i wonder if it’s a sign that our world - reality - is so weird that there’s no conspiracy theory to match it.
like it’s hard to believe that somewhere there’s a person who’s all “the world is round”, “people walked on the moon”, “covid is a transmissible virus that can be slowed by wearing masks”, “pyramids are a common architectural shape”, “chocolate tastes good, if sometimes a bit bitter” - but actually they made it all up, and is only coincidentally correct
( also, you’re right: bringing facts doesn’t help. it is the contrariness that seems to be the point )
My own personal hypothesis on this (I have no evidence for it) is that it’s a combination of us failing to teach critical thinking to multiple generations of people, combined with an enormous and well-funded campaign by the right to weaponize ignorance and undermine expertise. It goes back to at least the FUD campaigns of the tobacco companies when scientists tried to explain how bad smoking is. Tobacco spent billions on PR campaigns to undermine science and create confusion about what is real. Then the oil companies used the exact same model to prevent any action on climate change for decades. Again, it’s been so effective that people question the very reality in front of their eyes as yet another unseasonal category 5 hurricane flattens their house. Then of course you’ve got the potential endgame of it all, current R politicians who’s lie density in their speech is so high that nothing they say even overlaps with reality, yet their audience is primed for it and truth is now only a function of who fuels their unexamined anger the most.
I hope we come back from this, because if we don’t, all is lost.
it’s interesting that with smoking people did eventually realize they were being lied to. and there aren’t many conspiracies that i know of where people say “smoking is good”
maybe because it’s more obvious at a personal level? or maybe it’s more because the fud makers stopped? i’m not sure
My own personal hypothesis on this (I have no evidence for it) is that it’s a combination of us failing to teach critical thinking to multiple generations of people, combined with an enormous and well-funded campaign by the right to weaponize ignorance and undermine expertise
i do think the level of jfk is returning, plandemic, etc goes beyond simple ignorance. it feels like a deliberate choice to be misinformed. and i think that it must give them status within their subgroup, or protect their worldview in someway… make them feel special for having some “secret knowledge” maybe
to paraphrase the x-files, they want to believe. and maybe it’s that the fud makers are giving them a line they’re able to follow or some “facts” to hold up to justify their thinking
They did, but it took almost 100 years. Scientists were warning about smoking very early. Just like scientists were warning about climate change as early as the 1970s (if not sooner).
Most people thought smoking was good for you in some way for much of its history. Even doctors did early on. There are still people that believe this, though vanishingly few now. I don’t know if I’d apply the term “conspiracy” to any of their beliefs, but people frame their motivated reasoning with the denial tools of the time. In the 1960s people told themselves that smoking was medicinal, helped you lose weight, etc. Nowadays conspiracy thinking is the go-to for people who want to rationalize their feelings about something, so climate change gets framed that way.
What changed is government regulations to ban tobacco advertising, combined with decades of public health messaging from a lot of unsung heroes. This, very gradually, shifted the public narrative on smoking. It took 100 times longer than it should have and killed millions of people (including my mother) who wouldn’t have died if not for the FUD.
In the meantime, let’s promote some more factual pop history content maybe? I personally really like Extra Credits on YouTube, who’ve done a short series on the Incas as well as the Pacific and several old societies of South-East Asia and alloverAfrica.
