Conspiracies

[Heat]

Why do so many of these exist?


I'm not talking about the validity of any of them(to some degree), but the reasoning for them existing in the first place. I get that they are in an effort to find the truth, which I definitely commend, however this is a stretch in a lot of cases. To be quite honest, most of the time they are not based on nothing, even if it is bad evidence. What is your explanation for the philosophy behind it?

How do you explain the fact that often even the most crazy, out in left field, totally ridiculous conspiracy theories(I.E Flat Earth, Reptilians, Clones, etc.) somehow still manage to get evidence that they support these theories with? I'm not really talking about the fact that regardless of the evidence they are most likely wrong, we understand that, i'm talking about how they string together this evidence with their own personal narrative in the first place.


Thoughts?

[vorlon13]

Untreated paranoia, substance abuse, fashionability of ignorance, will to be contrary, attention seeking.

[ApeNotKillApe]

In the wake of mental illness or emotional turmoil, depression or stress can lead to one projecting their problems, their personal dissatisfaction onto the world around them, they develop delusional paranoia that the world is out to get them, and they find patterns wherever they can to justify it.

[Minimalist]

All of the above plus............ some people are just fucking stupid.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Humans are pattern-seekers, and will invent what they cannot find.

[ApeNotKillApe]

And I suppose the feeling of being enlightened, of understanding the world far better than most people, provides a personal high of sorts that they don't want to give up.

[Brian37]

In laypersons terms, the mundane simply isn't sexy enough for many. The only difference between religion and a conspiracy is what we call the delusion.

Like with JFK, you have a society constantly sold that it is the greatest country on the planet and your president gets murdered, a lone nut simply doesn't seem to be enough to explain murdering such a powerful man. The truth of JFK is that Oswald was mentally unstable, wanted to make a name for himself, hell even the Soviets told him to go home because he wasn't right in the head. Combine that with simply lax security, an that gave him the opportunity.

I am quite sure that if Reagan had died his supporters would have screamed that Hinkely had help.

It's simply a form of paranoid gap filling.

[Cyberman]

It's always exciting to be in the know, on the inside. The truth THEY don't want you to know and all that. That it's complete cobblers at least 99% of the time doesn't even factor into it, except to reinforce the exclusivity of their pet conspiracy.

Also there's a lot of money in the pundit circuit.

[ApeNotKillApe]

The bulk of the Illuminati theorists seem to have a heavy Christian theme to it, a lot of talk about the Illuminati as genuine servants of the actual Satan, lot of stuff about the Antichrist and pentagrams/triangles hidden in bizarre places. You can see that the two ridiculous ideologies have found common ground in the weak-minded, and broke off into a new strain, emergent distrust in the government in the mid-20th century coupled with America's prominent Christian history, the two delusions have found ways to compromise, to synthesize, and produce a new mutation.

[Homeless Nutter]

Why do so many of these exist?

[...]

Because they're relatively simple and exciting, and the lack of evidence for the conspiracy - or existence of evidence to the contrary - is usually incorporated into the claim.