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A quarter of Canadians believe in online conspiracy theories, an expert on radicalization and terrorism told a parliamentary committee Thursday.
David Morin, a professor at the Université de Sherbrooke, said a poll conducted for an upcoming report he is preparing for the Quebec government found that 9 to 10 per cent of Canadians strongly believe in conspiracy theories, while another 15 per cent moderately believe them
You can count me as sort of a conspiracy theorist sometimes. It keeps me on my toes. But I'm not radical about it.
Online in the past 25 years makes it easier for more people to be exposed to more conspiracy theories but otherwise those percentage rates sound normal and don't mean much to me, it isn't new and nothing has changed except the dates and the stories.
People in both Canada and America have always been floating all sorts of radical and not so radical conspiracy theories around for the past 450+ years. People will believe what they want to believe or they'll make up whatever they want to believe.
With the passage of time, advancing technology and swifter communications across the continent the faster and more of the conspiracy theories there have been in our steadily increasing populations over the past few centuries. But it's still all just more of the same old, same old conspiracy theories and the rabble rowsers never change .... so what else is new?
It’s fun to talk about “who killed Kennedy” and whether the moon landing was faked or if Bigfoot is real. I disagree Zoisite that conspiracy theories are largely harmless.This QAnon, Pizzagate stuff is dangerous and is going to lead to violence if there aren’t huge advancements in fact checking and media literacy. I have acquaintances who fully believe in these dangerous conspiracies and I could see a scenario where some of them take up arms and get violent over it. A lot of overlap with people stocking up guns, ammunition, canned goods, etc getting ready for doomsday. These people largely follow these conspiracies and I’m worried something horrible is going to happen.
It’s fun to talk about “who killed Kennedy” and whether the moon landing was faked or if Bigfoot is real. I disagree Zoisite that conspiracy theories are largely harmless.This QAnon, Pizzagate stuff is dangerous and is going to lead to violence if there aren’t huge advancements in fact checking and media literacy. I have acquaintances who fully believe in these dangerous conspiracies and I could see a scenario where some of them take up arms and get violent over it. A lot of overlap with people stocking up guns, ammunition, canned goods, etc getting ready for doomsday. These people largely follow these conspiracies and I’m worried something horrible is going to happen.
I agree that there needs to be fact checking and media literacy but I never said that I thought conspiracy theories are harmless. In fact I think that all conspiracy theories and the people who deliberately promote them are harmful. I have a name for all people who are more willing to believe in conspiracy theories than being willing to believe in facts - I call them conspiranoids - a combination of conspire and paranoid. I have met and/or been made aware of many, many conspiranoids. Personally I feel that it is a type of mental illness. Conspiranoids and mental illnesses are everywhere and they go hand in hand.
There are ordinary people with good critical thinking skills who stock up on firearms and make their own ammunition, buy or grow and put up their own preserves, raise and butcher their own livestock, stock up on or make all manner of tools and a multitude of goods and supplies up the yin yang in order to be prepared for self preservation and defense in times of emergencies. It's called being prepared for whatever eventualities come along. It's called being a farmer, or a homesteader, or an old timer that has gone through wars and depressions and they know what that is all about. People who live rurally have been doing stuff like that for hundreds of years here in Canada. But that doesn't make them conspiracy theorists or sick conspiranoids, it just makes them prepared for eventualities. And they don't talk much about their preparations. They mind their own business and keep it to themselves because they know it's not safe to talk about their preparedness lest there may be conspiranoids in their midst that would resent them and do them harm.
And then there are the dangerous ones who lack critical thinking skills, the antisocial so-called "survivalists", the paranoid chest thumping online provocateurs, the bullets, beans and bunkers conspiranoids who do all those same preparedness things and love to promote and talk and conspire about it with other conspiranoids because they're ignorant and are actually hoping and praying that doomsday, chaos and anarchy is coming. They do those preparedness things not only to be prepared for self preservation and defense but also because they look forward to being offensive participants and bullies in the chaos and anarchy. They imagine and hope with glee for scenarios where they can fancy themselves as mighty warriors and war lords who will take advantage of an opportunity to take up arms and get violent and kill other people and be rulers of their imaginary world. That state of mind is a mental illness and yes, it is dangerous.
But I think the violent minded scare mongering conspiranoids who are obsessed with talking online or in the media about their conspiracies and trying to scare other people with them are cowards too. If doomsday chaos actually comes to them I doubt they will survive their troubles for long because they can't keep their mouthes shut.
You should probably avoid people like that and don't indulge them in their conspiranoid fantasies.
I agree that there needs to be fact checking and media literacy but I never said that I thought conspiracy theories are harmless. In fact I think that all conspiracy theories and the people who deliberately promote them are harmful. I have a name for all people who are more willing to believe in conspiracy theories than being willing to believe in facts - I call them conspiranoids - a combination of conspire and paranoid. I have met and/or been made aware of many, many conspiranoids. Personally I feel that it is a type of mental illness. Conspiranoids and mental illnesses are everywhere and they go hand in hand.
There are ordinary people with good critical thinking skills who stock up on firearms and make their own ammunition, buy or grow and put up their own preserves, raise and butcher their own livestock, stock up on or make all manner of tools and a multitude of goods and supplies up the yin yang in order to be prepared for self preservation and defense in times of emergencies. It's called being prepared for whatever eventualities come along. It's called being a farmer, or a homesteader, or an old timer that has gone through wars and depressions and they know what that is all about. People who live rurally have been doing stuff like that for hundreds of years here in Canada. But that doesn't make them conspiracy theorists or sick conspiranoids, it just makes them prepared for eventualities. And they don't talk much about their preparations. They mind their own business and keep it to themselves because they know it's not safe to talk about their preparedness lest there may be conspiranoids in their midst that would resent them and do them harm.
And then there are the dangerous ones who lack critical thinking skills, the antisocial so-called "survivalists", the paranoid chest thumping online provocateurs, the bullets, beans and bunkers conspiranoids who do all those same preparedness things and love to promote and talk and conspire about it with other conspiranoids because they're ignorant and are actually hoping and praying that doomsday, chaos and anarchy is coming. They do those preparedness things not only to be prepared for self preservation and defense but also because they look forward to being offensive participants and bullies in the chaos and anarchy. They imagine and hope with glee for scenarios where they can fancy themselves as mighty warriors and war lords who will take advantage of an opportunity to take up arms and get violent and kill other people and be rulers of their imaginary world. That state of mind is a mental illness and yes, it is dangerous.c
But I think the violent minded scare mongering conspiranoids who are obsessed with talking online or in the media about their conspiracies and trying to scare other people with them are cowards too. If doomsday chaos actually comes to them I doubt they will survive their troubles for long because they can't keep their mouthes shut.
You should probably avoid people like that and don't indulge them in their conspiranoid fantasies.
About 20 years ago I frequented an American survivalist board over a period of 4 or 5 months. It was a stretch for me but if I skipped the gun obsession posts and religious comments, I did find it rather interesting. Everyone assumed everyone else was working towards the same goal so it was a friendly board with lots of survivalist-type advice being given. Everyone had a positive attitude about their ability to survive any calamity and there was not a single poster who acted like they believed they were a victim. Indeed, they were taking steps to ensure they never would be victims.
I can’t help but contrast that to the conspiracy theorists of today who seem obsessed with wallowing in victimhood. They feel helpless and everything is always someone else’s fault. They never stop whining.
About 20 years ago I frequented an American survivalist board over a period of 4 or 5 months. It was a stretch for me but if I skipped the gun obsession posts and religious comments, I did find it rather interesting. Everyone assumed everyone else was working towards the same goal so it was a friendly board with lots of survivalist-type advice being given. Everyone had a positive attitude about their ability to survive any calamity and there was not a single poster who acted like they believed they were a victim. Indeed, they were taking steps to ensure they never would be victims.
I can’t help but contrast that to the conspiracy theorists of today who seem obsessed with wallowing in victimhood. They feel helpless and everything is always someone else’s fault. They never stop whining.
For nearly 23 years - ever since I first got my home computer and went on internet - I've been a member of 2 different forums like that. One of them focuses more on medicinal herbalism, making medicines and holistic/alternative natural health methods rather than most other forms of survivalism - for in case there is a break down of civilization and society in an armageddon type of event and no more access to physicians and medicine.
The other one is as you describe - a friendly and helpful, genuine homesteaders and survivalists type of forum full of experienced, knowledgeable, non-victim minded, mostly over age 45 people living the similar goals of preparedness and self-independence with the skills and ability to survive just about any calamity. There are actually a good number of helpful preparedness and homesteading forums like that if one looks for them, though some of them do focus a little too much (IMO) on the left/right political conspiracies or religious proselytism if they have nothing more interesting to talk about.
But very few if any of those folks on those forums possess the victim mentality, they aren't whiners, they're proud of their accomplishments and they know what they're talking about and can back it up with facts and often with photos. Whenever an admittedly rare new member signs up who is (usually) a big city dweller that happens to be a whining conspiracy theorist with victim mentality, singing doom and gloom looking for a place where they can point fingers, vent and sow discontent and blame, it doesn't take long for the other members to call out the doomer on it and try to straighten them out to get practical.
This isn't surprising at all given how cheap it is to generate massive amounts of bot activity especially if you have a fairly cheap wages and somewhat educated population you can use to get through the few parts that do require human-ish authentication. I've seen this with older relatives on Facebook as I'm pretty friendly with them and they get rando facebook friends that are pretty obviously not who they present themselves to be and don't exist in real life if you took any time to find their records or backtrace their profile images. This is going to get a lot worse though because computer generated imagery where you can't do that as a first line of checks has gotten absurdly good. Older message board forums like this are pretty ripe grounds and it's happy to get waylaid into distorting as many red meat issues as possible to becoming SUPER IMPORTANT even if they're incredibly niche in number and effect like gender conforming surgery.
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