Conspiracy Theories are Dominating Our Social Discourse– and They Shouldn’t
Randomly scrolling through Instagram, I came upon a post accusing Oprah Winfrey of sexually trafficking girls in Africa—a rehash of a debunked conspiracy theory that she’s had to release statements to deny in the past. I lazily commented on the post—something about how we live in an age where anyone can make up anything about anyone, and if that fabrication is salacious enough, stupid people will believe it.
Commenting on Instagram posts—other than making innocuous approving statements on videos of puppies and kittens—is not my usual style. While I like to think I could be a formidable keyboard warrior, let’s face it, it’s a waste of time. But in this case, I commented and promptly forgot all about it.
Until the next day, when I brought up the app on my phone. I had hundreds of new notifications. Since nothing I say garners that much attention, my first panicky thought was this: I’ve been hacked.
Unfortunately, it was worse—someone had commented on my comment on the defamatory Oprah post—and scores had piled on. And exactly zero of them were posts of the thumbs-up approving type.
“Do Your Research!”
Some of the comments weren’t overtly mean—they merely shouted at me, “DO YOUR RESEARCH!” They did get a bit meaner—“GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND”—along with some other words and allegations I don’t want to immortalize on the Internet.
I was highly annoyed at being called out scathingly by bunches of conspiracy theories. I admit that I deleted my comment, which subsequently dirty-deleted all their comments. (I like to think I’m above dirty deleting as a tactic to deal with annoying comments—but I’m not.)
Adenochrome et al.
But once I’d gotten over my initial huffiness, I began thinking about whether so many people could believe something for which there was no discernible proof or whether these were trolls out to attack my peace and sanity. Trolls are very much a part of Interneting—so I try to keep them in perspective. But these people seemed committed to their beliefs. And it wasn’t one or two. It was dozens.
So, I went down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and found the ones today seem crazier and less grounded in fact than the classic tall-tale conspiracy theories like Stanley Kubrick faking the moon landing. They trended toward the weird and truly bizarre—things like PizzaGate and Hollywood elites harvesting “adrenochrome” from children— this last one evocative of centuries-old antisemitic blood libel tropes.
The Burden of Proof
But the oddest thing characteristic of all of these is the fervency with which people believe these outrageous stories on absolutely no proof. Seeing patterns in random data used to be a mental illness, but now it’s modern rhetoric. In fact, if you happen not to see the pattern (that isn’t there), then you are named the modern equivalent of an “idiot”—a sheeple. (Being a grammar nut, I tried to find a singular for “sheeple,” but there isn’t one, though “sheepson” and “sheerson” have been proposed. One sheeple is a sheeple, and many sheeple is also a sheeple.) The first rule of conspiracy theories is you are a sheeple if you don’t believe them.
The second rule of conspiracy theories is you never, ever, ever must prove them with actual evidence. All you need is a possible motive, and then you can knowingly say that the Clintons secretly executed Jeffrey Epstein at Rikers—how could a fine, upstanding—and mentally stable—person like that be believed to have committed suicide while awaiting a trial that might send him to prison for the rest of his life? He must be part of #clintonbodycount operations.
Watching X-Files with No Lights On?
Conspiracy theories range from plausible to ridiculous. The plausible ones might be more dangerous, but the concept of “plausibility” is swiftly eroding, and the “ludicrous” goalposts are getting pushed further and further down the field.
Recently, I started re-watching one of my favorites—The X-Files, a staple from my life in the Nineties. The show portrays various agencies of the U.S. government conspiring against each other—and us—to keep secret and execute a conspiracy to replace human life on Earth with alien hybrid clones. Or something like that. The storylines were preposterous but made for great drama, not to mention the so-called Scully Effect, which increased women entering STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields by up to 24%.
But is the X-Files may be responsible for a second social effect—belief in the myth that not only is the government conspiring against you, but they can be so effective at it. Unlike, say— collecting taxes.
A Public Health Threat?
Vaccine denialism is reaching levels that are proportionate to the rise in magical thinking. This is poised to be the greatest public health threat over at least the next decade, with potentially 23% of people being “vaccine skeptics.” These people will be less likely to submit their kids to required vaccinations and aren’t likely to keep up with their own shots, resulting in the spread and mutation of communicable diseases. At least as I understand it. I’m not a scientist, armchair or otherwise.
At the same time, you can package dirt in capsules and sell it as an untested weight-loss supplement, and people will inhale it, plucking down their $99.99 without so much as a shadow of a doubt in their minds.
And how do we square this contradiction of being willing to ingest snake oil but not meds that have withstood the rigorous FDA approval process? By creating a boogeyman that can explain both tendencies—seemingly logically—by conjuring the specter of “Big Pharma.” You see, Big Pharma wants to pump you full of meds to make money. At the same time, they don’t want you use supplements that might wean you from Big Pharma’s sinister teat. So goes the “logic” anyway.
Conveniently, this logic ignores that life expectancy has increased by about 25 years in the past century largely due to—you guessed it—Big Pharma (snake oil being responsible for exactly zero percent of that increase).
Spreading Conspiracy Theories
If you are part of the 50% of Americans that believe in conspiracy theories, don’t worry—I’m not trying to steal your freedom of speech. I only submit that you think about your sources—seek out reliable evidence to back your claims, and if this is lacking, reconsider your position. Let’s not make this any more of a post-truth world than it already is.
Thanks.