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This idea itself is more dangerous and irrational.

Certain worldviews spread virally not because they are true, but because they untestable and because they connect with elemental but fundamentally not rational aspects of our human biological makeup. We believe them not because they make sense or are probable, but because they exploit the way our brains work to overcome our capacity to think them through. In most cases this follows similar patterns, such as ideas that implicitly discredit our normal mechanisms for rationally judging thoughts, or far reaching explanations of that make sense of a confusing and increasingly complex world.

It would be really nice if we lived in a simple world where you could just let your brain engage with whatever whenever, where we were all strong willed philosophers of the human condition, bold pioneers investigating the very nature of truth, but that just aint it. We are all just people trying to live, imperfect creatures, and engaging with things we know will trick our brain in the name of intellectual honesty is just as dumb as shooting up heroin because doing so isn't morally wrong. Your not gonna go to a special world that other people are too afraid to discover, you are going to become a heroin addict. Neither are you going to help out your heroin addict friend by trying it out to better understand where he's coming from. It is uncomfortable and painful, but there are classes of ideas that we cannot afford to engage with, regardless if it makes us feel close-minded or not.

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The author provides good edge cases where theories once labelled as conspiracy theories proved to be correct. The conspiracy was true. And since many legitimate theories, in science for example, turns out to be wrong, the author asks: "Why do people pick on conspiracy theories?"

I think there is a problem in wording here. A conspiracy theory is, literally speaking, a theory about a conspiracy wherein bad intentions have led to error, lies and falsehood.

The key here is the charge of bad intentions. When Lamarck formulated his nowadays (mostly) refuted theory of evolution, I doubt anyone ascribe to him bad intentions. He was acting in good faith and did what a good scientists should do: show his work, enable refutation and critique. When someone suggests that the Face of Mars was covered up by a conspiracy, it is no longer a question if there truly is a depiction of a human face on Mars or not, but rather about someone's bad intentions.

So a conspiracy theory is a moral judgement of some social actor masquerading as a theory of facts. Moral judgements can be good and proper, but they can also be bad and uncomfortable, and they can challenge the self-image and narrative of a given society. That is true regardless if the specific factual statements are correct. To throw out an "edgy" and admittedly dubious suggestion: if the degree of falsehood in the justification of the Iraq War had remained hidden, maybe current distrust in US/Western governments would be reduced and contemporary polarization and conflict would also be reduced. As I said, I do not claim this to be so, but if it was true, then with some utilitarian moral philosophy, we might say we would be better off if the conspiracy theory never gained a following. It is not about the facts, but about the disruptive nature of the implied moral judgement of the conspiracy theory.

Therefore some conspiracy theories are easier to accept. The occasional tinfoil hat and manic street preacher adds to diversity and a nice urban aesthetics. A revolutionary uprising and terror not so much.

So I think the author has a few good points to add, but that the author's argument is too narrow when the conspiracy is viewed as only a conflict over facts.

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Didn't have time to finish this this morning, only got through the section about meaning but I'm curious: can you define nihilist for me in the context in which you're using here.

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Conspiracy theories involve people accepting a hypothesis before they have reasonable justification, often because of bias or misinformation or some other prior conviction. These hypothesis usually aren't mainstream, and involve some sort of special, hidden knowledge but not always.

That doesn't mean they are wrong, it means we have no reason to accept those ideas as true. We are using poor critical thinking by accepting these bad hypothesis we call conspiracy theories. The door for good evidence is always open, the problem is these people usually don't even understand what that is or have any basic ability in science and math.

Its important not to dismiss unorthodox hypothesis, but its irrational to not apportion belief to the evidence. The problem is most conspiracy theorists are people who usually aren't even capable of understanding scientific evidence.

From a pragmatic sense you should mostly ignore those people. Putting the .010 batter in ur lineup just because you think his swing is unorthodox is still dumb. Yes they might get a hit, but we only have finite time and resources and until they learn how to swing a bat properly its not worth the time.

Maybe we miss out on that one rare hit, but we skip 100 bad outs and get a lot more hits in the long run.

Interesting discussion! I see that the story was mostly read through ethical lenses here, which is not all there is (and maybe not at all what this classic is about). I'll leave a video for you by Dr. Hans Georg Moeller on the butterfly dream, where he vividly describes three different interpretations. It also shows how the translation into English (or any other Indo-European language) shaped our understanding of Daoism. The posted article is an interesting read, but it simplifies the story and conflated it with other stories, which are interesting as well, but unfortunately lead to a mis-reading of the butterfly dream. What's most important in that story is the fact that the butterfly and Zhuangzi do not know of each other, in fact they are separated. And its that separation which allows for them to have a genuine experience or an experience of genuineness. To my mind, the article misunderstands that as choosing the Tao in an individual personal situation, as if we could choose between being a butterfly or Zhuangzi. I do not agree that this is the case. Check it out and let me know what you think Butterfly Dream

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The caterpillar thinks, "hmm, I can't eat this. Meh"

Everyone watch out, these guys can talk to caterpillars

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Very interesting. Thanks.

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