Why do people believe in conspiracies?

With the help of Gemini, a short list of actual "conspiracy theories" that were later proven true. I asked to only deal with stuff fairly settled and in the past to avoid controversy about the claim that they were indeed proven true, and/or people being still politically biased about it (like say with covid).

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It's crucial to understand that "conspiracy theory" often carries a negative connotation, implying something unfounded or irrational. However, historically, there have been instances where what was initially dismissed as a "conspiracy theory" later turned out to be a proven conspiracy. Here are some notable examples:

Operation Mockingbird: For decades, there were "conspiracy theories" that the CIA was secretly using journalists and media outlets for propaganda purposes. In the 1970s, congressional investigations and revelations from former CIA agents exposed parts of "Operation Mockingbird," revealing that the CIA had indeed cultivated relationships with journalists and media organizations, often to disseminate information and influence public opinion.

COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program): For years, activists and civil rights groups claimed the FBI was secretly targeting and disrupting their organizations. These were often dismissed as paranoid "conspiracy theories." However, in the 1970s, through revelations from the Church Committee (a Senate investigation) and leaked documents, the existence of COINTELPRO was revealed. This program involved the FBI engaging in illegal and unethical tactics, such as infiltration, psychological warfare, smear campaigns, and even inciting violence, to undermine political groups and individuals, particularly those associated with the Civil Rights Movement, anti-war movements, and various left-wing organizations.

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident: This was a pivotal event that led to the escalation of the Vietnam War. The official narrative was that North Vietnamese forces launched unprovoked attacks on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964. This led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which greatly expanded presidential power to conduct military operations without a formal declaration of war. Years later, declassified documents and journalistic investigations revealed that the second alleged attack never actually happened, and the U.S. government had misrepresented intelligence to justify escalation. This was a classic "false flag" operation that was initially dismissed by critics.

Operation Paperclip: After World War II, there were persistent rumors that the U.S. government was secretly bringing Nazi scientists to the United States to work on American projects, despite their involvement in war crimes. This was a "conspiracy theory" that seemed too morally reprehensible to be true. However, "Operation Paperclip" was indeed a secret U.S. program that recruited over 1,500 German scientists, engineers, and technicians from Nazi Germany for employment in the U.S. after World War II. While the official stance was to exclude active Nazis, many with problematic pasts were brought over due to their scientific value, particularly in rocketry and aerospace.

The U.S. Government Poisoning Alcohol During Prohibition: This sounds like something out of a dark comedy. During the Prohibition era (1920-1933), the U.S. government, in an effort to discourage bootleggers from using industrial alcohol to make beverages, actually ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohol. This led to thousands of deaths, but it was largely forgotten and later viewed as an outrageous "conspiracy theory" until historical evidence brought it back into the public consciousness.

You number 2 are more like cranks than conspiracy theorists, but there's a fine line, especially when it comes to stuff like perpetual motion (stuff like "big oil wants you to think my free energy device is a scam, thermodynamics shmermodynamics, look, it works!")

I also think the list is missing the paranoid types who think there are ghosts under every bed and monsters in every wardrobe, like Playbig.

and this by private sector entities (again, this is just a short list)

ou're absolutely right to point out the Forex fixing scandal as a prime example from the private sector! It's a textbook case of a "conspiracy theory" that was undeniably proven true, and it highlights how large-scale manipulation can occur even in supposedly highly regulated markets.

Here are some of the most significant conspiracies in the private sector that were proven to have happened:

The Forex Fixing Scandal (2013-2015): This is exactly what you mentioned. For years, there were whispers and suspicions that a small group of elite traders at major global banks were colluding to manipulate the foreign exchange (forex) market, which is the largest financial market in the world, with trillions of dollars traded daily. These suspicions were often dismissed as "conspiracy theories."
However, investigations by regulators in the US, UK, and Switzerland revealed a vast conspiracy. Traders at banks like Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS used exclusive online chatrooms (with names like "The Cartel," "The Mafia," and "The Bandits' Club") to share confidential client order information and coordinate their trading strategies. Their goal was to "bang the close" – manipulate the daily "fix" rate, a benchmark used by countless businesses and investors, to benefit their own trading positions and profit illegally at the expense of their clients and the wider market.

The scandal resulted in billions of dollars in fines for the banks involved, criminal charges against some traders, and a significant blow to the reputation of the financial industry. It proved that a highly organized, clandestine effort by individuals within powerful private institutions could indeed manipulate a global market.
LIBOR Manipulation Scandal (2012 onwards): Similar to the Forex scandal, the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) was a massive conspiracy that was initially difficult for many to believe. LIBOR is a benchmark interest rate that underpins trillions of dollars in financial products worldwide, from mortgages to student loans.

It was revealed that a network of traders and submitters at various banks (including Barclays, RBS, UBS, and Deutsche Bank) colluded to manipulate LIBOR rates for their own profit. They would make false or misleading submissions to artificially inflate or deflate the rate, depending on their trading positions. This was done over many years, affecting individuals and institutions globally. The scandal led to multi-billion dollar fines for banks, criminal convictions for some individuals, and a push to replace LIBOR with more robust benchmarks.

Enron Scandal (2001): While not a "market manipulation" in the same vein as Forex or LIBOR, the Enron scandal was a massive corporate conspiracy involving fraudulent accounting practices that defrauded investors and employees. Enron, once a highly respected energy trading company, used a complex web of off-balance-sheet entities and partnerships to hide billions of dollars in debt and inflate its earnings.

This was a deliberate and widespread conspiracy by senior executives to deceive investors and the public about the company's financial health. The unraveling of the conspiracy led to Enron's bankruptcy, the dissolution of its accounting firm Arthur Andersen, and criminal convictions for many of its top executives. It was a clear case where internal corporate actions, initially hidden, proved to be a grand scheme of deception.

Volkswagen Emissions Scandal ("Dieselgate") (2015): This involved a deliberate conspiracy by Volkswagen to cheat on emissions tests for its diesel vehicles. The company installed "defeat devices" – software that detected when a car was being tested and altered the engine's performance to meet emissions standards, only to revert to higher-emitting levels during normal driving.

This was a global conspiracy, as Volkswagen knowingly sold millions of vehicles with illegal software in multiple countries. It was initially a "theory" among environmental groups and independent researchers that Volkswagen's "clean diesel" claims were too good to be true. The evidence, however, proved a sophisticated and coordinated effort by the company to mislead regulators and consumers, resulting in massive fines, recalls, and a severe blow to Volkswagen's reputation.

These examples demonstrate that conspiracies are not solely the domain of governments or shadowy organizations. Large corporations and financial institutions, driven by profit motives, have engaged in highly organized, secret, and illegal activities that were initially dismissed as unlikely "theories" but were later definitively proven.

The hit rate for conspiracy theories that were proven right out of all conspiracy theories has to be in the tiny fraction of a percent range. Sure, if you have an infinite number of idiots spewing random bullshit for an infinite amount of time, eventually some of them will accidentally stumble upon something that actually makes sense. Sitting around throwing **** at the wall in the hope that one day something might stick seems like an odd hobby, but each to their own.

It seems like there is a conspiracy theory that disputes the official explanation for literally every single event in the world of any significance, making them beyond useless as far as any actual truth seeking goes.

MKUltra, Iran Contra, Epstein, crack epidemic, WMD hoax, Tuskegee syphilis, mass rape hoax.

The list is endless. That's why it's funny reading some of the posts in this thread denigrating people for not trusting the government.

They confuse being corretcly skeptical about governments/etc with believing an alternative explanation

It's a common cognitive mistake in all areas. People like (maybe even need) something to believe.

Chez posting just reminded me of the Spy Cops conspiracy. LEO in Britain infiltrated even the smallest left wing and community groups by marrying lonely women and having kids with them. If it wasn't true, it would sound insane.

Oh, and that's another thing these dumbasses do - paint anyone who doesn't want to join their little moron club as a "sheep who blindly trusts authority". They fancy themselves as "free thinkers", you see.

In terms of the conspiracy theory having the details right ofc the hit rate is close to 0.

But the general idea that people with power will structurally lie in organized ways to shape narratives has a pretty high hit rate even if you almost never know the extent of the lies, you don't necessarily know the real motives behind the build up of those narratives, nor the exact extent of the participants.

So basically the proper a priori approach is to think they are lying to you everytime, so you should never prima facie take their claims as true and you should require robustness to pinpoint your model of understanding of the world on one of their narratives.

How do you get robustness? by consistency of claims across time and geography, and by how much the narrative being analyzed is necessary to justify pragmatical choices or not.

Example: one big reason why antivaxer conspiracy theories were wrong is that very diverse countries with very diverse elites from the american (or european) ones, and with different reward structures for participants, came to very very similar (but not identical for multiple doses, or for minors) conclusions wrt efficacy and safety of the vaccine.

Compare that to mask claims / mandates, with different countries reaching widely different conclusions.

That's where you know for a fact the proper a priori position isn't that different groups of experts genuinely , in good faith, reached opposite conclusions, rather that the groups pushing for behavioral change were lying in bad faith with nefarious purposes. Here i am talking about a few insane places mandating masks to toddlers, and most others not doing that for example.

When a narrative isn't found again and again, in time and geography, as correct by very different groups of people, and when the corollary of believing that narrative are behavioral changes in the population *you have to assume the worst every time* even if the details aren't perfect, you have to assume the intent is nefarious and a conspiracy is behind the narrative push.

You won't always be right and sometimes you will delay positive changes in your society a bit by doing that, but it's actually rarer that the dramatic changes that come as a corollary of a new narrative are positive and predicated on a new, genuinely more correct understanding of reality, than they are just vanilla attempts at population control.

The proper prior is caveat emptor for narratives, and exceptional skepticism of any claim that requires you and a lot of other people to change your behaviour "because reasons".

That conspiracies exist doesn’t justify being a conspiracy theorist though. You could have all the justification in the world to believe certain conspiracies and that’s not going to mean you are justified in believing any other conspiracy.

The symmetry breaker, as always, is going to be the evidence.

One of the less suprising stories, I'd say.

Doesn't apply to the above but another reason people believe too much in CTs is they prefer the idea of some plan rather than it just being a cock up.

No pls be precise.

It's not just a generic skepticism about government. It's a belief the are forces within the government spending their working hours in concert to build up a structured web of lies on purpose. Not generic "they ****ed up this so they are going to lie about this".

I mean think of a 20y old chinese person who believes in the "conspiracy theory" that his government is canceling all traces of Tienanmen square events.

He doesn't know exactly how, or exactly why, or exactly who in government wants to achieve that. But it's not just skepticism about "the gvmnt will lie to use about our past for various reasons". It's specific.

I was precise thanks. I also always enjoy people who believe people are useless and have organised complicated events

None of which means we shouldn't believe politicans try to cover stuff up, lie etc. That's not a CT, that's just observation.

Another reason people believe in CTs is again the need to believe something combined with the need not to feel inadequate in their understanding. This applies mostly when the science/maths/details/etc is long hard work that they aren't prepared to do.

I'll be choosing which pronouns I want to use today ty.

It wasn't about the pronoun, dipshit, you had the wrong referent. It's not your job, it's the guy's who doesn't believe/understand job.

Kinda tough to stray too far away from They/Them in this territory though. See, they've been subtly working it into the ether for longer than anyone even imagined 😀

lmao, you expect me to believe that you understand Chomsky? Work on your trolling game, dude..

This is exactly right. People want to feel they have control of their lives. But, in order for that to be true, others need to be in control of what happens in the world. People really don't want to believe in the chaos of life. They want an orderly world.

Interesting, I haven't voted Democrat or republican but in all my interactions conservatives seem far more open to hearing other opinions. Progressives tend to get irrationally angry and lash out. Of course I've experienced exceptions.

And things have gotten even worse with Trump in now, I have a couple liberal leaning friends who believe the US isn't going to exist as a country within a year basically and if it does trump will be the dictator, all minorities will be in camps etc.

Democrats in my extended family basically won't talk to known Republicans and consider them horrible people (ever since covid and trump it got this bad)

Of course it's an incredibly small sample size so probably have just had bad luck when dealing with Democrats/liberals.

Why do you think Chomsky is difficult to understand?

Well it's no longer a conspiracy theory once there is strong evidence. It exists as a conspiracy theory when you have to make assumptions.

I'm sure at one point in Nazi Germany jews being taken to camps etc was only a conspiracy theory.

Nah the camps were a very well known entity since inception, but the idea people were tortured, experimented upon, mass murdered and so on inside was a "conspiracy theory" yes which was ended only when we got to see inside.

Even the red cross lied to cover the scale of the horrors (perhaps to keep having access to try to save what they could, perhaps for more nefarious reasons).

The term “conspiracy theory” seems like a misnomer.

“music theory” teaches us more about the underlying truths of music and ways to play better.
“game theory” teaches us underlying truths about games and ways to play better.

“conspiracy theory” doesn’t teach us about the underlying truths of conspiracy and how to conspire better. Instead it is being used as a descriptor for wild claims.