Conspiracy theories,Reasons,identify,spreading,history?

Conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories:

Misinformation like these are called "Conspiracy theories" And nowadays theories are extremely popular in social media and widely popular.

**First of all, this is spreading misinformation and feeding people lies, But most of the times, it is harmless But what I am trying to tell you is that if these conspiracy theories target a specific community, or if they target a specific person, then its negative consequences can be felt to a very large extent.
Therefore, it is very important for us to find out why these conspiracy theories originate.

*Why do people believe in conspiracy theories?What are the reasons behind this?

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The reasons can be divided into two main categories. One is psychological reasons and another is social reasons.

 

Psychological reasons

There is an psychological reasons behind conspiracies. Several research papers have shown that conspiracy theories are a means of understanding the complex world and organizing information for the humans especially the extraordinary, earth-shattering events that do not have a clear explanation. We do not know the exact causes behind them So, we try to fill in the missing information with our curiosity.

  Humans have a tendency to do this, For example, everyone knows how many flights and ships have gone missing from there But we do not know the explanation behind this So, several people have come up with a conspiracy theory-that aliens carry the flights and ships away Similarly, in the case of the recently disappeared Malaysian Airlines Nobody knows where it is and nothing was found either So, several people have come up with a conspiracy theory that aliens carried the flight away.

Events that are extremely unique- 

That had very few chances of happening, but they did happen Events like these give rise to the most number of conspiracy theories like- CAA Bill in 2019, It was unbelievable that most of the protesters don't know about a single truth line from bill. And more than 8 lakh Muslim people have participated in the protest. Like- 9/11, the moon landing, coronavirus All of these are examples of extremely unique events that are extraordinary and do not happen normally and they surprise us greatly.

It is psychological reason called Illusory Perception.

There is another reason which is called illusory pattern perception. I will explain it to you with an example: Look at the number on the screen 11001010101010101 Can you see a pattern in this number on the screen? Write down in the comments below. If you have written down the comment, I'll tell you an interesting thing:50% of you will see a pattern, 50% of you will see none. The reality is that it is a randomly generated number.There exists no pattern. in will give you another example- Look at this photo which has been captured in Iceland Can you spot an elephant face here?

*Humans have a tendency to look for a pattern always

 To connect the dots. We try and relate different events with one another. So, basically, we try and look for a pattern even when there is none! No matter how completely random the things are, we still try and look for an explanation or pattern there. Some people have a higher tendency to do this, when compared to others, But if you take this to an extreme level and apply this to every aspect in your life, then it might change your thinking. This type of thinking is called teleological thinking.

 Let me explain with the help of another example If you ask a 3-year-old child- Why does it rain? He might answer that it rains because the plants and the trees get thirsty and it rains so that their thirst is quenched Or you can ask him why are there leaves on a tree? He might answer that the trees grow leaves to give shade to the animals. What is the basic characteristic in such a way of thinking? The children think that there is a purpose/intention behind everything. It rains because of a purpose Similarly, conspiracy theorists try and accord purpose and intentions to extraordinary events .when there might not be any, Why is coronavirus spreading these days? Someone must have engineered it for sure. It must be made as a bio-weapon. Someone is behind this and this is why it is so widespread in the world today. These people are not satisfied with random explanations that coronavirus is spreading because it originated randomly and that no one is behind these random events happen constantly all across the world.

Validation Seeking

*Talking about the social category of events, then seeking validation comes first. Those people that are more isolated and feel more left out by society. if they have not achieved much or if they are uneducated, such people, in an attempt to feel validated and special and to show that they are well informed as well, and to stand out more in their social circles spread conspiracy theories. Basically, they want to show that they are more informed than the rest on political and social events. This conclusion was put forward by research.The links to all the researches that I am talking about have been provided below in last lines you can go and read abstracts of these researches yourself ans see what conclusions have been arrived at as to why people share conspiracy theories . I am talking about sharing and not the origin. Because more often than not, conspiracy theories originate due to political intentions we saw in the case of Emperor Nero. He formulated a conspiracy theory to save himself.He formulated a conspiracy theory to salvage and improve his political image. So, this could be the reason behind spreading them.

*What type of people is more vulnerable to believing in conspiracy theories?

Another research that tells us what type of people are more vulnerable to believing in conspiracy theories? Research tells us that the people who are going through a crisis or are seeing disasters happening then there are higher possibilities of the spread of conspiracy theories, For example, the conspiracy theory about the Illuminati spread during the time of Yellow fever . You already know that a lot of conspiracy theories spread after the 9/11 attacks. A lot of conspiracy theories were formulated about the moon landing. 

*It has also been told that the people who feel powerless or are suffering from anxiety or some sort of existential crisis, They believe more in conspiracy theories because they want to make someone a scapegoat they want to hold someone/something responsible for their problems.

**HOW TO IDENTIFY THEM?

So, how can we recognize/identify that something is a conspiracy theory? How can we tell that its possible something might have actually happened in one case but be able to say that it is a conspiracy theory in another case? There are some characteristics of all conspiracy theories

*First: Every conspiracy theory has one evil mastermind. There is one great villain that runs the entire conspiracy theory, who is extremely wicket and formulates all the plans as he is the mastermind behind everything For example- Bill Gates is this villain in the coronavirus conspiracy. It is George Soros in some conspiracies.It is the Illuminati in some conspiracies. It is the government who is the evil mastermind in 9/11 or moon landing conspiracy.

*Second: That there is an attempt to relate unrelated things in every conspiracy theory And it showed how things happen because of other things happening. Like  Co relation is always causation. For the conspiracy theorists, co-relation is always causation(they think that) this unrelated event surely happened because of some other event

*Third: Most conspiracies involve a very large group of people who keep it concealed For example: If you take the example of the moon landing, some people say that Moon landing never happened and that it is a perpetual lie But if you point out that there are so many astronauts of NASA and that they can ask any one of them- they have all been to space and that they can tell them the truth Then they would say that the NASA people are involved in it as well All of the astronauts are in on the conspiracy which is extremely unrealistic to think about. That thousands of astronauts are all keeping quiet in a conspiracy, Can it really happen that no one says anything to anyone and all are part of the conspiracy? No matter how secretive an organization is say CIA is one of the most secretive organizations there are whistleblowers even there So if it were something like that, then there would be whistleblowers who would raise their voice and tell everyone. So, therefore this does not make sense.

*Fourth: Most conspiracy theories have contradictions. A conspiracy theory would say that something happened. But if you try and dig up facts and research that the facts contradict their beliefs several times, conspiracy theories are self-contradictory, For example, the George Soros is popular in many countries across the world Turkish President Erdogan says that George Soros is a formulating a Jewish conspiracy against their Islamic country- Turkey. In the UK it is said that George Soros is formulating a liberal and communist conspiracy against western countries, That he wants to open up their borders and invite Africans and Arabs to their country that is, George Soros is supporting the Islamists. In America, it is said that he is a formulating a Jewish conspiracy against Christians. All these conspiracies are self-contradictory. How can it be that a Jewish man aligns with Christians in one place and goes against them in another place and aligns with islamists in one place and goes against them in another place You will find such contradictions in every conspiracy theory?

*Fifth and most important: It is next to impossible to disprove any conspiracy theory.No matter what fact you put up against it those facts will become a part of the conspiracy for the conspiracy theorists.No matter what you say or which media source you quote no matter what fact you place before then everything would become a part of that conspiracy. that everyone is in on it and that how it is happening.

How can counter conspiracy theories?How can we curb their spread?

So now the question is: How can we counter conspiracy theories?How can we curb their spread?

The first and the easiest method which is valid for any kind of misinformation Pause before you share anything Before you share anything- think. Think about whether what you are just about to share is correct or not Google it once Most of the times, the most common conspiracy theories and the misinformation have already been fact checked Google it once and you will get the results of the fact-checking websites.You will get the results of the conspiracy theory websites and you can see the truth for yourself, For example, take the moon landing conspiracy theory.It is often questioned as to why the flag was waving on the moon or why the shadows were crooked.The reasons for all of these are already available Flag was waving due to the movement caused in it when Neil Armstrong was placing the flag, We all know that there is no atmosphere on the moon. The flag was waving because of his motions, Similarly, the reason behind crooked shadows is that wide-angle cameras were used you will get the facts easily. 

All you have to do is pause once But what will you do when there is no fact check available? I would say, think critically Whenever you see something on the internet, first of all, check whether they have the characteristics of conspiracy theories that we talked about in the previous section. If you see them, then look for contradictions within the conspiracy theory and after that, think scientifically Consider any statement or theory that you have heard like a hypothesis Just like you did in Chemistry in Class 8 or 9 or while doing any thesis science, you consider a hypothesis and then you look for arguments in favour and against comparing both and see which arguments make more sense and are more logical and finally,

 

Remember that correlation is not equal to causation, for example, a very famous conspiracy theory that has been widespread for a long time is that the EVMs have been hacked and that Narendra Modi has hacked the EVMs to win the elections do concede that it is possible to hack EVMs, in my opinion.There also have been isolated cases of incorrect results in a couple of machines, So these are the arguments in the favourite argument against it is that why are there only a couple of proofs in lakhs of machines?There have been no other proofs barring these stray casesSo, I would put this in the category of conspiracy theory because I do concede that EVMs can be hacked but there is a huge difference between- they have been hacked and they can be hacked relation is not equal to causation, therefore, I would conclude that most probably, this has not happened because most of the proof is against it, this is how you should analyze everything hope you would have learnt new things from this video. Share it Help the information reach more and more people so that we can curb the spread of misinformation and always pause before you spread the misinformation you like my work.

HISTORY OF CONSPIRACIES

 History of conspiracy theories is not a modern phenomenon. They have been around for centuries.

64AD IN THE ERA OF ROMAN EMPIRE

One of the earliest records of a conspiracy theory in history is from the year 64 AD In the era of Roman Empire, the emperor around that time was Emperor Nero.A fire broke out in Rome in 64AD The fire was so devastating that it burned two thirds of Rome to ashes.  By chance, Emperor Nero was out of Rome when the fire broke out,When he returned to Rome, he found out that everything had burned to ashes.He began the process of rebuilding and he got a majestic castle constructed for himself.And then rumours started amongst the people that the fire was actually started by Nero to clear everything off and destroy all the buildings in order to construct a palace according to his wishes.This is one of the oldest records of conspiracy theories.

**Nero make conspiracy theory against Christians

What interesting is that this was not one-sided.The people formulated a conspiracy theory against Nero and he retaliated by making another conspiracy theory , against the Christians.He alleged that the Christian community was responsible for the fire, And then Christians were executed and atrocities against them followed.

**COSP. THEORISE GERMANY AGAINST

Similarly, several conspiracies against the Jews were formulated in Germany in the 1940s. They were blamed for the things they were not even responsible for, And we all know what was the end result of that.