Forum:Idea for a social experiment

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I guess someone would ask the Psychology department of a university but here it goes- Knowing people will believe any wacko doomsday ideas, come up with a "doomsday prophecy" based off pseudo-history and lies (much like any other doomsday idea) and see how many people believe it. Once enough people believe it, interview the believers and figure out the Psychology behind why people believe it. It would make a good social experiment and it would make an advance in psychology.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 21:14, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Here is a recent study on conspiracy theorists' willingness to believe conspiracy theories regardless of merit or supporting evidence. Leading large numbers of people to believe in an imminent doomsday scenario could hit ethical barriers. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:51, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Interesting stuff, thanks for the link. Goes to show that people are willing to believe anything--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 23:54, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't get it, why can't you use believers in existing/past doomsday scenarios for your experiment? What's the point of fabriacting one?Super ^{Dude,What does mine say? Sweet!} 10:01, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I have had a similar idea to the OP. To create a conspiracy theory from scratch, document the whole creation process, unleash it upon the world and wait for it to become popular in CT circles, then release the footage of it being made and sit back to watch the fireworks.

Although, for every one person who may consider their belief in this and other conspiracy theories being wrong, there would be two more who would see it as proof of a cover up, CTs are funny that way.

But yes, in reality, I'm pretty sure both your idea and mine would, at the very least, be encouraging the idea that believing in these sorts of things is ok, and at most violate some ethics laws.

Also, someone has already created a conspiracy theory (check it out). For some reason, my idea involved garden gnomes.

dEcib3L 14:44, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

The reason I mentioned creating one is because people already believe in existing ones. I say make up a new one to find out how many people would be moronic enough to believe it.--Rationalzombie94 (talk) 18:50, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that would be funny. I believe that was the purpose of the Bielefeld conspiracy.

dEcib3L 06:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC)