I disagree that this is the key aspect of conspiracy theories. I actually think it’s neither key nor a common aspect. I’m going to pick some examples of conspiracy theory topics from this Wikipedia list. Chemtrails; JFK assasination; freemasons; 9/11; fluoridation. … these don’t seem particularly hard to reason about. That said, people evidentially do get mind- killed about these things; but it seems to mostly be the same kind of thing that makes people get mind-killed about ‘non conspiracy theory’ political topics. And LOTS of people are mind-killed on political topics!
Re your point about antagonistic epistemic environments. So, if a given conspiracy theory is true, then it does take place in an antagonistic epistemic environments—the conspirators are usually trying to misinform. But, antagonistic epistemic environments are actually very common! There are a few domains where we expect this not to be the case—science/academia and rationality are two, although of course in practice these aren’t entirely truth seeking environments. But for so many many things, there are multiple interested parties; that is, parties who want people think X instead of Y, and affect the epistemic environment in order to get people to think X instead of Y.
If you take the JFK assassination most people don’t know that the last official government investigation came to the conclusion that there was probably a conspiracy to kill JFK (and that they don’t know who exactly was involved). Yet, you have the media telling you that this is a conspiracy theory that nobody should take seriously. There’s a reason why the information environment is structured in a way that most people don’t know about the result of the last official government investigation.
You had the government arguing during COVID that releasing the JFK files would be so damaging to national security that they have to violate the law to postpone the release. This suggests either that they were simply lying or that there’s something significant hidden. Reasoning about what the hidden thing happens to be isn’t trivial. And the media of course just accepted that there’s something in the files that would be so dangerous for national security to release that it warrants law breaking.
So, if a given conspiracy theory is true, then it does take place in an antagonistic epistemic environments—the conspirators are usually trying to misinform.
It more complex than that. At the end of WWII, the US government managed to get information via the Venona project about the Soviets having many spies in US government departments. The US State Departments didn’t really like their employees being persecuted for being possible Russian spies and that likely includes Department leadership that wasn’t completely made up of spies. This dynamic grew to the McCarthy hearings.
There were clearly Russian spies back then, but McCarthy probably pointed at plenty of people who were innocent. It created a lot of social conflict. This is when the term ‘conspiracy theory’ first started it’s rise in usage. It was to say that calling people Communists that conspire to bring down the United States is a conspiracy theory.
The result was to stop the McCarthy persecutions because of the social turmoil and distrust they caused and let the Russian spies get on with their business. This isn’t because the Communists were so politically powerful but because the information environment of talking about conspiracy theories of people being loyal to Moscow destroys trust.
Shielding conspiracies by others is a classic moral maze behavior even by people who aren’t directly co-conspirators.
I disagree that this is the key aspect of conspiracy theories. I actually think it’s neither key nor a common aspect.
I’m going to pick some examples of conspiracy theory topics from this Wikipedia list.
Chemtrails; JFK assasination; freemasons; 9/11; fluoridation.
… these don’t seem particularly hard to reason about. That said, people evidentially do get mind- killed about these things; but it seems to mostly be the same kind of thing that makes people get mind-killed about ‘non conspiracy theory’ political topics. And LOTS of people are mind-killed on political topics!
Re your point about antagonistic epistemic environments. So, if a given conspiracy theory is true, then it does take place in an antagonistic epistemic environments—the conspirators are usually trying to misinform. But, antagonistic epistemic environments are actually very common! There are a few domains where we expect this not to be the case—science/academia and rationality are two, although of course in practice these aren’t entirely truth seeking environments. But for so many many things, there are multiple interested parties; that is, parties who want people think X instead of Y, and affect the epistemic environment in order to get people to think X instead of Y.
If you take the JFK assassination most people don’t know that the last official government investigation came to the conclusion that there was probably a conspiracy to kill JFK (and that they don’t know who exactly was involved). Yet, you have the media telling you that this is a conspiracy theory that nobody should take seriously. There’s a reason why the information environment is structured in a way that most people don’t know about the result of the last official government investigation.
You had the government arguing during COVID that releasing the JFK files would be so damaging to national security that they have to violate the law to postpone the release. This suggests either that they were simply lying or that there’s something significant hidden. Reasoning about what the hidden thing happens to be isn’t trivial. And the media of course just accepted that there’s something in the files that would be so dangerous for national security to release that it warrants law breaking.
It more complex than that. At the end of WWII, the US government managed to get information via the Venona project about the Soviets having many spies in US government departments. The US State Departments didn’t really like their employees being persecuted for being possible Russian spies and that likely includes Department leadership that wasn’t completely made up of spies. This dynamic grew to the McCarthy hearings.
There were clearly Russian spies back then, but McCarthy probably pointed at plenty of people who were innocent. It created a lot of social conflict. This is when the term ‘conspiracy theory’ first started it’s rise in usage. It was to say that calling people Communists that conspire to bring down the United States is a conspiracy theory.
The result was to stop the McCarthy persecutions because of the social turmoil and distrust they caused and let the Russian spies get on with their business. This isn’t because the Communists were so politically powerful but because the information environment of talking about conspiracy theories of people being loyal to Moscow destroys trust.
Shielding conspiracies by others is a classic moral maze behavior even by people who aren’t directly co-conspirators.