Why do conspiracy theorists go on at length about it all the time?

[AquamarineBalloon]

I’ve just been on a taxi journey during which the driver went on and on about his conspiracy theories for the whole journey, doing his own research, etc. I just acknowledged he was speaking but didn’t offer any response or engagement but the lecture continued for the whole trip (which was thankfully relatively short).

I hold opinions about various things but unless I’m specifically asked what I think, or having a conversation on that topic, I don’t feel the need to go on at length about them to other people.

He’s entitled to his view (however baseless and ridiculous) but why the lecture?

AIBU?

The new alt right libertarians @foulksmills . My adult children had one in their friends group. ' All taxation is theft!' he would say.

I uses to wind him up , asking if he was going to build his own personal road to drive on. Or would he condescend to use the normal roads our tax has paid for?

But they always have an answer - it's like trying to pick up mercury with a fork.

I wonder why there seems to be a high concentration of conspiracy theorists among taxi drivers. Or is that a conspiracy theory too?!

You can't expect normal standards of behaviour from the unhinged.

@foulksmills I know! The thing that gets me about the Sovereign Citizen crows is this
... Let's go with what they want. Let's tears down all of our current systems, structures and laws and go back to basics. The Magna Carta. What then? Do they know how to till a field? Weave their own fabrics? I don't! Because these people want to opt out of the parts of society they don't like but they all seem to like smartphones and Internet. We won't have them for long!

I cannot stand being captive by these people. My Ex was the same, he used to follow me round the house telling me all the things ‘they’ are going to do.

They will…
Take my house & I have to rent it back
I will work for the government
covid is a con
i will have nothing & own nothing

He would then say the same stock words over & over - narrative, kangaroo court, brainwashed, woke, sheep, sheepie

So infuriating.

Reading this thread, if this is the quality, and depth of conspiracy theories people discuss and understand, then omg, talk about having a small part of a puzzle and not even being fully educated on the various theories.

Why do conspiracy theorists go on at length about it all the time?

They have nothing else in their sad little lives.

I used to feel sorry for them but I've now been bored to death too many times by the tinfoil hat brigade and/or those who feel the overwhelming need to let you know their political/(non-)religious/dietary views to care anymore.

It's crazy. If my eyes were to roll any harder they would roll out of their sockets. Who thinks this stuff up? And why do these wingnuts imagine anybody is remotely interested in their theories?

I wonder if we had the same plasterer I had one that went into conspiracy theories at length 😂

I think almost all conspiracy theorists have never actually "done" anything. By that I mean, never got a job in which they've had to (for example) organise the funding to get a project running in a hospital, once you have the cash, appoint people to do the work, then try to keep the whole thing under control as people fall out with each other / prove to be bewildering incompetent, submit annual reports to convince funders that we are actually working on the project properly (essential if funding is to keep coming), try and get all the results properly collated and written up, deal with journal editors to get the results published, etc etc etc.

There are many, many examples from just about any walk of life.

Trying to accomplish a significant, perfectly legal task in the open with the nominal support of an entire health service behind you can be a nightmare.

But organising a vast global conspiracy that involve centuries of concerted collaboration is apparently pretty simple.

I haven't had it from taxi drivers (and I do take taxis fairly frequently) but oh dear, some of the stuff I've encountered online and from acquaintances IRL.

The worst to me are the anti-vaxxers and the anti-modern medicine people: those who think that if we 'lived naturally without the interference of modern medicine' we'd all be healthier. Not in my case; I'd have died at birth and probably killed my mother in the process.

A variant on this is those who think everyone could be healthy if they believed in their capacity to be healthy, and that anyone who has health problems must have some reason for WANTING to be ill.

Then there are all the antisemites and racists: everything is the fault of the joooooos or the immigrants or most likely both.

Ugh!

Not a taxi driver, but a colleague. Literally every theory, he believes is the 'truth' and that everyone is being lied to and controlled, It's usually highly entertaining, most of it is just utter bullshit, and he doesn't see the irony that its not just us being 'controlled' but it does tip to offensive with some of his views, I'm surprised he hasn't been hauled over the coals. That said, he is excellent at his job, so that's probably why it's tolerated. My usual response is so 'what are you going to do about it then?'

Does believing in conspiracies turn you into an evangelising monologuing bore, or is it more that conspiracy theories are particularly attractive to people with poor social and/or cognitive skills?

There is a lot of unfairness and unjustness in the world. A small number of people do indeed hold disproportionate amounts of power over the lives of normal people. Governments and institutions are vulnerable to corruption. Conspiracy theories package these messy and difficult to solve problems into neat narratives of good and evil.

There's one entity provably behind Big Pharmatican, Royal Lounge Lizards and Hillary Chemtrails Clinton among others. These facts have been encoded in "entertainment" television because the average human is a steeple (pointy headed and in the clouds) who cannot handle the truth. The entity is real and you can catch a glimpse of him on old programmes that They haven't been able to hide! One man knows the truth and his name is Dinsdale Piranha. A new World Order would arise if this ever got out so best to be silent and just do the secret handshake (pressure on the thenar eminence plus a wiggle of the buttocks). I have seen the entity many years back, but am sworn to secrecy. I won't be believed on here but will now be living on borrowed time because this is the fate of the whistleblower and this entity is as relentless as he is unforgiving. He's bloody big too. His name is Spiny Norman.

Ah @LuciaPillson but behind Dinsdale there lurks Doug who uses sarcasm...

Probably because they are obsessed. If they weren't obsessed by these issues they probably wouldn't be consipracy theorists in the first place.

I think the whole conspiracy theory appeals to a particular kind of mindset. For example being a conspiracy theorist means you never have to be wrong - you can always expand the conspiracy theory to encompass and explain any new evidence that appears to disprove it. That appeals to a certain mindset.

For me I think the world needs people to ask questions, but there is a limit how far you can take that. It wouldn't surprise me if a few conspiracy theories out there are actually correct. After all there is enough of them, sooner or later one is going to be true.

But I don't really worry much about things I can't change, and I don't spend my time obsessing about stuff I don't think I can ever know the answer to. If someone else wants to do the groundwork on that then fine, I'll wait for the results with interest but otherwise I prefer to spend my time pondering issues that are more tractable and likely to lead to a conclusive outcome.

I also think that most peoples mistake is in thinking in black and white about most issues, they either believe something or not, whereas in reality there is only probability. For example, I do believe in the moon landings on the balance of probability, but I think maybe a 5% chance they were actually faked.

I was randomly thinking about flat earthers the other day. Why do they care so much? If scientists suddenly discovered the earth was flat I wouldn't care, why do they give a shit. Weird!

I have a friend who keeps banging on about Diana Spencer and how another foreign agency killed her on the orders of the Royal Family. It's the same conversation over and over again and she'll get quite shitty and aggressive if you disagree with her.

I do my best to avoid her but she keeps suggesting we have eats/wine/coffee, and I'm running out of excuses. Oh, and Diana was pregnant, which was why they had to get rid of her, but the French authorities hushed that up too.

She's my oldest friend but she gives me a f*cking headache.

I think there are a substantial number of flat earthers who like arguing for the sake of arguing - an academic exercise if you will.

Why they choose that subject rather than something more interesting and less settled like the simulation hypothesis, I don't know. I suspect it is just historical.

They are obsessed though, they have societies and hold conventions!

Apparently compass manufacturers are in on the "spherical earth" conspiracy. On a flat earth, there can be no south pointing shadows anywhere on the world. Everyone living in South America, Australia, South Africa has been duped because the compass manufacturers deliberately paint the compass needles incorrectly so that it just looks like shadows are pointing south. They don't really....

In one ear and out the other, then you still have the friendship ?

I believe that's exactly why. People see it as a duty to warn others. As I've always understood it, conspiracy theorists want to be proved wrong... NOT right.

I will say, I do think the term conspiracy theory/ist has become a bit of a catch-all term for simply having an 'alternative view' on something. Yes, 'micro-chips', 'lizard people', 'UFOs' are quite obviously conspiracy theories. However, there are also many 'conspiracy theories' that have turned out to be true; unfortunately, facts people don't want to hear are often dismissed as conspiracy theories. Just because one might be, though, doesn't mean they all are and I do think people should be able to tell the difference.

For what it's worth, after the three years we've had, I genuinely can't believe there are still people walking this earth who don't think there's a nugget of truth in something they may have heard!

The one I knew was mad for lack of a more sensitive word and loved to feel like he was better than everyone else.

He was also, unfortunately, my stepdad. He decided that toothpaste was a conspiracy full of chemicals to give us alzheimers, so replaced it with bicarb of soda. I had to sneak my real toothpaste in and out of the bathroom.