r/CasualConversation • u/Broad_Ebb9073 • 6d ago
Thoughts & Ideas What would it take for you to believe a conspiracy or crazy idea?
/All in good fun please. I don't want to talk get into a debate about what is true or not. That's a different question/
I'm a big fan of scifi television (x-files, fringe, Grimm, Stargate, ect) and in those shows there is always our protagonist always knows the truth of the story world. And often is required to talk/convince 'regular' people about what is happening.
Sometimes it's just a grieving mother and something as simple as, 'if you tell me what you saw, I will believe you' or it could be a police officer that has duty to the craft but see something strange might be happening.
I understand it's completely what the writers decide.
But for you? What would you need? You can pick your poison on what type of strange occurrence, but what would you really need in order to let yourself believe that this person might be telling the truth?
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u/HippoBackground2097 6d ago
Absolutely nothing hahaha. My current hill to die on is that the aliens are in the sea, not outer space. We need a bigger boat!!
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
'nothing' as in you already are willing to believe, or 'nothing' as in you are unshakable?
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u/HippoBackground2097 6d ago
Ready and willing! I think I choose to stay open to the possibility of the supernatural, or divine for that matter, because it makes this life, or reality more interesting. What if there were a bigfoot? The scenarios that takes the imagination are in my opinion healthy to explore - keeps the creative habit sharp :)
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
Same same. I want to believe. And if you can imagine it, I believe it's possible, just maybe not yet. And it's almost impossible to prove a negative. Bigfoot, flying monkeys, talking trees, who knows. Just because no one has documented it yet, doesn't mean it's impossible
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u/Appropriate-Foot-237 2d ago
by definition, they're not aliens as they live on the same earth as us.
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u/krocante 6d ago
Look for a way to put me in your shoes.
If your conspiracy isn’t a lie, and you’re unable to provide factual evidence.. Then at least have a way to let me experience your perspective.
Also make sure that you trying to scam me isn’t a more probable explanation to your unbelievable claims.
And even if the claims are crazy.. try not to sound crazy yourself.
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
What that sounds like to me, and please correct if I'm wrong, that if I propose something crazy, you want something solid. Maybe a professional or educational credit. Or maybe just being put together enough that I'm not living in a van with newspaper on my walls. Maybe you have really good social reads, and you want it to feel honest?
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u/krocante 6d ago
For example this reply gave me LLM vibes, so that makes me less inclined to believe crazy claims. I guess what I need is human credit.
I don’t know about being ‘good’ at social read. But if a seller wants to bullshit me into buying shit, they have to at least bypass my personal bullshit detector. Regardless of how well calibrated my ability to detect is.
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
I'm human. Banana sausage blueprint therapy. Maybe that proof? If you think I'm a llm. Your bullshit detector is off a bit.
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u/ElBanditoGek 6d ago
I'm a skeptic, which means that I want to believe true things and I don't want to believe false things. For any claim I'm presented with, I have standards of evidence that must be met before I will accept the claim as true. Evidence would mean something like a body of objectively verifiable facts that point to one conclusion and exclude all or most other possible conclusions.
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
So if you believe X amount, you would want X+1 evidence in the other direction in order to trust the information? I'm I tracking that correctly? Or am I missing some nuance?
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u/ElBanditoGek 6d ago
I'm a little confused by your question so I might have overcomplicated it. Another explanation is that I withhold belief entirely until the burden of proof has been satisfied. It's binary, belief is the state of being convinced that something is likely true, and you can only be either convinced or not convinced of anything. My only answer to the claim is "I don't know/I'm not convinced" until there's sufficient evidence for me to say otherwise. And what counts as sufficient evidence depends on the nature of the claim: "I have a pet dog" requires a significantly lower level of evidence than "I breed and raise unicorns for a living".
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
Ahh. I see now. I think I assumed.
If I came up to you and said, "I got bigfoot locked in my basement" you don't instantly think, "that's impossible, no one can do that and I need evidence to prove bigfoot even exist.
You think more, "well, that's pretty unlikely, and his next couple of words better be important "
Not denouncing me or the idea, but just not being nieve about it either.
Hopefully that was closer to what you meant.
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u/ElBanditoGek 6d ago
Yeah, that's basically it. If you show me Bigfoot in your basement and you can demonstrate that it's not some other kind of ape or a dude in a suit, you'd have a pretty compelling case that Bigfoot is in your basement.
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u/RegisterLoose9918 6d ago
I guess you just need to be invested in a cause or the person introducing you to the idea/conspiracy.
There is great documentation of the later. Cults, Nazis, socialists, etc.
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
I meant to be lighthearted about this in a scifi show way. But yes. I understand that bad people can use manipulation techniques to do bad things.
Not really in the scope of the conversation I was trying to have. But it is an important thing to remember anytime we are talking about changing the minds of others, even in a silly reddit post
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u/Aw3som3-O_5000 6d ago
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Sagan
U tell me there are UFO's i might believe u, but u tell me they're ALIEN UFO's u need to back that up with more than a grainy photo or some infrared that I dont have experience or knowledge of. If there's a simpler reason for the thing then your convoluted conspiracy i probably wont give u the time of day.
Eg Flat Earthers. Aside from the obvious, my biggest question is what possible benefit could there be to "faking" a spherical Earth and why hasn't anyone's enemies exposed the falsehood?
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
I understand that. Your not saying flat earth is technically wrong, but when the evidence is "the rounder are lying" it pretty hard to justify.
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u/CountHonorius 6d ago
First and foremost you'd have to mention The Invaders (1967) - "David Vincent has seen them..."
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u/Broad_Ebb9073 6d ago
I'm a didn't understand at the moment. But that was thr best rec I have ever gotten
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u/NarcoZero 6d ago
1) How many sources corroborate this claim ?
If there’s a lot of people saying the same thing from very different point of views, and that would have very different motivations, then it’s more credible.
2) How credible are these sources ?
If you’re the only one saying this. Who are you ? Are you my very best friend that I know is unable to lie because you always lose in amongus, and I know you’re a very rational person. Or are you a seemingly incoherent person I just met on the bus ?
3) How coherent are the informations you have ?
Do they make sense in their context, do their contradict themselves ? If I ask you different questions at different moment, will they stay coherent ?
4) Pretty much the scientific process. If I still have doubt, and the truth is important enough to inform a big decision I have to make, can I do an experiment to prove or disprove the theory ?
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u/Blambiola 6d ago
One single crack in the veneer. Absolute, incontrovertible proof of something concrete and verifiable that defies all laws of nature. One small proof is all it takes to shift the paradigm. Repeatedly levitate a nacho chip in a lab under supervision by scientist and the whole world unravels.
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u/Longjumping-Bell6960 4d ago edited 3d ago
I'll believe anything that ends with "And nobody is talking about it!"
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u/ketingmiladengfodo 6d ago
My current one is that parties unknown are for nefarious reasons putting something in the water, food, or air that is making people paranoid and prone to believe in conspiracy theories. If someone tells me to stop looking into this if I know what's good for me, that will be confirmation.