My husband’s brother is really into government conspiracy stuff – stuff like the income tax is illegal, that gold decorations on the US flag means we are under admiralty law (or did I get that backwards), that you can put up some sign in your car that you are a free citizen (or some other verbiage) and then you don’t have to have a driver’s licence, and the cops can’t search your car even if they see something illegal in plain sight, etc. etc. He goes to all these websites that have wacky legal ideas, and listens to weird shortwave programs.
My uncle, in contrast, destroyed his life basically because he assumed the nuclear bombs were going to fly any day. He is sure he has the answer to the dark energy in the universe too (all without knowing calculus and he doesn’t even have a super collider!)
What is the deal with this? Why are some people obsessed with conspiracies, etc? Neither of these two has schizophrenia. My brother in law is going down the path of my uncle – I expect him to be jailed for contempt of court one of these days with his weird legal stuff.
Neither of them are stupid – my uncle is actually very intelligent. But part of the deal is they think they know better than any of the experts. Thus, the physicists are stupid, or the lawyers & supreme court justices are stupid, depending on which one you talk to.
My brother in law thinks the moon landing was faked.
4 Responses
I cant really give you an answer.
I just wanted to say that I can sympathize. I know people like that too.
Most conspiracy theorists suffer from a condition in which, basically, they believe that their lives are unimportant or uninteresting. By believe in these conspiracies they convince themselves they have value in the world because they are privy to secret information that the rest of the population is oblivious to. The dangerous and extreme manifestation of this is hallucinations such as people who believe God talks to them.
I would let him have his theories unless it becomes a burden on the family or results in endangering employment and/or health.
Sometimes it can be explained by mass hysteria.
Sometimes it is simply bullshit.
For example, even today in the 21st century there are still people that believe the man never went to the moon..
That’s because we have created this ideology that the government is always doing something (not necessarily wrong) in secret.
Sometimes it is ignorance and lack of knowledge.
Fear of reality . In the sense that they can’t deal with reality so they invent.