| > Then I realized that it is always a conspiracy theory until it is too late. In one lens, what you say is true. But that is because {true, confirmed, and supported} information comes slow from breaking events. And especially when money / harm is at stake, someone is usually willing to lie or hide the truth. But viewing what you said through another lens, it can be easy to see this as confirmation bias (or other similar cognitive biases) that underweights all of the times you suspected a conspiracy, but where no causality was proven. As the joke goes, economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions. Be careful to remain at least as skeptical of social media posts as you are of companies, governments, the wealthy, and those in power. Belief in multiple conspiracy theories can erode a person’s ability to remain rational. It seems to me that lots of Flat Earthers, for example, base their belief system more around who they chose to reject, than necessarily being accurate about what specific ideas they choose to believe. I agree with your last paragraph in the sense that we should all be forever curious and we should spend a lot of trouble to reevaluate our errors in belief. That said, “do your own homework” seems to be misinterpreted by many as “reject all information from official sources”, which is a terrible idea. |