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New research suggests people are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories if they would be willing to personally participate in such a conspiracy. … “At least among some samples and for some conspiracy theories, the perception that ‘they did it’ is fueled by the perception that ‘I would do it. … People who have more lax personal morality may endorse conspiracy theories to a greater extent because they are, on average, more willing to participate in the conspiracies themselves.” (more; HT David Brin)
All the commentary I’ve found on this seems to take it as evidence against conspiracy theories, since it offers a non-evidential explanation for why people might believe in such theories. For example, people are eager to mention birthers in the same breath, to discredit them. But in fact this result tends to support conspiracy theories.
Think about it. Why are conspiracy theories in such disrepute, given that there have in fact been many real conspiracies in the world? One theory is that conspiracy theories just tend to be wrong – that there is some bias which makes people believe them too much, and the anti-conspiracy attitudes you see are a response to that bias. Another theory is that the people who tend to support conspiracy theories are disliked, independently of the evidence supporting their theories. The result above adds support for this disliked theory, relative to the bias theory. And this gives you less reason to believe there is in fact a widespread bias to believe too easily in conspiracy theories. Which is evidential, if not social, support for such theories.
Consider Conspiracies
The initiation of central banking (Federal Reserve Act) required conspiracy in the early 20th century. Hundreds of witting and unwitting actors set the stage for private bankers to in-debt our nation for the next hundred years. Some spoke out against it, exposing the corrupt and fraudulent act to any who might pay heed ("those who have ears ought to listen"). People argue that in a large scale conspiracy, someone would expose it. In such cases,there are leaks, some do break ranks, or think critically and/or morally, to speak out. But, they are dismissed as nuts, or disgruntled cranks, etc. In that way, anti-conspiracists, having dismissed the " leaks", make their case that large-scale conspiracy doesn't happen. Consider that the Manhattan Project was a large-scale conspiracy to create an atomic bomb. Thousands kept it under wraps
Secret work for a government feels like a conspiracy to me. Reading for example Cryptonomicon one sees that tremendous effort is made to mislead both the friendly non-secure population and the enemy about what is actually being done. I think there is a vast structure of philosophy and human understanding to be had in examining this, but alas one is impeded in this examination by security laws.
Once someone is cleared they become aware that a lot of stuff is done that people don't know about and are deliberately mislead about. How can they not conclude that if they are part of this conspiracy that other people in other places are parts of different conspiracies? That people who are consciously aware that they would participate in a conspiracy are more likely to be consciously aware that other people may participate in conspiracies seems, by itself, a feature, not a bug.
The hard part I think is the 1,000 percieved tigers for every real tiger effect. Evolution doesn't punish you for being anxious and nervous in the dark where you percieve 1,000 tigers that aren't there for every real tiger, because escaping 1,000 imagined tigers plus 1 real tiger is a better strategy than being realistic about tigers and thus having a 20% chance of missing the real ones. So we many of us may have a bias we are unaware of to percieve 1000 non-existent conspiracies for every real conspiracy. How do you overcome a bias like this? What is the proper sensitivity on your conspiracy-detector if you would like to know the truth AND you would like not to be caught by surprise by people working secretly against you?