Conspiracy theories and spiral dynamics

[apparentlynoself]

Hey guys! I was contemplating today about an interestong question. Where would you peg conspiracy theorists on the spiral?  I am kinda confused because I see them as skeptics and that would mean that they are orange. But I still don't know is that true. What do you think.

I am especially talking about conspiracy theorists about covid 19. Thanks

[GreenWoods]

I think every stage has conspiracy theorists. A lot of conspiracy theorists fall into a lot of traps and thus end up believing things which are probably not true. These are on Stage Green and below. Those conspiracy theorists who open-mindedly look at both sides and come to a conclusion that one side is more likely than the other (based on evidence) are on Stage Yellow or above.

If someone says that a conspiracy theorist can not be at stage Yellow, then that person is by definition below stage Yellow.

[apparentlynoself]

13 minutes ago, GreenWoods said:

I think every stage has conspiracy theorists. A lot of conspiracy theorists fall into a lot of traps and thus end up believing things which are probably not true. These are on Stage Green and below. Those conspiracy theorists who open-mindedly look at both sides and come to a conclusion that one side is more likely than the other (based on evidence) are on Stage Yellow or above.

If someone says that a conspiracy theorist can not be at stage Yellow, then that person is by definition below stage Yellow.

Thanks for the reply

I don't consider myself a full blown conspiracy theorist and i don't believe in bs such as:

- flat earth

-9/11 hoax

- fake moon landing, etc...

But some of them sound quite realistic. Especially the fact that the coronavirus started in wuhan, where the biggest lab in the world is located. Again, I am not saying that I believe it but it is possible

[Commodent]

I think it's a personality trait that can only be balanced out with maturity. The biggest threat of any incessant freedom-seeker will always be control and order, and conspiracy theories are merely manifestations of this. 

Drawing from the MBTI model:

ExxPs are always whining about being controlled, it's SO typical them. To some extent also IxxPs. This fear of control is a very common theme in conspiracy theories.

Now, IxxJs and ExxJs (like Leo who's an INTJ) are all going to go "what's the big deal?". Control is no threat to them, because they would naturally be the ones designing systems. Meaning they don't suffer from the same blindspot. To them, and particularly the IxxJs, chaos is the threat.

[Consept]

3 hours ago, apparentlynoself said:

Thanks for the reply

I don't consider myself a full blown conspiracy theorist and i don't believe in bs such as:

- flat earth

-9/11 hoax

- fake moon landing, etc...

But some of them sound quite realistic. Especially the fact that the coronavirus started in wuhan, where the biggest lab in the world is located. Again, I am not saying that I believe it but it is possible

There could be something to that conspiracy but the point is that you stop where the evidence stops and anything past that you can acknowledge that you are in the area of speculation, nothing wrong with speculation but ultimately you realise you don't know. 

What happens with conspiracy theorists is that they'll take that extra leap and say that it's definitely created in wuhan, then they might cite another of their favourite theories to back up this one and then it goes off the rails. 

As for the spiral dynamics I think you could have critical thinking at most levels but green and below tend to have narrow narratives that they believe so if they haven't developed critical thinking it's very easy for them to get into conspiracy territory. Once you get into yellow the narrow narratives tend to drop away so it would be less likely for you to fall into a conspiracy theory 

[Leo Gura]

They are in the category called "fools who think they are being smart"

[Vipassana]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

They are in the category called "fools who think they are being smart"

Ahh the irony 

[Inliytened1]

What does "I'm over here and the bad guys are out there somewhere" stink of?

Low consciousness.

 

 

[Leo Gura]

@GreenWoods Enough spreading of shit.

David Icke ain't awake.

You are following blind people.

[Jahmaine]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@GreenWoods Enough spreading of shit.

David Icke ain't awake.

You are following blind people.

Depends how you’d define awake - he’s not someone that sits crossed legged on a mountain meditating, as he would say. He’s had his ayahuasca experience earlier in his life and realised we’re Infinite awareness having a human experience - he’d be someone that fits under the Alan Watts idea of “once you get the message, hang up the phone” - from my own experience of following David Icke, I’ve learned everything you’ve spoken about from him prior to you doing videos about it, he was speaking of many of the same understandings in the 90’s, in my own personal experience you just explain it in a lot more depth and handle objections so it’s alot more concrete what message you’re trying to get across - it’s just that he’s used his time from then to focus his energy primarily on what he does now as opposed to solely on spirituality - definitely a stage Yellow with a little essence of turquoise. 

What he does now is his life purpose and to be honest, id say that it’s similar to how you feel about people not hearing what you’re saying and the analogy you use with Galileo, he’s understood things that wasn’t understood on mass at the time- thus he was ridiculed and wasn’t understood till later down the line when people reconsidered. In the same way you’ve reached a certain level of understanding and decided to contribute to elevating humanity through the means you do, he’s doing the same through a different medium. It’s like your part is to primarily increase consciousness and secondarily to change society - his is to help change society and consciousness is secondary. You could argue that nothing really matters anyway so you could just become enlightened but he’d argue that society will be manipulated into a dystopian world - bring to two together.

[Girzo]

I have read like hundreds of books, listening to 3-6 hours of audiobooks every day.

And I will tell you, there a few categories of books that are painful for me to go through. "Conspiracy theories" is one of them, they really are not so convincing if you have read beforehand less radical history books describing the same events. Not to say that alternative versions of history ain't interesting, but conspiracy theorists usually sprinkle their ideas with errors in reasoning.

The other type of books I dread reading is economy ones written by people believing in free markets and small government (even classics, like "Economics in One Lesson" by Hazlitt Henry). They usually argue with ideas like progressive taxes, workers unions, etc., but they do this by roasting stage Blue ways of thinking., completely ignoring that ideas proposed by progressives are not that old communist shit. I can understand this coming from someone who has lived in the 1940s or 1960s, but if someone pulls those ideas in 2020, that just shows his or her dogmatic attitiude.

[Guest Tobia]

@Leo Gura says the one who argued that "Bill Gates could have supermodels riding his dick 365 days a year, instead he's helping the world" 

Projecting repressed pick up artist fantasies is not a good way to dismiss people's legitimate concerns. 

In the meantime, Bill Gates is being hit by a shitstorm everywhere and Trump defunded the corrupt W.H.O.

People are not having it! 

Leo "I'm the most woke and everyone else is a fool" Gura.

Okkay I'm having to much fun, I'm forever banned after this?

 

 

[Zanoni]

I think people are tapping into collective cousciousness and by intuition just know that something is not right compared to what is presented in the mainstream. The problem happens when uncouscious fear and personal fantasy comes into play and exagerate the importance of the topic and adds uneccecery info.

 

We are Creator beings and it is better to focus on our inner stable reality than put energy into a already unstable hysteria outside of us (and possibly even create it!), the misery wants our co-creative cousciousness to make misery possible. 

 

Someday these things will come up to the light and will probably not be like we though it was.

 

Love the chaos and let go. 

 

 

[w4read]

I think it specifically has to do with your ability to understand biases and specifically how your mind can make you believe things that are totally unlikely based on how you find, choose, and analyze information. So if you are aware of these traits in yourself, then you have the tools to distinguish how you perceive stuff and you're less likely to fall into some of the bias traps. 

[Consept]

I really believe you have to get past conspiracy theories if you want to grow as a person, not just conspiracies but any linear narratives you might have and hold on to, be it religion, politics, or anything.

Why i say that is you have to be able to hold more than 1 idea in your head at a time. Could you look at the government and say they could be seen as both good and bad? Theres bad stuff they do but theres good stuff that is absolutely essential that they do. There doesnt have to be a binary decision, the conspiracy point of view is that they are unilaterally bad, thats why if i were to say at least in the UK, 'we have a national health service, if they were completely evil that wouldnt exist' people who believe the government are bad would call me a sheep and say i dont understand all the bad things theyve done, but im well aware of what theyve done and their colonial history. We're dealing with super complexed systems with millions of people and plenty of nuance within each person let alone the country, i dont even see how its possible to just make overarching statements.

What we need to focus on in this context is whats true and whats not, having the opinion that everything is bad or good would cloud you from seeing any truth, which is ironic for a group called 'truthers' but is definitely true when you consider the confirmation bias that occurs. If you look at the other thread about Bill Gates that will be very clear

[LaucherJunge]

@Consept
Don't let something having good aspects to it fool you into not wanting to improve upon said thing. And sometimes even to destroy it in order to build something new and better.

[Consept]

22 minutes ago, LaucherJunge said:

@Consept
Don't let something having good aspects to it fool you into not wanting to improve upon said thing. And sometimes even to destroy it in order to build something new and better.

Maybe I didnt get my point across clearly. Im talking about nuance as in grey areas so of course i wouldnt say for example 'the government does some good things so therefore it doesnt need improving'. What im saying is that to really know what improvements need to happen you have to unbiasedly look at say the government in this case, and say whats working and  whats not working. To be able to do that, truth (real relative truth) has to be stuck to, what can get in the way of that is if you already have a binary belief that government is bad, as i believe 'truthers' do for the most part. If you have this belief its likely that you just want to rip and destroy this thing that has been improving and progressing for 100s or even 1000s of years. If you think about it most of the political debates we currently have are because of black and white thinking, abortion is a very nuanced subject, so is healthcare, so is welfare, having politics that just says one side is good and one is bad is completely ridiculous, but it exist because thats what most people vote in. If you have candidates that see 'yes i can see both sides and we need to find a solution based on the truth that we will investigate', who will vote for that candidate? You get the system you deserve and at the moment we think in this way which is why we have this system 

[LaucherJunge]

@Consept
That would be great of course assuming your relative truth wouldn't be dictated to you by said government.

[Consept]

22 minutes ago, LaucherJunge said:

@Consept
That would be great of course assuming your relative truth wouldn't be dictated to you by said government.

Well yeah obviously, there couldnt be an agenda that either side is trying to push, that goes for both government and any other stakeholders. Heres where you might run into problems if your belief is binary, on the other thread we had a truther (at least in standpoint) supplying evidence on vaccines, as well as someone looking on both sides. The evidence was scientific based and accepted as a legit foundation of truth, so if the evidence presented against vaccines was true that would be accepted and of course the evidence for vaccines would also have to be accepted. So the result like anything, was nuanced, overall vaccines are a positive but there are some issues with metals in some vaccines specifically for those with pre existing conditions. Looking at about 99% safe i might be wrong about that exact number but it would very high nonetheless. 

So using this model of aiming for truth we've come to a conclusion in our new government that we have to keep going with vaccines, however we need to work tirelessly to make sure theyre 100% safe, get rid of any that are potentially dangerous and make sure that anyone who has pre-existing conditions that could be affected by a particular vaccine does not take it. How does that sound for you?

[Forestluv]

Conspiracy theories are a form of imagination, yet I it’s difficult for me to imagine the appeal of conspiracy theories. Some minds get really immersed into conspiracy theory fantasy. For example, some people spend so much time and effort immersed into how the moon landing was staged. They create very elaborate and detailed stories. Yet to me, it has no appeal at all. Even movies that involve conspiracy theories are unappealing to me. The closest I could come would be “The Usual Suspects”, yet that wasn’t quite a conspiracy.

In trying to imagine the appeal. . .from my observations:

1) people that tend to get immersed into conspiracy theories generally have a strong distrust of “mainstream media” and government. I think it’s healthy to have some skepticism, yet conspiracy theorists are on the extreme end of the spectrum. 

2) those immersed in conspiracy theories are unaware they are immersed in a conspiracy theory. They do not view it as a conspiracy theory, relative to them it is their true reality. They vehemently oppose the accusation they are involved in a conspiracy theory. Ironically, they often judge others as being a conspiracy theorist. For example “that guy who believes the moon landing was staged is a conspiracy theorist, but not me. Now lets talk about how China created the Coronavirus as biological warfare against the rest of the world. . . “. 

3) those immersed in conspiracy theories often view themselves as “open minded”. Over and over, I see people engaged in conspiracy theories say “you aren’t open minded enough to consider another view”.

4) those involved in conspiracy theories pride themselves in being a skeptic - in particular they identify as a skeptic of “mainstream media”, science and government - all of which they deeply mistrust. However, they are not able to distinguish between skepticism and being gullible. They have a tendency to accept whatever is counter to a “mainstream view”.

5) they generally think in binary opposites: it is their theory vs anything not their theory. It’s all or nothing. They cannot see nuggets of truth mixed with nuggets of falsehoods. There are nearly always nuggets of truth in any conspiracy theory - the use these nuggets of truth for a foundation of building a construct of falsehoods and to defend their theory.

6) They commonly make assumptions to ground themselves. Quite often they will say something like “I’m not saying this part happened for sure, yet what if. . . . “. Then that “what if” is assumed to be true and they continue on with the assumption that the “what if” is actually true.

7) They are unaware of what speculation is. 

8) They pride themselves in seeking “evidence”, yet they have very low standards of what counts as “evidence”. 

9) They cannot see how multiple points of circumstantial evidence can be related together as much stronger evidence. This is one way they defend there views. Any single counter point can be defended against, yet they are unable to see consider how those dozens of counter-points together make their theory untenable. 

10) They are immersed within content and cannot see a meta view of structure. 

Overall, it’s difficult to place this on a SD hierarchy. I would say a common theme would be a lack of rational thinking skills, which would be a deficiency in stage Orange. To maintain the structure of their theory, they often have to twist themselves into a pretzel with elaborate irrational ideas - yet they can do this because they deeply distrust and “mainstream view”. 

For example, when Lance Armstrong was winning the Tour de France eight years straight, there were a lot of accusations he was doping with PEDs. There were many accusations, yet Armstrong fans defended against each accusation individually. One can reasonably do that with one accusation, yet once you get into dozens of accusations (at their own personal detriment), you’ve got to twist yourself into a pretzel and create a conspiracy theory. . . . Several of Armstrong’s support crew (such as his masseuse and bike mechanic) stated they saw him with testosterone. Yet Armstrong fans discredited them as lying and having a resentment against Lance. They ended up losing their careers and even had to leave the country due to death threats. . . The media revealed that positive doping tests were hidden, yet Lance’s fans discredited this as “mainstream media” that hates Lance. A few of his competitors came out with evidence that Lance was doping, yet his fans discredited this as jealous of Lance’s success. Even Lance’s former teammates spoke about how Lance doped. His fans discredited this as resentful teammates that wanted to write a book and make money. The US FBI started investigating and his fans said this was a government conspiracy to take down Lance. His teammates testified under penalty of perjury that Lance and the entire team was doping. Yet his fans dismissed this as a corrupt FBI forcing their testimony. . . Overall, it was one giant conspiracy. If you look at any single point, a case could be made. For example, if it was just Lance’s mechanic who said Lance was doping, it’s reasonable to speculate the mechanic was resentful toward Lance. Yet the conspiracy theorists had to do this with hundreds of different people. They could make a reasonable argument against any one individual. Yet they couldn’t see how collectively it was unreasonable. Dozens of people were making huge personal sacrifices to testify against Lance and got no benefit. Their reputations were tarnished, they lost their careers, they were harassed and got death threats, they faced jail time if they didn’t testify and tell the truth. This included Lance’s support crew, his teammates, his competitors, investigative reporters, his friends, anti-doping officials and FBI agents. The conspiracy theorists believed all of them were lying (even at personal sacrifice). It is a twisted story. Yet there was a much simpler theory that conspiracy theorists couldn’t accept. This simple theory had only one person and one data point: Lance was a liar.