Why do people love Conspiracy Theory?

This is what I said in the comments at Ann Althouse's blog about conspiracy nuts:

I think it's a disorder. I really do. I think that conspiracy theories work like a drug in the brain. I think they take our natural functions of pattern recognition and puzzle solving, the very things that make us *sentient* and pervert them to a significant pleasure response at being the one who sees the truth, who figured out the puzzle, who saw the patterns.

This is what I said last week in a comment on Blackfive.

I think conspiracy is like a drug. Or even *is* a drug. I think it does drug-like things to our brains. It tickles the puzzle solving spots and the pattern recognition spots with the added benny of giving people a distinct feeling of superiority to have special knowledge that other people don't.

Both were in response to discussions about Rosie though I've also previously posted about 9-11 conspiracy theorists here.

Comments

Tyranny.gov vs Tyranny.com

Compulsion is Compulsion, no matter who does it. This is Brilliant Theft is Theft, no matter who does it. Freedom of Association has no room in it for *private* action that takes that away Freedom of Association. If I have a business and have voluntary associations such that I choose to serve some people and to not serve others, that might make me a jerk and it might lose me business, it might make me smart and it might gain me business, but it's got to be my choice. If I would normally serve the current disliked minority in my shop except for the fact that if I'm SEEN to serve them by the wrong people I'll have a private campaign against me as those people do everything possible to ruin me by preventing me from doing business physically or by attacking my customers or suppliers, then I am NOT free to make those choices. Does it really make a difference to losing my CHOICE to voluntarily associate if there's a law that says I may not serve "those people" o...

How Suzanne Brockman lost me.

I just finished reading the latest paperback from Suzanne Brockmann. _Dark of Night_. I'm disappointed and that's a sad thing because I've absolutely loved her series of romances about SEAL team 16 and the Troubleshooters. Aparently I'm not alone. My complaint isn't the same as most of the others... I'm great with Sophia and Dave. I even am okay with Tracey being people smart. She and Decker did seem to come out of left field. I thought Decker was great even if I thought his overwhelming conflict was pretty lame. What I didn't care for was the politics. I read for escapism, for studly dangerous men acting like men, for sex, and adventure with guns, where our military are the good guys and the SEALs are supermen and military contractor's are heroes, too. (I wonder if Ms. Brockmann realizes that the Troubleshooters ARE Blackwater?) I do not read sexy action adventure to be presented with a *cause*. It's small things but they don...

How "Representation" In Fiction Becomes Toxic

Some things sound so obviously good that they don't need to be examined. One of those things is the idea of Representation in fiction; movies, television or books. Entertainment where some people are conspicuously absent would seem to be an obvious problem, right? A person doesn't have to be "woke" or any sort of feminist to occasionally watch an old television show and realize (for example) that all the scientists and astronauts in an old movie are men. It's as glaring an anachronism these days as watching a show where everyone is chain smoking cigarettes. Entertainment should reflect the diverse nature of real life and society because, in the end, fiction has to be even more real than real life. If nothing else, it makes that entertainment more interesting to introduce characters with a variety of backgrounds and challenges. And so we're told that diverse fiction is BETTER fiction. The way that this rather obvious truth is often framed, often discussed...

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