why are people so gullible to believe conspiracy theories?

Question

And why don't the government crack down on these nutcases? they are leading people astray and making folks mistrust the government.

Answer 1

Conspiracy theories provide simple answers to the ignorant.

Answer 2

Problem is that sometimes, the conspiracy theorists are right.

Who would have thought that a sitting president of the United States would have authorized the break-in of the opposing political party's headquarters to spy on them. No one of any reasonable sanity would have believed that the president would then provide cash to hush up witnesses.

But, two "conspiracy theorists," working for a Washington newspaper found out from an anonymous source that this was exactly what happened. When the story was published, the resulting scandal forced Richard M. Nixon to resign the presidency, in discgrace.

Cracking down on these "nutcases" is EXACTLY what anyone in power would LOVE to do, if they could get away with it. Unfortunately, for them, this country's freedoms protect us from those powers.

A married president haveing sex in the oval office with a young intern? Preposterous!

Until we learned it was true.

Yes, most of those theories ARE the ramblings of some nutcases, but how will we know which ones are ramblings and which are true, unless we ALL get a chance to check out the facts.

These guys don't make us mistrust the government. Too often the government breaks the trust we give them.

Answer 3

Heh dont need a conspiracy theory to mistrust the goverment.

Depends what 'conspiracy theory' you are on about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alleged_conspiracy_theories

You need to be a more specific.

Are you referring to the 9/11 attacks or even the 7/7 attacks?
A few moments browsing on the interweb will show you credible people with professional qualifications and seemingly rationale explanations to back up these theories. Maybe the goverment doesnt want to 'crack down' on these 'nut cases' because they would probably end up making some sort of 'martyrdom' out of the whole thing and although Dubya is willing to lock people up possibility indefinitely, I dont think he's quite up to getting his hands wet by liquidating a few thousand people that are on the net putting up theories.

Answer 4

1st...we still have somewhat freedom of speech, government has no right to crack down.

The reason for conspiracy theories seems easy enough to understand. It answers question people WANT to believe.

Answer 5

You do realize that people have mistrusted large and powerful organizations ever since the days of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, do you not?

And good job on throwing freedom of thought out the window!

Answer 6

These people tend to over think everything. They can't just accept that when everything points in one direction it normally means that is the cause. They are mostly harmless because they are so busy chasing non-existent trails that they can't actually cause any problems.

Answer 7

Nothing is what it seems to be. I can't believe you're gullible enough to believe the Government.

Answer 8

Seig Heil? Conspiracies do exist. Maybe not as elaborate as some believe but Nixon showed us they do exist.

Answer 9

ummm,ummm,ummm, all that is underground shall remain underground as long as they cab possibly keep it their....there is much going that is not spoke of to the general public. there are some conspiracies that have beenpublished, simply to make you open your eyes, tosee what you can not see, simply to help lower the veil that blinds you.......study things deeply and see what you see

Answer 10

the wildest and craziest conspiracy thoeries are the ones that the asker is believing