The problem isn't you, CTers - it's your dang brain

[Lance Payette]

Because I am in desperate fear that Michael might actually know something I don't, I asked two AI sources to provide me with data on the percentage of those in the Western world who believe a conspiracy was responsible for the death of JFK. Alas, AI couldn't even fake it. It noted that there are no statistics outside of the U.S., so we unfortunately do not have the opinions of approximately 900,000,000 non-U.S. residents of the Western world.

One AI source did offer this for the UK, which casts grave doubt on Michael's figures: "A 2012 YouGov poll found that 48% of Britons believed Oswald was the assassin, while 17% thought someone else was responsible. Another 35% were unsure." Oops - huh, Michael?

Just to be fair and try to get SOME idea, my team did a telephone poll of 875 residents of Finland, asking "Do you believe Oswald acted alone in killing JFK?" The responses broke down as follows:

Ya, for sure, George Clooney is my favorite actor - 12%
Ya, for sure, Oswald killed Nixon - 18%
No, for sure, Hickey killed JFK - 6%
Is JFK dead? - 12%
Mistä ihmeestä tässä on kyse? - 11% (Roughly, "What the hell is this all about?")
No, for sure, I don't like Trump - 9%
Ya, for sure, Trump is the best - 15%
How did you get my phone number? - 8%
What do I win if I say no? - 7%
What do I win if I say yes? - 3%

In short, just about as expected. If we extrapolate these figures to the entire Western World, approximately 72,000,000 people think Hickey killed JFK - which sounds about right, doesn't it?

The absurdity of all this, as previously noted, is that (1) there has been a constant drumbeat of "Conspiracy!" in the media for 62 years because "No conspiracy!" is not exactly breaking news; (2) most people know less about the JFKA than I know about your Aunt Tilly's second husband Fred; (3) when people agree with polls, they mean nothing more specific than "I've heard so much about so many different conspiracies that I suppose there must be something to at least one of them."

You might be amazed to learn that some 6%-10% of Americans actually think the Moon landing was faked. I had no idea ANYONE did. My eyes were opened last year on a now-defunct forum called White Horse Theology. The site owner was a very intelligent, very successful, theologically savvy guy with whom I had interacted and shared PMs on several other forums. To my utter astonishment, he revealed himself to be both a very serious Flat Earther and an equally serious Fake Moon Landing proponent. He became ENRAGED when I refused to believe he was serious. One more proof of the axiom which served me well throughout my legal career: "Just because someone is educated, successful, and seems sane and reasonable in every other area of life, do not assume that he is not completely insane in some corner of his mind."

[Michael T. Griffith]

It is indeed interesting. You know why CTers don't do this? Because - wait for it - they don't have mountains of peer-reviewed neurological, psychological and sociological data to support such a claim. Neurologists, psychologists and sociiologists study the conspiracy mindset because it is recognized as ABERRANT. Not necessarily pathological, but distinctly aberrant.

BTW, just curious: Does this polemic apply to all the Democrats who still believe that Trump conspired with Putin to rig the 2016 election? Do they suffer from aberrant brain wiring? Does it apply to all the Democrats who still believe that Republicans stole the 2018 election for governor in Georgia from Stacey Abrams? Another example of an aberrant mindset? Does it apply to all the Democrats and Republicans who acknowledge the Iran-Contra conspiracy and attempted cover-up that Congress exposed in 1987? Were all the congressional and Justice Department investigators who concluded Iran-Contra was a large-scale conspiracy suffering from aberrant brain wiring?

Or, how about all the Democrats who continue to argue that Bush stole the 2000 election by colluding with Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the recount in Florida? How about the Democrats who continue to claim that Bush stole the 2004 election by hacking the vote-counting software in Ohio? How about the Republicans who still believe that a massive voter-fraud conspiracy stole the 2020 election for Biden? How about all the Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom of CA, who have been claiming that Trump is sending National Guard troops into blue states to prepare for cancelling the 2028 election? Are all these folks suffering from an aberrant mindset?

Or, how about all the California state and city investigators who concluded there was a massive conspiracy among many LAPD officers to frame blacks for crimes they didn't commit? I refer, of course, to the Rampart scandal that was exposed in the 1990s and early 2000s. Surely it's "aberrant" to think that so many police officers would conspire to frame innocent minorities! Oh, wait! This was actually proven, and the city of LA paid millions of dollars in damages to settle the lawsuits resulting from the exposure of the conspiracy. But, hey, when news reports on the scandal first surfaced, LAPD and LA city officials dismissed the reports as "baseless rumor," "conspiracy theory," "nuts," "crazy talk," etc.




 

[Bill Brown]

BTW, just curious: Does this polemic apply to all the Democrats who still believe that Trump conspired with Putin to rig the 2016 election? Do they suffer from aberrant brain wiring? Does it apply to all the Democrats who still believe that Republicans stole the 2018 election for governor in Georgia from Stacey Abrams? Another example of an aberrant mindset? Does it apply to all the Democrats and Republicans who acknowledge the Iran-Contra conspiracy and attempted cover-up that Congress exposed in 1987? Were all the congressional and Justice Department investigators who concluded Iran-Contra was a large-scale conspiracy suffering from aberrant brain wiring?

Or, how about all the Democrats who continue to argue that Bush stole the 2000 election by colluding with Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the recount in Florida? How about the Democrats who continue to claim that Bush stole the 2004 election by hacking the vote-counting software in Ohio? How about the Republicans who still believe that a massive voter-fraud conspiracy stole the 2020 election for Biden? How about all the Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom of CA, who have been claiming that Trump is sending National Guard troops into blue states to prepare for cancelling the 2028 election? Are all these folks suffering from an aberrant mindset?

Or, how about all the California state and city investigators who concluded there was a massive conspiracy among many LAPD officers to frame blacks for crimes they didn't commit? I refer, of course, to the Rampart scandal that was exposed in the 1990s and early 2000s. Surely it's "aberrant" to think that so many police officers would conspire to frame innocent minorities! Oh, wait! This was actually proven, and the city of LA paid millions of dollars in damages to settle the lawsuits resulting from the exposure of the conspiracy. But, hey, when news reports on the scandal first surfaced, LAPD and LA city officials dismissed the reports as "baseless rumor," "conspiracy theory," "nuts," "crazy talk," etc.

Mr. Griffith... Lance Payette's point, which may have went over your head, is that your percentage of those who believe Kennedy was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy means nothing when 98% of those polled have only heard terms like "grassy knoll" and "magic bullet" and have no idea who Ruth Paine and J.D. Tippit are.

[Lance Payette]

BTW, just curious: Does this polemic apply to all the Democrats who still believe that Trump conspired with Putin to rig the 2016 election? Do they suffer from aberrant brain wiring? Does it apply to all the Democrats who still believe that Republicans stole the 2018 election for governor in Georgia from Stacey Abrams? Another example of an aberrant mindset? Does it apply to all the Democrats and Republicans who acknowledge the Iran-Contra conspiracy and attempted cover-up that Congress exposed in 1987? Were all the congressional and Justice Department investigators who concluded Iran-Contra was a large-scale conspiracy suffering from aberrant brain wiring?

Or, how about all the Democrats who continue to argue that Bush stole the 2000 election by colluding with Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the recount in Florida? How about the Democrats who continue to claim that Bush stole the 2004 election by hacking the vote-counting software in Ohio? How about the Republicans who still believe that a massive voter-fraud conspiracy stole the 2020 election for Biden? How about all the Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom of CA, who have been claiming that Trump is sending National Guard troops into blue states to prepare for cancelling the 2028 election? Are all these folks suffering from an aberrant mindset?

Or, how about all the California state and city investigators who concluded there was a massive conspiracy among many LAPD officers to frame blacks for crimes they didn't commit? I refer, of course, to the Rampart scandal that was exposed in the 1990s and early 2000s. Surely it's "aberrant" to think that so many police officers would conspire to frame innocent minorities! Oh, wait! This was actually proven, and the city of LA paid millions of dollars in damages to settle the lawsuits resulting from the exposure of the conspiracy. But, hey, when news reports on the scandal first surfaced, LAPD and LA city officials dismissed the reports as "baseless rumor," "conspiracy theory," "nuts," "crazy talk," etc.

You are missing the point because you aren't familiar with the professional literature. Aberrant conspiratorial thinking is not determined by the conspiracies in which one believes. Not everyone who thinks a conspiracy was involved in the JFKA would be characterized as aberrant or conspiracy prone. The aberrant conspiratorial thinking that is of interest to neurologists, psychologists and sociologists is typified by specific characteristics. It's why many of those who would be characterized as aberrant or conspiracy prone believe in more than one conspiracy theory that the rest of us would regard as irrational. These folks apply the same aberrant thinking to multiple events or situations.

The term "conspiracy theorist" does not mean "anyone who believes in a conspiratorial explanation for an event that the majority think can be explained in non-conspiratorial terms." Pretty much everyone would qualify as a "conspiracy theorist" by that extremely broad definition. Richard's pithy post captures the sort of thinking that is of interest to neurologists, psychologists and sociologists:

The CTer mind works in a different way.  They often do not view the totality of evidence and circumstances as a whole.  Nor do they take into consideration the implications of their own doubts having validity.  IF X didn't happen as they suggest after a pedantic interpretation of the evidence, they don't bother to consider any alternative such as Y occurring that must have happened to explain the known result.  The end of the line is analyzing the specific point under consideration and casting doubt on it.  Even if any other alternative to explain the result is wildly improbable perhaps even impossible not to mention baseless, they are undeterred by this.  Every piece of evidence exists in a vacuum to be addressed as though it were the only evidence in the case.  No attempt is even made to explain what must have happened if the accepted LNer interpretation is incorrect.

You have done on this thread exactly what the literature predicts: You insist your views are "normal," indeed they are the "majority" view, and it is those who disagree with you who are aberrant. Everything is fake, everything is manipulated, the absence of evidence is evidence, nothing is real, and on and on and on. When you insist the majority of people think there was a conspiracy in the JFKA, you lump everyone together and ignore that the vast majority of your supposed fellow conspiracy theorists would recognize thinking such as yours as extreme and aberrant if not irrational.

To amplify Richard's post, the following is pretty good. Even within the category of aberrant conspiracy thinking there are gradations and variations, but in general this is what neurologists, psychologists and sociologists are interested in studying:

Aberrant or extreme conspiratorial thinking is characterized by a combination of cognitive biases, personality traits, and emotional factors that lead to the unwarranted belief in secret plots by malevolent groups. This type of thinking is not only resistant to evidence but also often reinforces itself through a series of logical fallacies.

Cognitive and epistemic characteristics

Immunity to evidence: Aberrant conspiratorial thinking is resistant to contradictory evidence. Evidence against the conspiracy is reinterpreted as further proof that the cover-up is working. Likewise, a lack of evidence is seen as confirmation of a sophisticated plot.

Perceiving danger and threat: Individuals with aberrant conspiratorial thinking often have a heightened sense of threat and are prone to perceiving danger in their environment.

Overriding suspicion: There is a persistent and generalized suspicion of powerful entities, including government agencies, officials, and scientists, assuming they have nefarious intentions.

Monological belief system: This refers to a belief system in which multiple different conspiracy theories are linked together and support one another, creating an internally coherent but isolated view of the world. Belief in one conspiracy theory increases the likelihood of believing in others, even if they contradict.

Proportionality bias: A tendency to believe that significant events must have significant causes. For instance, a major event like a plane crash must have a complex, sinister explanation rather than a mundane one, like mechanical failure.

Intuitive processing: Believers often rely heavily on intuition and "gut feelings" rather than on analytical, rational problem-solving. They trust their own interpretations over expert consensus or official explanations.

Epistemic self-insulation: The belief system is constructed to be resistant to outside questioning. Any contradictory information is automatically dismissed as "disinformation" from the very conspiracy being theorized, effectively insulating the theory from neutral analysis.

Teleological thinking: The aberrant tendency to excessively believe that events happen for a specific reason rather than occurring randomly.

Personality and motivational characteristics

Paranoid ideation: High levels of excessive suspiciousness and paranoia are strongly correlated with conspiratorial beliefs. Believers often attribute hostile intent to others without sufficient evidence.

Antagonism and superiority: Many individuals who strongly believe in conspiracy theories feel a sense of antagonism toward others and a sense of superiority over those who do not share their "awakened" worldview.

Narcissism: Vulnerable narcissism, which involves a mix of grandiosity and insecurity, is associated with a belief in conspiracy theories.

Need for uniqueness: The desire to feel special or unique can be a driving factor. Adhering to a conspiracy theory allows one to feel they possess exclusive knowledge that others lack.

Distrust and alienation: Individuals with aberrant conspiratorial thinking are often alienated from social institutions and mainstream culture. Exposure to conspiracy theories can further erode trust and lead to a retreat from civic engagement.

Emotional characteristics

Anxiety and insecurity: Heightened feelings of anxiety, insecurity, and powerlessness are common in individuals drawn to conspiracy theories. The theories can provide a sense of making sense of a chaotic or frightening world, even if that explanation is false.

Emotional reasoning: Reliance on emotions, rather than logic or facts, to evaluate information. A theory that "feels" right may be accepted as truth.

Feeling victimized: Some conspiratorial beliefs are rooted in a sense of being victimized, either personally or as part of a group. This can motivate suspicion of powerful out-groups perceived as the source of the harm.

Anyway, enough. Have the last word if you like.

[Tom Graves]

Does this polemic apply to all the Democrats who still believe that Trump conspired with Putin to rig the 2016 election?

Your analogy is specious for the following, among other, reasons:

1) At a 27 July 2016 rally, Trump said, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." We know that Putin's GRU send phishing emails for the first time to accounts at a domain used by Hillary Clinton's personal office within five hours of that remark.

2) In early 2016, former Watergate attorney Douglas Caddy was asked by Harley Schlanger of the pro-Russia Lyndon LaRouche organization to be introduced to Caddy's former colleague, Roger Stone, shortly after Schlanger and some other Larouche members had returned from Moscow where they probably attended the infamous RT Dinner where Mike Flynn (who is probably "Q" in the QAnon cult) and Jill "Anti-Vax" Stein sat at the same table with Vladimir Putin. Caddy arranged for Schlanger and Stone to meet at a restaurant in Austin, Texas, in April 2016. After the meeting, Stone, who had been an adviser to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign before he left it on 8 August 2015, sent Caddy a "thank you" email in which he mentioned that he and Schlanger were "fighting the Globalists" and that he had "a back channel to Trump." Caddy notified Robert Mueller and James Comey of this in 2017, but apparently neither of them investigated it.

3) Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, gave Trump campaign polling data for three "swing" states to his pro-Yanukovich business partner, GRU officer Konstantine Kilimnik, to give to one of Putin's closest Oligarchs, Dmitry Polyakov. This polling data was probably used by Putin's professional St. Petersburg trolls to "target" voters in those states in order to either encourage them to vote for Trump, or, if they were pro-Hillary or Black, to not vote at all. Trump ended up "carrying" those states in the 2016 election by a total of 77,744 votes.

4) Under Trump, we are becoming more and more like Stalin-and-Putin's Russia every day.

[John Mytton]

Mr. Griffith... Lance Payette's point, which may have went over your head, is that your percentage of those who believe Kennedy was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy means nothing when 98% of those polled have only heard terms like "grassy knoll" and "magic bullet" and have no idea who Ruth Paine and J.D. Tippit are.

Yeah this, the other day Griffith posted his JFKA poll statistics and I pointed out that barely anyone of those polled actually know this case and I'm guessing that less than 1% have even read the Warren Report, so the information they have isn't exactly balanced and comes primarily from CT lies like Stone's JFK movie. It's like Lance says, there's an anonymous phone poll and some uninformed citizen who is only aware of the CT side and has a basic mistrust of the Government will reply "sure there was a Conspiracy"
Even myself in the early days believed in conspiracy but as time went on and I did actual research, I came to another conclusion, for instance;

• Kennedy's head goes initially forward.
• A bullet lacks the kinetic energy to throw anyone around like a rag doll.
• The authenticated autopsy photos show no exit wound to the back of Kennedy's head.
• The backyard photos showing Oswald holding the murder weapon have been authenticated 7 ways to Sunday.
• Oswald ordered, purchased and possessed the murder weapon
• Oswald killed Tippit and if Oswald wasn't in flight, why would he feel the need to kill?
• Oswald's confirmable lies while in custody.

I literally have dozens more of these facts which refute any conspiracy.

The CT's use what is known as circular logic and based on their belief that Oswald is innocent come to their conclusion that every fact that convicts Oswald must be false and since there is a mountain of evidence convicting Oswald, in turn there must be a mountain of evidence which is the product of fakery and lies. Just for example look at Griffith who literally believes that practically every single piece of evidence has been faked, like the Zapruder film, backyard photos, autopsy photos, autopsy X-rays, rifle documents the list is near endless. But when Griffith is asked how it was done, how it was planned and who had the ability to alter this massive pile of evidence, he just stares at you blankly and then goes off in search of more fakery and then seeks confirmation bias from his equally Kooky mates.

JohnM

[Lance Payette]

I finally located the book that I read a few years ago and would highly recommend to all:

Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11, by Kathryn Olmstead, https://www.amazon.com/Real-Enemies-Conspiracy-Theories-Democracy/dp/0199753954.

The point she makes is that, in every instance, there actually was malfeasance and cover-up that gave rise to wild conspiracy theories - but the wild conspiracy theories were totally unrelated to the actual malfeasance and cover-up, and the folks who screwed up could have avoided a lot of grief and wild speculation just by being honest and transparent from the get-go.

These sorts of threads always - ALWAYS - immediately turn into ad hominem catfights because CTers think they are being attacked. Those who react most strongly are always - ALWAYS - precisely who and what the professional literature is describing (and at some level they realize this, which is why they kick and scream).

It is simply a scientific truth that there is such a thing as aberrant conspiratorial thinking, and it rears its head again and again on forums such as this. I think it behooves everyone to recognize that those who propound these wild theories and make these irrational arguments are simply not thinking the same way most of us do.

There are NUMEROUS scholarly but non-technical and non-argumentative books such as the above that examine conspiratorial thinking and explain the differences between aberrant and non-aberrant. The problem is, those who would benefit the most from reading them are the least likely to do so.

[Tom Graves]

[...]

In my humble opinion, before the Administrations of The Traitorous Orange Bird (rhymes with "Xxxx"), conspiracy theorists who hated the American government (can you say the evil, evil CIA?) did so largely because they didn't realize the nature of the Communist threat against us and our NATO allies since 1959, and even if they did have an inkling, thought we should be fighting against it according to Queensbury Rules.