Not talking about fun conspiracies like:

Bigfoot, Loch Ness monster, Aliens built the pyramids

Talking about conspiracies like:

9/11 was an inside job, the COVID vaccine is harmful, or need to invade Iraq because of WMDs

A sample of some lies: (sorry non-U.S. people - I used U.S. examples. Feel free to add some of your own)

There’s WMDs in Iraq we must invade

The Tuskegee Experiment

Hinkley groundwater contamination

How Big Oil and Big Tobacco get respected scientists to lie for them

After someone lies to you what happens? You distrust their future statements.

So, there was a ton of outrage against people who wanted nothing to do with the COVID vaccine and the underlying people to blame were the governments yet all of the rage went towards those who were skeptical.

Here’s an example:

In Tuskegee, Painful History Shadows Efforts To Vaccinate African Americans

Of course, the people of Tuskegee don’t trust the government! They were lied to in the past and people died. But who does the public get mad at when they don’t want to take the vaccine? They don’t get mad at the government, they get mad at the people who distrust the government.

So, the point is that many conspiracy theories exist not because people are gullible but because they were lied to in the past and they no longer trust the government, government experts, or corporations.

The world is full of lies and when many people come across a skeptical person who believes a conspiracy theory they dismiss these people as crazy or gullible or of low intelligence. Perhaps, they were just lied to and are now hesitant to believe the media’s version of the truth and so they look for an explanation in a conspiracy theory.

Note: This post is not about COVID or the vaccine, it was just used to illustrate a point. The post is about understanding why conspiracy believers believe what they believe and how dismissal of them may be misinformed due to government or corporation lies.