- What's up guys?
Do you subscribe to any conspiracy theories?
When I was a kid growing up in Washington state,
I desperately wanted to spot Big Foot.
I watched all these weird documentaries on late night TV
and had totally convinced myself
that he must've lived nearby.
Never did spot him, but I still keep an eye out.
Today, year 2020, it feels like we're living through
some sort of conspiracy boom.
At least half of the country believes a conspiracy theory.
And we've recently learned that about a third of Americans
like that COVID-19 was spread on purpose.
COVID might be new, but conspiracies?
Definitely not new.
You got JFK, UFOs, LSD, all three letters by the way.
And yet today's conspiracies feel more loaded
and consequential than ever.
If we're wrong, we have a lot to lose
like thousands dying from preventable disease
or accidentally falling off the edge of the world.
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For me the term conspiracy theorists
conjures images of this guy.
Or maybe this guy.
The stereotype of the paranoid delusional dude
down in his basement kicked off in the 60s
when Richard Hofstadter famously argued that Americans,
especially conservatives, were infected with paranoia.
We've since learned that conspiracy theorists are not
this group of tinfoil hat-wearing crazy people.
They're normal people who are attempting
to make sense of the world.
In the allure of a conspiracy theory,
it appears in increase in when society is in crisis.
- I think the uncertainty, the feelings of powerlessness,
the loss of control that people are having
both from the virus and policies meant to combat the virus.
People are out of a job, the economy shut down.
Those things are gonna play a role in the sense
that they may be pushing people to cope with it.
And for some people conspiracy theories
may be that tool they reach for.
With that said, if you don't already have a worldview
that gets you to conspiracy theory,
then simply being uncertain isn't gonna do it on its own.
- This is Dr. Joseph Uscinski.
He is a political scientist and he studies,
you guessed it, conspiracy theories.
Rather than thinking of conspiracies
and random fringe beliefs, he describes them as a worldview.
In this worldview, a small group of powerful people
act in secret for their own benefit at our expense.
Researchers have identified five themes
that are present in most conspiratorial worldviews.
The first, conspiracy theorists don't see themselves
as conspiracy theorists.
They seem themselves as truth seekers,
pursing enlightenment on a journey
toward forbidden knowledge.
The in-group, the us, is people who share the belief
and are also aspiring toward enlightenment.
While the out-group, or them,
is people who are complacent with the conspiracy,
or the people who are involved in it.
Taking action is also central to a conspiratorial worldview.
Boycotts, protests, blogging, YouTube videos,
these are all avenues to demand justice.
Lastly, there's a focus on an idealized future
where the downfall of the evil elites or whoever
paves a way toward radical change.
As I was reading this I was like hmm,
this actually sounds like other worldviews
that I am familiar with.
But like any belief system, it's not always that serious.
Plenty of people think conspiracy theories
are just a bit of fun.
They're entertaining, they're interesting.
You know, just a way to pass the time.
While others obviously take them very seriously.
- [Reporter] 28 year old Edgar Welch
was arrested in Washington Sunday afternoon
outside Comet Ping Pong, a popular family pizza parlor.
Police say Welch drove all the way from North Carolina
to self investigate Pizza-Gate.
- So I wanted to know what kind of person
becomes a conspiracy theorist?
What would it take for you or me
to fall all the way down the rabbit hole?
- There really isn't a demographic group
that jumps out more than others.
It's not more republicans than democrats,
it's not more white or black or Hispanic
and it's not more men than women.
The two things we do find
are that people who are more educated and make more money
tend to have less of this disposition
for reasons that we're not entirely sure of yet.
The disposition to jump to the conspiracy explanation
above others probably stems from people's socialization.
So that something is going on in their upbringing.
Whether it's being imparted by the media, parents,
the circumstances they're brought up in,
going to leave them to have this
as part of their operating software.
- Psychologists have a number of theories
about this operating software.
Those who subscribe to conspiracies
tend to have lower trust in the government.
They tend to feel less in control of their lives
and they may feel more alienated from society.
But the exact relationship and what's going on here
isn't totally clear.
- So if you ask a hardcore conspiracy theorist,
"Do you trust the government?" they're gonna say no.
But I'm not sure that that lack of trust
is causing the conspiracy theories
or that the conspiracy theories are causing the distrust.
- Evolutionary psychologist add another perspective.
They say that as hunter-gatherer societies,
conspiracy theories may have helped humans survive.
Finding patterns in seemingly unrelated data points
or suspicion toward a powerful out-group
may of helped us to detect threats.
But in modern times, the concern is that
conspiracy theories themselves are the threat,
and that social media is a megaphone.
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I was shocked to learn from Dr. Uscinski
that apparently conspiracy theories don't appear
to be more common today than they were before the internet.
- Is it that there's more people believing?
Is the same amount of people believing in more?
This is never defined,
but that never stops people from saying now is the time.
It's the conspiracy golden age and this is the apex.
And if you look through newspapers,
you'll find that almost every year journalists say that,
going back decades.
- That sounds familiar.
In the past couple of years, YouTube and Facebook
have received an avalanche of bad press
about conspiracy content.
Even Congress got involved.
- In your ongoing dinner parties with far-right figures,
some of who advance the conspiracy theory
that white supremacy is a hoax,
did you discuss so-called social media bias
against conservatives and do you believe there is a bias?
- Congresswoman,
sorry I don't remember everything that was in the question.
- [Congresswoman] That's all right, I'll move on.
- So Facebook seems to be attempting
to combat COVID conspiracies by having a dedicated tab
that shows information from the CDC
and other trusted sources.
Twitter seems to be doing this as well.
Meanwhile, YouTube has done a couple of things.
I've noticed little explanations
below videos about chem trails about what's going on.
They've also promised to crack down on conspiracy videos
by demoting or removing them.
But if the fear is that there's a shadow force
that is restricting access to information,
how effective is it for a giant faceless corporation
to be removing random posts?
- I mean are really saying that if we took down
Facebook and twitter and Donald Trump
that no one would think COVID is a conspiracy?
Really?
Are we really saying that?
It sort of alleviates our political elites
and our mainstream news and our other
legacy media outlets of responsibility.
Doesn't rise to the level of conspiracy
but there's clearly self interest when you have journalists
at legacy outlets saying oh this is all Facebook.
Well they engage in all sorts of nonsense.
- Legacy media pointing the finger at YouTube
while they air midnight specials about ancient aliens
is a big fat lull.
Hypocrisy, it hurts me.
But at the same time, social media is a very different beast
than a newspaper, right?
I mean for one thing, there's no barrier to entry,
it can amplify information so much faster.
Some conspiracy theories have the potential to do real harm,
and yet I'm also not totally sure that Zucky boy
should be the one to decide what ideas are over the line.
- Everyone has in their own mind what a conspiracy theory is
and it's what someone else believes.
No one says, "You should censor my ideas."
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- So our last stop here is the elephant in the room.
Once in a while a conspiracy turns out to be true.
The tobacco industry buried evidence that it causes cancer.
The CIA gave LSD to unknowing citizens
in order to test mind control.
And then there was that time that the government pretended
it was treating a group of black men with syphilis
but instead was letting the disease run its course
in order to see what would happen.
History and common sense have taught us
that questioning authority, questioning people with power,
holding them to account, these are all really important.
And that means that conspiracies
can't be done away with entirely.
And Joe actually argues that they shouldn't be.
- If you ask a more normative question which is
do we wanna live in world where everyone believes
the same thing all the time?
And this is where I think it's good,
like many of my colleagues are involved in
seeking out methods to change people's minds
about conspiracy theories.
But one thing I don't want is for those tools
to fall into the wrong hands.
And I'm gonna change everybody's mind
so they believe what I want them to believe.
And I don't want powerful people
to have the tools to do that.
- I think the one thing that we can all oppose
is mind control.
Except maybe for the lizard people,
they probably would like that.
What I found out there though is not academics
trying to figure out how to control people's minds,
it's more about giving people tools to help them reveal
and even prevent abuses of power.
Dr. John Cook over as Skeptical Science argues that
the conspiratorial frame rarely uncovers real conspiracies.
And that's largely because of
the complicated relationship with evidence.
What we definitely benefit from
are things like measured skepticism,
careful consideration of evidence,
which includes being willing to be proven wrong,
and recognizing then eliminating
contradictions in our beliefs.
The way I see it, it boils more or less down to this:
we all have false beliefs,
whether they're conspiracy theories or not.
And our task as thinkers and citizens of the world
is to figure out which ones those are.
Thanks for joining me guys.
Let me know what you think down below.
Take care of yourselves out there,
and I'll see you next time.