By Greg Horner, Informer.
Do you believe that airplane exhaust is the government’s way of controlling the Earth’s environment? Are you convinced that lizard people run Congress? Do you think Princess Diana is responsible for Hurricane Sandy? Congratulations! You’re one of the millions of Americans that believe in conspiracy theories.
Why are people so obsessed with factless, borderline delusional conspiracies? Because we live in an incredibly self-centered world where individual opinion is more important than collective fact. Everybody thinks they’re an expert, but no one wants to put in the effort to actually know what they’re talking about.
The truth just isn’t sexy anymore; almost every day there’s a new conspiracy coming out of a major news event. No matter how far-fetched the stories get, more and more people are embracing conspiratorial thinking at the expense of common-sense.
That self-centered attitude has creeped into almost every news story. When 27 people are killed in a Connecticut mass shooting, it couldn’t possibly be a random national tragedy but instead must be a false-flag operation set up by a government hell-bent on taking away your rights.
It doesn’t help that many in our national media enable this type of delusional thinking. Remember how often “respected” news organizations reported on our president’s birth certificate as if it was legitimate news and not a racially motivated effort to attack him? And how many elected officials in Washington still deny climate change despite years of overwhelming consensus from scientists and experts.
We’ve lost faith in our institutions, and most young Americans seem to have more trust in a random webpage than they do in their local representative or reporter. The result is a fictionalized world. Where shadow organizations rule our lives and where secret cabals plot against us.
I blame our celebrity culture. Everybody wants to be a star, but no matter how many selfies you take and no matter how many crackpot theories you read you still won’t be an interesting person. It’s depressing to see working-class people blame their crappy minimum wage job on conspiracies — you’re not a victim of the Illuminati — you’re just a victim of a culture that celebrates wealth and punishes poverty.
These theories might seem funny, but they’re really no laughing matter. When people don’t trust their government or any legitimate source of news, misinformation spreads more easily. People continue to believe that vaccinations cause Autism despite repeated attempts to refute false claims, and more people are starting to believe that the government has cured cancer and is covering it up to make money.
Misinformation and conspiracy theories could end up costing lives. It’s already costing Americans millions of dollars. People like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck have managed to make a career out of peddling non-existent fears to ignorant Americans who will eat up stories about the U.S. government invading Texas without ever considering how illogical it all sounds.
It’s scary to imagine that we live in an interconnected world, where the actions of individuals can so dramatically impact our life. It’s easier for us to imagine that everything is under control, even when that control is in the hands of an all-powerful shadow committee.
Worse yet, these conspiracy theories motivate people to spend energy and effort on delusional problems. Imagine how much better things might be today that if instead of making 10,000 videos about the melting point of steel, we’d spent that time asking bankers what a subprime mortgage or a mortgage backed security is? (now I’m living in a fantasy world).
Seriously, Americans love their conspiracy theories — unless it involves the president illegally starting a war in the middle east — those conspiracies are a little too “political” for our liking. If you aren’t going to talk about things that matter just shut up!
Life is complicated, we live in a cold, unforgiving world, and sometimes random acts of tragedy just happen. Instead of embracing crazy conspiracy theories, embrace reality. The truth is out there — it just doesn’t involve magic bullets or lizard people — sorry if that isn’t the truth you want to hear.
