Interesting link, thanks for sharing. I wonder what this means precisely: If you take out one of the characters or story elements of a conspiracy theory, th

Interesting link, thanks for sharing. I wonder what this means precisely: If you take out one of the characters or story elements of a conspiracy theory, the connections between the other elements of the story fall apart. I guess I have to read the paper, but what are these "connections" and what does "fall apart" actually mean? EDIT: I just skimmed the paper https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233879 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... The connections capture context-specific relationships, such as co-occurrences. The "fall apart" part comes from the fact that conspiracy theories rely on hidden, unsubstantiated, subjective interpretations of intent or actions whose validity can be questioned. If they are key pillars of the narrative, then their falsity can negate the truth of the narrative. This reminds me of a philosophical discussion around what "truth" means. Coherent theory of truth: truth is defined as a property that's coherent among a set of beliefs. It can also be used as an epistemic justification -- that is, any set of internally consistent beliefs can be taken as true. Of course, in practice, certain truth statements have to correspond to reality, which is where the correspondence theory of truth comes in.