Do you buy in to the news conspiracy theories?

[hackey lad]

5 minutes ago, The_DADDY said:

Speaking of conspiracies.  🤔

 

 

They wouldn't be that thick , would they ?  

Just to add I don't believe this but something is fishy about all this .

[The_DADDY]

Just now, hackey lad said:

They wouldn't be that thick , would they ?  

Just to add I don't believe this but something is fishy about all this .

My bold.

Yeah, its so unbelievable. 

Which is why I reckon it may well be true. 

[SheffieldForum]

The conspiracy I saw about the Jay Slater disappearance was that he had gone over to Tenerife with his mates to peddle drugs at clubs and a festival for a drug lord, was a bagman for the group, took some of the drugs himself and then lost the bag — so the drug lords took him whilst giving the rest of the group a deadline to replace the value of drugs lost (which, according to this theory, is why Lucy Mae set up the GoFundMe).

 

Or, he could have just got lost and went missing…

[altus]

The reports of him asking a local the morning after he went off about bus times to get back to where his friends were does rather undermine the conspiracy theories. But then that was widely reported in the MSM so those with a propensity to believe conspiracy theories would dismiss it out of hand.

[Mister M]

A conspiracy theorist is in court for harassment and breaches of data security to further peddle the nonsense that the Manchester Arena bombing was an 'elaborate hoax'

Conspiracy theorist 'perfectly entitled' to believe Manchester bombing was 'elaborate hoax', court told (msn.com)

 

He has targeted two of the victims of the bombing one of whom was left with a catastrophic brain injury. 

Imagine being so twisted to feel justified into harassing someone who suffered brain injury? 

Glad his picture has been published so people who live in the same area know what kind of low life troll he is.

[The_DADDY]

He's perfectly entitled to believe it was a hoax if he likes.

Harassment though? no. He's not entitled to do that. 

[Delbow]

9 minutes ago, Mister M said:

A conspiracy theorist is in court for harassment and breaches of data security to further peddle the nonsense that the Manchester Arena bombing was an 'elaborate hoax'

Conspiracy theorist 'perfectly entitled' to believe Manchester bombing was 'elaborate hoax', court told (msn.com)

 

He has targeted two of the victims of the bombing one of whom was left with a catastrophic brain injury. 

Imagine being so twisted to feel justified into harassing someone who suffered brain injury? 

Glad his picture has been published so people who live in the same area know what kind of low life troll he is.

 

I hope he gets plenty of hundscheiße through his letterbox.

[Delbow]

It turns out there are a lot of psychological studies showing that narcissists are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories than other people.

 

The main reasons being that:

 

Narcissists need to feel special - even unique - so believing that they have been given access to information that the general public doesn't have and wouldn't believe (e.g. because they are controlled by the mainstream media [the 'sheeple' argument]) is very appealing to narcissists. 

 

Narcissists need to believe that they are in the right / are superior to others, yet they will encounter many situations where things don't go well for them or they fail. This threatens their perceived superiority, so has to be explained in a way that preserves it - blaming failures or setbacks on a conspiracy directed against the narcissistic individual achieves this.

 

Linked to the one above, narcissists have a need to be the centre of attention, so constructing a conspiracy theory in which the narcissist is the victim of the conspiracy and casts the narcissist as the key / central figure achieves this need. 

 

 

[Norbert]

On 02/08/2024 at 08:59, Delbow said:

It turns out there are a lot of psychological studies showing that narcissists are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories than other people.

 

The main reasons being that:

 

Narcissists need to feel special - even unique - so believing that they have been given access to information that the general public doesn't have and wouldn't believe (e.g. because they are controlled by the mainstream media [the 'sheeple' argument]) is very appealing to narcissists. 

 

Narcissists need to believe that they are in the right / are superior to others, yet they will encounter many situations where things don't go well for them or they fail. This threatens their perceived superiority, so has to be explained in a way that preserves it - blaming failures or setbacks on a conspiracy directed against the narcissistic individual achieves this.

 

Linked to the one above, narcissists have a need to be the centre of attention, so constructing a conspiracy theory in which the narcissist is the victim of the conspiracy and casts the narcissist as the key / central figure achieves this need. 

 

 

 

A good summary, thanks. I know loads of people who have gone over to the conspiracy theory side. The defining feature of all these conversions is them hitting a low point in life, often losing their job/kids/marriage. A couple of them have given conspiracy stuff up, either by being given another chance at life, or taking anti-psychotics which brought their old personality back. They openly admit the attraction to conspiracy stuff was borne out of a need for security, self-affirmation, and a feeling of agency again.

 

Several of them could be described as narcissists, they were mostly bright but not educated.

[Delbow]

8 hours ago, Norbert said:

 

A good summary, thanks. I know loads of people who have gone over to the conspiracy theory side. The defining feature of all these conversions is them hitting a low point in life, often losing their job/kids/marriage. A couple of them have given conspiracy stuff up, either by being given another chance at life, or taking anti-psychotics which brought their old personality back. They openly admit the attraction to conspiracy stuff was borne out of a need for security, self-affirmation, and a feeling of agency again.

 

Several of them could be described as narcissists, they were mostly bright but not educated.

 

Covid and the lockdowns were where conspiracy theories really took off for a lot of people. It was a stressful and scary time, especially at the beginning, so it's perhaps not surprising that some people lost a bit of psychological stability. Plus, a lot of people were on their own with just the internet for company.