What Conspiracy Theorists Really Need

a reply to: schuyler

but mostly it is is a place for crackpots to congregate

Then why are you still here...what do you hope to gain out of ATS other than joining in with us "crackpots"?

a reply to: SBMcG

Nope. We have lots of sex. Try again.

a reply to: knowledgehunter0986

Offended? To request others to consider volunteering to support their own communities? Then my friend, you missed the point, took it personal, and are way too sensitive.

MS

For those who are here to discuss the topic rather than abuse me for bringing it up, a question:

Do lonely people come to believe in conspiracy theories because they’re socially isolated and therefore unable to compare their beliefs with other people’s or understand the social reality they inhabit?

Or does belief in conspiracy theories promote isolation, driving people away from others and making them lonely?

My own view is that the second, rather than the first, is true. I know three people (one of them very close to me) who are conspiracy theorists in real life. Two of them used to be highly sociable, with lots of friends and playmates, although they tended to get into fights and be rather dogmatic in their views. After they started believing in conspiracy theories (it took about a year in each case for them to fall right down the well of fantasy they call the Rabbit Hole) they became isolated, lost most or all of their friends, and spent their days angrily mouthing imprecations at a computer screen.

The third person was always socially awkward and isolated, but only started believing in conspiracy theories after he moved to England and ended up with nobody at all except his elderly mother. He is now a full-blown paranoiac.

Experience thus suggests, to me, that conspiracy theorists become lonely because they’re conspiracy theorists, and not the other way round. That’s my take on the subject under discussion.

I have also seen people abandon belief in conspiracy theories and return to normal life, making friends and becoming productive citizens once more. So there is hope — perhaps even for you, Wide-Eyes.

a reply to: Astyanax

Even for me? Lol.