Why are so many attracted to Whacky Conspiracy Theories?
Last Saturday, UK based journalist George Monbiot published a fascinating interview with a conspiracy theorist.
It is titled — “You’re going to call me a Holocaust denier now, are you?’: George Monbiot comes face to face with his local conspiracy theorist”. It was published on Star Wars day, May 4.
He opens by making a rather interesting point. There are real conspiracies and he lists a few examples …
In the Cambridge Analytica scandal: a secretive micro-targeting campaign likely to have influenced the Brexit vote. In the Panama Papers and the Pandora Papers, showing how the ultra-rich hide their money from taxes and legal scrutiny.
… hence he leans into the phrase “conspiracy fantasists” for those that peddle weird whacky stuff that has no evidence. He also adds in the observation that those who embrace such fantasies tend to have no interest at all in any of the real documented conspiracies.
He wondered why some do embrace such fantasies, so he went to interview conspiracy theorist and artist Jason Liosatos who lives near him in Totnes Devon in the UK.
What he discovered was a truly fasinating character. Mr Liosatos is both a “very nice bloke”, which is what Mr Monbiot himself found, and also what all those around Mr…