The Conspirasphere

If a killer asteroid doesn’t get us, perhaps the pseudo-cosmologists will. NOEL ROONEY ponders two competing schools of anti-conspiracy thought.

two things struck me when I saw the press release from NASA – the one telling us not to worry about rumours on the Internet that an asteroid was heading for Earth in September – appearing as a story in so many mainstream news outlets. First, the high profile of the story said something interesting about the status of conspiracy theory, and how it may be changing; second, it implies a dichotomy in the thinking of the anti-conspiracy community that in some ways mirrors the distinction I have suggested between schools of conspiracy theorising ( ft331:5).

the first point, of course, also says something about the Internet. While for many observers (this writer included, at least some of the time) the Internet is somewhere between a democracy of fools (a term first used – I think – by Damian thompson in his book Counter knowledge in 2008) and a kaleidoscope of the absurd (I’ll admit to that one), it is increasingly the default source of information, and more importantly verification, for huge numbers of people. What that says about us, I’ll leave to someone more qualified (what in, I’m not entirely sure) to explore.

For NASA to produce and disseminate a refutation (albeit a little tongue-in-cheek) of what on the face of it is simply a wacky piece of pseudo-cosmology makes me wonder if the Establishment is beginning to take conspiracy-minded individuals and groups more seriously, or at least taking their influence on the Internet-using public more seriously. I don’t know if large numbers of people were digging holes and filling them with tinned food and rifles on the strength of the asteroid story going viral; but for a prestigious organisation to broadcast their views in response to the obliteration meme, they must assume the story is important enough, in some way or another, for an official response.

the two types of anti-conspiracy thought that I found myself pondering were on the one hand the feeling that conspiracy, and conspiracy-related stories, are simply silly, and should be stamped out purely for that reason (one might term this the Lynne truss school of anticonspiracy); and on the other the more serious reaction that fears conspiracy theory will lead to the breakdown of civilisation as we know it (think Francis Wheen, or Sunstein and Vermeule). I see these views as mirroring the hermeneutic and automatic dissident schools of conspiracy, respectively. that’s a simplistic and schematic taxonomy, I know, but this is a very short column.

It also struck me that NASA’s refutation, which likely meant little or nothing to the vast majority of the media-consuming public, had actually worked to confirm the original rumour for many in the conspiracy community. this is part of the recursive mindset that inhabits so many alternative websites and books: if the Establishment says what I’m saying is untrue, well that just proves I’m really onto something, otherwise they wouldn’t be falling over themselves to deny it, would they?

You could feel sorry for NASA; or you could ask yourself (and perhaps NASA) why they went to such lengths for so little reward. this is a celestial gambit with no winning outcomes. www.independent. co.uk/news/science/nasa-no-the-worldisnt-going-to-be-destroyed-by-an-asteroid-inseptember-10464953.html