I'm sorry if this post doesn't seem that high quality, but I do feel this might be the best place to ask. The point of this post is to inspire discussion, hopefully discussion that might be useful for answering certain questions I had.
On another board, I gathered evidence of the existence of "mainstream" conspiracy theories with the goal of figuring out why those conspiracy theories are, well, mainstream. Part of the problem is that, because they're mainstream, many people here may believe in them and may even contest the idea that they are even conspiracy theories. I don't really want to get into arguments over if a conspiracy theory is true or not, so just remember "Politics Is The Mindkiller".
1) JFK was assassinated in a conspiracy. (75% of Americans believe this according to a 2003 Gallup poll.)
2) Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in a conspiracy. (58% of Americans believe this according to a 2008 CNN/Essence poll.)
3) Bush lied about WMDs. (43% of Americans according to a 2005 Pew Survey, only 41% disagreed with this statement, according to a 2005 Pew Survey.)
4) No international consensus on who did 9/11, with 49% of Mexicans, 66% of Egyptians, 40% of Turks, 52% of Jordanians and 55% of Palestinians naming a suspect other than al-Qaeda. This is from a 2008 World Public Opinion poll (graph below).

It's clear that at least some conspiracy theories are treated as mainstream in at least some polities, but other conspiracy theories, like "Americans hoaxed the moon landing" are fringe (only 6% of Americans believe this, according to a 2001 Gallup poll [link here]). In fact, many bloggers, including the economist Robin Hanson, labor under the idea that all conspiracy theories are fringe and wonder why are these individuals so different from the "mainstream". So here's two questions that I would like answered, because these results had been bugging me:
1) There is some sort of method by which an individual can 'filter' out the false and "fringe" conspiracy theory while then selecting a 'true' and "mainstream" conspiracy theory to be accepted. What factors play into an individual's decision-making process to determine what conspiracy theories to accept and what to reject?
2) Is the process of believing in conspiracy theories impacted by some form of rationality? Does Bayesian logic plays a role here as well...do individuals unconsciously rate the likelihood of a conspiracy theory and accept conspiracy theories with a high probability of it occurring (while rejecting conspiracy theories with a low probability of it occurring)?
Addendum: (I tried to select examples that could generally be agreed to be "conspiracy theories" to avoid arguments over definitions that I'd lose, but I may have failed in this sort of thing. To reveal bias, I believe that a conspiracy theory is a hypothesis about a covert plot by more than one individual.)
His arguments only undermine the conception of free will as ultimate origination, but have nothing to say about (the more defensible) conception of free will as choosing on the basis of one's desires.
Am I misinterpreting him, or does his elaboration of determinism contradict quantum mechanics? He correctly points out at 11:10 that quantum mechanics doesn't provide support for free will (as he defined it), but he doesn't bother to reformulate his definition of determinism so that it doesn't require a Newtonian-like mechanics.
Yeah, science doesn't like mysterious occult powers without mechanisms, except when it does. Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation was an occult force without a mechanism (which is why many natural philosophers on the Continent dismissed it as a throwback to the natural magic tradition of the Renaissance). Is gravity unscientific?
This sounds as if there is a homunculus sitting inside of us somewhere that is just along for the ride, but lacks causal power to change the direction of our bodies. What is this "us" that isn't our brain and where is it?
As far as I know, the demarcation problem hasn't been solved, so saying something is "unscientific" is simply a kind of name-calling. The video (which I did not watch from start to finish) seems to be bog-standard philosophy (at least how it was done while I was in university). According to the philpapers survey, less than 14% of philosophers accept or lean towards libertarian free will. Of those philosophers that accept or lean towards free will, most do not accept the version of free will that he rejects in the video. Even for a philosopher, that doesn't seem very bold or refreshing.
"His arguments only undermine the conception of free will as ultimate origination, but have nothing to say about (the more defensible) conception of free will as choosing on the basis of one's desires."
That is not "more defensible", that's inane. What's the point of "freely choosing" what you want to do based on your desires...if you are not in control of your desires? It's a pedantic technicality that ignores what laymen generally assume when they say "free will"...that they are in control of their own actions, as well as their own desires that act as motivation for their own actions.
If I develop a mind control device that implants "desires" in the mind of its targets, and the targets act predictably based on said "desires", can you really say that the targets have 'free will'?
EDIT: It's possible that "free will" may somehow be "bounded" or "limited" (desires are selected, but you decide what you do with said desires), and that may be what you're getting at, but if this is the case, I don't think you should really call it "free will" then, lest it get confused with the broader interpretation of "free will" that is more commonly understood to be said definition of "free will".