Author: Stephen Johnson / Source: Big Think
- Although there’s no shortage of crackpot conspiracy theories on the internet, the fact is sometimes people do commit conspiracies.
- The ‘basic argument’ against conspiracy theories can help to sort out which theories can be easily dismissed, and which might be worth looking into.
- It’s also important to realize many so-called conspiracy theories actually aren’t describing conspiracies, but rather the predictable and non-secret behavior of a group of people with a similar ideology.
In the 1950s, the C.I.A. began a secret project called MKUltra that aimed to find a ‘truth drug’ to use during interrogations with suspected Soviet spies. Now, thanks largely to a 1974 New York Times report that prompted a federal investigation, we know that MKUltra involved ethically dubious mind-control experiments, giving LSD to unwitting test subjects, and, ultimately, the deaths of multiple Americans.
This is now public knowledge. But before it was, how would you have reacted to a person who told you such claims about what the U.S. government was doing behind the curtains? Would you have complimented their tin-foil hat?
Conspiracies sometimes happen. So, where’s the line between a ‘conspiracy theory’ — a term that seems increasingly dirty in a YouTube era when ideas like ‘crisis actors’, 9/11 truthers and Sandy Hook deniers mesmerize millions — and a reasonable hypothesis?
That’s one of the main questions asked in a recent blog post from Slate Star Codex, a blog run by psychiatrist Scott Alexander that focuses on science, medicine, philosophy, politics and futurism. It’s a question that can be broken down into two separate questions:
- How do you tell when a ‘conspiracy theory’ is plausible?
- When is a ‘conspiracy theory’ really just describing the rational and semi-coordinated behavior of a large group?
The ‘basic argument’ against conspiracy theories
The ‘basic argument’ against conspiracy theories can help identity theories that are easily dismissable. In Alexander’s words, the argument goes something like this: “You can’t run a big organization in secret without any outsiders noticing or any insiders blowing the whistle.”
Take this conspiracy theory as an example: the C.I.A. is plotting to fix the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. In order for that to be true, you’d have to first explain how it’s possible that every single person in the agency is on board with the plan, and is simultaneously willing and able to keep quiet; or you’d have to show that there’s a small conspiracy within the agency itself that’s pulling the strings to get a particular candidate elected, all while hiding their shady activity from fellow agents.
The basic argument helps to explain why other conspiracy theories — say, 9/11…
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