Conspiracy Theorists

Are conspiracy theorists beneficial in our society or do they just increase the prevalence of fake news and disinformation?

I think if history has taught us anything it is that not every deal, every plan, and everything done is public knowledge, a lot of information is not shared and often it is intentionally kept secret. This is where rich and powerful people do things either for their own benefit or with the belief that they are doing something for the good of the people, but, don’t think they would be able to get public support.

The problem with these people is they generally have the money or the power to influence the media, this too has been proven and therefore any form of control or monitoring of the conspiracy theorists would create a point that can be corrupted.

Investigative journalism is what should be uncovering these deals and then they should be published in newspapers and on T.V. etc. the problem is if the people involved in the conspiracy can buy the silence of the media outlets it doesn’t matter how well the journalist researched the conspiracy or how much proof they have, their story will never see the light of day.

This creates the opportunity for conspiracy theorists to come up with their own theories and because they publish the information themselves with as much or as little proof as they have, they are very often put down by many people, this could also be funded by people who they theorize about.

In addition to people intentionally discrediting them, some of the theories that have been come up with sound extremely impossible and also have no way to be put to rest. For example, Elvis is alive, the moon landing was fake, among many others that cannot be definitively proven to the satisfaction of most conspiracy theorists and they will keep insisting the only truth is theirs. These cases increase the stigma around them.

Now as to my thoughts on weather they are beneficial or not, I think that they are brave enough to put their ideas out there regardless of how crazy they may sound, and fortunately for the rest of us, if there is enough exposure and enough possibility of truth to what they are saying about a particular topic, it gets more attention and usually results in someone having to explain it, so even in a case where it can be proven that they are incorrect it does at least show the rest of us why.

If we had to simply believe whatever we were told and never question anything this would be a very different world. If we were forced to rely on information from media outlets I don’t think that would help much either, so I think that as annoying as certain conspiracy theories may be, there are some that end up benefiting the mass population too, so it is a situation where we have to take the good with the bad, and being encouraged to look a little more closely at something is not a bad thing.

The information shared by conspiracy theorists depends heavily on the individuals morals, they may willingly share and support anything that goes against a government, organization or wealthy individual for simply that reason and no other, in these cases they can be seen as simply trying to spread distrust, anger and panic, but if they have adequate research and can prove to some level what they are saying, it is worthwhile for them to bring it to peoples attention, if not, they should regulate the information they share to build credibility as they otherwise risk simply creating more distrust for an industry that is already regarded skeptically.