Day 63 of writing every day.
I don’t think there are any literate thinking adults that haven’t come across mentions of conspiracy theories and their believers either in person or through some form of media. I don’t usually expose myself to them, but when I do I don’t turn a deaf ear and mute out what people have to say anymore, but rather keep myself open to hearing them out.
The arguments presented make a lot of sense even if the amount of information that needs to be parsed through to come up with the arguments to explain something that mainstream media and talking heads have a simple and clear answer or hypothesis for. I mean all the mainstream people have to say to give their statements and arguments credibility is to say something like “Scientists have discovered X,” or “The data collected by Organization Y is proof that,” and so on. And conversely it’s as easy to dismiss any conspiracy theory by saying it’s been disproven or that the information is wrong/false.
Most people don’t do the digging themselves and just leave it up to the specialists to feed them information and trust that the information is true, especially if it comes from sources whose ideas and views are something they are able to closely identify with. I don’t think there’s anyone who is free of these tendencies towards bias, especially those who have a strong identity they’re bent on affirming. These identities could include political party affiliation, religion, ethnicity/nationality, sex/gender, and so on.
Whatever the truth is, I just want to see the best in people. If conspiracy theories give people the energy to get up and push on with their lives, good for them. I just hope things remain peaceful and that those who truly seek to divide and control us don’t get away with whatever they have planned forever
Thanks for reading!
One Chance Works 