Conspiracy Theories

"Moon Landing"

Conspiracy Theories

By Matthew Grundy

Why can't they design a working product?

Whats Beyond the edge?

What did he know?

Who benefits?

Who eats here?

Why do they stop me?

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What are conspiracy theories?They are.... (Rhetorical)

... concequencial

...Social

...Emotional

...univesial

Van Proojen & Douglas

There are a huge range of conspiracy theories. From flat earth, to AIDS denial, and Government Conspiracies. Flat earth is a funny and harmless belief that changes nothing. Government conspiracies have the possibility to expose corruption and start riots.

Conspiracy theories are a paradox, even the insane ones are justified by a web of arguments. Even though the idea would be the more thought out something is the more correct it would be. Conspiracies theories true or not are defined by arguments being more emotional, than logical. Example: Flat Earths believing a grand conspiracy hiding something very pointless.

Universal... Every place, and social group has its own conspiracy theories.From the Stab-in-the-back myth to Well Poisoning they have existed a long time

Conspiracy Theories are Social. They reflect inter group conflict and always will have a out group they target. The main motivations for conspiracies are in group unity, and preventing hostile outside groups.

Who believes in them?

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Left is less likely to believe in conspiracy theories and right is more likely

Enders, A., Klofstad

The graph to the right shows what groups of people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. The conclusion are being young, a minority,or poor is more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. While gender or being Hispanic is not a factor. The most surprising thing about the data is that education is not a major factor. Additional info about this topic can be found at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-64098-1

Harmful Conspiracies

AIDS Denailism

Stab-in-The-bAck

Vaccine Denialism

Conspiracies can have conquences

After having one of the most severe AIDS epidemics in the world, Former South African President Thabo Mbeki's policy was not medical treatment but an attempt at poverty alleviation. This was due to the belief that aids was a symptom of poverty not a disease. These policies led to the death of around 300,000 people (Bosely Sarah). This is a good example of what conspiracies can lead to despite good intentions.

After World War One Germany felt betrayed. It felt that the blame for starting the war unfairly rested with them. They felt the German army was not defeated on the field was stabbed in the back by subversives. This was a substantial factor in the rise of Nazi Germany and the start of World War 2 (Richard, Hunt). This conspiracy of the most common reason to start a conspiracy theory, which is that people don't like losing.

Vaccine Denial is the best example for how conspiracy theories are political. Many swore not to take the "Trump Vaccine". And many of the biggest opponents to vaccines would how happily supported it if it was still trumps presidency.

Flat Earth

• Blatantly wrong

Reason people believe it- Popularized by YouTube

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Why Do People Believe it? +

Mirsky Steve

So why do people believe in the flat earth. The flat Earth movement was pretty small before 2014. It existed on a few forms and that’s it. We don’t even know if it was genuine or just for fun. Then the worst thing happened, YouTubers. which caused the movement to explode into popularity. Most people who got into the movement got into it because it was recommended to them on YouTube. People watched it to prove that it was wrong which caused the YouTube algorithm to recommend it to more people. This led to people who already believed in conspiracy theories and people who convinced to pick up the movement.

There also isn’t just one reason people believe in the flat earth there are multiple ranging from major scientists being free masons, to the most literal creationism. This leads to the most interesting thing about this is that there’s a pretty large schism in the flat earth movement about how it actually works. People argue all the time about how it would work and there’s no answer because its nonsense. The only real thing they agree is that there’s a conspiracy against them. That the Illuminati or Satan’s control is built on flat earth existing?