In mylast blog, I examined a puzzle about conspiracy theorists.

一方面，许多阴谋论的信仰，比如那些认为地球是平的人，看起来是不合理的。Psychological research, furthermore, shows that conspiracy theorists are typically low in analytic cognitive style, which means (roughly) they’re low inconscious deliberate rational thought.

另一方面，我听过的一位研究人员(Jan-Willem van Prooijen)指出，许多阴谋论者会进行大量的“思考”，并考虑与自己观点相反的证据。因此，他们采用辅助假设来解释相反的证据。If, for example, you point out to the flat earther that there are satellite photos of the round earth, they’ll say that NASA is part of the conspiracy, etc.

So despite appearingirrational, many conspiracy theorists adopt the seeminglyrationalstrategy of embracing the consequences of their views and adopting auxiliary assumptions that would make their beliefs (mostly) fit together into a cohesive whole. What, then, should we say about the rationality or irrationality of conspiracy theoretic thought?

My solution was that conspiracy theorists think quasi-rationally, but such thinking only goes in one direction. While analytic thinkers often use deliberate thought tooverridetheir intuitions, conspiracy theorists, being less analytic, are less prone to overriding their intuitions. So when their intuitions imply malevolence and conspiracy on the part of a perceived dominant group, their downstream thought fills out a view of the world that makes sense of those intuitions and shields them from refutation.

Whatever the merits of my solution to the intellectual puzzle, it still leaves us with a serious practical problem: how do we alleviate people’s tendencies to adopt pernicious conspiracy theories?

This problem is important because, as van Prooijen argues, conspiracy theories are oftenconsequential. (This was theCin hisCUESacronym: conspiracy theories areConsequential,Universal,Emotional, andSocial.) To give an example, Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa (Mandela’s successor),held oneaccording to which the CIA was part of a conspiracy to convince people that HIV causes AIDS, a view which Mbeki rejected. He also held that the CIA was doing this tohelp drug companies. As a consequence, Mbeki supported policies that hindered access to anti-retroviral drugs, and those policies eventuated in an estimated 330,000 unnecessary deaths between 2000 and 2005.

This practical problem is challenging because one can’t simply talk conspiracy theorists out of their theories by presenting contrary evidence. As we saw, they’ve probably considered the evidence already and come up with an “explanation.” Presenting the evidence might also lead the conspiracy theorist to categorize you either as “naïve” (How can you not see NASA’s part of the conspiracy?) or—worse—as part of the conspiracy (You’re on their side!). Furthermore, some psychological features that drive conspiracy theoretic ideation, like proneness toillusory pattern perception, seem stable over time and hence are unlikely to be susceptible to change.

这种情况可能看起来毫无希望，但van Prooijen的一些发现建议采取干预措施。

First, conspiracy theories arise when people feel low levels of personal control. When people feel existential insecurity (about housing, finances, food, health, etc.) and feel they have little agency to fix the situation, they’re more prone to conspiracy theorizing.

Second, there is almost always a WE vs. THEY (in-group vs. out-group) dimension to conspiracy theorizing. The supposed conspirators are part of a perceived-as-dominant outgroup (liberal elites, Western drug companies, the scientific community, etc.) that are in cahoots to take resources from one’s own group (THEY are against US!).

Third and relatedly, one emotion that often accompanies conspiracy theories isempathy. Though empathy (withnotable dissent) is typically thought of as a good emotion, when someone feels empathy with a person or group that falls into misfortune, they are more likely to form a conspiracy theory about those perceived to have caused the misfortune.

These points suggest interventions that would address the initial intuitions that make one prone to downstream conspiracy theories in the first place. Intuitions arise from low-level processing that isn’t under conscious control. That’s like the root, whereas the subsequent ‘reasoning’ is more like the leaves of the plant. Addressing these three points may address the root, since they would address the low-level conditions that make one prone to have conspiracy theoretic intuitions.

And the kinds of interventions that are plausible in response to these points are fairly obvious. Combatting conspiracy theories should include promoting broad levels of existential security (food, housing, etc.), empowering people to feel in control of their lives, and humanizing perceived out-groups.

Such interventions would at best alleviate and not eliminate the spread of pernicious conspiracy theories. That’s becauseperceivedrather than real existential insecurity (along with a low level offeltcontrol) is what contributes to conspiracy theories. So even if someone in fact has objective security, if they have the sense that things are otherwise, they might still conspiracy theorize away. This point may well apply to the QAnon conspiracy theorists, many of whom appear to be middle class baby boomers. And forother people, the in-group/out-group perception may be so powerful that real existential security doesn’t alleviate their conspiracy theoretic tendencies.

不过，影响看法的一个方法是改变现实，在一个社会中提供一个广泛的安全网，通过减轻一些真实的和可感知的威胁来源，可能至少在一定程度上有助于解决当前的问题。

这些考虑的哲学结果是，我们成功地为人类提供了一个在性质上与我们习惯看到的大不相同的生存安全的理由。We usually hearmoral拥有提供广泛存在安全感的社会机制的原因(原因包括避免伤害，促进幸福等)。But the present considerations give us anepistemic除此之外，理由是:既然存在的不安全感有助于形成奇怪的阴谋论，我们有理由基于知识的价值来促进整个社会广泛的存在主义支持。