For the left conspiracy nuts and the general left who says that we can OBVIOUSLY see that Hillary didn’t do anything shady, that “spying” on the Trump campaign was part of an investigation into collusion and tampering, and that those saying otherwise are conspiracy nuts... if you believe the “evidence” of human trafficking in the Wayfair allegations is sufficient proof of wrong doing- how are you any better than the “conspiracy nuts” you claim are living in a made up reality?

Regardless of your politics- if you believe in “fake news” and “alternate facts” being used by ANYONE- how could you so quickly and easily jump on board a flimsy allegation that defies logic and has little or no support?

Closer here- and an answer. People like to think we have “special knowledge” in yesteryear that was the “secret sauce” a “trick” grandma taught you that was your “family secret” on how to make the best eggs or moistest cake- which none of the top chefs of the world has seemingly ever stumbled upon. Now we have “life hacks” and such. People have always had the “secret spot” the “best” bar or restaurant or place to park or bands or whatever- that no one else knew about and was totally better than the things all the “sheep” in the mainstream were all about.

Conspiracies are largely and usually just that. “How can all these people be so blind to not see this secret knowledge that only me and these elite others know?” Oddly... these “elite others” are very rarely the top minds of the time (not that the notably intelligent are immune to “secret knowledge” as things like occultism and such have long been popular with academics.) but the “elites” that “know the truth” are somehow usually... car salesmen from Oshkosh? Suburban home makers? Fast food workers and plumbers? People without published papers or patents or connections that would give them even second hand information on what goes on in the “Smokey back room”?

In other words- people who feel the biggest need to be “special” in some way that they almost certainly aren’t going to get from life otherwise- people who are known or seen as “special” simply BECAUSE they get attention for their conspiracy theories and rhetoric- like what used to be known as “fringe media” or “shock jocks” and are now called “journalists.”

People want to feel smart. Feel special. And the truth is... bluntly... often these conspiracies are not very “smart” because... the people coming up with them aren’t knowledgeable enough to come up with something better- or they are bullshit that someone intelligent enough to craft a story that most people could understand and follow to latch on to made for that express purpose. Remember “Idiocracy” when Joe tried to explain why plants need water- but no one understood enough to support it- so he gave up and said he could talk to plants and the plants said they need water? That’s most conspiracy theories that come from the “top down.” Made easily digestible by people who can’t understand anything complex enough to be realistic.

That’s why most of these theories are A>B>C. Most people don’t know or understand why WW1 or 2 went the way they did, causes etc. beyond very simple ideas like “a guy got assassinated” “Hitler started a war.” Hell- most people don’t understand what the Japanese involvement there was or why they attacked the US beyond “a good war needs bad guys...” why were we in Somalia? Why is there conflict in the Middle East? What’s up with Serbs and Croatians and Russia and Finland and hows that all got together? Most people don’t really understand it deeply or at all.

Geo politics is simple but complex. So when you have these conspiracy theories- they can sometimes be somewhat “close” in some way- is Wayfair doing bad things? Shady things? Probably. It’s a big global enterprise. If you want to find someone doing wrong- go pick anyone worth multi millions and dig and you’ll likely find a crime of some sort or a wrong. But these conspiracies usually get the WHAT is being done and even the WHY completely wrong because well... if you aren’t an accountant you might not get why doing a negative invoice against a 6110 account and then taking the profit and placing it in the 8250 is such a HUGE deal and why that is wrong.

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Sooo... does guest contemplate on how the mental diarrhea of any given QAnon "theory" on par with the idea that HRC is NOT an overlord of the deep state and Obama did NOT spy on Trumps campaign? I'm confused...

Lol. No. I have to be fair. The “right wing” and conservatives are far more well known for conspiracies than the left tends to be- so I had some trouble coming up with leftist conspiracy theories. There is the whole “Trump night do a coup” thing- but that’s less a conspiracy theory than a concern given they aren’t alleging something happened secretly but are speculating what could happen.

So being fair I had to consider things which we COULD from various perspectives say has ambiguity.

But the main idea is that we have a lot of people who willfully ignore what could be called evidence and dismiss any suggestion that wrong doing possibly happened, but will gladly embrace wild conspiracy on not even “evidence” but on possibility. Like a child who refuses to believe that a thousand lbs of feathers and a thousand lbs of bowling balls weight the same thing, but will believe that their parents being gone for 8 hours a day is evidence they must be super heroes since they could be out fighting evil aliens. That’s one possibility- but not the most likely.

Believing that Hillary Clinton’s Campaign or those interested in it could have sources or ties inside of an investigation and could receive information from that investigation isn’t really a conspiracy theory- we know for a fact that information leaks- investigation details are often leaked to the press- and if some reporters have sources for such information one could certainly believe that powerful and wealthy politicians who often made the careers of certain people could.

Believing something is possible however does not mean that it is what happened. For that one needs evidence of fact. But some possibilities are more probable than others. Anything is possible, science cannot prove something is impossible and neither can logic. We can only prove probability- which can be relative itself. But there’s a reason that scientists- in a world where anything is possible- tend to focus resources like time and money on studying that which seems probable- like researching quantum computers vs researching genies.

If science uncovered a magical entity that granted wishes we wouldn’t really need quantum computers or cures for Covid would we? So then why aren’t all the scientists of the world feverishly working on finding genies or unlocking alchemy? Well- those things are POSSIBLE, but they are highly improbable. We’ve not observed anything that would give science a “starting point” to seek those things out- and thusly it would be foolish to dedicate research to a thing you almost certainly will not discover vs. that which you have reasonable evidence that you could- or in absence of what you are looking for that you could still make some useful discovery.

So what I was saying was that if a person is capable of applying logic to a situation and making determinations based on evidence and probability- and they believe in “q anon” then they should apply that same logic without bias to that theory and they’d see it is t even a theory, it hardly qualifies as a reasonable hypothesis.

If a person already makes unreasonable leaps of logic- then we must be suspicious if we find ourselves agreeing with them. The UK and US fought along with the Soviet Communists in WW2- which shows us the exception to the general rule that if you find yourself on the same team with a certain “element”, especially consistently.... it likely isn’t a simple matter of your goals aligning... or one need asks why it is their goals and motivations so often align....

So when one looks around a room of their allies and finds that those allies are consistently ignorant.... well.... we’ve demonstrated that people of a certain low IQ literally lack the intelligence to identify their lack of intelligence. So a person can be so “dumb” as to not be able to know they are “dumb.” A litmus test we can use there that is imperfect but better than self assessment- is the company we find ourselves most intellectually aligned to. It’s certainly a strong self image that believes they and their drinking buddies being called idiots by accredited experts in a field means that those experts are clearly the idiots- but if we take a moment to be realistic....

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