Conspiracy theories
The proliferation of conspiracy theories on social media has gone hand-in-hand with the spread of misinformation and outrage.
When people lose trust in institutions, there is a tendency to imagine nefarious villains puling strings behind the scenes, rather than the manufactured consent of established cultures within those institutions that cause bureaucratic rigidity, perverse incentives, and authoritarian mindsets.
Conspiracy theories distract us from addressing the real problems in society by substituting imagined ones. They need to become taboo again, so that discussing them on social media will get you shunned, even within your own in-group.
Religion Abhors a Vacuum
As participation in organized religion decreases, the number of people who exist without a meaningful metanarrative about the nature of reality increases. This creates a vacuum, often described as a "god shaped hole" that ends up getting filled with something. For many, the hole is filled with addiction, but even the drug addicted have a desire to understand how the universe works. People who lack a shared metanarrative that they identify with and have strong convictions about make fertile ground for alternative explanations to take root. Conspiracy theories proliferate in this environment.
Many think that religion primes the brain for misinformation and conspiracy theories by prioritizing faith and dogma over science and reason. They neglect to account for how religion provides a framework for understanding how the world works, and how that can serve as a bulwark against alternative theories that are often much worse. The fact that so many conspiracy theories proliferate in modern fundamentalist churches is more a factor of how far these churches have strayed from their core doctrine rather than proof that those doctrines lead to conspiratorial thinking. Anyone who thinks that the Jesus who preached the Sermon on the Mount would support libertarian capitalism is already untethered from doctrine, even if they still practice religion.
The Great Fractal Conspiracy
The best way to combat the tendency to make false connections and associations in an attempt to understand the world is to offer true connections and associations that make rational sense of the whole universe.
In metaculture, the master meme that connects all of the facts that you know about reality is referred to as the god concept. The brain naturally self-organizes a god concept, so it is imperative that culture present one that can be more readily accepted than conspiracy theories or scriptural literalism.
The Apophenia is Real
Apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. Conspiracy theory is a by-product of this, as are all forms of superstition and quantum woo. It is a by-product of how our brains learn naturally by forming associations with existing concepts and memories.
When the brain is not given a productive way to incorporate the information overload that life throws at you, it has a tendency to make unproductive connections. Because it has to make some connection no matter what. It's just what the brain does.
The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is real too, as this author just learned the word Apophenia, though the general concept was already a familiar one.
Productive Apophenia
Since the brain longs to make connections, culture must give its brains a nice, organized, patterned view of the universe, or else its minds create messy, disorganized ones that tend to not get along with the others.
Religion has traditionally served this purpose using the god concept, but it is becoming increasingly ineffective due to the inaccuracy and incompleteness of the pattern it presents compared to scientific evidence.
If a positive model for pantheistic patterning can be presented to pubescent people, they can be inoculated against conspiracy, superstition, misinformation, grift, and other modern maladies that profit from poor patterns.
Holding a Mirror to the Mirror World to Create a Cool Fractal
In Naomi Klein's book Doppleganger she describes the "mirror world" of conspiracy theories, where would-be progressive activists point to real problems in society, then go down social media rabbit holes full of misinformation and grift in an attempt to explain how things got this way, and end up supporting the right-wing policies and politics that have exacerbated the very problems that outraged them in the first place.
They end up existing in a mirror world where right-wing populism and anti-science contrarianism is somehow going to solve all of our problems. That solution usually ends up taking the form of civil war or apocalypse.
But what if we could hold a mirror up to the mirror world and create a fractal pattern that shows the conspiracy theorists just how deep the rabbit hole really goes? Can they be led back through the looking glass and return to reality?
More Connections, Nicer Connections
Using the fractal as a conceptual metaphor for the "underlying order of the universe" creates a highly-ordered base pattern that can be used to form reality-based associations with any new information you come across.
Since the entire universe is like one big fractal, anything and everything can be meaningfully connected to the great and wonderful fractal pattern of the pantheistic universe.
Since the fractal represents mathematics and logic, using it as an organizing pattern reinforces critical thinking rather than diminishing it.
Since nature has so many complex systems that are better understood by understanding fractal geometry, using the fractal pattern actually helps you understand the things you associate with it rather than leading you astray.
If you think that it's the Illuminati who are behind everything, wait until you hear about mathematics and the laws of physics and the infinite fractal conspiracy controlling the whole of existence!
And it only wants you to be happy.
Ethics of Grifting Off of Conspiracy Nuts
While it is very tempting to make some money on all of the willingness to believe in misinformation, the fact that so many grifters have recognized the opportunities for profit within the conspiracy theory community has been a big factor in the feedback loop that has accelerated its growth. When conspiracy can become a profitable full-time job, the incentive to keep them going increases exponentially.
While it is tempting to want to get in on the grift and justify it by seeing the victims as alt-right dupes who deserve what's coming to them, deep down you know that this is immoral dehumanization. Sorry!
YouTube Conspiracy
The idea that the YouTube algorithm promotes conspiracy theories is exactly what they want you to think.
The Church of the SubGenius attempts to subvert conspiracy theory through culture jamming. It is dedicated to fighting "the conspiracy" through the advocacy of Slack.