Re:Study blames YouTube for rise in number of Flat Earthers
by chillacy on Sunday February 17, 2019 @10:08PM
(#19188352)
> Some said they watched the videos only in order to debunk them but soon found themselves won over by the material.
That’s the crazy thing about conspiracy theory videos. Fact is we cannot independently verify everything in life, at some point we have to trust someone else. So when we find people switching sides it’s not like science lost to conspiracy theories, it’s just that one popular set of ideas lost to another. What else can you expect when we pick and choose ideas based on social acceptance as one of the criteria (see psychology studies on anchoring effect of social pressure).
That’s the crazy thing about conspiracy theory videos. Fact is we cannot independently verify everything in life, at some point we have to trust someone else. So when we find people switching sides it’s not like science lost to conspiracy theories, it’s just that one popular set of ideas lost to another. What else can you expect when we pick and choose ideas based on social acceptance as one of the criteria (see psychology studies on anchoring effect of social pressure).