As far as I’m concerned, I’m a skeptic. I’m skeptical about everything; that includes my own skepticism, when appropriate. I don’t think it’s “irrational” to question things or not take them at face value.
Why do I buy into conspiracy theories? Because I know that information is being held back from us. Because Anonymous, Wikileaks and most recently, Edward Snowden have provided insights into things that we would never have been allowed to see otherwise. Basically because we know we’re being kept in the dark, intentionally.

So what, right?

Everybody knows governments have secrets. They’re supposed to. Nuclear launch codes? Secret. Identities of spies? Secret. Conversations with foreign diplomats? Secret. These things are all secret and they’re all supposed to be secret. The only revealing thing about the cables with respect to conspiracy theories is that there weren’t any international conspiracies. There was a lot of language used about certain countries to other countries which you obviously wouldn’t use when speaking to the actual country in question. It’s called diplomacy; everybody knows it happens, and why it happens, although it’s still rather embarrassing when it’s laid bare.

Still, secrets lead to speculation. Enough speculation leads to conspiracy theorizing.

The problem is that the simplest answer is only usually the right answer. And in everyday life, politics, economics, etc., there are plenty of examples of when it isn’t. There are actual conspiracies, and that’s why I believe in them. Because it’s rational to believe in them. They actually do exist. The question is how we classify various conspiracy theories—the probability of any one of them being correct.

The problem here is lumping all conspiracies theories together as if they all had the same probability of being false. But they don’t. And it’s not at all irrational to extrapolate a history of lies and even half-truths about current events into a general distrust. It’s perfectly rational. Now, clearly some people take that distrust and instead twist it into believing things that are clearly unlikely, or by imputing evil motives to people who disagree with them. That’s a very different thing than a healthy skepticism about official narratives—particularly when authorities have a habit of lying even when it’s obvious to everyone that they are.

The world is neither opaque or transparent. People collude and connive and conspire to gain advantage. Likewise governments, likewise businesses. Not all and perhaps not most. Things are misstated. Things are misinterpreted. The corrections and clarifications don’t always make things clearer.

Completely rational thinking is an illusion and any attempt at it inhibits our ability to experience a full life. Falling in love is irrational. So is having children, in a personal sense (huge ricks with no clear payoff). A conspiracy theory is just the negative flip side of spiritual optimism. Do you believe that ninety percent of good people will win out over the ten percent bad? God and Satan, angels and demons. ‘He must be cheating’…’He has a gift from God’. It’s the stuff of literature and movies.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen’.
 
-Dagobot

Get at me on twitter: @markdago

Like me on THE Facebook: facebook.com/markdagoraps

Download my latest EP for free: markdago.bandcamp.com
Listen to MY podcast http://poppundits.libsyn.com/