Camera.

 

After around a year of apparent inactivity, a person or persons unknown who have been undertaking a series of militant actions against the congestion charge camera systems in the local area has now struck again, as you can see from the photo above. Please click on it to see a larger version. The camera, which had been mounted on a pole, was located close to the corner of of Frobisher Road and Manor Road in Erith. A local resident caught a person involved on their doorbell security camera when the perpetrator apparently used a battery-powered angle grinder to cut through the pole and the supporting wiring to disable the device. Local police and neighbourhood watch have been informed of the situation, as have local councillors. As I have previously written, I neither support or condone any form of antisocial behaviour or law-breaking; I merely observe and report.

Following the action that I described above, I did some study; it would appear that quite a large amount of academic research has been carried out on people who subscribe to the many and various conspiracy theories. The number of conspiracy theories and other unsubstantiated stories that are currently doing the rounds made me wonder what the cause of them was. After doing some research, I found that psychologists have long been studying people with a tendency to believe conspiracy theories. Here is some of what they found. There has been a lot of recent work in psychology attempting to figure out why some people are particularly drawn to conspiracy theories. For example, research has found that people who believe in conspiracy theories tend to have a greater need for cognitive closure (the desire to find an explanation when explanations are lacking) and to be unique. They are more likely to have a cognitive bias called hypersensitive agency detection or teleologic thinking (whereby events are over attributed to hidden forces, purposes, and motives). Some research has also found that conspiracy beliefs are associated with lower levels of education, and poor analytic thinking. That said, studies have also revealed that half of the US population believes in at least one political or medical conspiracy theory. So belief in conspiracy theories is far more “normal” than many of us might think. The figures for the UK are thought to be broadly similar, if a little lower. The popularity of films like JFK, The Manchurian Candidate, and Conspiracy Theory illustrates how many of us can be drawn to a good conspiracy theory. According to a new scientific paper authored by Robert Gonzalez of the University of South Carolina and Elisa Maffioli of the University of Michigan, the researchers found that people who exhibit high levels of distrust, particularly towards government institutions, are most likely to believe false information. “We find that demographic and economic characteristics of individuals are poor predictors of whether they are more likely to believe false narratives,” state the researchers. “However, consistent differences arise along a key dimension: conspiracy theorists are significantly more likely to report high levels of general distrust. Specifically, a one standard deviation increase in [distrust] increases the likelihood that an individual believes misinformation by about 14 percentage points.” Studies show that conspiracy theories tend to snowball during times of crisis, when fear is rampant and clear explanations are in short supply. They appeal in part because they offer a straightforward narrative and someone to blame. But researchers are starting to pay more attention to these theories, and the motives and mechanisms that drive them, as it becomes clear that they aren’t a harmless method for coping with the unknown. They can have truly damaging consequences in the real world. In order to understand the “psychology of conspiracy theories,” we have to start by acknowledging that about half of the population believes in at least one conspiracy theory. Unlike delusions, which, by definition, are for the most part not shared beliefs, conspiracy theories are usually shared by groups of people. We should also acknowledge that conspiracy theories occasionally turn out to be true. So belief in conspiracy theories is relatively normal and shouldn’t be conflated with being “crazy.” That said, there has been considerable recent research in psychology to understand differences between those who believe in conspiracy theories and those who don’t. This body of research has revealed a number of different “cognitive quirks” of people who believe in conspiracy theories, like greater need for control, certainty, and “cognitive closure” (the desire to have an explanation for events when explanations are lacking) or the desire to be unique. Other research has found that those who believe in conspiracy theories are more likely to have a cognitive bias called “hypersensitive agency detection” or “teleological thinking” whereby events are over-attributed to hidden forces, purposes, and motives. Finally, it has been found that lack of analytic thinking and something called “bullshit receptivity” - the tendency to be duped by superficially profound statements that are in reality meaningless - are over represented among those who believe in conspiracy theories. Once you’re falling down the misinformation rabbit hole, “confirmation bias” -  the tendency to seek out information that confirms pre-existing intuitions - tends to steer us toward certain kinds of information over others. For example, research suggests that “conspiracist ideation” - the general belief that hidden, nefarious forces are pulling the puppet strings of human events - may be one kind of pre-existing intuition that accounts for why people gravitate towards conspiracy theories and why belief in one conspiracy theory tends to predict belief in others. But the related cognitive process of “motivated reasoning” whereby we sift through evidence to reinforce our ideological beliefs rather than to find objective truth also accounts for why people are drawn towards particular conspiracy theories. What do you think? Email me at hugh.neal@gmail.com with your thoughts. 

The historical photo above (click on it to see a larger version) shows part of the river front factory in Erith High Street once used by electronics manufacturer Burndept. This looks to have been taken shortly before the building was demolished; the former Erith Riverside Swimming Baths can be seen in the foreground. Burndept once had another, larger manufacturing facility located in the former Vickers-Maxim munitions factory in St Fidelis’ Road, off West Street and close to the railway line and where Bronze Age Way now runs through. Burndept built all sorts of electrical and electronic devices, and did a lot of sub – contracting work for other companies. During the war Burndept produced military communication equipment until April 1941, when the Erith factory was almost completely destroyed by a German incendiary raid, forcing the company to relocate production to a former jute mill in Dundee. However, after the war, Burndept returned to Erith, where they set up business in Erith High Street and St Fidelis Road. During the 1960s, the company manufactured the SARBE lifejacket beacon for the RAF and a number of Commonwealth and foreign air forces. The beacon sent an automatic and continuous transmission of a homing signal as soon as the life jacket entered the water. They also built mobile two way radios for industrial and commercial use. The St. Fidelis Road factory shared premises with Vox musical instruments, maker of the world famous Vox AC-30 guitar amplifier, as used by pretty much every major band in the 60’s and 70’s. in fact, Burndept made the chassis and cases for many Vox organs and amplifiers. By 1965 Vox and Burndept (who by this stage were largely owned by the same parent company) were pretty much different departments within the same umbrella organisation. Later, the Vox brand was sold off to Japanese musical instrument maker Korg, and it is now no more than a label. Burndept struggled on into the late 1970’s, until finally becoming part of the Ever – Ready group. All operations in Erith ceased, and the final Erith High Street factory was demolished shortly after the photo above was taken. Do you have any recollections of Burndept? Email me with your memories to hugh.neal@gmail.com. 

As people gear up for Christmas, the whole thorny issue of gifts and gift wrapping comes up. I have a major issue with gift wrapping paper for Christmas presents; due to the treatment much of the paper receives during production, it cannot be recycled, and is especially bad for the environment, as the only way to get rid of it is to put it in landfill, or to burn it. What I have chosen to do is rather than wrapping Christmas presents, I will be giving them in sparkly gift bags, which can be reused, year after year. As I have previously written, this is also the reason that I don't send Christmas cards, as I believe them to be ruinously bad for the environment - wood and rags are pulped to make the cards, energy is used to print them, fossil fuels are used to transport them to the shops, electricity and gas are burned to light and heat the shops, then once they are purchased, more fossil fuels are used to deliver the cards around the planet, then after a few days they are discarded, and many cannot be recycled, due to the plastic or wax derived finishes that many cards have. On top of this, greetings cards are a vector for spreading Cold, Flu and Covid-19 infections. The cards themselves can harbour the viruses for several days, but the main risk is in the envelope - viruses can live in the saliva used to activate the glue to seal the envelopes. I can understand the practice in the past, when a Christmas card sent to friends and loved ones would be a form of annual communication when you might otherwise not hear from them, but nowadays this is far from the case; instant worldwide online communications mean that from my perspective, Christmas cards are consigned to the past. one can send electronic, online greetings for a fraction of the cost of a postage stamp - and the recipient will not be in danger of getting an infection. On top of this, the ruinous cost of postage stamps nowadays make sending Christmas cards unaffordable for many people. 

Residents in Manor Road, Erith were once again disturbed when on Thursday evening a large fire was detected within the EMR recycling facility towards the Eastern end of the very long road, coincidentally, opposite the site of the damaged congestion charge camera featured in the first article this week, but still close to a number of residential properties. As you can see from the photos above - click on either to see a larger view, the emergency services were soon on site and the fire was extinguished within 2 hours. This is the second serious fire to occur in a close proximity within the last 6 or 7 months after the previous very serious fire which occurred back in June, which I covered at the time. At the time of writing, I have no information as to the cause of the fire which occurred within a major industrial scrapyard and recycling facility. I would also like to apologise to readers that this week's blog update has been very Erith-centric, whereas I normally like to ensure that stories, history and news cover a much wider local area. It is just the luck of the draw this time, with newsworthy issues happening within a very small geographic area.

The end video this week is all about bird watching on the Crayford and Dartford marshes. As always, comments and feedback should be sent to me at hugh.neal@gmail.com.