Background People

I've been real into conspiracy theories ever since Zecharia Sitchin's 12th Planet series. I was about 15, and convinced that there was an elliptically orbiting twelfth planet (eleventh? tenth? Can't keep track) filled with really smart people that would drop down and help us out once in a while. How else do you explain the Pyramids??

Because aliens, that's how.

It took me until college before I had the critical prowess to tackle that excuse for an answer. Now I like to use Michael Schirmer's Baloney Detection Kit.

Belief in conspiracy theories, as it is generally understood, comes from a lack of self-control. When you feel like you can't do anything to fix your life, you want to blame someone. And it's a lot easier to blame one big, scary, sinister, omnipotent force, one that is too big for you to fight, and too pervasive to ever fully understand.*

Conspiracy theories are also helpful if you have a hard time understanding how the world works. It's a lot easier to say everything is hidden purposefully, by a nefarious agent. That way you can't be blamed for not understanding, right?

But there's a great study that's been recently done which proves something different. It shows that the reason for us believing in conspiracy theories isn't necessarily because we feel a lack of control, but because we want to sound cool.

"Exclusive knowledge" is the key term here. Or simply exclusivity. Exclusivity makes people look cool. It's why clothiers burn their unsold wares at the end of the season. It's why gmail was invite-only. It's kind of why you can't read graffiti. And it's the most basic component of economics - supply and demand.

Everyone wants to know things that others don't. When you have exclusive knowledge, you're in-demand. But how do you prove that this is what makes people fall for stuff like flat earths and reptile people?

How? Well, you invent a conspiracy theory from scratch, preferably something happening in another country, far enough that you wouldn't have heard of it, but close enough that you can have some opinion, and then you feed it to people but tell them it's either a very popular theory, or an unpopular theory, and see how it gets received.

A totally made-up story unfolds in Germany, and is presented to the study participants, and with that, another little piece of information comes. Some are told that this story is believed by 80% of Germans, and some are told that it's only believed by 20% of Germans.

The study participants had already been tested for their propensity to believe or endorse conspiracy theories, and they were give a score. People with a high "conspiracy mentality quotient" were more likely to accept the fictitious conspiracy theory, but only if it was presented as not popular. For clarification, the exact same theory, when presented as generally accepted by most people, was not accepted.

Is there some way we can get climate change to be less popular of a theory??

*Also, believing in BS tends to happen more when you're prefrontal cortex hasn't been fully formed, which would be around 25 years old, give or take a few. 


Notes:
Want to Feel Unique? Believe in the Reptile People
May 2018, Knowing Neurons

On Background People

On Zecharia Sitchin, author of books about ancient astronauts

On Why Zecharia Sitchin is wrong about the ancient astronaut thing, from a PhD in Hebrew and ancient Semitic languages from University of Wisconsin-Madison, just in case you needed some balance in opinion

Post Script:
If you're interested, the fictitious conspiracy theory used in the study went like this:
A retired engineer had found evidence that these smoke detectors have serious side effects, emanating a ‘hypersound’ that causes nausea, gastritis and depression. This was forcefully rejected by VdS Schadenverhütung GmbH, the largest (and invented) producer of smoke detectors. The conspiracy: VdS was in cahoots with the government and knew about the dangerous smoke detectors, but did nothing.