Conspiracy Theorism Spreading Faster than Bird Flu
California and New York apparently have been hit particularly hard. #Prayers
“Map Shows Top States for Conspiracy Theorists” Newsweek taunted from my feed. Naturally, I tripped over myself to click on the story, since this is good information to have when you’ve just released a book intended for this very audience. Having lived in all four states I could have predicted my Texas and Florida peeps would be coming in hot… but California and New York? Be still, my happy heart!
Accompanying the fiery map is a short movie titled Inside the Mind: Why We Believe in Conspiracy Theories. “From JFK’s assassination to 9/11, there are many who think the reality of our world is being hidden by those in charge,” a disembodied narrator with a sultry European accent begins dramatically. “Without any credible evidence, why do such thoughts persist?”
Yes, Dame Dubious, it’s just too bad we don’t have any credible evidence that 9/11 was an inside job. Or that the CIA could maybe possibly have been involved in Kennedy’s execution. Or that COVID vaccines are deadly. Such a shame.
“Conspiracy thinking is always about there’s more to events than meets the eye,” psychologist and master of the obvious Rob Brotherton explains in the clip. “Research revels there are certain traits that reliably predict belief in conspiracy theories. The one trait is paranoia. Another personality trait that is associated with conspiracy theories is open-mindedness.” You don’t say! (The entirety of the clip focuses on the psychopathic, paranoid part, obvs.)
See, if you think that our beloved government may not be acting in our best interests every minute of every day, you are—first and foremost—delusional. Sure, you are likely aware of dirty, real-life domestic programs such as MK-Ultra (mind control experiments conducted illegally by the CIA on human subjects from the 1950s to the 1970s), Operation Paperclip (the recruiting of Nazis to work for the US government after WWII), Operation Mockingbird (another CIA program that paid journalists, editors, and media execs to plant propaganda and manipulate news coverage in the 1960s and 1970s), the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (four decades of withholding treatment from African American men with syphilis to study the natural progression of the disease, leading to profound suffering and death for many), and Operation Northwoods (a DOD false-flag operation rejected by JFK—not that they murdered him because of it!—that proposed hijacking planes, sinking Cuban refugee boats, and orchestrating violent terrorist acts in US cities and then blaming them on Cuba to justify a military invasion read that again and really let it sink in). But are you going to let a little thing like history turn you into a skeptical, cynical crackpot?
The video goes on to explain people who fall for conspiracy theories also tend to believe in the paranormal (oh, hi!) and superstitions (hello again!) and new age ideas (nice to see you!). If counting on karma and embracing alternative medicine make me a kook, I’ll just be over here enthusiastically flying my freak flag if anyone needs me.
“There’s a psychological bias we suffer from to some extent all the time called proportionality bias,” Brotherton continues, “which is the tendency that when something big happens in the world, we expect that something big must have caused it. The most popular, successful conspiracy theories concern these huge events like the death of a president, a terrorist attack, natural disasters, and things like that.”
Am I missing something here? How is this a psychological bias and not Newton’s Second Law of Motion? How many “big things” that have happened in history were caused by “small things?” Has anyone ever tripped on an extension cord and accidentally gunned down a president, or failed to participate in a recipe exchange and had their house toppled by a tornado?
Another supposed reason some people believe in conspiracy theories is something called intentionality bias. Brotherton elaborates: “This is the tendency to assume that ambiguous, unexplained events happened because somebody intended them to, somebody meant it, somebody planned it, as opposed to thinking ‘this was just an accident or a coincidence or chaos’.”
Of course, accidents and coincidences and chaotic things happen all the time! But in what world would two planes taking down three buildings or proven deadly injections being relentlessly pushed on the world’s population qualify as serendipity? Asking for tin foil hatters everywhere.
“It makes sense that we would be a little bit paranoid, that we would be on the lookout for people who mean to do us harm,” Brotherton concedes. “Sometimes people do mean to do us harm. The trick is calibrating our paranoia so we’re being prudently paranoid instead of being irrationally paranoid.”
Our democidal government is designing, spraying, and wrapping our food with mystery toxins, force-injecting millions of citizens with experimental DNA-altering technology, and lying about both things all day every day. I’d put mistrusting them up there with locking your front door at night and not using password as your bank password on the Prudent Paranoia Scale.
The Newsweek piece doesn’t attempt to explain why Californians are more susceptible to conspiracies than Marylanders (but is it in any way weird that folks in and around DC would insist that Pizzagate is nothing more than a nutty notion reserved for the Q-Anon crowd? Ahem.). Instead, the piece focuses—as articles on conspiracy theories invariably do—on the supposed dearth of “supporting evidence” to support the wacky claims in question.
As the popular internet meme goes, the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth is generally about six months. December is going to be epic.
I proudly let my freak flag fly. I’m a conspiracy realist.
It’s actually pretty great being 65 because I no longer give a shit what anyone thinks of me.
Hell, I’m at the point that I’m very open to the idea that the earth is indeed flat.
It’s quite the process though, realizing that pretty much everything you ever knew to be true is a big fat lie. It’s called ontological shock. And too many people just cannot tolerate that state of being. They’d rather stay in their comfy cozy world of blissful ignorance. Without faith in God and believing that the Bible is His inspired word, I don’t believe these people have a chance in ever awakening.
I wholeheartedly admit I’m biased. I will NEVER not think when I hear somebody died - for ANY cause - how many shots did they take. 😢. Did they have those white fibrous clots in their veins and/or arteries? BTW - Richard Hirschman is back to seeing them in 50% of the bodies he embalms.
Re: that text you got. I would have wept with joy too. 🥰🥰🥰
PS - Jenna’s readers! Buy her book! You will want to read it again and again.
California and New York??? My word, there just might be some hope for this country after all!