Meeting on conspiracy theories

We just finished our Ideas Cafe meeting on the topic of conspiracy theories.  It was a very active discussion with people anxiously waiting for their turn to contribute.

We started off with a few interesting conspiracy theories and it was telling that John described these theories with relish and said how much he enjoyed finding out about them.  We then find that we had to limit our discussions to conspiracy theories, what they are, and why people have them versus conspiracy which is another big topic on its own.

Conspiracy theories seem to involve some secrecy, often involve one or a small number of conspirators as masterminds, and claims that are difficult to disprove.

Bob suggested that a good sign of a conspiracy theory is that proponents of this theory is very willing to change parts of the explanation when challenged but will stick to the intent of the conspiracy intently.

Richard wonders if conspiracy theories are used by people to justify their truisms such as "Government is bad, have to fight city hall, big business is greedy, etc".  It may also be used to justify their apathy in that they are powerless to act against the mighty conspirators being theorized to be behind what is happening.

Then there is the aspect of conspiracy theories used by a social group to demonize the "other", outsiders to the group who are always a threat to the group, lesser than the group, all to build bonding within the group.

Some of the events in history such as the Watergate break-in, the allegation of performance drug use in baseball and cycling likely appeared initially sounding like a conspiracy theory but later on turned out to be true.

In these cases, the early whistle blowers were likely being dismissed as conspiracy theorists as a way of putting down their attempt to reveal the truth.

Intent is always the central piece in constructing conspiracy theories with explanations built around events to align to the central intent.

Jerry said facts are what mattered and can be use to dispel conspiracy theories.  However, facts are subject to interpretation and continual challenge.  What we thought were facts at one time may no longer be now, so how sure can we be of what we think are facts now?

Bob said that science only disproves but never really prove anything.  So we are left with what we think is true only because it has not been disproved - yet.

Conspiracy theories are like fiction, it is valued for its outlandish intricacies while efforts to dispel them are by necessity much more boring. Perhaps our thirst for meaning and intent in others mixed with inspiration from our reading of novels spawn exciting conspiracy theories?

There were much more ideas exchanged at the meeting and led to questions about secrecy, conspiracy, celebrity worship, fundamentalism, McCarthyism and a lot of branches for future discussions.