The Negative Social Impact of Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories are often seen as laughable, and the people who believe them are considered paranoid but usually harmless individuals.
But while many conspiracy theories may indeed be harmless, recent psychological research suggests that some of the social consequences of conspiracy theories deserve more serious attention.
Many conspiracy theories undermine people’s confidence in established positions on topics such as climate change and vaccination.
My colleague Daniel Jolley and I found, for example, that people who were exposed to anti-government conspiracy theories were less likely to want to vote than those who had read information refuting conspiracy theories. In a similar study, we found that people who read about climate change conspiracy theories (versus those who read anti-conspiracy material and those who read no material about climate change) expressed less intention to take action to reduce their carbon footprint. In another investigation, we found that reading about anti-vaccine conspiracy theories reduced people’s intentions to vaccinate, compared with those who viewed arguments refuting conspiracy theories, or those who read no material about vaccination.
In each case, conspiracy theories decreased social engagement because they left people feeling powerless, and there is also some evidence that conspiracy theories might influence people without them knowing it.
Much more at http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/01/04/are-conspiracy-theories-all-bad-17/the-negative-social-impact-of-conspiracy-theories
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You freedom hating conspiracy theorist you.
it's not even ideology-based; lefties, righties and moderates all fall victim to CT.
I think today's historians deserve a lot of blame for it; they're often so carefully postmodernist that they completely hate "narrative" -- and that's what average people are looking for in history (understandably) -- tell me the story!
When the experts refuse to tell a story, CT cranks fill the gap. 
Take your pick who is more dangerous - someone that only believes events happen in a vacuum or someone that believes everything in life is a conspiracy against them.
Which one would you trust if you had to? One seems like a dumb red shirt on star trek and the other believes NASA bombed the moon.
The problem is not that Conspiracy Theories exist. It's that they've been proven true time and time again. NSA isn't spying on you, well, not on you individually. Snowden is a traitor for revealing the extent that the NSA is actually spying on you.
We are not targeting civilians. We don't do that. Any suggestion that we are is mere conspiracy theory nonsense. Bradley Manning is a traitor for revealing the video that proves that we are targeting people who are unarmed, and no threat.
Project Azorian. Project Ivy Bells. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments. Iran-Contra. Extraordinary Rendition.
God, I could go on for hours just posting links to things that were dismissed as conspiracy theory, and then later, confirmed to be true. CIA admitting that half the UFO's sighted were because of them. Secret planes and all that.
So when a Government acts in an untrustworthy manner, or betrays that trust regularly, complaining that the people don't trust them is kind of asinine to say the least. Worse, each one that is proven, gives credence to the next, no matter how improbable it may seem. Because the previous dozen seemed pretty improbable too.
Now, each of these proven projects, operations, and policies were preceded by denials, before finally admitting that the truth was we were doing it. No, we're not doing that. Oh, you have the papers? Well, yes we are, and the person who gave you those papers is a traitor. We're going to put them on trial for revealing the dirty secrets, and we're not going to try anyone for actually doing the dirty secret stuff.
So the Government acts in an untrustworthy manner, and then complains that it isn't trusted by the people. Go figure. 
