Category: Conspiracies
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What a conspiracy theorist president means Part 2 – Amanda Marcotte interviews me for Salon
Amanda Marcotte, who I’ve enjoyed reading since her days at Pandagon, was curious about what having a CT president might mean. For some crazy reason, she thought she should ask me about it. Briefly, I tried to summarize the patterns of thought conspiracy theorists engage in, their willingness to accept any belief if confirmatory of…
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So, you've elected a conspiracy theorist
I’ve not written about this election believing the flaws of the Republican candidate were pretty obvious; further litigating his failures as a candidate is now moot, he is now the president-elect of the United States. However, it is worth discussing what this administration will now bring given what we know about how conspiracy theorists behave…
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It's Been 50 Years, Time to Drop The Conspiracy Theories
Today, newspapers including the NYT and WaPo are commemorating the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s death both on their front pages and opinion pages I was thinking if it’s finally time to confront one of the most persistent, and widespread conspiracy theories out there – that of a larger conspiracy behind the Kennedy assassination. However, I’m…
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What is at the root of denial? A Must Read from Chris Mooney in Mother Jones
Chris Mooney has been exploring the basic underpinnings of denialism lately, with this latest article a good summary of the basic problems: In a recent study of climate blog readers, Lewandowksy and his colleagues found that the strongest predictor of being a climate change denier is having a libertarian, free market world view. Or as…
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Why we should be concerned Tamerlan Tsaernev read Infowars
I’ve recently written about the relationship between conspiracy theories and hate speech. Too often, conspiracy theories are used to justify irrational hate for one group or another, and to direct anger over lack of control of one’s life onto a group the conspiracist ideologically opposes. Historical examples include the Protocols of the Elders of Zion…
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Conspiracy Theorists are Just Like the Westboro Baptists
And Alex Jones and Mike Adams are their Fred Phelps. It’s a wonder that Anonymous doesn’t retaliate against these ghouls as well as against Westboro who are planning to picket the Boston Marathon funerals. Why are the the same thing? Because they’re all ghouls, and they all use any tragic event to bolster their warped,…
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Conspiracy belief prevalence, according to Public Policy Polling is as high as 51%
And it may even be more when one considers that there is likely non-overlap between many of these conspiracies. It really is unfortunate that their isn’t more social pushback against those that express conspiratorial views. Given both the historical and modern tendency of some conspiracy theories being used direct hate towards one group or another…
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What happens when you study conspiracy theories? The conspiracy theorists make up conspiracy theories about you!
I’ve known about this effect for a while as I’ve been variously accused of being in the pocket of big pharma, big ag, big science, democrats and republicans etc. Now Stephan Lewandowsky, in follow up to his “NASA Faked the Moon Landings – Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax.” paper, has used these conspiratorial responses…
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Did I call this or What? Mike Adams blames medicine for school shooting.
Crazy Luddite Libertarian Mike Adams is following his usual script, ghoulishly using the school shooting in Newton to pillory his usual bogeymen he blames for anything. True to form he is blaming psychiatry and medications for the school shooting. What was it I said yesterday? At some point it is likely he’ll find a way…
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Mike Adams couldn't go 6 hours without promoting an insane conspiracy theory about this school shooting
As anyone who reads my blog or Orac’s knows, Mike Adams, the “health ranger”, is a deranged individual who denies HIV causes AIDS, promotes some of the most absurd quackery in the world, and also is such an all around crank you can rely on him to wax conspiratorial about almost any dramatic news story.…