Debunking can often seem like a thankless task, even pointless at times. There's a flood of bunk out there, and attempting to correct it sometimes feels like drying the rocks on the side of an angry river, in the rain.
When I started debunking as a hobby on the internet I had the mistaken idea that I could simply correct the facts that were wrong, and the issue would go away. I thought with Morgellons that if I could simply demonstrate that fibers were everywhere, and so were probably not emerging from your skin, then the "fiber disease" would go away. I thought with chemtrails that if I could just demonstrate that contrails actually did persist and spread then the whole idea of a secret weather control program would go away.
I was, of course, wrong on both counts. I was wrong for two reasons. Firstly conspiracies are not neat theories that pivot upon one single claim of evidence that is either true or false. They are vast shapeless clouds of assumptions, errors, fears, and deception that mingle together in a thousand different ways. When you debunk one thing for one person it's often doing little more that stirring the cloud. You can put down the most solid objection imaginable and the cloud will flow around it, avoiding it, not even aware of it, or simply obscuring it.
Secondly, for many conspiracy theories the evidence is irrelevant. The conspiracy theory is not the real problem, it's a manifestation of a root problem. It's a symptom.
There are thousands of videos on YouTube with titles like "9/11: Ultimate Proof". I was watching one of these videos that was the usual smorgasbord of images of the towers falling, of Building 7 falling, and various people offering their opinions about what various things meant, all set to ominous music. I skipped around a bit in the video and near the end I hit upon an image of the pyramid that's on the back of the dollar bill, a symbol from the reverse of the great seal of the United States. So I started watching from there.
It was stuff I'd seen before, of course, the world was run by an evil cabal of men. The illuminati, a group obsessed with the occult to the extend that they put symbols and clues everywhere. A group that has an iron grip on all world events, crushing the people before their worship of ancient gods. A group that plans decades into the future. A group that cares not if millions (or even billions) die, so long as it gets its way.
So it struck me when watching this that this was the real problem, the root problem. If someone believed that the world was tightly controlled by a secret powerful group of occultists, then of course they are going to believe that those occultists were behind 9/11. One belief simply follows the other. And if they continue to believe in the illuminati then there's really no point in debunking 9/11. The 9/11 conspiracy theories are simply the veneer upon a more deep-set belief. Not only is there no point debunking 9/11, you actually can't debunk 9/11, because it's such a significant event that one way or another the illuminati must be behind it.
Sure, you can chip away at it. You might be able to convince someone that a plane actually did hit the Pentagon. You might even, after considerable effort convince someone that fire actually could have brought down building 7. But so long as they hold onto their illuminati beliefs then you are not really debunking anything for them. You are simply clarifying for them exactly how the illuminati carried out 9/11. Far from unseating their belief in a conspiracy, you could actually be strengthening it!
How can debunking a conspiracy theory actually strengthen it? It strengthens it by removing the bunk, by removing evidence that can actually be addressed, removing the errors and deception, and leaving only the "evidence" that cannot be directly addressed - the suspicions, the assumptions, the opinions, the beliefs. The committed theorist actually sees his theory grow stronger as the bunk is stripped away like dead branches from a tree. What remains is, in their mind, solid, strong branches of suspicion, well rooted in their belief, their knowledge that the world is run by an occultist cabal.
All is not lost though. Debunking is not useless. Not all believers in conspiracy theories start out with this core belief. For some people those dead branches of bunk actually are the only thing supporting their suspicions. For some people you can actually explain to them what the real science is, and if they can understand it they will be relieved, perhaps thankful, and they will get on with their lives. So yes, this type of pruning the dead wood debunking is valuable, for some people.
But what of the true believers? If pruning their conspiracies only makes them stronger, then is it possible to get to the root of the problem?
Coincidentally, after I watched the 9/11 Illuminati video I also watched Lawrence Lessig's TED talk on the effects of large donor campaign finance on American politics. The two topics meshed together perfectly, and I began to feel a new sense of direction as certain thoughts I'd been having started to solidify.
Lessig starts out by describing what must seem fairly obvious to most people - that most campaign money comes from a very small number of very rich people, and so this has the effect of the politicians spending a large fraction of their time trying to keep those very few rich people happy. They also have to keep the regular people happy as well, but there's a vastly disproportionate amount of time and effort that goes simply to addressing the concerns of the super-rich.
He paint a compelling picture of how this is the root cause of much that is wrong in America. Keeping the rich happy prevents anything really constructive from being done. This applies both to the left and the right. Action on issues like climate change or financial reform are blocked because they are not in the interests of big business. But the Right is also blocked in its attempts to reduce the size of government because as one congressman said "if we deregulate those guys, how do we raise money from them?" So the conservative goal of small government is blocked, because government needs the regulations as a bargaining chip in the giant horse trading game.
The US Government has become a business, or more accurately, a racket. It's a machine fueled by money for making money. The super rich get to stay super rich, or become
super richer, and the congressmen get to become lobbyists when they leave congress, and become a bit richer themselves. The people get just enough so they go along with the racket.
So there's this huge corrupt system. So huge that is seems hopeless. But Lessig points out that just because something seems hopeless, it does not mean we should simply give up and ignore it. We fight. We fight with focus. We strike at the root.
Lessig quotes Henry David Thoreau:
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root"
We hack at the branches because it is easy. It's easy to explain that contrails are just clouds, so they last as long as clouds do. It's easy to explain that steel loses its strength long before it melts, so burning hydrocarbons can collapse a building. It's easy to discuss points of science, like kinetic energy, and free-fall acceleration, and the effects of fire insulation. But it's hard to explain that there is really no good evidence that the world is run by a cabal of occultists. It's hard to strike at that root belief because it's not really based on things in reality. It's not based on physical evidence.
The task of addressing the root causes of conspiracy theories seems hopeless, just like the task of addressing the role of big money in politics seems hopeless. But for the latter Lessig raises two points. Firstly that we do not give up on tasks just because they seem difficult. Impossible-seeming tasks are accomplished all the time. Secondly, while the task seems insurmountable, the solution is quite simple - reduce the size of campaign contributions so that campaigns are funded by citizens, and then the politicians will start to work for the citizens, not the super-rich. This still might seem like a hopelessly difficult task, but it is at least a clear and concrete goal, and we can take very distinct and meaningful steps towards that goal, such as supporting citizen funded elections at the local and state level.
What is the analogous solution for conspiracy theories? I think people create or adopt these strange theories of an occult cabal, of a ruling elite, of the illuminati, because they don't really understand how the government works. They certainly think they do, and they think the other people (the sheep) do not. But their belief in this semi-magical illuminati seems to simply be a groundless construct created to fill a void in understanding of politics. Just as the belief in a controlled demolition on 9/11 is a groundless construct created to fill the void left by their lack of understanding of physics.
So the solution, the distant and hard to reach solution, is to teach people how government actually works.
And I don't just mean teach them the subject of American "civics", like the difference between Congress and Senate, or the ostensible process of how a bill is made law. I mean the real way government works. The brass tacks, nuts and bolts corrupt money oriented way the racket operates.
And here we see an obvious opportunity to combine the two subjects: conspiracy theory and campaign finance reform, and to strike at the root of both. But I think the best way to do it is by focussing on just one: campaign finance reform, and to structure this approach so it indirectly strikes at the root of conspiracy theories.
See, you can't just tell a conspiracy theorist that he is wrong. You can't even really just explain why he is wrong. These approaches get rebuffed because the conspiracy theorist has this vast and detailed mental picture of the world, involving the illuminati. They use this mental picture to make sense of everything around them. In their mind the picture makes sense, and it gives them a sense of certainty, and of unique insight, a specialness, a sense of elevation amongst the ordinary people. You can't just take this away. If you take it away it leaves a vast hole in their understand of the world. The looming presence of this hole seems to their mind to be proof positive that their existing model is correct. Given vast certainty versus vast uncertainty, the choice of what is "correct" becomes obvious.
So we need to offer something to fill the hole with. Instead of hacking their world view to pieces, we need to demonstrate an alternative, and more accurate, world view piece by piece. Replacing their baseless beliefs a bit at a time without ripping out so much that they feel the uncertainty of the hole and then retreat.
Focussing on campaign finance reform is to focus on the root cause of the evils in American politics. But since that focus reveals the inner workings of the corrupt government, the buying of votes, the selling of influence, and the revolving door careers, then it is also focussing on the root of conspiracy theories. By exposing how government really works we give the conspiracy theorist an alternative world view that they can use piece by piece to replace their conspiratorial world-view, and escape it piece by piece, step by step. They will escape not by being convinced that they are wrong, but by being shown how things actually work. Instead of their deep-seated identity-forming beliefs being ripped from their iron foundations, those beliefs will naturally wither and drop away as clarity and reality set in.
Wishful thinking? Perhaps somewhat. For a start I know that many conspiracy theorists reading this would think of me as an arrogant idiot. Many conspiracy theorists do a lot of reading and watching videos about their world view, and they consider themselves incredibly well informed. Many of them are aware (to various degrees) of the corrupting role that money plays in politics, but they see as it as small part of a much larger game. So they will see my attempt to focus on this as a pitiful and transparent attempt to brainwash them, and they will simply laugh it off. So this is an approach that you want to be very wary of using directly, as it might have a rather distinct rebound effect.
But I feel that the spotlight of truth being focused on the roots of corruption is going to have positive collateral effects. We can steer those effects a little bit, direct the light a bit on the roots of conspiracy theory. But even if we don't, even if we just focus on campaign finance, the roots of corruption, then we are also striking at the roots of conspiracy theory without even trying. Shining the light is to raise public awareness of the issue, and to prompt public conversations about the issue. And the more people know about how politics actually works, the less likely they are to want to fill their lack of knowledge with bunk.
So I would urge any skeptics and debunkers to take a little break away from pruning the dead branches of bunk. Take a break from trying to teach people physics and math. Instead contribute a little more time to shining a light on the root issue of the corrupting role of money in American politics. Raising public awareness of the issue will not only help fight that issue in general, it will also raise the awareness of genuine issue for conspiracy theorists who are otherwise distracted with fake issues. Directly or indirectly, we can help show them how the world really works. Help to give them a way out.
When I started debunking as a hobby on the internet I had the mistaken idea that I could simply correct the facts that were wrong, and the issue would go away. I thought with Morgellons that if I could simply demonstrate that fibers were everywhere, and so were probably not emerging from your skin, then the "fiber disease" would go away. I thought with chemtrails that if I could just demonstrate that contrails actually did persist and spread then the whole idea of a secret weather control program would go away.
I was, of course, wrong on both counts. I was wrong for two reasons. Firstly conspiracies are not neat theories that pivot upon one single claim of evidence that is either true or false. They are vast shapeless clouds of assumptions, errors, fears, and deception that mingle together in a thousand different ways. When you debunk one thing for one person it's often doing little more that stirring the cloud. You can put down the most solid objection imaginable and the cloud will flow around it, avoiding it, not even aware of it, or simply obscuring it.
Secondly, for many conspiracy theories the evidence is irrelevant. The conspiracy theory is not the real problem, it's a manifestation of a root problem. It's a symptom.
There are thousands of videos on YouTube with titles like "9/11: Ultimate Proof". I was watching one of these videos that was the usual smorgasbord of images of the towers falling, of Building 7 falling, and various people offering their opinions about what various things meant, all set to ominous music. I skipped around a bit in the video and near the end I hit upon an image of the pyramid that's on the back of the dollar bill, a symbol from the reverse of the great seal of the United States. So I started watching from there.
It was stuff I'd seen before, of course, the world was run by an evil cabal of men. The illuminati, a group obsessed with the occult to the extend that they put symbols and clues everywhere. A group that has an iron grip on all world events, crushing the people before their worship of ancient gods. A group that plans decades into the future. A group that cares not if millions (or even billions) die, so long as it gets its way.
So it struck me when watching this that this was the real problem, the root problem. If someone believed that the world was tightly controlled by a secret powerful group of occultists, then of course they are going to believe that those occultists were behind 9/11. One belief simply follows the other. And if they continue to believe in the illuminati then there's really no point in debunking 9/11. The 9/11 conspiracy theories are simply the veneer upon a more deep-set belief. Not only is there no point debunking 9/11, you actually can't debunk 9/11, because it's such a significant event that one way or another the illuminati must be behind it.
Sure, you can chip away at it. You might be able to convince someone that a plane actually did hit the Pentagon. You might even, after considerable effort convince someone that fire actually could have brought down building 7. But so long as they hold onto their illuminati beliefs then you are not really debunking anything for them. You are simply clarifying for them exactly how the illuminati carried out 9/11. Far from unseating their belief in a conspiracy, you could actually be strengthening it!
How can debunking a conspiracy theory actually strengthen it? It strengthens it by removing the bunk, by removing evidence that can actually be addressed, removing the errors and deception, and leaving only the "evidence" that cannot be directly addressed - the suspicions, the assumptions, the opinions, the beliefs. The committed theorist actually sees his theory grow stronger as the bunk is stripped away like dead branches from a tree. What remains is, in their mind, solid, strong branches of suspicion, well rooted in their belief, their knowledge that the world is run by an occultist cabal.
All is not lost though. Debunking is not useless. Not all believers in conspiracy theories start out with this core belief. For some people those dead branches of bunk actually are the only thing supporting their suspicions. For some people you can actually explain to them what the real science is, and if they can understand it they will be relieved, perhaps thankful, and they will get on with their lives. So yes, this type of pruning the dead wood debunking is valuable, for some people.
But what of the true believers? If pruning their conspiracies only makes them stronger, then is it possible to get to the root of the problem?
Coincidentally, after I watched the 9/11 Illuminati video I also watched Lawrence Lessig's TED talk on the effects of large donor campaign finance on American politics. The two topics meshed together perfectly, and I began to feel a new sense of direction as certain thoughts I'd been having started to solidify.
Lessig starts out by describing what must seem fairly obvious to most people - that most campaign money comes from a very small number of very rich people, and so this has the effect of the politicians spending a large fraction of their time trying to keep those very few rich people happy. They also have to keep the regular people happy as well, but there's a vastly disproportionate amount of time and effort that goes simply to addressing the concerns of the super-rich.
He paint a compelling picture of how this is the root cause of much that is wrong in America. Keeping the rich happy prevents anything really constructive from being done. This applies both to the left and the right. Action on issues like climate change or financial reform are blocked because they are not in the interests of big business. But the Right is also blocked in its attempts to reduce the size of government because as one congressman said "if we deregulate those guys, how do we raise money from them?" So the conservative goal of small government is blocked, because government needs the regulations as a bargaining chip in the giant horse trading game.
The US Government has become a business, or more accurately, a racket. It's a machine fueled by money for making money. The super rich get to stay super rich, or become
super richer, and the congressmen get to become lobbyists when they leave congress, and become a bit richer themselves. The people get just enough so they go along with the racket.
So there's this huge corrupt system. So huge that is seems hopeless. But Lessig points out that just because something seems hopeless, it does not mean we should simply give up and ignore it. We fight. We fight with focus. We strike at the root.
Lessig quotes Henry David Thoreau:
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root"
We hack at the branches because it is easy. It's easy to explain that contrails are just clouds, so they last as long as clouds do. It's easy to explain that steel loses its strength long before it melts, so burning hydrocarbons can collapse a building. It's easy to discuss points of science, like kinetic energy, and free-fall acceleration, and the effects of fire insulation. But it's hard to explain that there is really no good evidence that the world is run by a cabal of occultists. It's hard to strike at that root belief because it's not really based on things in reality. It's not based on physical evidence.
The task of addressing the root causes of conspiracy theories seems hopeless, just like the task of addressing the role of big money in politics seems hopeless. But for the latter Lessig raises two points. Firstly that we do not give up on tasks just because they seem difficult. Impossible-seeming tasks are accomplished all the time. Secondly, while the task seems insurmountable, the solution is quite simple - reduce the size of campaign contributions so that campaigns are funded by citizens, and then the politicians will start to work for the citizens, not the super-rich. This still might seem like a hopelessly difficult task, but it is at least a clear and concrete goal, and we can take very distinct and meaningful steps towards that goal, such as supporting citizen funded elections at the local and state level.
What is the analogous solution for conspiracy theories? I think people create or adopt these strange theories of an occult cabal, of a ruling elite, of the illuminati, because they don't really understand how the government works. They certainly think they do, and they think the other people (the sheep) do not. But their belief in this semi-magical illuminati seems to simply be a groundless construct created to fill a void in understanding of politics. Just as the belief in a controlled demolition on 9/11 is a groundless construct created to fill the void left by their lack of understanding of physics.
So the solution, the distant and hard to reach solution, is to teach people how government actually works.
And I don't just mean teach them the subject of American "civics", like the difference between Congress and Senate, or the ostensible process of how a bill is made law. I mean the real way government works. The brass tacks, nuts and bolts corrupt money oriented way the racket operates.
And here we see an obvious opportunity to combine the two subjects: conspiracy theory and campaign finance reform, and to strike at the root of both. But I think the best way to do it is by focussing on just one: campaign finance reform, and to structure this approach so it indirectly strikes at the root of conspiracy theories.
See, you can't just tell a conspiracy theorist that he is wrong. You can't even really just explain why he is wrong. These approaches get rebuffed because the conspiracy theorist has this vast and detailed mental picture of the world, involving the illuminati. They use this mental picture to make sense of everything around them. In their mind the picture makes sense, and it gives them a sense of certainty, and of unique insight, a specialness, a sense of elevation amongst the ordinary people. You can't just take this away. If you take it away it leaves a vast hole in their understand of the world. The looming presence of this hole seems to their mind to be proof positive that their existing model is correct. Given vast certainty versus vast uncertainty, the choice of what is "correct" becomes obvious.
So we need to offer something to fill the hole with. Instead of hacking their world view to pieces, we need to demonstrate an alternative, and more accurate, world view piece by piece. Replacing their baseless beliefs a bit at a time without ripping out so much that they feel the uncertainty of the hole and then retreat.
Focussing on campaign finance reform is to focus on the root cause of the evils in American politics. But since that focus reveals the inner workings of the corrupt government, the buying of votes, the selling of influence, and the revolving door careers, then it is also focussing on the root of conspiracy theories. By exposing how government really works we give the conspiracy theorist an alternative world view that they can use piece by piece to replace their conspiratorial world-view, and escape it piece by piece, step by step. They will escape not by being convinced that they are wrong, but by being shown how things actually work. Instead of their deep-seated identity-forming beliefs being ripped from their iron foundations, those beliefs will naturally wither and drop away as clarity and reality set in.
Wishful thinking? Perhaps somewhat. For a start I know that many conspiracy theorists reading this would think of me as an arrogant idiot. Many conspiracy theorists do a lot of reading and watching videos about their world view, and they consider themselves incredibly well informed. Many of them are aware (to various degrees) of the corrupting role that money plays in politics, but they see as it as small part of a much larger game. So they will see my attempt to focus on this as a pitiful and transparent attempt to brainwash them, and they will simply laugh it off. So this is an approach that you want to be very wary of using directly, as it might have a rather distinct rebound effect.
But I feel that the spotlight of truth being focused on the roots of corruption is going to have positive collateral effects. We can steer those effects a little bit, direct the light a bit on the roots of conspiracy theory. But even if we don't, even if we just focus on campaign finance, the roots of corruption, then we are also striking at the roots of conspiracy theory without even trying. Shining the light is to raise public awareness of the issue, and to prompt public conversations about the issue. And the more people know about how politics actually works, the less likely they are to want to fill their lack of knowledge with bunk.
So I would urge any skeptics and debunkers to take a little break away from pruning the dead branches of bunk. Take a break from trying to teach people physics and math. Instead contribute a little more time to shining a light on the root issue of the corrupting role of money in American politics. Raising public awareness of the issue will not only help fight that issue in general, it will also raise the awareness of genuine issue for conspiracy theorists who are otherwise distracted with fake issues. Directly or indirectly, we can help show them how the world really works. Help to give them a way out.
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