I’ve been active on this sub for about three years now, mostly as a user, but recently as a mod as well. I’ve been studying conspiracy theory of one sort or another for almost a decade. This is not an authoritative guide, but a record of some of the things I’ve picked up over the years which you may or may not find helpful.
Upvotes and Comments
The number of upvotes and replies a post or comment has is pretty much the worst way to judge something. Various agencies and organizations do hire shills and vote bots to influence social media, but even if they didn’t, the wisdom of the crowd is only so good in a sub like this, where people’s opinions are driven largely by media narratives from multiple political persuasions, each with their own agenda and/or personal bias. If you want to get closer to the truth, on any topic, you need to develop your own critical thinking faculties. This means examining the source of information, the credibility of that source, any ulterior motives that source may have, etc.
Confirmation Bias
This is an inherent cognitive bias we all have. You can’t completely rid yourself of it, but you can learn to recognize it and compensate for it. If you find yourself upvoting a post or comment because you want it to be true before you apply critical thought to it, you’re likely experiencing confirmation bias. The skeptical approach is one of the better ways to combat it: assume the opposite of your belief, try to tear down the argument presented as best you can, and if you cannot, you can place that argument in the “tentatively true” category. Familiarize yourself with other cognitive biases and logical fallacies, primarily so you can find the fault in your own thinking, but also so you can put yourself in another user’s shoes and see why they may think a certain way. But in general, try to avoid merely calling out a fallacy or bias; explain clearly why your argument avoids that fallacy.
The Nature of Certainty
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
–Aristotle
Keep your bead on the wire. In short, imagine a bead on a wire between 0 and 1—0 meaning complete disbelief and 1 being absolute certainty on any given hypothesis. The idea is that if you ever let your bead get all the way to one end or the other, it becomes very difficult to dislodge it. If you keep your bead somewhere in the middle, even if very close to one end, you will remain open to new information.
Shills and Rule 10
This will undoubtedly be a contentious point for many. I don’t doubt the existence of shills, but that’s not the point of Rule 10. If you don’t know what I mean by shills, I mean users who are paid to push a narrative or disrupt and divide an online community. Check out The Gentleman’s Guide to Forum Spies and this Intercept article on JTRIG for more information. The article cites two self-identified purposes of JTRIG:
- to inject all sorts of false material onto the internet in order to destroy the reputation of its targets; and
- to use social sciences and other techniques to manipulate online discourse and activism to generate outcomes it considers desirable.
Labeling another user as a shill would fall under JTRIG’s mission—it’s attempting to destroy someone’s reputation so as to manipulate the discourse. It muddies the waters and slides the conversation at hand. It’s also one of the weakest forms of argument. Feel free to spread information about shills in the general sense—it’s very important that people know of their existence and tactics—but you’re not winning the information war by calling users who disagree with you shills.
If you think you’re talking to a shill, the best strategy is to present your argument clearly and calmly, point out any fallacies in their logic, and then walk away. To the extent they exist, they want to drag you into a fruitless conversation and waste your time. Continuing to engage or calling them out means they win; don’t let them bait you. Aim for the top of the pyramid.
The /new Queue
Given the prevalence of vote bots, brigades, and other voting patterns, if you’re genuinely interested in discovering new information here, your best bet is to go to /r/conspiracy/new. If you’re new to reddit, this is where you will find posts as they come in, unfiltered by any other opinions. Upvote the good, add to the conversation, and downvote the bad. As a reminder, we have a 2-day moratorium on new accounts posting here to cut down on spam.
What This Sub Is and What It Isn’t
This sub is first and foremost a forum for open discussion. The range of subjects is somewhat intentionally left vague. We mods try not remove any content (other than that which breaks site-wide rules), yet we do moderate behavior that gets in the way of that open discussion. You may think that this sub has been “taken over” by one side of the political spectrum or the other, and from time to time it is. We have no control or recourse over voting bots, and we get brigaded from multiples sides frequently.
This sub might best be seen as a mess of obfuscation and disinformation where sometimes, the truth is able to slip through a crack. We can’t fight that obfuscation without sealing the cracks. The best we can hope for is to catch a glimpse of that truth and help it find it’s way to others. This sub is not and cannot be some beacon of truth, be it your truth or mine; at it’s best, though, it can be the last large refuge on this site where that truth has a chance to live.
What This Sub Can Be
There are some smaller subs where the truth can dance and be free, yet has no wings to fly. Here, it must struggle just to breathe, let alone thrive, yet we do have some reach. This sub can only be what you choose to put into it and what you are able to get out of it. All I can ask, all I can hope, is that you enter as a student and a seeker of the truth, and that you put that ideal above your need to be right or your desire to change minds.
submitted by /u/CelineHagbard
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May 27, 2017 at 03:14AM
from /u/CelineHagbard
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