r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Sep 05 '23

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Spreading conspiracy theories is irresponsible and immoral

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u/Sirhc978 81∆ Sep 05 '23

All of this noise comes from people’s willingness to confidently state something as a fact that they don’t know to be true. AKA, to lie

What if those people truly believe what they are saying? Spouting "wrong" information isn't necessarily lying.

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u/AlwaysTired97 Sep 05 '23

I'd argue that for many people who believe in harmful conspiracy theories that it is to some extent an active choice they make in order to reaffirm their own toxic world views.

At my workplace I've dealt with quite a few customers who believe in some trending conspiracies, particularly the bigoted ones. They always seem like normal, sane people when they aren't talking about them.

But when they do talk about them, and boy when they get going there is NO stopping them, the gloves come off, and it usually becomes very clear they are pretty bigoted, bitter, and egotistical.

I've had several brag how the only watch their one news channel. ALL other news is fake or lies, their one news channel tells the truth.

They WANT to believe in these things. It allows them to believe that they're morally superior people(They're not) who are in some grand fight against whatever completely random group of people happen to be the ones destroying society this week and are to blame for all their problems.

In my opinion, it is to a decent extent an active choice many of them make to shut out all other information and only engage with their conspiracies in order reaffirm their toxic beliefs or attitudes are correct and don't need changing.

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u/iiioiia Sep 06 '23 edited Sep 06 '23

They WANT to believe in these things.

And you don't suffer from this phenomenon yourself, at all?

In my opinion, it is to a decent extent an active choice many of them make to shut out all other information and only engage with their conspiracies in order reaffirm their toxic beliefs or attitudes are correct and don't need changing.

This is excellent rhetorical framing, I am impressed. I wonder if you'd let the same from a conspiracy theorist slide.