How often in practice do you encounter discussions about conspiracy theories, and how often about theories of delusion or some other kind of theory? How often do you notice that by labeling something as a conspiracy theory, people’s attention is diverted away from solutions, creating confusion?

Most of the time, I hear individuals discussing conspiracy theories who seem motivated to avoid seeking better solutions than the existing ones and to avoid scrutinizing the quality of current solutions. When they encounter a real problem causing harm, they don’t want to engage in recognizing and measuring the damage but instead divert all attention to finding someone who has a conspiracy theory about it. I often encounter people who categorize simple facts, practical matters, under conspiracy theories. In other words, something that is not merely a theory but a reality. These are deniers of reality. For example, I come across cases where the government, a ministry, an institution, or extremely wealthy individuals have prepared and publicly announced a very clear and unambiguous plan to achieve something. Yet, when someone shares this news, the deniers of reality claim it’s a conspiracy theory. Or, for instance, I encounter companies offering various services, and when someone spreads the word about it, the deniers of reality immediately label them as a conspiracy theorist. It seems as though, for some, conspiracy theorists are anyone who might challenge their attachment to a particular belief with some information. They keep inventing theories about conspiracy theories. They don’t want to face certain truths or facts; instead, they prefer to dismiss this information as conspiracy theories. This can happen for several reasons:

• Psychological defense: They avoid confronting information that is emotionally or cognitively uncomfortable for them.
• Social conformity: They want to align with the norms and beliefs of their social group, even if these are incorrect.
• Manipulation and interest groups: Sometimes, there are interests behind it that certain groups or individuals want to protect. Labeling information as a conspiracy theory can be an effective way to discredit opposing views and protect one’s own interests.
• Information overload: In the modern world, there is an overload of information, making it difficult to distinguish between facts, opinions, and false news. This can lead people to quickly reject information that doesn’t align with their existing beliefs, as they find it challenging to judge what is true and what isn’t.
• Denial as a tool of control: Denial or discrediting of real information by certain groups or individuals can be a way to maintain the status quo. If certain information were to spread and become widely accepted, it could undermine certain social, political, or economic structures.

At this point, I don’t want to be too specific because this talk of conspiracy theories can be found in all areas… in economics, regarding the weather, regarding religions, in healthcare, in politics and governance,…

How did it come about that everywhere and in all areas, people talk about various types of conspiracy theories that, according to the definitions in the general enlish dictionary, have nothing to do with the word “conspiracy”? From online Cambridge dictionary:

conspiracy

the activity of secretly planning with other people to do something bad or illegal:

If a group of people is doing something devious and excessively harmful, believing they are doing something beneficial, then it’s not a conspiracy theory if someone identifies what they are doing as devious and harmful, but only if they are totally deluded. If sufficient evidence cannot be provided that they are totally deluded, one might have a theory about it. This could be called a theory of delusion, but it is not a conspiracy theory.

In the case of a conspiracy, someone is genuinely and intentionally acting deviously against someone. That is, they are deliberately trying to harm them in a specific way. When we are not sure whether someone is intentionally trying to harm someone in a specific way, or in any way at all, but we see that harm is being caused, we can propose a theory that someone is deliberately and deviously trying to harm someone and that the harm is the goal, not just collateral damage. This would then be a theory about a conspiracy. A conspiracy theory.

In cases where we see that someone is causing harm and we have sufficient evidence of this, but we do not make judgments about their intentions, this is NOT a conspiracy theory but an awareness that someone is causing harm.

Choose any field where you find widespread ideas among people about conspiracy theories and start listing, for each specific case, how many other kinds of theories you could connect with it. General examples:

1.) Theories of delusion
2.) Theories of arrogance, egoism, stubbornness
3.) Theories of efforts to gradually change the DNA of living beings
4.) Theories of bizarre forms of assistance
5.) Theories of motives for total control by the masses, who have no ambitions to harm anyone
6.) Theories of efforts where collateral damage occurs
7.) Mixed theories

Conspiracy theories are just one of the possible types of theories related to causing harm that can be developed about the actions of a group of people.

For example, a “plandemic” could, according to one theory, simply be a collection of idiocies, grown in the minds of a group of people disconnected from natural laws, living nature, and natural (non-artificial) immunity, whose minds are lost in a confusion of logical fallacies on the rocket fuel of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The ideas on which a “plandemic” is based can be very logical, yet nevertheless wrong. The axioms themselves can be wrong or based on dogma. This is a theory, but it is not a conspiracy theory.