Hello Ronintetsuro,

My understanding of conspiracy was shaken radically when I heard a recording of a talk given by Lance deHaven-Smith, Professor for Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University (Edit: updated timestamp) . I will do my best to paraphrase what he says:

1. Conspiracy is a valid legal concept in many jursidictions. We use it all the time to denote groups of people coming together to commit crime. It is not some marginal, esoteric concept that belongs to the tin-foil-hatted.

2. Conspiracy Theory (and by extension Theorist as one who ascribes to it) has come to denote, usually with negative connotations, for a hypothesis that some result is the effect of a collusion of individuals participating in a Conspiracy.

3. Blanket rejection of all conspiracy theories essentially supports either a theory of one individual's action: the notion that the effect in question was achieved by a single person; or coincidence: the notion that said result is the effect of unrelated, uncoordinated forces.

Under this framework, the official explanation for the events that occurred on the morning of September 11th, 2001 is in fact a theory that suggests conspiracy - many hijackers conspired to act simultaneously to overtake several aircraft and fly them into prominent buildings.

Of course the above example is not what is meant when the term 'Conspiracy Theory' is thrown around in public discourse. The term has come to mean something more akin to a loosely supported paranoia about dominant groups or paradigms.

WMD in Iraq as the pretense for invading. That to me, was a conspiracy. The "evidence" seems to have been clearly orchestrated from the very top of the Bush administration. It seems evident that George Tennant was forced, or perhaps strongly coerced to a acumulate information any way he could to substantiate the claim that yellowcake uranium was purchased to make nukes.

Then Colin Powell testifies to the UN that we must... Blah blah, smoking gun, blah.

I'm not much of a conspiracy guy but only because I'd be over consumed by my attempts to uncover the truth. My guess is that many "conspiracies" are accurate and many are partially accurate and some are bunk. But I don't think anyone's "crazy" for holding an unpopular opinion. Those people are often vindicated by time.

Edit: Did I misunderstand the question? Are you asking what our definition of a conspiracy is?

I'm going to answer before reading the other comments in this thread, and try to give you a stream of consciousness answer, without editing:

When I think of conspiracy I first think of it with somewhat negative connotations - like crazy paranoid people with tin foil hats. Aliens, government plots, etc. From there I think of 9/11. I had an ex back in 2004 who watched one of the 9/11 documentaries and was instantly transformed into a paranoid, the government's one and only goal is to scare us into submission, hateful d-bag.

If I think about it deeper, I tend to think about it as a verb - the government conspiring or people conspiring and ganging up (think middle school girls) to people conspiring (think Enron.)

If I think deeper, I don't think of conspiracy in general as being a bad thing, but the people I associate the word with are bad connotation-wise. But I don't think it's always bad to be paranoid - there was a saying between some druggie friends and I "it's not being paranoid if they are actually watching." I do think it's bad if you let that paranoia or conspiracy theories take over your life; if your actions and decisions are dependent on your theories.

However, being aware, being careful, and being educated and using that to aid you in your decisions isn't bad. For example, if we were to learn that the NSA is actually actively reading every single one of my hubski/facebook/gmail/text message/phone call/etc. there would be a lot of "crazy conspiracy theorists" that would probably yell at the top of their lungs "I TOLD YOU SO!!!!"

But the value in being able to talk, text, interact online, etc is more valuable to me than the possibility that someone might be listening to the things say. And censoring myself or examining every word I type as if some one was plotting against me and piecing together every detail of my life seems like a way worse situation than it's worth. I think of Orwell and Doublespeak here.

Perhaps if I were involved with something that wasn't legal I might not see it the same way. ie: "hey man can you change the numbers that dictate the price of the entire world's loans for some leftover sushi." If they had even had a little paranoia in their blood, they might not be in the situation they are now. But considering that whole banking world is "too big to fail" / "too big to prosecute" perhaps they did think it, examine the risk/reward, and decide to not care, just like I don't let the possibility of some suit in the government reading my text messages rule my life.

Alright. So. Stream of consciousness enough for you?

Reading back, I realize I link conspiracy to paranoia way more than I thought I did. I do think that reading and educating yourself - whether it's with documentaries or forums dedicated to the "crazy conspiracy theories" has a lot of potential value. As long as you look at it as objectively as possible. Realizing that even the people making the documentaries have a motive and there is a producer asking questions, a director with an end-goal, and an editor who transforms it into a story people want to watch. If you take the information, decide how strongly you want to believe the pieces, and use that knowledge to help you make informed decisions about what you share about yourself, or online, or places you visit or the people you associate with. That is valuable. Questioning the system, having open eyes, making informed decisions, being part of a discussion, making sure other people ask questions, etc. That all has a lot of value.

Because if no one does this, then it will be a heck of a lot easier for people to get their way - whether it's a government suit, a middle school girl, or group of guys who control a buttload of money. And if it gets to that point, you have a bunch of sheep and a bunch of wolves, and the sheep are only valuable to the wolves, not to themselves.

Realizing this might be almighty threadomancy, here's my 2 cents:

In the general sense, a conspiracy is a gathering of 2 or more individuals covertly working together in order to realize their illegal goals. I'm not saying all illegal goals are illegit goals: many resistance-fighters have to work covertly in order to avoid capture.

However, in the specific sense, 'conspiracy' to me means the working together of people within an institution or government, working together in such a way as to avoid detaction of their illegal (as well as illegit) goals, executing actions which by their nature alone are only beneficial to this small group. In other words, a conspiracy is a small group breaking rules of law as well as making laws in order to further their own plans from which they themselves will benefit, and the majority of the world will not.

Should I find more nuance, I will adjust my statement.

I think that conspiracy theory has a large amount of appeal to people because we love having "eureka" moments where things suddenly make simple, perfect sense. We love to think that we're privy to information that the general public is too "stupid" or "complacent" to figure out for themselves; like we're too smart to have the wool pulled over our eyes.

Sometimes they're extremely believable (War on Drugs/Marijuana as a racket to increase prison industry revenues, 9/11 as a pretext for war in the Middle East), and sometimes they're just absurd (The US faked the moon landing to beat the USSR in the Space Race, the world is run by Lizard People that are hellbent on global domination).

While some are more believable than others, it largely comes down to the purveyor of said theories to connect dots that may-or-may-not actually connect in order to make their case. Whether it's something you actually believe in, or whether you just want a good, pulpy read, a conspiracy theory that is well strung together can bring about the "eureka" moment that people crave, even if they know it's a total yarn. We live for entertainment, and connecting the dots (or, rather, having them connected for us) is one of the most fun ways of entertaining ourselves.

I knew a conspiracy theorist who believed that hormonal birth control wasn't effective and that all the studies showing that it worked were a scam put out by the government and that having sex while on hormonal birth control was like asking to get pregnant.

I know that's an extreme example, but when I think of conspiracy theorists, my first thought is of that girl.

I like dumbphone's response.