Do you ever get tired of falling off the edge of the earth? Sick of all your kids getting autism from vaccines? Ready to visit that 1969 moon landing sound stage? Well, grab some tinfoil, and follow me into the fabulous forest of conspiracy.
People have always truly enjoyed laughing at other people’s stupidity. It’s the great American pastime (my condolences to baseball and Starbucks). In this age of divisive politics, religions, and other schools of thought, it isn’t uncommon to see two people pointing at one another laughing — each decrying the other to be a moron. And while usually only one party can be correct, they both get a feeling a superiority from this exercise. We like to feel smart, even when we’re wrong.
Being that we’re living in the age of information, one would think the public as a whole would be more educated. And believe it or not, statistically, we actually are. Since 1900, the median IQ has risen almost 30 points — meaning that your average Joe or Jane today has a higher IQ than around 95 percent of people at the beginning of the 20th century.
This doesn’t mean we aren’t still a society comprised of idiots. Oh, are we ever!
For example, we have reasonably educated people today challenging physics, science, and centrifugal force to suggest the earth is flat. But one only needs the most basic understanding of the universe to acknowledge that the earth is a sphere. Even if scientists cannot completely explain the phenomenon of gravity yet, there are still mountains of evidence to refute the absurdity of a flat earth (yes, we have flown directly over Antarctica, as early as 1935).
Of course, this is just the tip of the conspiracy iceberg. And it’s usually these science-denying theories that are the easiest to debunk:
People also purport that vaccines cause autism — even though nearly every medical expert in the world has concluded through research and testing that this simply isn’t true — the ingredient thimerosal (containing mercury) has been proven to have no causal link to ASD. And there are protests that jet fuel doesn’t burn hot enough to melt the steel support beams of the World Trade Center — but physics says the twin towers collapsed because the steel’s structural integrity became compromised, not melted entirely. And others still believe the moon landing was faked — even while there are still satellites orbiting today that take clear photos of the Apollo moon landing site. None of these rebuttals really matter, though.
Because this information introduces the gap where conspiracies are birthed. We didn’t personally conduct this research on vaccines. We aren’t aboard these satellites viewing the moon’s surface or the round earth with our own eyes. The belief of these explanations relies solely on our faith in the pillars of society — and there is an inherent mistrust by theorists in the data they receive from the “mainstream:” which typically means a slanted field of science or a corrupt government.
This doesn’t mean every conspiracy theorist is a raving schizophrenic. Take for instance, it’s often been proposed that we’ve actually had a cure for cancer for years, but it’s been locked away by Big Brother government — because cancer treatment is a major market, and it also serves as population control. If one were to possess a dismal view of an insidious government, this really isn’t totally inconceivable. Perhaps we’re all being lied to, both here and with the rest of the above explanations. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with a healthy dose of skepticism — I actually encourage it.
But the nuance actually boils down to Occam’s Razor — which states that the most obvious answer is usually the correct one. Even if all these theories aren’t entirely impossible, the prospect of such massive cover-ups is also highly improbable. And while I may not be able to prove that the government isn’t hiding the cure for cancer from us, I also don’t actually need to — the burden of evidence falls solely upon the party making the positive claim, which in this case is the theorist. And even without “disproving” anything, my position is a safer assumption than the ulterior. At least until actual proof surfaces.
So if we are consistently getting smarter, why are people so comfortable reaching for these largely implausible “truths?”
It’s safe to say the advent of the internet has been one of the most salient developments for expanding our intelligence. But the problem with going online is the complete oversaturation of content. Essentially any argument imaginable can be “backed up” by some half-baked website — validity and facts be damned. And this isn’t only applied to information and ideology. It’s true of just about any alternative theory a person could cook up.
Is the earth flat? Find a website. Moon landing faked? Website. Was 9/11 an inside job? Read up on it! Do SpaghettiO’s increase male genetalia size? Confirmed somewhere, I’m sure.
From UFO sightings to government cover-ups to sasquatches that eat beef jerkey — with the help of the internet, anyone can locate a community that believes in anything. This is where I’d normally transition with, “the question is why?”…but I think the answer is pretty self-explanatory here. Especially since I already said it up in the second paragraph (hint: it has to do with being “smart”) .
Feeling smart is more important than ever to us these days. Most likely because we are getting smarter as a species, and more value than ever is being placed on intelligence. And going against the status quo gives the illusion of being intellectually elevated above our peers. There’s a superiority to believing you’ve figured out something that most others haven’t — referring to the masses as “sheep” and using metaphors from The Matrix about taking the “red pill.” More and more, the average person loves to feel like they’re (I’m going to cringe as I type this word) “woke.”
On a philosophical level, this desire to awaken goes all the way back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Essentially, Plato describes a group of prisoners in a cave staring at its back wall. The group is oblivious to everything behind them — including an exit — and the three imprisoning walls visible to them are all they’ve ever known or could even imagine. The man who finally escapes (the philosopher) becomes enlightened when he turns around and discovers they had actually been inside a cave the entire time, hidden away from the sun and an open world unfathomable to them.
This was extremely deep thinking at the time, and most commoners of this era were too busy toiling away to ever ponder such frivolities. But times have changed — people are bored these days. And the rise of free time, free thought, and online reinforcement has exacerbated this fashion.
Perhaps some of us need to ignore the teachings of Plato, and instead embrace another philosophical construct: “nous.” This term simply refers to reason, practicality and common sense. I am generally all for challenging conventional thought, but many modern conspiracy theorists are embracing disbelief to the point of irrationality.
When challenging our perspective becomes more about the hobby than the epiphany, it starts to encourage mass ignorance. Most importantly, it starts to undermine science, which is almost certainly the greatest tool mankind has yet conceived. It may seem edgy to shrug off scientists who discuss round earths, climate change, and safe, essential vaccinating — as I said, almost anything can be possible. But it’s more than a little ironic that people are gathering this alternative information using the wondrous technology and knowledge that science has so readily provided for us.