Aspies Central - Asperger's Syndrome and Autism Forums

Are we more subject to this sort of malcognition than Neurotypical's are?
I wouldn't have thought so, but I am seeing more examples here than I expected.

I think so... I often see conspiracy theories everywhere. Tho I do recognize when some theories go "over the top". But I often agree with many of their points. The best example would be the Zeitgeist movies.

I don't know... I've heard a lot of people on the spectrum being quite naive... whilst another part of the community doesn't fall for anything.

I personally... I'm always interested in reading about them, but I don't get jumpy and panicked by them. If I worry about them I'm not living my life and doing whatever I want to do.

However; probably because aspies tend to have extreme obsessions they might get really inquisitive and research stuff to great extents. An aspie friend of mine was a bit in conspiracy theories and I found that with him; as long as you look long enough at something you'll find your arguments to support it.

I think Aspie's are good at picking out patterns and connecting the dots. But some Aspies just like Neuro-typicals are ignorant to specific things, and some simply have different interests and so pick out different patterns. So when someone believes they have connected what others think of as unrelated dots, they simply regard them as wrong. If someone wants to be logical they need to research and find out why this person feels this way about that set of events or whatever it is. Be able to explain both ends of the discussion, only then can you look at things objectively. People that do not do this and instead say "I have no time", or "other things are more important" or just "that can't be right so why look in to it" are never going to know the truth, because they refuse to take the time to look at all the facts, instead of only the ones that strengthen their belief whether it be true or not.

Some relevant links on this subject:

Why People Believe in Conspiracies: Scientific American

Confirmation bias - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

When in doubt, shout

Four reasons why people believe in conspiracy theories | SmartPlanet

Confirmation Bias « You Are Not So Smart

xkcd: Conspiracy Theories



A good quote from Michael Shermer on this subject:

“The more elaborate a conspiracy theory is, and the more people that would need to be involved, the less likely it is true.”

I think one reason why a lot of this stuff bothers me is because it seems to be essentially anti-science.

I believe (and still believe) in really unproven stuff like Sai Baba and the New World Order, although I don't believe in Santa, though I consciously tell myself, perhaps they are just visual phenomenon, who knows?

Think about it, especially about the NWO - If all the world's bankers are out there to screw us and cheat our money, stuffing it into their pockets under Quantitative Easing, then well, perhaps it's them trying to assert their place in the social order in a messed-up era. But if they must maintain this sort of lifestyle behind closed doors, imagine, how many opportunities they will miss because of their choice to keep their money! If they have to stay safe behind barbed wires and all these exclusive gated communities, even from home to school, work and play, then they'll miss the hustle and bustle of the crowds!

Originally Posted by IContainMultitudes

A good quote from Michael Shermer on this subject:

I think one reason why a lot of this stuff bothers me is because it seems to be essentially anti-science.

Conspiracy theories have also always seemed anti-social to me, and that may be why Aspies are drawn to them. I just think there are far more important things in my life to worry over.
I have no opinion one way or the other as to whether these things are true or not nor whether the people that believe them are right or not, but this is what I feel;

A conspiracy theory is like a religion and I simply don't care what you do with it, so long as you’re not forcing it on me I am happy to talk to you about it, within reason.

I just mean that people can get passionate about anything and not realise they are making others uncomfortable or feel threatened, if somebody says they are putting sawdust in the bread and I don't want to talk about it, they should respect my wishes and move on to something else. Being Aspergical and a conspirisist would be social suicide I think... my two cents ; ]

Like Gomendosi, I like to keep my theories within reason. I like to be able to offer as much proof as possible. The problem is that when there's already a theory that's accepted by the general public, most people are not open minded enough to even consider alternate theories. Is like saying the world is round, back when everybody believed that it was flat. People got into trouble back then, and people get into trouble now.

On the other hand, when a conspiracy theory has not been discussed to death, there's no general accepted explanation and there's no peer pressure to believe one side on another. On those cases is easier to get a logical discussion going and ideas flow freely, connecting the dots.

Sadly, even when people are open to new ideas, often they are not interested because it does not affects them. I think this would be specially true with Aspies because we usually try to keep ourselves submerged into *our own* interests, ignoring everybody else's.

Let's take for example Family Law... specifically US Law (which varies by State) and all the rules and procedures that govern what happens to the children when a couple divorces. We all know there's always two points people fight about in court:

* Custody
* Child Support

...and this 2 things are tied up. The more custody days you get during the year, the bigger the child support you gonna receive from your ex. So people fight a lot about it. That much is generally known and accepted by the public.

Now put that knowledge of Child Support law on hold in your mind... lets discuss another generally accepted issue: Poor African American Neighborhoods in the US. We could tell from looking at the stats that there's high unemployment and high percentage of black males from such neighborhoods going to jail. People usually speculate as per "why"... but lets keep it within reason... I happen to know a lot of troubled african americans living through this conditions and I spotted a pattern which I'll describe in steps:

Step #1: Couple gets married and have kids... (fairly common, not specific to african americans)

Step #2: Couple gets divorced male ends up paying child support (again, fairly common, not specific to african americans)

Step #3: Male looses job for silly reasons (<--- common problem for african americans, I've seen it first hand many times over)

...at this point, the male needs a child support adjustment. He needs a lawyer, but he just lost the job and can't pay for a lawyer. He will go to the local "legal aid office", but odds are that this "legal aid" office assisted his ex during the divorce so they will claim "conflict of interest" and will not help him. Unable to get a child support adjustment, he keeps looking for a job and days go by. Even if he finds a job, any job, odds are the new job is going to pay a lot less than the previous one. He is still unable to meet his child support payments. Pretty soon, child support enforcement starts working and the next step happens:

Step #4: Male looses his license for being behind in child support payments.

...at this point an very unjust situation happens. The system is punishing this male for not paying something that he wasn't supposed to be paying in the first place. Now he has no licence to drive up to the work place. Logic would say, he should stop driving. But if he does, he would have to quit the job. That means not paying any child support at all, which in turns means going to jail for sure. So the male has to make a decision:

a) Stop Working, quit job, stop paying *some* child support and go to jail for sure
b) Keep driving to work without a license, and *maybe* go to jail... if you get caught

What you think he will choose? Go to jail for sure, or risk it and *maybe* go to jail. It's a no brainier, he's between a rock and a hard place:

Step #5: Male gets caught driving without a license and is sent to jail.

Once he gets out of jail, he still has to keep paying child support or he will go back to jail again. But now with a record, nobody will give him employment. The system is telling this man: "If you don't pay me this money, you will go to jail for sure". Again, he is between a rock and a hard place. Now our male comes across and empty house with some valuables goodies inside. another decision has to be made:

a) Don't rob the house and go to jail for having no money
b) Rob the house and only go to jail if you get caught

Another no brainier... option b at least has hope of staying free. So he keeps doing this every month, until the next step happens:

Step #6: Male gets caught doing a criminal activity and goes to jail

...at this point, a loop is set up. You get out of jail, go back in... either for child support that you cannot pay, or for robing somebody in order to pay the child support.

And all this steps can be verified. Choose a hood, any hood, and look at the public records of the residents. 95% of the time you will see that "Driving Without A license" is the first offense on their records. What can we make of this? The system is design in such a way that is very easy for the poor to be forced into being a criminal.

Now, if I were to say this is a conspiracy against black people, I would be going into the "far-fetch" realm. But for all the people that are behind in child support, how often the government enforces the Driving License Revocation on non-minorities? Those records must exist. I haven't found them tho... But I can tell you that outside the african american hood, I know many non african americans who are also behind in child support and their licenses are not usually revoked.

Now, please note that I'm not observing this situation because I'm a paranoic about conspiracies. I happen to be divorced, I happen to pay child support, I happen to be unemployed and of course... I'm behind on my payments. I'm not black tho, I'm Puerto Rican, in a nice and sexy caribbean-shade of brown... and my driving license is still valid. But I can see how easy I could fall into this loop, specially being a minority myself. So, at this point, what I look for is "solutions", not sensationalism. Instead of "OMG look at this", I try to ask myself "What can be changed on the system to fix this situation?".

Well, child support adjustments should be automatic. You should not be required to go before a judge to get this thing adjusted every single time. If we have child support tables in place, and a nice thick rule-book, only special cases should go to the judge. So I investigated and I found the following:

1) The child support payee don't pay the ex directly, instead he pays the government.
2) The government then holds the money for a few weeks and sends a check to the recipient parent. <-----Red flag right there

It caught my attention to see that the money is temporary held. From working on big corporations, I know this is usually done to obtain interests from the money being held. So I looked around and found quite a few documents from several different states describing court budgets. And guess which money is used to fund the State's Judges Retirement Plans? <drum roll> The interests from the child support money being held.

So, is not about the well-being of the children. Is about forcing minorities into crime while funding their own retirement plans. Conspiracy at it's finest... and I wasn't even looking for it.

I think I'm going to close this thread now. We had a problem recently with someone who was posting lots of stuff of this nature who seemed to be out to bait people into arguments, and if discussions of such non-AS related subjects are going to stir up trouble here, they're not worth it, and we would prefer it if people who want to discuss "conspiracy theory" topics do so on one of the many forums dedicated to such topics that are on the internet. This isn't about suppressing "weird" or unpopular ideas, it's about preventing arguments over subjects that are not especially relevant to an AS discussion forum that are likely to upset people.

(I'm not singling out the OP for anything here, I just think this discussion has gone about as far as it needs to go.)