this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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There's also a large community of conspiracy haters ready to welcome anyone who believes anything an authority figure says. They are congratulated for seeing the light and joining the movement. This fulfills a social need for ... etc.
Is there? I don’t know of anyone who gathers together to bad mouth conspiracy theorists
There are many in this thread. I replied to one.
People who casually dismiss conspiracy theories are exactly as bad as those who unquestioningly believe them.
the occams razor is a crucial part of scientific thinking for a reason.
the space of all possibilities is infinite. the space of what people believe and say is enormous. the space of what is actually truth is comparatively smaller, unrelated and uncaring about either of those.
you can't possibly consider everything everyone says - especially if what they are saying keeps changing as they see fit. you'll just burn out if you try and end up in endless "discussions" with the people who are "just asking questions"...
that doesn't mean i should dismiss or ridicule people, but it does mean i will not spend a single heartbeat thinking about another "proof" that the earth is flat or controlled by lizard prople or something.
Holy shitballs. NO. Occam's razor may lead you to a solution faster, but the scientific approach is to exhaust all possibilities. Occam's razor implies the sun goes round the earth. It is not scientific.
Of course you can. You may assign it a credibility of almost 0, but you can still consider a theory. In science this process is decentralized and heavily delegated.
Then they become even less credible.
Well, at least you were open enough to consider one argument.
Honestly, I was on board with the lizard people right up to the point David Ike insisted that it wasn't a metaphor.
Did you see someone whose social life is built around dismissing conspiracy believers or did you just reply to someone who rejects conspiracy thinking? I suspect it’s the latter.
Did I say there was someone whose social life is built around dismissing conspiracy believers? No.
I'm point out that people who automatically reject conspiracy thinking have exactly the same mentality and online support groups as those who blindly believe them. I illustrated this by mirroring their exact words.
Go back to the furst comment of yours that I replied to. You claim there’s a community of anti-conspiracy people and what Im suggesting is that the conspiracy thinkers are a ral community. If you buy into flat earth there are conventions to go to, merch to buy and shows to listen/watch that are all part of the flat earth community.
Skeptics don’t have that in the same way. My unwillingness to accept Bigfoot isn’t because im searching to belong but the Bigfoot hunter might be.
Yep. On reddit there was a organized group called themselves top minds of reddit r/tmor
Only in that people post in the same subreddit.
Agreed. But doing that you aren't automatically a member of the sasquatch search community nor do you automatically believe that Hitler survived and moved to South America.
Conspiracies are separate (generally).
The people who don't take official explanations as gospel are the Skeptics. One should not dismiss flat earthers until a ship has been observed disappearing over the horizon.
If you automatically dismiss something because someone calls it a debunked conspiracy then you are not a skeptic.
My unwillingness to believe the tech companies privacy statement doesn't push me to join a community
Again conspiracy theorists have IRL events and a culture whereas “Best Minds of Reddit” is a subreddit and not a community. They aren’t the same thing. People identify as flat earthers, JFK conspiracists et al whereas no one identifies as an anti-conspiracy theorist
People interested in a common topic may meet IRL, but that's a specific community. Topics don't overlap. There is no all encompassing conspiracy theorist community. The closest example I can find is Conspiracy Con which has not run for more than a decade.
Anyone who automatically dismisses a topic because some calls it a conspiracy theory is anti-conspiracy theorist.
My point is that r/tmor is just as equal a community as r/conspiracy
And Im not claiming parts of reddits are communities but ratger IRL comspiracy groups come with a community like any group that organizes around beliefs do. Your claim is that anti-conspiracy people are a community and they aren't
My claim is that the anti-conspiracy people are very similar to the conspiracy theory people. The amount of community spirit, in real life meetings, self congratulation and dogmatic beliefs are broadly the same.
And Im saying that's wrong because I can find IRL meet ups all over the world for people in a conspiratorial subset. Becoming a flatearther or antivaxxer is like becoming a Roman Catholic in the sense that there is a real world community of people who gather together to celebrate and share these ideas. The anti-conspiracy people do not have this. If you don't buy into conspiracy theories there isn't a convention for you, there aren't gatherings of people to debunk the conspiracies that no one attending believes in.
When I say there's a community of conspiracy theorists Im talking about an actual community not a fucking subreddit as subreddit are not real communities.
You are conflating the subset of people who believe a particular conspiracy theory with a largely imaginary group of people who believe any conspiracy theory.
Yes there are
You are constantly referring to specific communities (e.g. anti-vaxxers). There is no generic conspiracy theory community. Anti vaxxers don't necessarily believe 9/11 was an inside job.
Ok? You're still demonstrating conspiracy theorists have a community while those who oppose them aren't members of a specific community.
Again websites, internet forums, and subreddits are not real communities. No one is self identifying as a person that opposes conspiracy theories whereas flat earthers are prominent enough that I don't have to explain what the flat earther community is.
Conspiracy theorist communities offer a sense of larger belonging that opposition to conspiracy theories does not provide. They are incredibly different in that regard
No. A particular conspiracy may have a group of people that form a community. E.g. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth but these people don't believe in flat earth.
If websites, internet forums, and subreddits are not real communities then there is no conspiracy theorist community.
If you allow websites, internet forums, and subreddits then the anti-conspiracy theorist community is just as valid as the conspiracy theorist community and they display many of the same dogmatic traits. Hence my mirroring of their words.