One of the things that surprised me, and I first heard about it during the Romney campaign, is that partisan candidates often believe their own partisan media. And a lot of the people spreading conspiracy theories aren’t joking around they really believe it. This sort of surprised me as I thought some of the more sensational media was known to be sensational by serious people, and that is apparently not true.
I like the closing quote though: "What you end up with are extremely frustrated, disillusioned people who trash others who have put their careers on the line to do the right thing.”
Expensive and credible signals that someone believes something outlandish are powerful in-group identifiers. Flat earth, pizzagate, whatever it is, if you can access the mental machinery to double, triple, quadruple down on something obviously false regardless of evidence, you will have a strong group of friends who are easy to find.
https://archive.is/5c51r
One of the things that surprised me, and I first heard about it during the Romney campaign, is that partisan candidates often believe their own partisan media. And a lot of the people spreading conspiracy theories aren’t joking around they really believe it. This sort of surprised me as I thought some of the more sensational media was known to be sensational by serious people, and that is apparently not true.
I like the closing quote though: "What you end up with are extremely frustrated, disillusioned people who trash others who have put their careers on the line to do the right thing.”
Expensive and credible signals that someone believes something outlandish are powerful in-group identifiers. Flat earth, pizzagate, whatever it is, if you can access the mental machinery to double, triple, quadruple down on something obviously false regardless of evidence, you will have a strong group of friends who are easy to find.