Correlation between Conspiracy Theories and Schizophenia

Wow .. you have it bad Dude.

Please consider using what you apparently have more of than most (great intellect and education) to think off-leash. I realise your overlords don't want you doing that, lest you figure stuff out and start behaving like a fully realised independent adult human, but hey ... it's the holidays!

 

Getting the Kool Kids to denounce independent thought was the cleverest thing they ever did. All those vacuous virtue-chasers walked straight into it .. in their eternal quest to be admired.

 

Spoken like a true troofah.

Please consider acquiring either education or an understanding that your limitations are letting you down.

 

Not 100% sure what a 'troofah' is, but at a guess I'd say something to do with American politics ... is that about right? If so, you're plumb out of luck. I'm not American, and I'm a raving Lefty. Also .. to your embarrassment, educated in the sciences. Oh yeah .. and I'm anti-gun, pro vaccination, and pro masks. You feeling sheepish yet? If not, there's plenty more to flumox your apparently narrow field of vision.

 

Then stop acting like a troll.

 

What does a troll act like?

Be very specific, because from where I sit it seems like you just don't like being opposed, and are somewhat pissed off to come up against someone who messes with your received narrative.

 

Pretty much like you. Vague, personal and with nothing direct about the OP.

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Trolling. You haven't messed with anything I "received". You just seem to be making grandiose but meaningless statements. I don't even know what your position is and to be quite honest I don't actually care. If you think I would get "pissed" at yet another person taking an opposing view to me(if that is actually what you are doing), then you elevate your importance somewhat.

Break this down and explain what you mean and who it is aimed at - because the "Kool kids" seem to be the ones who follow batshit conspiracies:
"Getting the Kool Kids to denounce independent thought was the cleverest thing they ever did. All those vacuous virtue-chasers walked straight into it .. in their eternal quest to be admired."

 

Here's another essay on conspiracy theories.

American Pravda: How the CIA Invented "Conspiracy Theories"
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-p...piracy-theories/?showcomments#comment-6714344

It's message is basically that anything that doesn't have the backing of the mainstream media* is dismissed as a silly conspiracy theory by the mainstream media.


*
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...at-the-lies-furiously.583345/#post-1072353798

 

Spam, covered to death.

Demonstrating the very problem. The CIA did NOT invent it. The crazy conspiracy theory can't even get something right, that is so ludicrously simple. Anyone with basic search engine skills can find this crap debunked.

Hogwash. Anything not evidence based, relying on batshit, useless understanding and usually. a complete failure to entertain anything contradictory.

Conspiracy theories are the scourge of the internet.

 

https://academic.oup.com/book/25369/chapter-abstract/192453115?redirectedFrom=fulltext
"Conspiracy theories have been around for a long time, though how long is a matter of debate. As for the concept of conspiracy theory, it might seem reasonable to expect a more exact answer about the moment of its emergence. When do we first find people talking and writing about conspiracy theories? While much of the literature points to the twentieth-century philosopher Karl Popper and his famous work The Open Society and Its Enemies (1st edition: 1945), newspaper databases allow us to locate earlier occurrences of “conspiracy theory.” They reveal that the term proliferates in newspapers from the 1870s onward, particularly after the assassination of President Garfield in July 1881. What can this discovery then tell us about the modern-day phenomenon of conspiracy theories?"

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-conspiracy-theory-jfk-941578119864
"CLAIM: The terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” were created by the Central Intelligence Agency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as a way of discrediting people who doubted the government’s official reports.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Recorded use of the phrase “conspiracy theory” dates back to at least 1863, and it was notably invoked in reports following the 1881 shooting of then-President James A. Garfield, more than 60 years before the CIA was established. An academic review of the digital library JSTOR found the term “conspiracy theorist” had been published at least in the year before Kennedy’s death."

 

Ron Unz has it going on. His view of things is right on.

 

Nope and nothing even close to being on topic.. He is an anti-Semitic jackass with virtually no online presence. You couldn't have presented a more vague crackpot if you tried. His conclusions that the "joos" did JFK/911 are moronic.

 

People can read what he says and come to their own conclusions.
https://www.unz.com/?s=unz&Action=Search&authors=ron-unz&ptype=all&postid=537544

 

Already covered. 1. 100% off topic and.2. ...

It's hilarious how anyone can insist with a whole wall of spam that it's "an inside job" but have a potential conclusion that the "joos" did it.

 

Conspiracy theorists NEVER retract their claims, as stated in post above (bolded) they just ignore totally obvious contradictions!

 

I didn't actually claim that. I just thought the general idea of the article was important. What you noted may turn out to be true but it's not that important.

 

The viewers can see what he says here and come to their own conclusions.
https://www.unz.com/runz/laminated-mouse-brains-and-the-magic-of-ai/

Do page searches on "Israel" in this section to see threads with the arguments that the Zionists did it.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?forums/9-11.64/

 

So you post a claim that is complete crap and EASILY proven to be! then are afraid to concede it! This "CIA invented" xxxx is utter hogwash. Newspapers can be sourced from the 19th century confirming exactly what was said.

Your ludicrous "may turn out to be true" spam line is completely open-ended and has been used by you to avoid admitting your screw-ups.

 

As usual you run away from evidence

the viewers always conclude you are full of crap and defeated

 

Most of the keyboard warriors 'round here strongly discourage readers coming to their own conclusions. Their job is to try to get everybody thinking the same, in accordance with various Official Narratives.

 

Hogwash - they encourage critical thinking, logic, honesty and no confirmation bias - traits sadly lacking in conspiracy theorists!

Their "job"? Nobody posts around here as a job. It's hilarious that you think the "evil gubment" need to employ people to counter batshit. There's nothing wrong with alternative thinking...the problem is fixed opinions, devoid of any ability to change them and a wilful refusal to take in any evidence that is inconvenient!

 

One of the big symptoms of schizophrenia, that goes underemphasized, is that it causes the afflicted persons to have difficulty properly assigning relative importance to two different competing ideas. So thought concepts seem to be out of proportion to what most normal people would consider to be "common sense". It's not that the reasoning is not "logical", in the strictest sense of that word, but rather the person is not properly weighing the importance of different information that goes into shaping their view. Which can cause them to do seemingly crazy things, based on one particular justification, even though that reason is not a good reason at all, given the totality of the situation and what should be other common sense factors.
This means they can find reason to believe things, or in the case of conspiracy theories, perhaps easily latch on to reasons to believe things, without being able to more rationally take a wider view of the situation.

The other symptom, of course, is paranoia, and believing other people (or groups of people) are out to get them. Which of course we might expect would go together with the majority of conspiracy theories.

 

Here's some more stuff for the viewers to check out.

http://whale.to/a/conspiracy.html
(excerpt)
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"Conspiracy theory" is usually used as a pejorative label, meaning paranoid, nutty, marginal, and certainly untrue. The power of this pejorative is that it discounts a theory by attacking the motivations and mental competence of those who advocate the theory. By labeling an explanation of events "conspiracy theory," evidence and argument are dismissed because they come from a mentally or morally deficient personality, not because they have been shown to be incorrect. Calling an explanation of events "conspiracy theory" means, in effect, "We don't like you, and no one should listen to your explanation."
In earlier eras other pejorative labels, such as "heresy," "witchery," and "communism" also worked like this. The charge of "conspiracy theory" is not so severe as these other labels, but in its way is many times worse. Heresy, witchcraft, and communism at least retain some sense of potency. They designate ideas to be feared. "Conspiracy theory" implies that the ideas and their advocates are simple-minded or insane.
All such labels implicitly define a community of orthodox believers and try to banish or shun people who challenge orthodox beliefs. Members of the community who are sympathetic to new thoughts might shy away from the new thoughts and join in the shunning due to fear of being tainted by the pejorative label.

 

Hilarious. It's used to describe people who advocate a whole host of absurd claims - usually without any scientific basis or logic.

Utter hogwash - it's being labelled a pejorative as a defense mechanism. The debunking in copious amounts does all the necessary discounting!

One rightfully places it into the category it warrants.

....they are invariably wrong! The use of the word "evidence" is a bit of a stretch.

That would be the paranoid bit - hilarious.

HOGWASH! They are always shown to be incorrect.

....it is invariably far-fetched, lacking evidence, lacking appropriate consideration for numbers involved plus a whole host of mistakes and cherry picked crap.

And the paranoid bit again - hilarious.

That's 3 paranoid statements so far - the embodiment of irony. It implies gullibility to begin with and a need to be in a group that thinks it's right.

Here's something for the "viewers to checkout" - because it's from professionals who have studied the subject:
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/06/why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories
"People can be prone to believe in conspiracy theories due to a combination of personality traits and motivations, including relying strongly on their intuition, feeling a sense of antagonism and superiority toward others, and perceiving threats in their environment, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

The results of the study paint a nuanced picture of what drives conspiracy theorists, according to lead author Shauna Bowes, a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Emory University.“Conspiracy theorists are not all likely to be simple-minded, mentally unwell folks—a portrait which is routinely painted in popular culture,” said Bowes. “Instead, many turn to conspiracy theories to fulfill deprived motivational needs and make sense of distress and impairment.”

The research was published online in the journal Psychological Bulletin.Previous research on what drives conspiracy theorists had mostly looked separately at personality and motivation, according to Bowes. The current study aimed to examine these factors together to arrive at a more unified account of why people believe in conspiracy theories.To do so, the researchers analyzed data from 170 studies involving over 158,000 participants, mainly from the United States, the United Kingdom and Poland. They focused on studies that measured participants’ motivations or personality traits associated with conspiratorial thinking.

The researchers found that overall, people were motivated to believe in conspiracy theories by a need to understand and feel safe in their environment and a need to feel like the community they identify with is superior to others.Even though many conspiracy theories seem to provide clarity or a supposed secret truth about confusing events, a need for closure or a sense of control were not the strongest motivators to endorse conspiracy theories. Instead, the researchers found some evidence that people were more likely to believe specific conspiracy theories when they were motivated by social relationships. For instance, participants who perceived social threats were more likely to believe in events-based conspiracy theories, such as the theory that the U.S. government planned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, rather than an abstract theory that, in general, governments plan to harm their citizens to retain power.

“These results largely map onto a recent theoretical framework advancing that social identity motives may give rise to being drawn to the content of a conspiracy theory, whereas people who are motivated by a desire to feel unique are more likely to believe in general conspiracy theories about how the world works,” according to Bowes.The researchers also found that people with certain personality traits, such as a sense of antagonism toward others and high levels of paranoia, were more prone to believe conspiracy theories. Those who strongly believed in conspiracy theories were also more likely to be insecure, paranoid, emotionally volatile, impulsive, suspicious, withdrawn, manipulative, egocentric and eccentric.

The Big Five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism) had a much weaker relationship with conspiratorial thinking, though the researchers said that does not mean that general personality traits are irrelevant to a tendency to believe in conspiracy theories.Bowes said that future research should be conducted with an awareness that conspiratorial thinking is complicated, and that there are important and diverse variables that should be explored in the relations among conspiratorial thinking, motivation and personality to understand the overall psychology behind conspiratorial ideas."