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Birds Aren’t Real? How a Conspiracy Takes Flight
Peter McIndoe | TED
Peter McIndoe | TED
How a Conspiracy Takes Flight
- Thread starter afadeev
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Answer: You post about a topic on TRF.
Too, too true! Still, I think we are much better than most.
I'm sorry Chuck but this "Birds Aren't Real" is serious stuff. I've been telling my kids for
years that Pigeons are not from this world. Ever seen a pigeon electrocuted from sitting
on a powerline? But we've all seen plenty of squirrels that did not survive the trek across
a line. A pigeon's alien body is designed for energy harvesting as it roosts on the line.
How many bird species do you know that can give you a dirty look as they walk away
from you? They don't even fly away - just strut their stuff.
(lol)
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I came across a guy at the park water outside the Embassy suites that surrounds the suites and VUN's convention center the SLP trade show would happen at that NASA supported.
I was on a health walk at that time and asked what he was looking into his telescope. He said I am following this ball of lite that is not real.. Lots of stuff afterthought, NASA say sats but they are Balloons.. He gives me a card and the website is like total crazy...
The easiest way to start a conspiracy theory is to make some sarcastic comment. People who recognise sarcasm will laugh, and those that don't will take it as a fact.
So very very true . . . .
Depends on which generational group you belong to.
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Sounds like a flat Earther. They claim, among other crazy things, satellites are balloons. They even made up a term for them, satelloons.
ha ha, L Ron Hubbard, is that you?
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Unless, of course, you believe the conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories.
That is that people believe in conspiracy theories due to overdeveloped desire to know the truth, establish control over their lives, and superiority toward others.
More specifically, the theory stipulates that people are drawn to conspiracy theories in order to satisfy three important psychological motives:
- Epistemic motives, the need for knowledge and certainty, or desire to have information. And when something major happens, when a big event happens, people naturally want to know why that happened. They want an explanation and they want to know the truth. But they also want to feel certain of that truth.
- Existential motives, the need to feel safe and secure in the world that they live in. And to feel that they have some kind of power or autonomy over the things that happen to them. So again, when something happens, people don't like to feel powerless. They don't like to feel out of control. And so reaching to conspiracy theories might allow people to feel that they have information that at least explains why they don't have any control over this situation. Research has shown that people who do feel powerless and disillusioned do tend to gravitate more towards conspiracy theories.
- Social motives, the desire to feel good about themselves as individuals, and in terms of the groups that they belong to. People like to have high self-esteem, to feel good about themselves. One way of doing that is to feel that you have access to information that other people don't have. And this is quite a common rhetorical tool that people use when they talk about conspiracy theories, that everybody else is some kind of sheep, but that they know the truth. Feeling that you're in possession of information that other people don't have, can give you a feeling of superiority over others.
- This happens at the level of the group as well, where people have an overinflated sense of the importance of the groups that they belong to, feeling that those groups are underappreciated, those kinds of feelings draw people towards conspiracy about their groups. They can maintain the idea that your group is good and moral and upstanding, whereas others are the evil doers out there who are trying to ruin it for everybody else.
Why some people are willing to believe conspiracy theories
People can be prone to believe in conspiracy theories due to a combination of personality traits and motivations, including relying strongly on their intuition, feeling a sense of antagonism and superiority toward others, and perceiving threats in their environment.
www.apa.org
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Oh I don't know, I've got a bird in the hand that looks mighty real to me.
Yeah, yer right, they have no sense of humor at all.
The last E Meter I had, I looked at the schematic... hey it's got all the right parts, add a wire here, cut a couple there...
Voila! Rocket launch controller!
They got really mad at me. I still don't know why. But yeah, gotta be careful.
Art, thanks for not posting the website, you saved my afternoon.
ThirstyBarbarian
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ThirstyBarbarian
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Once people go far enough down the rabbit hole and get emotionally invested in an idea, it’s almost impossible to use logic to change their minds. Especially if they’ve sacrificed anything for the belief, like maybe they’ve damaged an important personal relationship over it, they’ve invested too much to ever admit they were wrong.
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Back in the day I made a product for the Amiga called the "People Meter". Basically, it was a galvanic skin response meter that did an A/D into the serial port of the Amiga, there was a big "analog" meter screen that would show you how "calm" you were. There was also a game that a buddy of mine wrote, basically it was the I Love Lucy pie episode... you had to pick up the pies as they rolled off the conveyer belt, if you got stressed out the conveyer went faster. I had people ask me if I was a Scientologist... at the time, I didn't even know what that was.
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Reminded me of this.Unless, of course, you believe the conspiracy theory about conspiracy theories.
That is that people believe in conspiracy theories due to overdeveloped desire to know the truth, establish control over their lives, and superiority toward others.
More specifically, the theory stipulates that people are drawn to conspiracy theories in order to satisfy three important psychological motives:
- Epistemic motives, the need for knowledge and certainty, or desire to have information. And when something major happens, when a big event happens, people naturally want to know why that happened. They want an explanation and they want to know the truth. But they also want to feel certain of that truth.
- Existential motives, the need to feel safe and secure in the world that they live in. And to feel that they have some kind of power or autonomy over the things that happen to them. So again, when something happens, people don't like to feel powerless. They don't like to feel out of control. And so reaching to conspiracy theories might allow people to feel that they have information that at least explains why they don't have any control over this situation. Research has shown that people who do feel powerless and disillusioned do tend to gravitate more towards conspiracy theories.
- Social motives, the desire to feel good about themselves as individuals, and in terms of the groups that they belong to. People like to have high self-esteem, to feel good about themselves. One way of doing that is to feel that you have access to information that other people don't have. And this is quite a common rhetorical tool that people use when they talk about conspiracy theories, that everybody else is some kind of sheep, but that they know the truth. Feeling that you're in possession of information that other people don't have, can give you a feeling of superiority over others.
- This happens at the level of the group as well, where people have an overinflated sense of the importance of the groups that they belong to, feeling that those groups are underappreciated, those kinds of feelings draw people towards conspiracy about their groups. They can maintain the idea that your group is good and moral and upstanding, whereas others are the evil doers out there who are trying to ruin it for everybody else.
Why some people are willing to believe conspiracy theories
People can be prone to believe in conspiracy theories due to a combination of personality traits and motivations, including relying strongly on their intuition, feeling a sense of antagonism and superiority toward others, and perceiving threats in their environment.
History is written by the winner. You have to keep that in mind when reading it, but unfortunately or fortunately, people in recent history are trying the rewrite the past. It scares me when people erase history because it offends someone. In due time, we will be gone and unable to remind our children of our past - erasing can be dangerous.
Sad but far too true.
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