No. Being Right Sometimes is Not a Good Reason to Listen to Conspiracy Theorists
How psychology can protect you from nonsense
There’s something going on where really, really smart people art giving a lot of credit to conspiracy theorists. I’ll always be a firm believer that psychology is one of the most important fields of research out there, and this is a prime example. Do you have any idea how many college-educated people are basically saying we should listen to conspiracy theorists because they were right a few times? If you’re wondering how smart people get scammed or believe in the supernatural, this is why. They have little to no knowledge of how many cognitive errors we encounter on a daily basis.
I love American Dad, and one of my favorite episodes is when Francine becomes a conspiracy theorist after she realized Stan was protecting her from the harsh realities of the world.
Later in this episode, Francine starts an Alex Jones-style podcast sharing all these whacky conspiracy theories. One is that the CIA spies on you while you’re pooping to later use it as blackmail, and it ends up being right. The CIA then wants to kill her, and Stan goes to protect her. When he’s saying they need to run away, Francine is like, “Which one did I get right?!” and rattles off a bunch of her whacky theories and is then disappointed that it’s this low-level random one she came up with.
I highly recommend the episode, but let’s start off with a few quick real-world examples and why the logic is extremely flawed.
First is Joe Rogan’s initial video addressing the misinformation.
While I agree that misinformation is a tricky subject, Joe and others like myself come to the conclusion differently. He discusses how at the beginning of the pandemic many things that were deemed misinformation are now true.
But Joe didn’t come to that conclusion like a critical thinker. He had conspiracy theorists spouting off a firehose of nonsense on his podcast, and a few of them ended up being right eventually. Making a ton of insane predictions and nailing 3 out of 100 is not a reason to listen to conspiracy theorists.
And let’s not forget that there’s a major difference between a theory with and without evidence.
Coleman Hughes is a super smart guy, and I’m actually not criticizing him here. I’m just using his tweet as an example.
People theorized about the lab leak before there was any real evidence. We’re talking about people who think there are a million government conspiracies at any given moment. Yes, more evidence is pointing towards the lab leak hypothesis, but the conspiracy theorists shouldn’t get a gold star.
Finally, there’s Debra Soh
This woman has a PhD for Christ’s sake. And she’s a former academic sex researcher, so she must have a little bit of a psychology background, right? For now, I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt that she just tweeted this for the likes because 90% of her tweets seem like this. I can’t imagine she actually believes this.
The Psychology of Nonsense
After getting canceled, I started reading as many books as possible about the science and psychology of belief. I just really wanted to understand why people believe things when there’s no solid evidence. This inevitably led me to the world of skeptics. I started reading books by Michael Shermer, Steven Novella, and others. There are a ton of great books in this realm, and if you want some recommendations, email me or reach out on social media because more people need to learn about this stuff.
Surprisingly, supposed psychics and conspiracy theorists have a lot in common. One of my favorite tools for helping people understand the BS of psychics is the Barnum Effect. Basically, it’s why people believe psychics, mentalists, and astrology. I guess it’s even why we love fortune cookies.
Here’s the list of statements used to show the Barnum Effect. If you want to have some fun, memorize this list and go make people think you’re a psychic:
In case you don’t see what’s going on here, these statements apply to just about everyone. They’re extremely vague. But that’s not the only reason this works. We all have an extremely skewed self-image, so psychics play into that by telling us stuff that make us believe we’re brave, unique, and kind. If psychics told you what piece of garbage you are, you probably wouldn’t keep throwing money at them.
This isn’t where psychics and conspiracy theorists align, necessarily, but I just wanted to give you something to ease into the psychology of all of this. The real overlap is with the random predictions.
Imagine you went to a psychic when you were 20, and they said your dad would die when you’re 35. Your dad dies when you’re 35, and now you’re a believer. How else would they know that?
Well, let’s look at that under a microscope real quick.
Was that the only thing the psychic predicted during your session? Of course not. If you have one session with a psychic, they probably make a dozen or more predictions. And if you see them on a regular basis, they’re making hundreds or thousands of predictions. If we looked at the percentage of their accuracy, it’s extremely low.
So, why don’t we realize how terrible “psychics” are at predictions? Well, the human brain is designed to track the hits more than the misses. You’re not going to remember all of the things the psychic got wrong; you’ll remember what they got right. This is why people believe psychics are actually real because it’s a flaw with the way our brains work.
This is no different than conspiracy theorists, and it’s why I referenced that American Dad episode. I’ve legitimately seen people say we should start listening to Alex Jones because he’s been right about a few things. Like, are you fucking kidding me? This dude has been doing his insane show for years spouting ridiculous conspiracy theories that have led to the harassment of parents of Sandy Hook victims and much more. But because he may have been right a few times, we should take advice from him?
This is also why experts are often given far too much credit. I absolutely love the work of Philip Tetlock and will reference his work every chance I get. I am extremely fortunate that I read his book and learned about his work long before I started investing in the stock market. Do you have any idea how many people take the advice of “experts” on how to invest their money due to this same thinking error? I’ve seen people lose so much money because they take advice from investment “experts” just because they had a few lucky bets on stocks or crypto.
I live in Las Vegas, and that’d be like me going to the roulette table and taking financial advice from someone who got a lucky pick and won a bunch of money.
So, in conclusion, conspiracy theorists are conspiracy theorists and not people we should take seriously. The only thing we should take seriously about them is the fact that their distorted view of the world can lead to real harm if it goes too far. Other than that, don’t fall for their random hits and lose track of their misses.
If you catch yourself doing this, I’ll tell you what I do. If I even get the itch to believe someone might be great at predictions, I go back through their predictions over the years and try to get an idea of their overall track record. I actually did this about a year ago when I thought this guy really knew what he was talking about when it came to the stock market. I found some of his old content and saw how he was 100% sure about this stock and had so much data to back how positive he was that it would rocket in value. Within months, the company went bankrupt, and I can only imagine how many people lost money from taking his advice.
Before you go, here are some books you should buy:
The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe by Dr. Steven Novella
Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlock
I’m currently writing a book about how we’re manipulated by the news, social media, technology, advertisers, and each other. It dives into the psychological history of manipulation, our biases, tribalism, and more.
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