Originally published at: 5 Types Of People Who Spread Conspiracy Theories They Know Are Wrong - TPM – Talking Points Memo
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation. There has been a lot of research on the types of people who believe conspiracy theories, and their reasons for doing so. But there’s a wrinkle: My colleagues and I have found that there are a…
When it comes right down to it, aren’t they all one and the same? I mean, lying liars that lie have overtaken normal discussion for the last ten years. There’s no difference between or among them. Why give any of them an out or justification for what they do?
Timely.
This all makes sense to me, a relatively rational and evidence-based observer. I wonder if it would wake up a relative who is stuck on some of those theories.
Years ago he sent out an email repeating a falsehood that Congressional pensions were a million dollars a year, or a similarly vast sum. I was not an original recipient – he knew me too well to try this on me. But a relative of the previous generation was taken in, and further transmitted it, including to me. I checked it out: completely false and unfounded.
I asked the original sender to include me in his distribution list, so that I could help assure accuracy and combat inaccuracy. He never replied. Would having this article’s profiles help him avoid embodying one of them? I doubt it, and I appreciate his other virtues: as a man in service to his large extended family, with a loving heart and extraordinarily good cheer, too much to try him.
JD Vance tried to justify “they’re eating the pets” by claiming that it was the only way to get media attention.