Don't be an fucking idiot.
This person is not stupid, intelligent people aren't immune to conspiracy theories and superstitious beliefs.
If you ignore factual or scientific evidence that is at odds with your worldview, you’re an easy target for conspiracy theories ― regardless of your political affiliation or intelligence.
One of the first lines of defense are inclusive forums like this, environments where disputing unproven facts and conspiracies in a group discussion is encouraged.
A recent study shows how conspiratorial thinking and social exclusion can trigger a vicious cycle that isolates those who believe false narratives.
Just a moment...
The dark side of meaning-making: How social exclusion leads to superstitious thinking:
Abstract:
This paper tests a meaning-making model of conspiratorial thinking by considering how one's search for mean-ing mediates between social exclusion and the endorsement of conspiratorial (Study 1) and superstitious (Study2) beliefs. In Study 1, participants first wrote about a self-selected personal event that involved a social interac-tion, they then indicated how socially excluded they felt after the event, and, finally, they rated their endorse-ment of three well-known conspiracy theories. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to a Social Inclusion,a Social Exclusion, or a Control condition, after which they indicated the association between improb-able events in three scenarios. In addition, both studies mechanistically tested the relation between social exclu-sion and conspiratorial/superstitious thinking by measuring the participants' tendency to search for meaning.Both Study 1 (correlational) and Study 2 (experimental) offer support for the hypothesis that social exclusion is associated with superstitious/conspiratorial beliefs. One's search for meaning, correlational analyses revealed,mediated this relation. We discuss the implication of the findings for community-wide belief dynamics and we propose that social inclusion could be used to diminish the dissemination of superstitious beliefs and conspiracy theories
Confirmation bias, or seeking out information that supports your previously established beliefs, isn’t just lazy, It’s dangerous, and can lead to real world consequences, like when an armed man entered a DC restaurant investigating pizzagate.
Edited by Porosity, : Doh!