Bits: Psychology of conspiracy theory spread; Geothermal energy update; Constitutional sherrifs movement

PsyPost writes about a recent research paper that examined the role of what is called the need for chaos plays in spreading conspiracy theories (CTs):

New research suggests that a psychological concept known as “the need for chaos” plays a bigger role than partisanship and ideology in the sharing of conspiracy theories on the internet. The study, published in Research & Politics, indicates that individuals driven by a desire to disrupt and challenge established systems are more inclined to share conspiracy theories.

The authors wanted to explore three specific motivations behind the sharing of conspiracy theories: motivated sharing (sharing to bolster their or their group’s beliefs), sounding the alarm (sharing to generate collective action against a political outgroup due to feelings of losing), and the need for chaos (sharing to disrupt the political system regardless of partisanship or belief). 

“Although earlier work found a positive relationship between the need for chaos and sharing (and that the need for chaos superseded partisan motivations for sharing) these studies did not assess how the need for chaos affected sharing when pitted against a direct measure of conspiracy theory belief. Testing these mechanisms together is important because people who believe conspiracy theories might be more willing to share them online, but belief is not a necessary condition for sharing.”

The article goes on to point out that people with a high need for chaos tend to agree with statements such as “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over” and “I need chaos around me – it is too boring if nothing is going on.” Also, the data indicated that belief in a conspiracy theory was the strongest strong predictor of willingness to share it.

The factors in order of importance of a person’s tendency to spread a CT online: 

belief a CT is true > the need for chaos > feeling our side is losing (sounding the alarm, or roughly partisanship or ideology) 

The need for chaos tends to be somewhat independent of belief a CT is true or false because the urge to spread it is driven by a person’s belief that the whole system needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch. 

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

By now, it is likely that the US government will no longer be able to seriously deal with greenhouse gas emissions. The polluters have won the war. The last major federal action was a big spending bill the Democrats with the support of some Republicans pushed through congress before the Dems lost the House in the 2020 elections. 

Government has been corrupted and mostly neutered by a combination of effective, decades-long opposition to dealing with global warming from (1) corrupted radical right anti-regulation dogma and propaganda underpinned by brass knuckles capitalism, and (2) major pro-pollution business interests, prominently huge oil, gas, coal and chemical corporations, also buttressed by ruthless propaganda. At this point, advances in energy science and technology will probably be needed to save us from environmental disaster. Absent that, we're probably hosed.

The NYT reports about possibly significant advances in geothermal energy generation:

There’s enough geothermal energy below ground to power the entire country. Some are trying to tap it — by using techniques from the fracking boom

Hot, dry rocks lie below the surface everywhere on the planet. And by using advanced drilling techniques developed by the oil and gas industry, some experts think it’s possible to tap that larger store of heat and create geothermal energy almost anywhere. The potential is enormous: The Energy Department estimates there’s enough energy in those rocks to power the entire country five times over ....

Fervo Energy is using fracking techniques — similar to those used for oil and gas — to crack open dry, hot rock and inject water into the fractures, creating artificial geothermal reservoirs. Eavor, a Canadian start-up, is building large underground radiators with drilling methods pioneered in Alberta’s oil sands. Others dream of using plasma or energy waves to drill even deeper and tap “superhot” temperatures that could cleanly power thousands of coal-fired power plants by substituting steam for coal.

“Everyone knows about cost declines for wind and solar,” said Cindy Taff, who worked at Shell for 36 years before joining Sage Geosystems, a geothermal start-up in Houston. “But we also saw steep cost declines for oil and gas drilling during the shale revolution. If we can bring that to geothermal, the growth could be huge.”

States like California are increasingly desperate for clean energy sources that can run at all hours. While wind and solar power are growing fast, they rely on fossil fuels like natural gas for backup when the sun sets and wind fades. Finding a replacement for gas is an acute climate challenge, and geothermal is one of the few plausible options.

The NYT article goes on to note that two different tests had succeeded in reaching the deep hot rocks and getting electricity out of the heat. One expert commented that those successes constitute major advances sooner than expected. Despite those successes, it remains unclear if and when large scale geothermal energy can be produced cheaply.

As usual, the mainstream media shows it's bias against nuclear energy. In this case, the NYT  implicitly dismisses nuclear as a plausible opinion at best. That is a bald faced lie (of omission). In fact, safe nuclear energy is more than a plausible option. It is available right now. But as usual, since our government is corrupted and broken, developing widespread nuclear is a basically off the table. That's unfortunate, to say the least.

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

The AP reports about a growing national radical right movement that was started by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in 2011:

Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer talks in his office in Goldendale, Wash., July 5, 2023. Songer is an advisory board member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association and has faced harsh criticism for his embrace of the organization's ideology about the extent of the power of the sheriff

“The sheriff is supposed to be protecting the public from evil,” Dar Leaf, the chief law enforcement officer for Barry County, Michigan, said during a break in the National Sheriffs’ Association 2023 conference in June. “When your government is evil or out of line, that’s what the sheriff is there for, protecting them from that.”

Leaf is on the advisory board of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack. The group, known as CSPOA, teaches that elected sheriffs must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or “unjust.”

“The safest way to actually achieve that is to have local law enforcement understand that they have no obligation to enforce such laws,” Mack said in an interview. “They’re not laws at all anyway. If they’re unjust laws, they are laws of tyranny.”

There we have it. In addition to the courts, the sheriff also gets to decide if a law is evil, unconstitutional, overreach, unjust or tyrannical, and then refuse to enforce it if it is. By golly, the radical right has discovered a new way to fight for freedom. I'll send the CSOPA a dart and ask if they oppose forced birth and election subversion laws the radical right passed. Those are forms of tyranny, right? 

And remember your 3 Gs, God, Guns 'n Guts. That probably should be GGBG, God, Guns, 'n Blood 'n Guts.