I know who don't fit into any of the slots. You'd

think that the religious folks would be pro-hoax and the atheists, anti-religionists would be pro science. And it hasn't worked out that way. I just think with some people there's a conditioning, an inborn trait that causes them to reject what amounts to sanity.

You might enjoy this: an elderly Catholic woman told me she heard there were aborted fetal cells in the vaccines. I assured her that wasn't the case. She said, "I don't give a damn what's in the vaccine, I'm taking it anyway.

[stopbush]

4. The majority of Americans believe the fiction that there was a conspiracy to kill JFK

despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support those CTs.

The belief in the JFK CTs provide the basis for all the other political CTs that infect our national discourse.

[JonLP24]

5. It is hard to say with JFK

Lee Harvey Oswald has a very suspicious background often visiting Soviet embassies. As far as conspiracies I stick with things that are available that are open source.

How the CIA Came to Doubt the Official Story of JFK’s Murder
Newly released documents from long-secret Kennedy assassination files raise startling questions about what top agency officials knew and when they knew it.

By PHILIP SHENON and LARRY J. SABATO August 03, 2017

fter the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, the CIA appeared eager, even desperate, to embrace the version of events being offered by the FBI, the Secret Service and other parts of the government. The official story: that a delusional misfit and self-proclaimed Marxist named Lee Harvey Oswald killed the president in Dallas with his $21 mail-order rifle and there was no evidence of a conspiracy, foreign or domestic. Certainly, the CIA’s leaders told the Warren Commission, the independent panel that investigated the murder, there was no evidence of a conspiracy that the spy agency could have foiled.

But thousands of pages of long-secret, assassination-related documents released by the National Archives last week show that, within a few years of Kennedy’s murder, some in the CIA began to worry internally that the official story was wrong—an alarm the agency never sounded publicly.

Specifically, key CIA officials were concerned by the mid-1970s that the agency, the FBI, the Secret Service and the White House commission led by Chief Justice Earl Warren had never followed up on important clues about Oswald’s contact with foreign agents, including diplomats and spies for the Communist governments of Cuba and the Soviet Union, who might have been aware of his plans to kill Kennedy and even encouraged the plot. (There is no credible evidence cited in the documents released so far that Cuban leader Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders had any personal role in ordering Kennedy’s murder.)

The CIA documents also offer tantalizing speculation about the chain of events in late 1963 that explained Oswald’s motives for killing Kennedy, which have previously never been established with certainty—how he may have become enraged after reading a detailed article in his hometown newspaper in New Orleans in September suggesting that his hero Castro had been targeted for assassination by the Kennedy administration. According to that theory, Oswald, who had rifle training in the Marine Corps, then set out to seek vengeance on Castro’s behalf—to kill Kennedy before the American president managed to kill the Cuban leader.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/03/jfk-assassination-lone-gunman-cia-new-files-215449

JFK Files: Cuban Intelligence Was in Contact With Oswald, Praised His Shooting Ability

2) But—Oswald was overheard speaking to a KGB official just two months before the assassination

On September 28, 1963, the CIA intercepted a call Oswald made to the Russian embassy in Mexico City. On the call, he can be heard speaking in “broken Russian” to Consul Valeriy Vladimirovich Kostikova, an “identified KGB officer,” according to the document.

(Snip)

3) An alleged Cuban intelligence officer knew Oswald, and praised his shooting abilities

The transcript of a 1967 cablegram recounted how a man named Angel Ronaldo Luis Salazar was interrogated at the Cuban embassy in Mexico City the year before by Ramiro Jesus Abreu Quintana, “an identified Cuban intelligence officer,” about Kennedy’s assassination. During the interrogation, Salazar claimed he remarked that Oswald must have been a good shot. According to him, Abreu replied “Oh, he was quite good….I knew him.”

(Snip)

6) A mysterious man known as “El Mexicano” (believed to be a Cuban rebel army captain) may have accompanied Oswald in Mexico City

A CIA document containing handwritten notes indicated Oswald may have been accompanied in Mexico by a man dubbed “El Mexicano,” who is believed to have been a Cuban rebel army captain who later defected to the United States. Identified by another source as Francisco Rodriguez Tamayo, he was said in another newly released document to be the head of an anti-Castro training camp in Louisiana.

https://www.history.com/news/what-the-jfk-assassination-files-say-declassified-release-oswald

These articles are related to the recent declassified JFK files. There is so much we don't know and I don't draw any specific conclusions.

[stopbush]

6. May have this, might have that. Conjecture, not evidence.

[JonLP24]

7. I didn't give any opinions

But what I posted is what the declassified documents show.

[stopbush]

8. Indeed, but I would hold that the amount of evidence gathered by the Warren Commission

and as laid out in Bugliosi’s book, for example, provides a level of fact against which those declassified documents must be weighed. This is especially true when it comes to the forensic evidence.

[lindysalsagal]

9. Best explanation of the siege I've read. Great catch.

[LAS14]

11. Thanks. Good (sobering) article. nt