They have been perfecting their message for years in the background. I've watched it start as a very left wing thing, then they discovered that the "freedom" message really resonated with the right wing libertarians about 10 years ago. They have been spreading in that crowd since.

Make no mistake, they don't care about you or right/left wing. It might be right wing this time around, but only because they are still looking for a message that will appeal to the left wing as strongly.

The biggest spreaders seem to have a supplement store. Follow the money often works very well.

Most people believe insane things of some form and all of us are usually inconsistent in some way.

It might have tighter correlations with economic and education status, but that’s not all of it.

Whatever skill allows some to see the signal through the noise while others descend down rabbit holes that lead to delusion is hard to teach.

The best community I’ve found that works towards it is the less wrong rationality community, but none of us are immune from cognitive bias or motivated reasoning. It’s all about recognizing it and trying to correct for it in order to struggle closer to the truth.

Even so, I worry most people continually exposed to false ideas will eventually get infected by them - even if you have really good tools, it’s hard.

I think it's not a function of quality, but of time and volume; if you hear something enough, you might–if only fleetingly–find yourself asking "what if they're right?", because it's not like it's just one crazy guy, it's a lot of voices.

>> …it’s a lot of voices.

A looooot of voices.

https://thevaultproject.org/ron-johnson-holds-expert-panel-o...