Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> True. But I think it was the main driving factor in making people take it 
> seriously who aren't normally conspiracy theory nuts.

  I like to compare conspiracy theorists with magicians:

  A magician shows you a trick, and you have *no idea whatsoever* how it
could possibly work. You think and think about it, and you can't come up
with anything. It seems miraculous. Yet you know it's just a trick. While
some tricks are truly quite contrived and require a lot of practice to be
performed convincingly, in many cases if someone explains the trick, it's
almost laughably simple. You are like "Doh! Why didn't I think of that?"
It's almost disappointing how simple the trick was. Yet you couldn't explain
it unless someone explained it to you.

  Likewise it often happens that a conspiracy theorists shows you a quite
cleverly posed argument, for example something in a photograph which seems
to indicate that it has been faked. Even if you are an experienced debunker,
if it's something new to you, you may be left dumbfounded, with no rational
explanation. You may struggle to come up with an explanation, but you just
can't think of anything.

  But it's just like a magic trick: The argument has been so cleverly posed
that it fools you completely, but once someone explains it to you (or you
come up with the correct explanation by studying the phenomenon), it becomes
laughably simple and straightforward. "Doh! Why didn't I think of that?"

  I have been baffled by new conspiracy theory arguments myself, even though
I'm pretty experienced at debunking them. I *know* that these new arguments
are not legit, but I just can't come up with any kind of answer. It's just
like a magic trick. Only afterwards, when I gather more information about
the subject, it becomes very easy to explain.

  The difference between magicians and conspiracy theorists is, however,
that magicians don't claim that the tricks are real, while the theorists
do claim that their arguments are valid and genuine. Well, not all magicians,
of course. There are always a few "Uri Gellers" who try to claim (sometimes
rather successfully) that their tricks are the real thing and not tricks at
all. These phony magicians and conspiracy theorists have a lot in common.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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