April 21, 2017
Your cousin tells you that The Illuminati want to end the world through some apocalyptic satanic ritual or just want to “keep the people down” by controlling the government and media…and assassinating Princess Diana and Tupac? And your cousin swears Jay Z and Beyonce are part of the conspiracy!
Today’s endless information stream via the Internet has not made it easier to tell the difference between the true and the false, the news and the “fake news”, or the facts and the conspiracy theories. Instead, it’s made it easier for conspiracy theories to spread, converting audiences globally, including Jamaicans, to believe crackpot schemes.
So, how did your cousin and his conspiracy minded friends get this way? Surveys show conspiracy theories spike in times of uncertainty and fear. This is usually after a man-made or natural disaster, or something as simple as political unrest. Research suggests that people believe in conspiracies because they feel their life is out of their control. Parents of an autistic child, for instance, might feel helpless as they see the symptoms of their child’s neurology develop. They may suddenly attach it to the vaccines their child got months or even years ago. These quick, impulsive, and often incorrect, connections are also a quirk of the human mind.
As ridiculous as these conspiracy theories sound there’s still hope we can get banish such ways of thinking. Research shows that the more educated people are, they less they believe in conspiracies. A good education strengthens critical thinking. The more educated you are, the better your ability to cultivate skills and solutions to your problems, giving you control over your life. So, next family gathering, when your cousin explains Beyoncé’s nefarious plans for world domination, offer him a lesson or buy him a book.
And if that fails, there’s always aluminium foil.