Some Thoughts on Conspiracy Theories

Belief that the Earth is flat can reasonably be considered to be a debunked conspiracy theory. That belief requires the believers to also believe that there has is a massive conspiracy involving billions of people all over the world lasting for centuries. That is a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly.

In general, once a person is convinced about a big conspiracy, then believing anything becomes easier. Facts, expertise, sound reasoning can all fade in significance, or even disappear completely. One appeal of conspiracies is that they give permission to accept or reject out of hand, any claim, fact or reasoning. The conspiracy theory mindset tends to create a freedom to construct reality as a person wants. That allows believers to side-step the hard part of having to deal with actual reality and sound reasoning.

What about Qanon?

The conspiracy: The Q conspiracy says that Hillary Clinton and other powerful democrats are part of a world-wide cadre of Satan-worshiping cannibalistic pedophiles who are secretly taking over the world. In that crackpot narrative, the president is secretly a genius working behind the scenes with Mueller, and in some versions also with JFK Jr. who is secretly still alive, to uncover this evil cadre and bring them to justice. The justice bringing event is called the “Storm” in the Q narrative. Once the Storm is over, the president will usher in a new golden age.

Wot?: That all sounds right to me. (not really)

This is not mostly a matter of low IQ or naive gullibility. It is mostly a matter of a certain cognitive style that some people have. Science Daily discussed research published in 2018 in the Journal of Individual Differences comments:

“These people tend to be more suspicious, untrusting, eccentric, needing to feel special, with a tendency to regard the world as an inherently dangerous place. They are also more likely to detect meaningful patterns where they might not exist. People who are reluctant to believe in conspiracy theories tend to have the opposite qualities. Our results clearly showed that the strongest predictor of conspiracy belief was a constellation of personality characteristics collectively referred to as ‘schizotypy.’ The trait borrows its name from schizophrenia, but it does not imply a clinical diagnosis.”

Other research finds that conspiracy believers tend to have a relatively intuitive style of thinking, while an analytical style seems to hinder conspiracy thinking. This does not necessarily relate to intelligence. It is possible that being more intelligent may lead to greater susceptibility to conspiracy theories because those people are better able to rationalize nonsense into sense. Intelligence is complicates and multi-faceted. People who believe the QAnon (or flat Earth) narrative may be lacking some intellectual resource, but it not may be what we think of as intelligence.

Interestingly, a 2010 study found that when a charismatic leader aligns with what people tend to believe or their ideology, the critical thinking part of their brain turns off. Some other research suggests the same thing. Humans are a combination of multiple tendencies and cognitive abilities. The activity of such factors varies in different personal and social situations. Thus a person who is technically brilliant and normally astute could become a conspiracy believer under the right circumstances.

A Barrage of Political Deceit, Sleaze & Lies

A small, partial list, there is also: 
I will show my tax returns
Etc.

The last 24 hours has been amazing and disgusting on a grand scale. No president other than this one would survive. American conservative politics clearly has moved from merely tribal to personality cult tribal. The New York Times reports on moves by the president to subvert the Department of Homeland Security for his own political gain at the expense of America’s national security:

“WASHINGTON — Top officials with the Department of Homeland Security directed agency analysts to downplay threats from violent white supremacy and Russian election interference, a Homeland Security official said in a whistle-blower complaint released on Wednesday.

Brian Murphy, the former head of the Homeland Security Department’s intelligence branch, said in the complaint that he was ordered this spring by Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of the department, to stop producing assessments on Russian interference and focus instead on Iran and China. That request, Mr. Murphy said, was routed through Mr. Wolf from Robert C. O’Brien, the White House national security adviser.

Mr. Wolf later told him not to disseminate a report on a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s mental health because it “made the president look bad,” said Mr. Murphy, who warned that the actions in their totality threatened national security.

In other instances, the department’s second-highest ranked official, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, ordered Mr. Murphy to modify intelligence assessments to make the threat of white supremacy ‘appear less severe’ and include information on violent ‘left-wing’ groups and antifa, according to the complaint, which was filed on Tuesday but released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee.”

In a different article, the NYT reports that in taped interviews with reporter Bob Woodward, the president admitted that he lied to the American people about how severe the pandemic actually was. The president was aware of the threat in February, but kept lying about it until March:

“President Trump acknowledged to the journalist Bob Woodward that he knowingly played down the coronavirus earlier this year even though he was aware it was life-threatening and vastly more serious than the seasonal flu.

‘This is deadly stuff,’ Mr. Trump said on Feb. 7 in one of 18 interviews with Mr. Woodward for his coming book, “Rage.”

‘You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,’ the president told Mr. Woodward in audio recordings made available on The Washington Post website. ‘And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.’

But three days after those remarks, Mr. Trump told the Fox Business anchor Trish Regan: ‘We’re in very good shape. We have 11 cases. And most of them are getting better very rapidly. I think they will all be better.’ A little less than two weeks later, he told reporters on the South Lawn that ‘we have it very much under control in this country.’”

The president claimed he lied to prevent a pubic panic. Regardless of his motive, very likely political self-interest, lies are lies and this batch of lies was not justified by the ‘public panic’ excuse. The ‘it was for the public’s own good’ is an excuse that politicians and rulers have used to justify lies when justification is needed. The historical records shows that very rarely are such lies justified.

In a third article, the NYT reports that postmaster General Louis DeJoy has hired a big gun GOP lobbyist to reach out to democrats in the House to try to get them to stop investigating his campaign finance felonies and his sabotage of the post office:

“Facing calls for his ouster by Democrats and a flurry of investigations on Capitol Hill, Mr. DeJoy informed postal officials that he had selected Peter Pastre, a former Republican congressional aide and insurance lobbyist, to act as a liaison for the agency with Congress and state and local governments, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The move came as the Postal Service was facing mounting political and operational crises. Mr. Trump has raised concerns about the security of voting by mail, and the independent quasi-governmental agency has struggled to overcome a delivery slowdown and a dire financial forecast — all while Democrats accuse Mr. DeJoy and the agency’s Republican-majority governing board of doing the president’s bidding.”

The AP describes Mr. DeJoy’s illegal campaign finance operation:

“Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is facing increased scrutiny as House Democrats investigate allegations that he encouraged employees at his former business to contribute to Republican candidates and then reimbursed them in the guise of bonuses, a violation of campaign finance laws. 

Five people who worked for DeJoy’s former company, New Breed Logistics, say they were urged by DeJoy’s aides or by DeJoy himself to write checks and attend fundraisers at his mansion in Greensboro, North Carolina, The Washington Post reported. Two former employees told the newspaper that DeJoy would later give bigger bonuses to reimburse for the contributions. 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the oversight panel, said in a statement Tuesday that if the allegations about campaign finance violations are true, ‘DeJoy could face criminal exposure — not only for his actions in North Carolina, but also for lying to our Committee under oath.’”

As always, the president’s best people include liars and felons. This time the sleazeball is Mr. DeJoy and us taxpayers are going to pay for this sleazeball lobbyist to defend DeJoy.

An finally, the outrage among outrages, it turns out that us idiot taxpayers will be paying for our scumbag president’s legal defense in a sexual assault case brought by one of the president’s many sexual assault victims. The NYT writes: 

“The attorney general argued that the intervention was routine but did not say why the department waited 10 months to step in.

The White House asked the Justice Department to replace President Trump’s private lawyers to defend against a woman’s accusations that he defamed her last year in denying her claim that he sexually assaulted her a quarter-century ago, Attorney General William P. Barr said on Wednesday.

The Justice Department’s intervention in the lawsuit means that taxpayer money will be used to defend the president, and it threatens the continued viability of the case of the plaintiff, the author E. Jean Carroll.

Mr. Barr defended the decision to intervene, arguing that it was routine for the department to take over lawsuits against federal officials — substituting the government as the defendant.

‘This was a normal application of the law,’ Mr. Barr said during a news conference in Chicago. ‘The law is clear. It is done frequently. And the little tempest that is going on is largely because of the bizarre political environment in which we live.’”

As usual, our corrupt Attorney General Bill Barre is subverting justice and lying to the American people. There is nothing normal about this. The president hired Barr to protect him from the rule of law. President Clinton did not use the DoJ to defend himself for his colossal stupidity and crimes in office. Barr is, among some other bad things, a liar.

And that is today’s roundup of lies, deceit and sleaze that surrounds our president.

Mindfulness vs. Mindlessness

 By Laura K. Schenck, Ph.D., LPC

https://www.mindfulnessmuse.com/mindfulness/mindfulness-vs-mindlessness

“Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.” – Montaigne

We are mindful when we are in a “mental state characterized by nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment experience, including sensations, thoughts, bodily states, consciousness, and the environment, while encouraging openness, curiosity, and acceptance” (Hofmann et al., 2010, p. 169).  This state of mindfulness is flexible, open to novelty, and sensitive to both context and perspective (Langer, 2005).

When we are operating in life from a mindful position, we are willing to open ourselves to all of the possibilities and nuances of our internal and external worlds.  We feel willing to invite whatever thoughts and emotions may come, because we are not rigid in fear that thoughts or emotions will overwhelm us.  Through this open stance, we allow ourselves to bear witness to thoughts, emotions, and external events without judgment.  Paradoxically, when we allow potentially negative thoughts or feelings to simply “be,” we take away the power that they have over us.  It is when we resist and deny our thoughts and feelings that they grow stronger.

A mindful stance welcomes whatever thoughts and emotions arise, examines them with curiosity and openness, and then lets them go.  There is no need to hold on to the disturbing thoughts and emotions.  From a mindful place, we are willing to experience them, calm in the knowledge that we are in the driver’s seat.  Thoughts and emotions have no power over us when in a mindful place.  When we experience fear, anger, or sadness mindfully, we take away the power of those emotions.  We do not deny or invalidate them, but we see them for what they truly are: feelings.

When we choose to adopt a mindful view towards our daily experience, we release the need to evaluate every thought, feeling, or action as “good” or “bad.”  Ellen Langer, author of the chapter “Well-Being” in the Handbook of Positive Psychology, notes that while “evaluation is central to the way we make sense of our world, in most cases, evaluation is mindless … A more mindful approach would entail understanding not only that there are advantages and disadvantages to anything we may consider but that each disadvantage is simultaneously an advantage from a different perspective (and vice versa).  With this type of mindful approach, virtually every unpleasant aspect of our lives could change.”

Much of what we are taught in Western societies involves the idea that when bad things happen, we just need to “hold on” and wait for them to pass.  Imagine the tension and fear involved in this mindset – knuckles white, breath held in, muscles tight.  When we shift into a mindful stance, we can begin to view the bad things that happen in life as being context dependent.  There is a deep awareness that with everything, there are both good and bad aspects, depending on our point of view.

When we are operating in a mindless way, we are choosing not to take in all available information – we select that which we pay attention to, even when it only increases fear or anger.  When living in mindlessness, we go through the day reacting to internal thoughts and feelings and external events, rather than responding. Mindlessness results in unawareness – we are limiting the full range of what we can experience.  There is understandable fear involved in the idea of “inviting” seemingly negative thoughts or emotions with open-minded curiosity.  We are taught to reject and suppress such negativity.

Reflect on how your own experience changes when you practice mindfulness in your daily routine.  The next time that an unpleasant thought or feeling arises, rather than stuffing it down and rejecting it, allow it to be. Practice sitting with discomfort. When we learn how to tolerate discomfort and distress in this way, we are providing ourselves with the chance to be freed from suffering.  Our emotional suffering persists when we deny it, ignore it, or rage against it.  Notice it, welcome it, observe it, and let it go.

The Failure of Messaging in Health Care Reform

“Hume was right. The mind is divided into parts, like a rider (controlled processes [consciousness]) on an elephant (automatic processes [unconsciousness]). The rider evolved to serve the elephant. .... intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Therefore, if you want to change someone’s mind about a moral or political issue, talk to the elephant first. .... Republicans understand moral psychology. Democrats don’t. Republicans have long understood that the elephant is in charge of political behavior, not the rider, and they know how elephants work. Their slogans, political commercials and speeches go straight for the gut .... Republicans don’t just aim to cause fear, as some Democrats charge. They trigger the full range of intuitions [emotions] described by Moral Foundations Theory.” -- psychologist Johnathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, 2012

Way back in the 1990s, before the internet was much of anything, president Bill Clinton took two shots at health care reform. Both failed an those efforts arguably damaged Clinton for the remainder of his time in office. A key factor in the failure was poor messaging by Clinton and his administration, coupled with the scourge of dark free speech that scared many people witless.

An 1995 article by analyst Daniel Yankelovich points to multiple causes for the failure, with poor messaging to the public being a key part of the failure:

Explanations range from blaming the plan itself, with its endless complexity and poorly understood provisions, to blaming the Clinton administration for its inability to articulate its vision to a confused, often frightened public. Not to be discounted is the role of special-interest groups and the millions of dollars spent on mass-media campaigns to discredit the plan. .... The problem, as he states in this paper, is a “disconnect” between the American public and its leaders. That is, although elites have no problem conversing with one another, they carry out “a bizarre dialogue of the deaf with the people. As far as the American people are concerned, Yankelovich says, “the great health care debate of 1994 never took place.” Successful reforms in the future hinge on the nations ability to mend this “disconnect” and begin genuine public deliberation on a topic that is so crucial to the future health and economic well-being of the nation and its citizens. 

Because all complex phenomena have multiple causes, the choice of which cause to highlight depends on one's purpose. My purpose here is twofold: to understand how to avoid this kind of failure in the future, and to learn how to get health care reform back on track—that is, to learn how to shape health care reforms that reflect the values and priorities of the American people. With these purposes in mind, I suggest that the defeat of the two health care initiatives—catastrophic coverage for the elderly in 1989 and the Clinton reform plan in 1994—both reflect a massive failure of public deliberation [i.e., crappy messaging]. (emphasis added)

The electorate and the nation's leadership class (which includes leaders of medicine, industry, education, the legal profession, science, religion, and journalism, as well as national and community political leaders) do not seem to be able to converse with one another productively. Instead, they talk at each other across a void of misunderstanding and misinterpretation. The failure of health reform is a direct consequence of this “disconnect.” 

The nation's leadership and the public are carrying out a bizarre dialogue of the deaf. The nation's elites have little trouble conversing with one another, but when it comes to engaging the public, there is an astonishing lack of dialogue. Public relations, punditry, advertising, speechifying, spin-doctoring, and so-called public education—these mechanisms of top-down communication abound. The absence of plain give-and-take between leaders and the public is striking.  

The downfall of the Clinton health care plan unfolded with the inexorability of Greek tragedy. First, we watched the administration respond to opinion polls and other political signals that persuaded it that health care reform was the public's top priority and seduced it into believing (falsely) that the public supported its reform proposals. Then, as the administration climbed further and further out on a limb of commitment to its reform plan, we saw public support mysteriously fade away. We watched, with fascination, as this weakening of support made it sickeningly easy for the opposition to cut off the limb. The administration fell bitterly into the dust of defeat, without ever really understanding what happened. The spectacle makes compelling drama and good partisan politics. But defeats of this sort deepen public cynicism and weaken the fabric of American life.  

The blame for this failure of public deliberation lies squarely at the feet of the American leadership class. Public deliberation requires that leaders engage the public in debate on choices that the public can understand and is prepared to confront. This requires skillful leadership that the leadership class, with all of its communication skills and resources, failed to provide. Its failure was spectacular in scope, which makes this post-mortem of the Clinton plan so important. If our society is to continue to function, this kind of failure cannot be repeated too many times. 

If one accepts that analysis as mostly true, not necessarily completely true, one has to ask if it is still relevant in 2020? It seems so to me. It seems that scaring people in 2020 with ads containing frightening lies and hyperbole, combined with complexity of most issues and crappy messaging is what killed health care reform in the 1990s. It is what blocks various needed reforms now. Just about anything the democrats want to try to do can be blocked by lies and fear mongering, while the same factors do not seem to apply with nearly as much effect to what the president and the GOP are doing to this country right now.

There is messaging asymmetry and it is deadly serious

There is an asymmetry in this endless messaging war that I do not completely understand. The GOP reforms are tearing America to pieces, and that does not seem to faze most people on the political right. But whatever the left wants to do is met with solid walls of impenetrable opposition. That is true even when most conservatives agree with the proposed reform, e.g., universal background checks for gun purchases. The playing field is not level.

Regarding Democratic Political Messaging

I have criticized democratic political messaging here before. Informed experts have been criticizing it for years.[1] I criticize it again. This is from a letter to the editor at the San Diego Union Tribune on September 4, 2020:

“Donald Trump may well win in November. 

Why? In a nutshell, the strategists who designed the Democrats’ convention message seem to have learned little from their defeat four years ago.

They appear to live in a dream world, in which good triumphs over bad, people always recognize truth from falsehoods, and voters will “do the right thing.” Unfortunately, none of these assumptions are true. If they were, Hillary Clinton would be president.

The strategy .... is simple and twofold: first, maximize use of the “Big Lie” technique and, second, let the media (that you supposedly hate) give you all the free publicity you could want.

Let’s look at the Big Lie tactic first. It didn’t originate in Germany in the 1930s; it’s been around a lot longer than that. Autocrats love it.

Consider the word “crooked,” used to label a recent presidential candidate. In this (and all other Big Lie endeavors), there are four phases. First: “Gee, that’s kind of mean-spirited.” Second: “Well, I’ve heard that she did do … something.” Third: “It must be true — everyone’s talking about it.” Fourth: You’ve won — enough of the voters believe it.

Sadly, it works, at least through phase three, almost every time.

The second strategy — let the media do your promotion for you — helped promote Trump from a noncontender to leading candidate in 2016. Current example: use (even promote) every violent demonstration, knowing the media will always give free top-story publicity to fires and Trump’s assurance that only his hardcore “law and order” enforcement can save America’s cities. Strategy two ensures the success of strategy one. Any defensive Democratic reply may get buried on page nine.

And what was the Democrats’ convention message? “We’re nice guys; they’re not.” But no plan to counter Trump’s allegations. The Democratic National Committee needs to go on the offense before the polls show Trump closing in on Joe Biden just as he did with Clinton in 2016. Then, the vacillating voter will opt in November for the allegedly strong, decisive, neighborhood-saving Trump, while MSNBC assures us niceness will prevail. The latter didn’t work in 2016, and it won’t in 2020.

The Big Lie offensive must be vigorously countered; Hillary Clinton learned the cost of not doing so. The Democrats need a much more aggressive counterattack, including rightful outrage at closing in on 200,000 coronavirus deaths, Russian election interference, numerous emoluments clause and Hatch Act violations, IRS document withholding, White supremacy approval, billionaire-enriching blatant cronyism, impaired postal delivery, Putin pandering and the loss of our allies’ respect.

At their convention, the Democrats unveiled no effective winning strategy, and they have only a few weeks left to find one.

The alternative, with disastrous results for our country: Donald Trump wins in November.”

No, that's not my letter. I didn't write it. 

But it basically does represent my opinion about democratic messaging, how awful it is, and how badly the professional media deals with the situation. In my opinion, if the democrats lose in November, their crappy messaging will have been a major factor in their loss. Only widespread revulsion of the president seems able to defeat him. That alone may not be enough to get him out of office.

After decades of their messaging weakness, the democrats still have not figured this out. Unfortunately, the MSM isn’t much better.

Footnote: 

1. This gets right to the point: “Republicans understand moral psychology. Democrats don’t. Republicans have long understood that the elephant [the unconscious mind] is in charge of political behavior, not the rider [the conscious mind], and they know how elephants work. Their slogans, political commercials and speeches go straight for the gut . . . . Republicans don’t just aim to cause fear, as some Democrats charge. They trigger the full range of intuitions [emotions] described by Moral Foundations Theory.” (emphasis in original)

Coronavirus Update 14

A shows droplet counts per time slice (1/60 second)

B shows speech-emitted droplets scattering green laser light

A couple of things merit mention. One old thing is that it is unusual to get a COVID-19 infection from surfaces that contain the virus. A new thing is that data suggests that talking increases droplets a person emits.

Old data

The Washington Post writes:

“No one is touching anything, and everyone is cleaning everything. Despite initial reports warning people that the novel coronavirus can be transmitted from contaminated surfaces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has told Americans in no uncertain terms that the virus is primarily transmitted person-to-person, through breathing, speaking, shouting and singing. While it may be possible to catch covid from a doorknob or a package, it’s a long shot, and “not thought to be the main way the virus spreads,” says the agency. (It still recommends disinfecting high-touch surfaces.) .... the most important things that will help them avoid catching covid-19? Wearing masks, staying more than six feet apart, avoiding enclosed spaces.”

The communications problem: An unintended consequence of extended concern for exercises in mostly ineffective surface disinfecting is that it creates a false sense of security in some people, leading them to be less concerned with the risk of airborne infection. One expert commented on the delicate communications problem. Early experiments with contaminated surfaces used unrealistic virus concentrations of virus that “have little resemblance to real-life scenarios. I do not disagree with erring on the side of caution, but this can go to extremes not justified by the data.”

In other words, keep focused on aerosols, and don't worry so much about possibly contaminated surfaces. Just keep your hands away from your face after touching possibly contaminated surfaces and wash hands later when you can.

New data

Some recent research has generated interesting data about talking. Not surprisingly, talking generates more airborne droplets than not talking. Talking loudly generates more droplets that talking quietly. A recent study found that loud speech can generate thousands of oral fluid droplets per second. That data was interpreted to mean that there is a ‘substantial probability’ that normal speaking causes airborne virus transmission in confined environments. More research is needed to confirm these initial observations.

An earlier short report (some data is shown in the image above) indicated that the number of droplets decreased a lot if a damp cloth covered the speaker's mouth while speaking. So again, both mask wearing and speaking quietly or not at all appears to be helpful, while not wearing a mask or speaking loudly increases the possibility than an infected person can pass the virus to an infected person and cause an infection. In all situations, one is better off outside and distanced from others who might be infected compared to being inside where the droplets can persist in significant numbers for a longer time.

A 2019 paper commented:

“Here we show that the rate of particle emission during normal human speech is positively correlated with the loudness (amplitude) of vocalization, ranging from approximately 1 to 50 particles per second (0.06 to 3 particles per cm3)[1] for low to high amplitudes, regardless of the language spoken (English, Spanish, Mandarin, or Arabic). Furthermore, a small fraction of individuals behaves as ‘speech superemitters,’ consistently releasing an order of magnitude more particles than their peers. .... other unknown physiological factors, varying dramatically among individuals, could affect the probability of respiratory infectious disease transmission, and also help explain the existence of superspreaders who are disproportionately responsible for outbreaks of airborne infectious disease.”

Safety tip, don't be a sloppy (juicy?) talker or a loud talker. And, wear your mask. And, stay outdoors but distanced everywhere.


Footnote:
1. That number shows a lot fewer emitted droplets than the data reported later. I presume the difference is due to a rather insensitive air flow measurement method in the 2019 paper compared to a more sensitive laser light scattering method in the 2020 publications.