Indeed. Conspiracy theories exist as a causal bridge between apparently unconnected information. C follows B follows A, and the job of a good conspiracy theory is to find B, but where you only know A and C and already consider them significantly related.Joe wrote: ↑Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:36 pm... Of course, politicians, irresponsible media bloviators, and random folk on the internet will fill the silence with speculative conspiracy theories to make money, advance their careers, or just feel special. The rest of us will wait for something to actually happen before spending much time on it.
The Bush family had dealings with a middle Eastern petrochemical investment fund (A) in which the Bin Laden family also had a financial interest (C). Bush was president when Bin Laden destroyed the twin towers, so there must be a causal link between the two (B).
In light of an assumption or a belief in the necessary relationship between A & C, and faced with the fact that nobody could actually find a direct causal link (B), the conspiracy theorist declares that that somebody, somewhere must be hiding that vital piece of information (B) that ties the two together. In fact, neither A nor C have to be true in the objective, factual sense, and B can literally be anything imaginable.
Unpicking Laptopgate(!) is difficult because it's several causal links deep, but I think the essence of it rests on accepting two main statements: (A) Hunter Biden's laptop contains some incriminating information, potentially criminal in nature, regarding his father and/or the family business, and (C) Joe Biden is not the legitimate president of the United States (for whatever reason is being given this week). Assuming a causal link between A & C grants the conspiracy theorist free reign to connect the two in any way imaginable, and the fact that (this week) the FBI are following due process stands as 'proof' that somebody, somewhere, is hiding that vital piece of info that would demonstrate, once and for all, that Biden's presidency is as illegitimate as the conspiracy theorists already assume.
Of course, the other feature of a good conspiracy theory is that it places the theorist at the centre of events, because it is only their formulation of a causal link between A & C which will ultimately validate their belief in the necessary causal relationship between A & C. The conspiracy theorist knows what they know, right(?) - they're just being denied the opportunity to prove it by some larger, more powerful, malignant force! And so the theorists are forced into what Hofstadter called "the paranoid leap into fantasy" in order to maintain the theory; as an article of faith in their own righteousness. In this regard, conspiracy theories are a form of of magical thinking of exactly the same kind that obliged people in times past to sacrifice their children to appease angry forest spirits.
