Technology and Conspiracy Theories

According to Merriam Webster's on line dictionary a "conspiracy theory" is: a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators. A conspiracy theory is different from folklore or urban legends, as these are usually tales that conjure up different emotions or fears in people. A conspiracy theory is a long drawn out set of events, conjured up by a secret organization or individual, to look like one thing but is actually another.

Famous conspiracy theories are wide ranging in story and time. One of the most recent conspiracy theory is that of 9/11. The theories on that subject alone range from "Our government knew about the bombings and did nothing to stop it so they could wage war on the middle east" to "a plane never hit the Pentagon" to "bombs in the buildings". Other famous conspiracy theories include "NASA faked the moon landings", "UFO's", "Elvis faked his death", "Who killed JFK", and even "Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene".

Modern technology has played a large role in the generation of conspiracy theories. Like the 9/11 theory, most of this theory is based on information gathered from sources on the internet. There are even websites with all of the information to support the theory, like www.patriotsaints.com, which supports its claim with video, pictures, newspaper articles, and reports from the commissions that investigated the events of 9/11.

Another reason why the internet plays a large role in the generation of conspiracies is that anyone with a computer on the internet can post anything they want. Just like I am doing now with this blog. I'm going to create my own conspiracy theory.

Elephants can fly! I realize that you may not believe me because you've probably never seen one, right? Well here is the proof. You see, circus owners and zoo keepers don't want you to know this because they can't contain flying elephants, so they've raised these elephants under low ceilings all their life so they could never fly. You can't build a cage to house a flying elephant, that would cost too much money, so instead they trained the elephants not to fly.

Now I've made a statement, given it some reasonable explanation and supported it with an image. Obviously this is a false statement, and anyone can tell you that the photo is a photoshop picture, and there is no real supporting evidence that elephants can fly. But the information that people have dug up on 9/11, NASA, JFK has some validity to it. Ted Goertzel published this paper in Political Psychology in 1994. He suggests that a person who believes in one conspiracy theory tends to believe in others; a person who does not believe in one conspiracy theory tends not to believe another. Internet sites like www.godlikeproductions.com give conspiracy theory believers to talk about other theories. Thus the internet has played a large role in sustaining and spreading conspiracy theories.