Went for a walk from Wotton-under-Edge to Newark Park and back yesterday with our friends, Simon and Ellie, stopping off for some coffee at Newark Park.
While we were walking we were discussing conspiracy theories (antivaxxers in particular) and thought it might be fun to start one and see how fast it spread. Being ethical, we wanted a conspiracy theory that was pretty harmless, but couldn't really come up with anything concrete.
Conspiracy theories appear to stem, to a large extent, from epistemic (a way to make sense of chaos and random events), existential (the pursuit of safety, security, and empowerment), and social motives (a desire for belonging to a group with a shared belief system). They contain a number of key elements.
They're associated with ideological belief systems that promote hostility toward different groups and are empirically related with populism, political extremism and religious fundamentalism. Large numbers of ordinary citizens believe in a consistent set of conspiracy theories with common themes related to health and safety and politics.
We came to the conclusion that if our invented conspiracy theory did take off and we exposed it as invented, the nature of conspiracy theorists would result in the exposure not being believed anyway.
While out I was expecting an Amazon delivery of some books. The house is plastered with signs telling anyone with a delivery to put it in the new porch.
What did the delivery person do? They left the parcel in the shed with a note on the very door where the instruction was...
I feel a conspiracy theory coming up about Amazon delivery people...
- a pattern,
- deliberate action by a coalition working in conjunction,
- an element of harmful threat, and
- an element of secrecy.
They're associated with ideological belief systems that promote hostility toward different groups and are empirically related with populism, political extremism and religious fundamentalism. Large numbers of ordinary citizens believe in a consistent set of conspiracy theories with common themes related to health and safety and politics.
We came to the conclusion that if our invented conspiracy theory did take off and we exposed it as invented, the nature of conspiracy theorists would result in the exposure not being believed anyway.
While out I was expecting an Amazon delivery of some books. The house is plastered with signs telling anyone with a delivery to put it in the new porch.
I feel a conspiracy theory coming up about Amazon delivery people...
2 comments:
At least in the shed is vaguely protected. My Amazon instructions quite specifically tell the drivers where to leave my parcels but more often than not they put them right in front of the front door. Good job my neighbours are trustworthy. Ish.
The problem is, which shed? We have many...
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