There are many situations of conspiracy theorists being presented with irrefutable proof of being wrong where they simply stick to their guns. News outlets often call it “doubling down.” A better term is probably the backfire effect. Even calling it a fancier name than doubling down will meet with some backfire. In the world of cognitive biases, there exists what is known as the bias blind spot.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot
Where yet again, the mere use of linking Wikipedia will backfire since in general to the critical thinking challenged Wikipedia, Snopes, etc… are an instant turn off. Oh you used Wikipedia as a source, Eeeewwww! (Wikipedia is fine, the only problems are the lag time between disingenuous edits and getting it corrected and other such short term issues. Good faith editors will weed out the nonsense, eventually.)
85% in that study is a very Dunning-Kruger number. When studies were done asking people to assess their driving skill as a choice of two options between above or below average, 85% say above. Of course. Everyone’s brain is telling them they are super cool. Heaven forbid I admit that I was ever wrong about something.
In the world of wrongness, things such as school shootings, I’m very much on the side of stopping them before it gets to a point of offering up thoughts and prayers. On a less serious issue, spreading awareness about grifting on the internet is, to my cognitively biased mind, a better solution - stopping people from losing money before they lose their money.
So how does gematria fit into this discussion? What does it do different than other grift, or better than other grift?
Nurturing being wrong as being OK. Even the leaders have a track record of being wrong often and simply not caring. When not picking both teams to win the Super Bowl, the leader of the clique will take a shot on a roughly 50-50 proposition and get it wrong. The newbie that happened to decode the big game and make a gematria based decision that gets it right gets a fuzzy warm feeling. And stays interested longer to keep his monthly $10 Patreon donation going.
The bias blind spot is more important on the effect of someone like a parent that would prefer their kid doesn’t steal their credit card info to place a $500 bet on the Super Bowl. It’s a war between, “How could you be so stupid?” backfiring and the “Attaboy!!” nurturing of the ring leader. Since the nurturing is far more effective at dumbing it down, which is purposeful, rational based arguments have a huge uphill battle. Every time Sisyphus makes progress (winning) an excuse will be created to avoid the psychic damage of being wrong (losing). Thinking you’re right 85% of the time when you are really only right 50% of the time, and you never get the rock up the hill at 100% of the time.
I just read a description of belief in conspiracy theories I rather like. Think of it as a multi-level marketing scam. The math of these pyramid schemes is doomed to failure. The MLM leaders also operate by delivering attaboys to encourage upward movement to the mid level.
Zach is constantly complaining about how few people actually work to help the community. Translate community as bottom tier doesn’t get any money. He has the mid level tier that he spends more time on directly. They’ve been involved long enough and add value to the pyramid to aid in recruiting bottom tier newbies. These loyal lieutenants have all the bases covered. Somebody thinks sports betting is nonsense? Maybe racist content is what drew them in at the start. Take your pick, there are lieutenants for sports, homophobia, racism, spirituality, cryptocurrency, anti-law enforcement, synchronicity. All with the bias blind spots that if the evil empire made this ritual up for their clique, maybe it doesn’t make sense that the same numbers are used in other cliques for a completely different meaning.
Once you start getting courted to move up to the mid tier is the dangerous time. You’ll constantly be pressured to blog, make videos, go to events, whatever it takes to get you to do the heavy lifting on recruitment of new bottom tier meat.
Do yourself a favor. Avoid the MLM scam before thoughts and prayers are your only consolation.
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