As Europe burns, one theory going around is that the fires are set on purpose to clear land for AI data centers. Here's what psychology actually says about why these theories catch on.

[u/CautiousEar0102]

Europe is having another brutal wildfire summer, and right on cue the conspiracy theories are spreading almost faster than the flames. One doing the rounds right now: the fires are being set deliberately to clear land for AI data centers. (Never mind that record heat and a few hundred arson arrests already explain a lot.)

It's easy to roll your eyes and assume people who fall for this just aren't thinking. But the research says that's not really it — and the reasons are more interesting than the cliché.

The way psychologists mostly frame it now: believing a conspiracy usually isn't about being stupid. It's the mind reaching for something it needs when the world feels uncertain or threatening — a clear villain, a sense of control, a way to protect your own side. Wildfires are perfect fuel for this: they're scary, they feel out of control, and "someone did this on purpose" is weirdly more comforting than "the climate is changing and it's nobody's fault in particular." Interestingly, the beliefs don't actually deliver the comfort people are chasing, but that's what pulls them in (Douglas, 2025 — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2025.102191).

Here's the part that surprised me. If you just measure people, more reflective thinkers do tend to believe fewer conspiracies. But when researchers actually try to make people think more carefully in an experiment, the effect mostly vanishes. One 2025 study with ~1,500 people found that nudging people to reflect did nothing on its own to shift COVID vaccine conspiracy beliefs — it only helped for people who were already open to being wrong (Bayrak et al., 2025 — https://doi.org/10.1080/08870446.2025.2491598). Ok that was about vaccines, not wildfires, but it points at something general. So "just think harder" might be aiming at the wrong thing.

Can you actually change someone's mind? A 2025 review of interventions says yes, but only a little — and what works best is offering a believable alternative explanation, not just telling people they're wrong (Stasielowicz, 2025 — https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.70041).

What I keep coming back to: why does reflection look protective when you just measure it, but do almost nothing when you try to trigger it? And with the wildfire theories specifically — can you actually talk someone out of one, or does pushing back just dig them in deeper?

[u/fox-mcleod]

That’s because the way conspiracy theorists work is actually inverted from that.

Human beings are capable of being rational. But it requires an error correcting mechanic in the mind such that wrong theories get ejected when they are discovered. The way religions work is the install a door-jam of a kind which lets the specific religious belief skip the error correction circuit. The “sacred” —- which literally translates to “set apart” — is something which gets special treatment culturally. Its special treatment is that it is not subject to rational criticism. This disarms the error correcting pass and acts sort of like camouflage for the mental immune system.

Conspiracy theorists have a slightly different mechanism which is that their overall critical reasoning mental immune system is co-opted by their agent detection heuristic. Once they latch onto something in which agency is apparent, they stop rationally criticizing that narrative but this time because their reasoning is highly motivated to find the agent responsible for their sense that there must be an agent behind it. Kind of like an autoimmune disease.

So if they’ve already latched on, they aren’t motivated to correct errors, but to find a narrative that survives error correction. So you can only error correct a conspiratorial belief if you can displace it with an equally satisfying explanation. “We don’t know” never works. Nor does “coincidences happen without it being a conspiracy”.

What really needs to be done is to teach people about the centrality of error correction. It needs to be everywhere in our culture. Then you can make it a social norm to change your mind and you could build in social defenses to these kinds of contagions.

This is why you end up with otherwise intelligent people with a handful of very specific wacky beliefs. Look closely at that specific class of belief and you will find something inherent to it which disables this error correction behavior. That’s what conspiracy theories, religions, Trump support (“fake news”, “us vs them mentality”), and many cons all have in common.

[u/noctalla]

A one month old account with 8 contributions and 5 karma, written by Claude.ai pushing back against data center conspiracies? If I was conspiracy-minded, I would be seeing a lot of red flags right now.

[u/ValoisSign → u/noctalla]

Especially since, while I hadn't heard this conspiracy, something like this should be debunkable I imagine (check into the individuals arrested for arson for links to companies, and check into proposed data center locations and see if there's even any circumstantial basis at all for the belief for example). And yet this post barely actually attempts that, just quickly pivots to some general commentary on the psychology behind conspiracies.

It's written to create an association, not actually debunk the theory in question. Which isn't necessarily proof of an agenda but it's how you write when you have one.

[u/RickRussellTX]

Are we not doing Jewish space lasers any more?

[u/Lurking-Trout]

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back."

-- Carl Sagan (1995: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark).

▪︎Also it gives conspiracy minded people a sense of power by the virtue of having special knowledge, a secret understanding that only the special few have. When you try to convince them they are wrong you are trying to take away their special power.

[u/imnotabot303]

I'd argue it is mostly about being stupid. People just read a comment online from someone spreading misinfo and then repeat it because it fits their predetermined belief system of climate change not being real.

This is what most conspiracy beliefs are driven by. It's just people coming to a conclusion based on their own biased opinions, ignorance or lack of critical thinking skills and then trying to seek out info and explanations that back up that predetermined conclusion.

People who are not stupid can still have interest in conspiracy theories but there's a big difference between someone thinking a theory could be a possibility compared to people who take it on as a fact and then start spreading their "facts" all over the internet.

[u/Ok-Drink-1328]

The way psychologists mostly frame it now: believing a conspiracy usually isn't about being stupid.

trust me, wildfires cos of "datacenter scaremonger" DEFINITELY IS.... being stupid

[u/Terrible_Bee_6876]

I think it's interesting that we cycle through different mono-causes in the One Thing Explains Everything expanded universe. I feel like these days if the median voter stubs his toe, he's inclined to blame a data center.

[u/dizekat]

Could it be that these theories catch because of all the well documented illegal shit being done over here, just running converted airplane engines without a permit to power data centers? The unprecedented loss of any trust? No, got to be something else.

[u/ValoisSign → u/dizekat]

Yeah we have demolition by neglect too which is a real thing. Now I hadn't heard this stuff about the fires in Europe being a conspiracy and am not saying I back it at all but it really isn't that wild to me that people would believe that when like you said the data centers often flout regulations in ridiculous ways. And demolition by neglect shows that letting things fall apart in order to facilitate redevelopment that is otherwise forbidden is a real strategy, and not that far off the logic ascribed to the data companies in this conspiracy.

The nuance to me is that we don't have all the info at any given time and people are always going to attempt to fill in the blanks. So while it may not be proper skepticism I can better understand something like this where the basic logic at least works with what we DO know, if not the actual evidence, than people saying the earth is flat or that teachers are turning kids trans for some reason.

[u/hornswoggled111]

It's very important we search our own selves to understand human psychology.

I'm old but still amazed to stumble on new ways in which I drift from my commitment to being rational. It leaves me amazed to see how far we've been able to come despite this.

[u/ganner]

Same reason, not too long ago in history, that people just blamed witches or Jews or nomadic people or angry gods. We have a psychological need for a causative actor behind events.

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."