Michael Shermer: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational

Become a sustaining member of the Commonwealth Club for just $10 a month. Join today. Hello and welcome to the Commonwealth Club of California. And tonight's meeting. I'm Eric Siegal, president of the club's Personal Growth Forum and your host. We invite everyone to visit us online at Commonwealth Club Dawg for a complete list of all our events and to register for any of our events. Tonight we continue our series of talks on false narratives and their cousins, conspiracy theories that can damage the shared fact base on which democracy depends, whether through distorted context, misleading editing, oversimplification, incorrect extrapolation from a few examples or simply a blatant lie, the result is that the same phone rings, aggravating the entire society.

In this case, he says it's a telemarketer's loss of trust in institutions like phone company tribalism and a search for an authoritarian leader in confusing times, increased levels of stress and anger in society, and the resulting legitimization of violence. Therefore, it is important that we analyze the causes of false narratives and some possible actions we can take to diminish their power. Our first talk in the series on September 1 by Joe Pierre was a tutorial on the psychology of false narratives and the social and technological factors that make them so powerful today. Then, on September 6, Lee McIntyre talked about how to talk to a friend or family member who has fallen into the trap of a conspiracy theory like science denial.

And Sam Woolley's third talk on September 29 was about actions we can take as a society and as individuals to reduce the power of false narratives in our world. You can find them for free on the club's website. Just search for Commonwealth Club dot dot org and the watch and listen tab and search for fake or denier and they will appear right away. This talk by Michael Shermer, author of the new book Conspiracy Wave. The book around. Oh. Yes. And founding editor of Skeptic magazine. It is. Available in fine bookstores worldwide and at Skeptic Tucker. He continues this series by presenting an overview and summary of conspiracy theories.

Who

believe

s them and why? Which ones are real and what can we do about them? Dr. Shermer received a B.A. in psychology and master's degree, experimental psychology along with a Ph.D. in the history of science. He wrote more than 200 monthly columns for Scientific American. He has 20 best-selling books and he created two TEDTalks that have been viewed by millions and voted in the top 100. Dr. Shermer has been a university professor since 1979 and is currently a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University, where he teaches a course on critical thinking. called skepticism. 101 How to think like a scientist.

So I know he's not only eager to hear and discuss our questions about conspiracy theories. He has the background to help us understand what is going on. Then let's get started. Well. In his book, he discusses three main topics: why people

believe

these conspiracy theories and how to find out which ones are real, because sometimes conspiracy theories are objective and talk about conspiracies. How to rebuild trust in the truth. We only have about 40 minutes and then we'll move on to questions. So we're going to have to move forward and hit the main points. But again, if you want the detailed discussions of the book.

Good. Anyway, let's start with why do people believe these things? I mean, I know I have training as an engineer. And so even I find that I actually make a lot of emotional decisions. And then, very quickly, I adapt some kind of logical argument so I can pretend it was logical. And if I'm doing this, you know, and I assume that scientists and lawyers and other people trained in logic are doing it. I can only imagine what everyone else is doing. So why do we do this psychologically? I mean, where do we start? Maybe we should start by talking about what a conspiracy theory is.

But then, you know, how does this happen psychologically? Well, then your own personal observation has motivated reasoning that is motivated to be right, to be right rather than to find the truth. Our brains are more like lawyers than scientists in winning the argument. I mean, this is the thesis of the book about the kind of evolutionary origins of reason. Hugo Murcia and Dan Sperber, their book. And they argued that we evolved to win arguments rather than to find the truth, which is difficult to find. And so the confirmation bias of motivated reasoning where we look for and find evidence that confirms what you already believe and ignore evidence that contradicts it or deviates from it or whatever to the point where cognitive dissonance comes into play, where you have a set of beliefs and the evidence contradicts it.

Something that produces dissonance and the famous passenger theory have to disappear. Mainly what happens is that contradictory evidence leads you astray. The belief remains stable. Then he discovered this with a UFO cult. And on December 21, 1954, when he climbed to the top of the mountain with a local group who thought the mother ship would come that night to rescue them before the world came to an end the next day. He then thought: Well, it will be interesting to see what happens. Assuming the world doesn't end here, what will they do? Like, tomorrow? Will they come back and leave?

That was the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life. Can I get out of my car, go back to my job or whatever? And not. In fact, they came back and doubled down and tried to recruit people into the group to reinforce that they really are. Good. And then, well, what about that uncomfortable fact that the world didn't end? Oh well, we miscalculated. You know, if we have to take one, it'll be tomorrow night, it'll be next year, you know, and they always do that. Or it was a test of our faith and God forgave us or whatever.

So that's what happens. We know from extensive studies in cognitive psychology that people do not naturally try to falsify their hypotheses. Then a psychologist named Peter Watson developed a series of small tests about it. If he gave you a series of numbers and said: What do you think the rule is? Here are the numbers. Two four six. Alright. What is the rule? Pair numbers. Well, here's another set. Ten, 12, 14, 13. Thank you. Okay, so you think the rule is to increase the numbers by two? Yes, good. Any other. Does anyone want to test the hypothesis? Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Give me another series of three numbers. One, three, five. This also matches the rule. Oh, so it's not just even numbers. Well, how about another one? Just a series of seven. That's all. Alright then. But almost no one thinks of that. See how long it took? Even a series. Of ascending numbers? Yes. They said, yes, this. It's a super smart group like this. It took him a while to reach the well. Let's try something different so that doesn't come naturally the moment you form a hypothesis in your head about anything, right? Yes. You start to reinforce it, right?

You don't want to hear what could be wrong. Good. So that's the core of the problem with all conspiracy theories: the moment you have one, you know, pick one of the Kanye West headlines. You know, the Jews are doing this. Well. Well, if you just look around, you can find evidence, you know, oh, look, here's a Jewish guy who runs this media company. Here's a Jewish guy who runs a Wall Street trading house or whatever. It's like, oh ha. Yes, good. Well, how many media companies are not run by Jews? You know, what are they? What are the counterfactuals?

And it's hard to think about because we naturally don't do that. So a conspiracy is two or more people secretly conspiring to gain an illegal or immoral advantage over another person or some other group. And a conspiracy theory is just a theory about that, whether true or not. So the problem we have here is that there are conspiracies. There really are many of them. And so, you know, it's a signal detection problem. How do you know? Good. So imagine a two by two grid. So we have four cells. So up here you have conspiracy theories that are true and you say, yeah, I think it's true.

Okay, that's a success. And here you have conspiracy theories that are true and you say, no, I don't think that's a real conspiracy theory. So that's a mistake. And here you have conspiracy theories that are false and you believe they are true. So that's either a type one error or you've made a false positive. You thought the conspiracy theory was true and it's not. And then you have the room where you miss it. And wait, did I understand that or did I get confused in this diagram in several ways? But you get the idea. Yes. Then you make two types of mistakes.

Type one, false positive. You thought the conspiracy theory was real when it's not or you missed a real conspiracy theory. So my evolutionary argument is that we would make more type one errors and type two errors we would assume the worst in case it is a low cost error. If it turns out not to be true, like the Russell in the grass, it is a dangerous predator, it's just the wind. It doesn't take much to assume that the grass rustler is a dangerous predator. And it turns out it's just the wind. You have become a little skittish and be careful.

But if you think it's the wind and it's a dangerous predator, you are. Tiger. Good? Your lunch, right? You get the Darwin Prize for exiting the gene pool early. So we are descendants of doing this kind of thing. My broader argument for superstition and magical thinking is that, you know, we make more type one errors than type two errors and conspiracy theories are in that same category because we evolved as a kind of social primate in the that other members of our group often conspire against us. we and other groups conspire against our group. And just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they won't come after you, because sometimes they're right.

And so it is reasonable to assume that our yes is truer than it really is. The negativity bias. It's always safer to pretend that the tiger is lurking around than that and that Russ always oh, it's the breeze. You know, life is good. You know, it's not a formula to have a happy life, but it is a formula to be here. You know, survival, really. Survival. And that way your genes can reproduce. And that is. Good. So we are descendants of those who made more type one errors. And write to him. That's my argument. Good? That's why I call it constructive conspiracism.

Yeah, there's a kind of logic to it, a kind of construct, a paranoia, a little bit of paranoia is actually okay in everything because it really comes down to the second law of thermodynamics and entropy. There are simply many more ways for things to go wrong than for things to go right. To go better, right? How many ways can you improve your life? Well, a little bit here. A little bit there. But you could go out and get hit by one of those electric trams here in San Francisco or, you know, whatever. There are simply too many ways for things to go south quickly.

So it's good to be a little cautious about the dangers. Yes. So this is one of the factors that are forcing people to do it. Then a little over the top or a little stressed. And it's not just a negativity bias. I'm also stressed, now I'm going to worry a lot about some things. The slightest noise, the slightest, you know, those kinds of people don't want to be in control. You want to be too low on the spectrum because then you won't even be able to leave the house. So at some point, if that's the case, you end up with some kind of OCD or you're non-functional.

So obviously that's not good, right? So there is a balance there. And like you said, there's a history of things that are actually true. There were people plotting and governments plotting and whatever. And there was a term for that or conspiracy by proxy. Yeah. I mean, you know, my type examples, Volkswagen cheating on emissions standards in Europe. You know that's a conspiracy. Yes. And it really happened and it's obvious why they did it. You know, it's no big secret. They are not trying to take over the world. They just want to make more money. Good. So, I mean, those kinds of smaller, more specific, more narrowly focused conspiracies are theories that are more likely to be true because we know that's what people, corporations, government agents, agencies, etc. do. .

So one of my signal detection criteria is that the more people that have to be involved, the more elements that have to come together and the grander the conspiracy theory, the less likely it is to be true, the more limited it is, you know, insider trading or some government agency that is spying on its own citizens. This happens a lot. You know, just to review, as we'll remember, without Edward Snowden at WikiLeaks, we wouldn't have known the extent to which the NSA was spying on American citizens without a warrant. You know, wiretapping and warrantless surveillance was pretty common and we didn't know about it until he leaked it.

Good. So whenThe Pentagon Papers were published, to what extent did the US government lie about the Vietnam War? Quite. Good. That is why it is important for whistleblowers to find out what is really happening. But, you know, this makes it kind of logical. Again, we're not trying to take over the world or whatever, just, you know, just because we want to do this, we want to do that very specific and narrowly focused. So yes. Yes. And it will come up a little later when we talk about talking to individuals. But one of the nice things about even remembering that conspiracy theories actually exist is that when you talk to someone who has fallen into one, that's false, to have some sense of respect, you know, and not just say, hey, You're an idiot.

You know, that usually doesn't work very well. But thinking in the back of your head, you know, maybe that's right. And that puts you in a more receptive mode. You know, you're going to ask him questions. Do you know why this kind of thing? Well, we can go back to some of those things, because at first, again, it's like, why? Why do we get into these conspiracy theories? I mean, what is it about today's technology that amplifies this? I mean, people have the right to be heard, but they don't have the right to be amplified. It was said that before you could stand on the corner and convince ten people.

Now, boom, that's everywhere. Good. And I think part of that may be that this idea that if you decide something it's true, one of our previous speakers talked about that. It's just a repetition. So with the web, all of a sudden you can, you know, on radio or whatever, you can get repeat from a million areas. And that seems to build conspiracy theories today. But not just by itself. Yes, yes, if tag something in your tribe. That's why I call this tribal conspiracy. It's something your tribe probably believes in and supports the core tenets of their beliefs.

You don't need a lot of evidence to say something, you know, I just mean, it could be a manipulated word. Everyone knows what this means, right? Yes. Equipped. It's rigged. You know, this is good. We call this the new conspiracyism. The conspiracy theory. Without the theory, perhaps the flat earthers have arguments. Believe me, I've heard them. Hey, I want to enter me. My classic joke. How do we know that the world is not flat. Because if that were the case, all the cats would have already rejected everything. Alright, let's get back to it. Yeah. So, I mean, I have this kind of three-part conspiracy theory, right?

So we talk about constructive conspiracism. A lot of them are a real space to write one and write 2 hours and then tribal conspiracies like, you know, rigged elections or whatever, you know. Does anyone really believe this? Well, I think the bases probably do. Based on polls, it appears no one at the top of the Republican Party in 2020 believed it. One time, Attorney General Barr said, we looked into it and I'm a Republican, a lifelong Republican supporter of Trump, we couldn't find any evidence. On 60 Minutes on Sunday, a guy in Arizona, who was a lifelong Republican, voted for Trump twice, and Giuliani called him and said, you know, you've got to do something here.

You have to stop this. You know this because in the Biden elections the electorate votes there in Arizona. You have to stop. And he says, well, do you have proof that there was fraud all year? So Giuliani flies there and meets with this guy, Baker, Dusty Baker, Rusty Baker. And the guy says, he's fine, man, do we have that? Giuliani tells his assistant that, well, I think we left him at the hotel. Well. So why do people continue to believe? Well, because that's where Republicans, that's our tribe. We have to earn it, you know, by sacrificing the truth for your tribe.

That happens a lot. And conspiracy by proxy. My third question is whether the specific conspiracy theory is true or false is less important than what it represents. It is a substitute for something else. So if you think about Pizzagate, which has to be the dumbest conspiracy theory I've ever heard, you know that Hillary and the other Democrats, and throw in Beyonce and Tom Hanks, I guess we're running a secret network of satanic pedophiles and , of course, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C.. I mean, does anyone really believe that? But one boy did it. And Welch went there with his .15 air rifle to stop him.

He drove three and a half hours from his house and recorded a video driving with his cell phone and explained, I'm going to come in here. Nobody is doing anything because a crime is being committed. A horrible, horrible crime. And I'm going to do something. Nobody has done anything about it. I'm going to do something about it, which in a way is what you would do if something really horrible happened. It's like the police aren't doing anything. I'm going to do something right. So he went in there and there was no basement. He says: Oh, and that was the end of that.

A prison for a couple of years. But I think most people, if they took it to the basement, would think of the pizzeria. Go look, there's no basement. There is nothing here. There are people eating pizza and there is a children's party. But, you know, that's not exactly a pedophile ring. It's not like these people are going to say, oh, in that case, I'll vote for Hillary. They were never going to vote for Hillary, you know? So it's a substitute for, you know, in the sense that, okay, this is not true. But the kind of things that those Democrats would do, you know, they're colluding and they want to ruin America.

They would take away our freedoms and our weapons and blah. And wasn't there something in the '90s about the Clinton body count with that guy, Vince Foster, and that real estate deal that went wrong and wasn't there something about Bill Clinton on the plane with Jeffrey Epstein to that island where he had a network of pedophiles, right? Well not exactly. But, you know, Epstein's preferences seem to be girls ages 14 to 17, not five-year-olds. But, you know, you just combine all that into a theory and then you have the pizza thing. Well, P cheese pizza is child pornography.

Oh boy. And it goes on and on and on. And before, you know, two years later, you go down the rabbit hole and you have this idea that's so crazy that even if you debunk it, you know, someone's holding it back. So they don't believe it in the traditional sense that I believe in gravity or whatever they believe in, but in some other kind of indirect sense. It represents something else. That's why it's so hard to convince someone not to do it, because it's part of their identity. It's part of them, like you said, their tribe believes this.

And they are looking for stories that are reinforced in their tribe. And if you discredit one, you're challenging who they are and their tribe will kick them out and then they'll feel, you know, alone on the outside, which is why they got involved. with this tribe first. I think if enough Republicans speak out against the rigged election conspiracy theory and. Trump we are not, we have not yet reached the tipping point. Maybe after midterms, something. They are starting. For some people to emerge who will probably have more support in the Republican Party and then everyone will say, I never really believe the election was rigged, I just went with it and then, but I don't believe it.

I think we've already reached that point, but I hope we get there. So, what I want to say is worrying, you see that people act on January 6th, people act according to their beliefs. You know, the guy who went to Pelosi's house. Okay, some mental illnesses don't help either. Good? So, but, but it's not just a mental illness. He had a conspiracy theory in his head. You know, the election was rigged. Nancy Pelosi is evil. I'm going to go in there and, you know, break his kneecaps and then. Yeah, so what her family says is that she was isolated and, you know, well covered up for the last few years.

People are isolated. They are, they are on the Web. They are like going down the rabbit hole. They find a new community. They integrate with the community. And now they are all reinforced and it gets crazier and crazier. There was a comment that came up earlier, which was, you know, that tech companies aren't necessarily evil for doing this. They are just trying to make money. And one of the ways, for example, that Facebook will keep you on their site is by giving you things to look at. So you join a group, like we talked about before, for new mothers.

And they see that you are a member of that group. And well, that group overlaps with another group that talks about vaccines. They don't know it. They don't know that it is the new mothers who are on the vaccines. For them it's just group and group B, but they see the overlap. Then they feed you a couple from the vaccinated group to see if you bite. Are you interested? And if it is now, you're going to get more and more of that stuff because it keeps you on the site so they can show you more ads.

Well, now that you're also in the vaccine group that feeds you something from another group, maybe a little crazier, you know, now it's, you know, you know, Q and more or something like that. And if you bite, okay, great, we'll show you more. And now you get that repetition and you're in a new group and you get reinforcement. But it's not like they're there to make you look at, you know, push that. It's just group A in group B and group C for them with certain overlaps. And so we go. And we don't exist. Know. 25 years, right.

So the JFK conspiracy theories, for example, you know, they used to meet in hotel rooms, in conference rooms, and they had their little mimeographed newsletters that were sent out to 100 people or something like that. That's all. They just didn't have your self-published books. They just didn't have the power to reach many people. And now, you know, like Loose Change, that 9/11 home movie was made in like 2000, late '22, '23, and it had like 10 million views in a few weeks. I mean, the kind of numbers that Hollywood producers would kill for their movies. And so the penetration is much deeper and the spread is much faster overnight.

You can launch these things and get the videos viral. And that's what the new conspiracies are. It is not new and probably goes back to the origin of civilization. You know, when Rome burned, there were different theories about what Nero was doing. Good. Did you let it happen on purpose or did he do it on purpose? My right to obstetrics. These are 911 truth serum kind of terms. Did Bush know what was going to happen and let it slide as an excuse to invade Iraq? Or was he really involved when he ordered people to plant explosive devices in the World Trade Center?

The buildings lie and I above. Same with President Roosevelt. After Pearl Harbor, there were investigations into how this happened. You know, a lot of racism. There is no way the Japanese could have accomplished this. I mean, they can't even see, they squint. I mean, seriously, they're too dumb and can't see. How did they manage to attack Pearl Harbor with such success? Someone must have been involved in this, Roosevelt or, you know, etcetera. So I jump in my head, but introduce Cao, taking advantage of what happened on purpose, right? So Roosevelt wanted to participate in the war.

They want to support Churchill on that and the British against the Nazis couldn't do it, couldn't get Congressional support. The first American one was led by Charles Lindbergh, you know, who had enough muscle to block American entanglements in the European wars. We are no longer going to do this after the disastrous First World War. And so, but after Pearl Harbor, okay, everyone says, okay, now we're in. TRUE? The same goes for Bush. We know that he wanted to invade Iraq. He had no excuse. He now he has an excuse. He didn't make this happen. He let it happen, but it happened.

And now, okay, then let's do what we want to do. All politicians do that. And that brings us to the second part, which is: how do we differentiate between a conspiracy theory that is false and a conspiracy theory that they really want to achieve? Yes of course. Well, again, they just reached for some of those. The more people that have to be involved, the more elements that have to come together for this to happen, the larger the scope of the theory, the less likely it is to be true. And so I think the 911 is an inside job as a type specimen that we all saw airplanes hit.

Although I should note parenthetically, there are conspiracy theories that say there were no planes. They are called the no planners and others discredit them. The truth is, I would say that, of course, there were planes, but there were also bombs. And you know, those people who say there were no planes there, idiots. So it's fun to watch them discredit each other. It's like what I used to do in the '90s. I did the debate with young earth creationists and old earth creationism. They kind of chased each other, which is kind of funny, but just to think, how could that have happened?

You would have to know in advance which floors of the World Trade Center buildings were being hit by the planes. I mean, the hijackers are instructed to bank the plane. So you hit more floors and do more damage this way instead of directly. And they did it. Good. So, somehow, the guys who were placingexplosive devices would have had to know that it would be floors 96 to 107. And that is where the explosive devices are placed. Impossible not to mention, you know, the attempt to blow up building 93 of the World Trade Center. So these were the most protected buildings in the country.

Somehow they got in there and passed through you and you had to go through the drywall to get to the joists and no one noticed. Well, they did it under the pretext of repairing an elevator. Elevator repair, you know, because you're not near the elevators when they're planning, you know, anyway, it's crazy. And somehow this all came together and not a single person came forward to say, you know, oh, I was dating this guy. And he told me all about it, you know, or someone who wants to write a book to tell everything about 60 Minutes or go back to WikiLeaks.

Good. Millions of classified documents, none related to 911 is an inside job, not a memo, nothing impossible. That's how we find out about things like Let me recite some of them in the context of Operation COINTELPRO constructive conspiracism, the counterintelligence program run by the FBI to place agents in social justice movement groups in the United States. You know, the American Indian Movement, various feminist groups, the Black Panthers, dozens of groups, civil rights groups where at some of the meetings apparently like this one, you know, half the people there were FBI spies. And well, one of the activists said that he noticed him because he always wore the tips of his wig wings like dyed shirts.

But tips like, come on, dude, he wore the wrong shoes anyway, even blackmailing Martin Luther King Jr, you know, but the famous letter they sent him saying, you know, we have the tape, is that he's not the husband. more faithful, let's put it that way. So he went on dates in hotel rooms and they recorded him having sex and they said, we're going to release the tapes, sort of like revenge porn, which is illegal. We're going to release the tapes unless you kill yourself. Basically in the letter. Turns out it came from the FBI. Hoover, Jr.

Hoover orchestrated what our government did. Yeah. Well, that's just a mkultra project where the CIA was worried about the breach. We were worried about the missile gap with the Russians. Well, worried about brainwashing. Bring in those Russians and Chinese. The North Koreans have a head start on us when it comes to brainwashing. Manchurian candidate. You know, we're going to program this guy to murder someone. And so we have to get involved in this. So they administered LSD and other mind-altering drugs to American citizens, without their knowledge and without their consent. One guy, Frank Olson, who was a chemist who worked for the CIA on this program, was dosed without being told.

They just had a dinner, something they put in the drink. And then he lost his mind. Ten days later, he jumped from a New York skyscraper and was pushed to his death or killed. You know, and the CIA hasn't admitted anything, but they paid $750,000 to the family decades later because his son kept the story alive. Eric Olson Anyway, you can watch all of this on Netflix. There's a movie by Earl Morris called Wormwood Wormwood, and it's about this. And our government is doing this illegally, right? There is no congressional approval for this. Nobody even knows. And, you know, Operation Clip, in which we caught Nazi scientists, worked on biological weapons, chemical weapons and, of course, nuclear weapons and rockets, the most famous of which goes with the clip in the file that We're going to take this guy and move him to the United States, groom him and give him a job to work for us instead of the Russians because they're trying to force him to do it or we doubt he's going to do it. put him on trial in Nuremberg for war crimes, you know what?

What do you know, Verna von Braun is the most famous example of this. She worked on the Apollo program, but there were hundreds of them. And these are guys like the guy. I forgot, Otto. I forget his last name that he worked for. He invented sarin gas for the Nazis. Alright. Now, Hitler did not use gas as a weapon. He clearly had no qualms about using it against Jewish populations. But gas as a weapon was invented by the Nazis. So we have it. We have to get this guy who works for us. Our government did this right and this wasn't passed by Congress or anything like that.

And I could go on and on. You know, all the assassination attempts on Castro, dozens of assassination attempts, including work with the FBI, work with the mafia, because, you know, if you're going to have someone assassinate someone, hire someone who knows what it does. You are doing. Good. Competent, they are competent killers. Let's catch those guys. They do it all the time. Good. So, 62 high-ranking people in the Kennedy administration brought to Kennedy and Robert McNamara a document called, let's say it was called Not Wormwood. Anyway, come to me for a moment, but we have the document where they built plans for false flag operations.

You've heard this term from Alex Jones, Sandy Hook is a false flag operation. What does that mean? You know that the pirate ship raises a false flag so the other ship thinks it's okay and then attacks it, right? So it's an excuse to do something unpleasant. And we were already doing it right after the failed Bay of Pigs operations. Well, we have to do something else. And to get rid of this guy, you can't have communists within 90 miles of Miami. So they tried to kill him and so on. And then they finally brought in Kennedy and McNamara.

Well, how about we shoot down a commercial airliner full of American students on the way to Cancun or whatever, blame it on the Cubans, and then invade? And there were about two dozen suggestions like this, all described. Now, to its credit, Kennedy and McNamara said we should not kill American citizens. That's crazy. You know, we'll do something else to try to get rid of Castro. Good. And but that that that has happened a lot. The whole attempt to manipulate elections in South American countries to favor fascist dictators over communist dictators because they were sons of bitches, but he is our son of bitches.

He is more favorable to American business interests. That has happened a lot. So when someone says, you know, I think the government is useless, they have good reason. And yet, how do we differentiate ourselves? I mean, one of the things we can do is say in many cases, we look at the engineering or, you know, the science or, you know, some external evidence to determine whether it happened or not. So in conspiracy theories or many scientific conspiracy theories, we don't depend on whether we believe this guy or that guy. We can say, well, wait a minute, here are the checks and balances, and they're tested.

And these people have seen it and you can order it yourself, etc., etc., because otherwise it just becomes: Do I think the government is out to get me as a basic belief versus some other type of belief? I mean, we have to have some way to differentiate the 911 things that you bring, that you mention. I mean, we know exactly how it happened from an engineering point of view, it's not particularly difficult to figure out that, you know, steel at a certain temperature sinks. It does not melt at a much higher temperature, but loses its strength at a relatively low temperature.

That's why all the steel in buildings is covered in asbestos. After the collapse of a 19th century building that was constructed of steel, there was a fire. It softens and everything falls away. That's why everything is covered in asbestos. That gives you time to exit the building before the steel melts. And in the 911, it lost a little power and sank in the middle. And he came off the edge. Brackets, you know, when the plane hit the thing, it took the asbestos out of the steel. And then, of course, once they start analyzing it, it's like, wham, straight down, you know, so you can appeal to the engineers, the engineers, to see what really happened here.

You might in voting cases, you might start saying, well, wait a minute, how do you order this? Who's there? Because otherwise, yeah, it's hard to figure these things out. Did you know? Well, yes, we have to have some confidence in the institutions that would know this. What do I know about why buildings form? I remember when these conspiracy theories started coming out and there's no way a building can fall straight down. fingerprint. It's like, why not? I mean, I don't know why buildings fall. Do you know that, just like on Twitter, everyone is an expert on Ukraine?

And next week, they will be virus experts. Good. Say, what do you do if he comes? Are you guys coming in? Yes, exactly correct. Yes. So, you know, you have to think, well, what would the motivation be? So in the case of the World Trade Center buildings, they were insured. And an insurance company has to pay billions of dollars for those buildings. So they would be very interested in knowing if someone actually planted explosive devices, they would be very motivated to know, oh, the president of the United States ordered this, in that case, we don't have to pay.

Hey. Yes of course. Of course, they will be more so when they leave. You know, we investigated it and that's why it went down and we have to pay. And they did it. Well. And the story. Good. So, again, Attorney General Bill Barr motivated to find fraud if there was any, says there wasn't, and the story. He was motivated to find a problem, he was. So how would you know who to call in Arizona to find out if? Yes. It becomes who. Yes. So I have to trust that, you know, the people who run this and you know, there are 50 states, you know, most of us are just ordinary citizens.

You know, we can't check these things, you know. And so the whole thing is held together by the kind of social glue that is trusting that institutions work better. Good. I mean, in Arizona, they, you know, they actually looked into it and found 12 votes that were fraudulent. 12. And Biden won by 10,000. Good. And anyway, then yes. And, you know, extraordinary statements require extraordinary evidence, just remembering who I trust and what I want to say, that brings us to, you know, what do I do if I believe that? You know, the Earth is not flat. And I have a friend who thinks it's flat, that cats aren't involved.

And, you know, how do I approach this? I mean, I personally tried the "you're an idiot" approach didn't work very well. No, it's not like that, you know. Yeah. So Thanksgiving dinner is coming up and, wow, you know, someone sitting there is going to say, you know, you on that. Yes. Then that doesn't work. I worked with Netflix on a series about brainwashing and we found this, the episode at the right time. We found a woman in Texas who has a highly educated college degree, you know, she's married and has kids, she's very successful, she runs her own public relations company, she's a beautiful woman and she just had the perfect life.

And then COVID happens. Her business closed. She's bored to death. Kids don't go to school, whatever. And she goes down the online rabbit hole. And about six months later, her husband, she played the tape for her recorded message from her it's either me or Q and like that, I'm going to take the kids and leave if you don't give this up. And she gave up on her family, and she finally came back and came to say, wow, but she said, well, why was that like that? I told them this is the most important thing I will do in my life.

I am working against this global pedophile network, the deep state, and I am part of this. Let's stop this. Horrible, horrible. This may be the worst. That has ever happened to our country. And this is my 70th, 17th, 76th moment. You know, I'm like Jefferson, the. Purpose and purpose. And yes, that's what he gives. So that's one of the reasons. So if you try to eliminate that, it's going to be difficult, right? So you ask questions. Really all you can do is listen, be respectful, ask a lot. Well, that's really interesting. Do you know where you heard that?

Did you know? Which is the source? What is the quality of the source? Yes. The more you ask and as we mentioned before, I think the respect, the feeling that, well, you know, it might actually be right. Yeah. You can add some things like, you know, MKULTRA and some of these other examples of what the CIA has done. Yes, it could be, you know, but is it really true? That's what we want to know. It is really true? And then you can always ask the counterfactuals, you know, well, what would it take to change your mind?

Hmm. And many times it is. A great. Question what do you ask and what do people usually ask, huh. You, I never thought about that, I don't know. Or they don't do anything. It's like, okay, okay. Now we are dealing. Yeah, I mean, we are. Really into it. Let's have dessert. Whatever. That's the blueberry. We are. I mean, there you are like in the realm of religion, you know, if someone says, Well, I'm a Christian, I believe in the resurrection of Jesus. Well, what would it take to change your mind? Nothing. I'm Christian. This is what we believe.

And the story is correct. And anyway, that's how it is. Yes, I like the idea of ​​questions because the person really has to change their mind. You can not. I discovered them and forced them to change their minds. And then you start asking, you know,Well, what would it take to change your mind? What are the details? Know? Well, you know this is horrible. You know, Obamacare is horrible. Well, what is Obamacare and what is what? Most people have no idea. I mean, you know. Our currency, ours. Another example is Napster. I think it was Hugo Mercy's research on that, you know, asking people who said they were against NAFTA or they were for NAFTA.

And after what is it? Uh, it's that north, but it's the United States. I don't know. But it's bad because Clinton liked it. That was during the Clinton administration. You know, they don't really know. You know, I just don't know what's bad because it's the other team. Yes. Yes. That's what you said. Oh, it's a symbol of your underlying beliefs. Good. Yes. Yes. And then yes. We just poke it and it doesn't happen right away. But all that was mentioned in a previous talk was that a lot of people got into this because they are lonely or especially in recent years.

And then there are emotional pressures to break this loneliness. And this is the group they found. And if you convince them that this group is crazy, then they will go back to their original problem of feeling lonely or bored or bored or whatever. So at the same time you were building a support system for them, you know, family. And that's why they won't throw them into the middle of the ocean. There are those kinds of things. Some recent research on the entertainment value of conspiracy. Theories. Oh boy. They're pretty, they're pretty fun. They are. They are.

They're kind of interesting, you know? I mean, most of daily life is pretty boring. Just get up, go to work, and take the kids. School, whatever. And it gives you a feeling of understanding. I mean, there are people I've heard say that people would rather the devil rule the world than no one else. Well, that's right. Yes, that is correct. Yes, exactly correct. There is no one in charge. That? You know, why is there inflation? Well, we can ask this economist that more or less. Oh, it's the Illuminati or it's the Jews. Oh, that makes a lot more sense than what this guy here at the Federal Reserve is saying.

Uh, you know, it is. It's all like that. I mean, the world is pretty chaotic too. A lot of it is just randomness, you know, just fluctuation. Things go up, things go down. And, you know, we attribute causes to the ups and downs, but there is no cause. They're just random fluctuations, right? So if the stars in the sky are random, they are randomly distributed, but they look like fish, scorpions, horses, big and small dippers, etc. My favorite story is when Steve Jobs launched the iPod, then they added the shuffle feature, which would shuffle the songs in your playlist, and they got complaints from customers: Hey, it's not random.

Some songs appear more than others. It's like that's randomness, right? So they had to reprogram it to make it look random when it actually wasn't, you know? So if you ask research subjects about this, you know, just flip a coin on your head, you know, like 100 times and people say, I know heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, heads, tails. , tails, heads, heads. . And it's actually like six or seven in a row because each one of them comes up a lot. You get these long streaks that don't look random, but are actually randomness. Throw a handful of coins into the air and they will land on the ground.

They will not be distributed evenly. If they were distributed perfectly evenly, there would be something strange, like there was a magnet under the floor, something, you know. So the cancer clusters that epidemiologists discover are not randomly distributed in the way we think. But the group, that's randomness. Then you have to know it. So immediately there's a conspiracy theory, you know, oh, there's an industrial company that fell, you know, upstream and it's the air or the water that's contaminated by the chemical, you know, Erin Brockovich and all that with her activism, maybe, but maybe not. It may just be random.

Statistics are difficult. I mean, I sweated through that class in college and that's one of the areas where you have to rely on an expert who says, you know, we have a number of people and this is what happens. And because a lot of this is really, you know, a little creepy, but people who know what you mean, use statistics when you actually don't know exactly what's going on. That's why you have to start trusting experience. I want to get to the questions. Oh yeah. Well. And I tell people at home to remember to write things in the YouTube chat.

We already have a few, but I'm going to start with one that was sent to me a while ago When dealing with people who are into the big lie, is it possible to use a truthful conspiracy theory to counter a false one? ? What would happen if an extremist believer was told the truth about certain sources of information to lie to him day after day to manipulate him and his friends? This precise information would seem outrageous, like a conspiracy theory. And so, some of them turn around and follow this new conspiracy theory. Yes, I tried. After the January 6 insurrection, the initial response at Fox News' Trump booth was that they were Antifa people dressed as Trump's STR.

So I responded: Well, all those protests of the BLM movement, they are actually Republicans dressed as rifles, dressed as proud children. It's like cross-dressing, you know? It's like I mean, the moment you say that's not provable, it's just a statement. I don't know. I sometimes invoke what I call the Hitchens dictum: what can be Christopher Hitchens, what can be stated without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. You know, do you have any evidence now? Okay, so end of conversation. Good. And we have questions here, we are still runners-up. Well, I hope so. We can just repeat the microphone.

Well. We can repeat questions. Alright. There's a microphone here. You have to use the microphone. Yes, I can go turn on the microphone. Whatever. So let's go to the I'll do it that way. Can. Let's say you are an engineer. In this. Well, I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask one that came on YouTube. Do you think Trump really believes the 2020 election was stolen? I don't know. You know, it's hard to say. We cannot address the problem of other minds. We can't get into other people's heads. We believe it is possible. I mean, you know, Jim Jones really believes in his, you know, nonsense about calling leaders believing they're psychic.

Astrologers really believe it. Maybe because if enough followers reinforce it, they may come to believe it. There is a theory, the Bob Trivers theory, about deception and self-deception, according to which if you lie, the cognitive load is greater because you have to be attentive to the truth. And then the lie you told and then forgot. And then you tell the second lie, whatever it is. So more cognition is needed. But if you believe the lie, there's only one thing you need to remember. Therefore, you are less likely to signal in facial expressions and things like that.

If you really believe the lie. Then it is possible. You know, Trump is the classic case of the dark triad: psychopathy. Machiavellianism and narcissism. Narcissistic personality. And you know he might just believe it because you know he's been lying his whole life about everything. I mean it's just nothing. Yes. Yes. My guess is that he's not actually lying. That he really believes that. Yes. The people around him know better. They are the evil ones. But Trump himself, I think being an engineer, not a psychologist, I guess he can't allow himself to believe that he lost. Good.

Good. So he'll go through whatever intellectual, you know, jumping around as necessary, which will seem increasingly strange to those of us on the outside. And then there are people who discover that they can make money from it. They can be chosen out of it. They could be the bad ones. Good. Good. Let's have a question here where I have the microphone to see this first. I love what you said about humans. Human nature is actually very predisposed to finding patterns because as soon as you can find patterns, you can predict what might happen next. And when you think about the opposite of that, the idea of ​​randomness is really terrible to say.

So the idea of ​​us all coming up with theories to make our world a little safer makes a lot of sense. And I guess what I'm arguing is that, first of all, we all do this. And so us reacting with contempt to other people's so-called conspiracy theories is one of the things that I think really makes part of this divide so bad, because people hate being condescended to and contemptuous. And then I guess the next part is how we tilt things so that randomness becomes beautiful and surprising and fascinating because that's really what natural selection is.

Good? So I'm a science teacher and my job is to try to do that. And children are much more receptive to it than adults. And I'm wondering what you have to say about how we went from threatening to fascinating and beautiful. For what you just said, for just saying what you said? That was beautifully said. I bet your students don't fall for that as much. So educational reform, more of that, right? I mean, I've often thought that I teach this class at Chapman University. So these are freshmen college students. One-on-one skepticism. How to think like a scientist, right?

Just basic stuff like we've been talking about tonight, Bayesian reasoning, signal detection theory, you know, the

rational

ity community type of stuff, but it's not rocket science. I mean, anyone could understand this if middle school was taught in high school. So, I mean, instead of taking I don't know, maybe what I took? Geometry, pre-algebra, algebra, precalculus, calculus. You know, why do I need all those things? I never used it because I didn't get into the STEM field, so maybe I'll just take one of those courses and add to how to think this is basically a reason, you know, here are the top ten biases of motivated reasoning. confirmation bias, hindsight bias on my side bias boom, boom, boom with examples.

And there are people who do this, programs, books and things like that, but usually it is at the university, I think the sooner the better. You do. It was teaching kids how to do this. Yes. Yes. Mislead you about how to do clickbait, for example, because apparently that inoculates them a little against it. I also like the examples we used from Skeptic magazine, you know, the paranormal, the supernatural, astrology, Bigfoot UFOs. These are fun topics that I think students like to talk about, right? More than some kind of philosophical logic. Of course, you know, if P than Q, if not P the night Q and then your eyes are like glassy.

Do you know how. We're in Sam Wylie's September 29 talk about the landing page for that. If he goes to see our past talks, we have a full list of references. And one of them is actually about, you know, civics and media education in the Stanford University Online Civic Reasoning curriculum at c0r dot, Stanford dot edu. And there are many others, the young skeptics and the journalistic literacy projects that exist there. That's what some of these previous conversations are referring to. Let's take another one and we'll tell you the next one. And then leave. So what's the problem with political polls?

Oh boy. I'm not sure what you mean. I mean, it's a little out of my wheelhouse. Do you mean it's accurate? Oh no, we know that's not accurate. Well, what do you mean it's not accurate? Appearances here with these surveys. You know, suddenly the Republicans are going to win everything. I don't know, if you're talking about the midterm elections, that's a back and forth trade. You know, I don't know, a month and a half ago, two months ago, they were definitely going to win and they didn't. And now they are. And they're not, I don't know.

I think surveys are only as good as self-reported data, which is not as good. You know, you're just asking people, what are you thinking right now? Yeah, what's up with that? They mean right? It is always a defect of social science research, of surveys. Someone else. And also people go back to the random statistics thing, again, just this basic reasoning like what does it mean when the weatherman on the news says there's a 30% chance of rain tomorrow and you ask people what does it mean, and You respond like, well, it's going to rain 30% of the time or it's going to rain 30% of the city.

You know, that's not what it means. You know, these are computer models that if you run them 100 times, it rained 30 of them. Good. Alright. Just use it. You know, Hillary had a 70% chance of winning and she lost. So what do those pollsters know? No. If you ran in those elections 100 times, Hillary wins 70 of them. Trump wins 30 of them. That was one of the 30. That's all. Good. But people don't really understand that. Believe. That kind of. Awesome. Before I get into my question, my professor wanted me to address the topic of surveys. Oh no. He says, quote: If he's been following FiveThirtyEight's aggregate polls, be careful.

It seems that the electoral centers favorable to the Republican Party havehas been flooding the area with its polls to reduce Democratic turnout, particularly when it comes to close Senate races. So we'll see if that's true anyway in a week. Yeah, I have a fun question. I am sure you have understood it a lot. Are there any particular conspiracy theories that haven't been verified yet that you think have a semblance of truth? Oh. Well, a lot of the ones that I already mentioned changed, we discovered them because of whistleblowers and leaks, etc., which, you know, it was like our government was doing that, you know, like monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel, you know , your cellphone.

That? Well. So there's enough of that to make me a little suspicious. I'm not a big anti-government guy. But, you know, it's like we have to be careful that something happens when you come to power for everyone, Democrats and Republicans, even, you know, President Obama. So here's my theory. If they elect you president, they take you backstage and say, okay, this is what's really happening. And it's like, well, but I said I was going to close Gitmo. Yes Yes. You can't close Gitmo because if you do, this will happen. Alright. But I said I would. Yes Yes.

Don't worry about that. It is at the height. Well. I hope you please me because last night I had a strange experience and I didn't sleep well. I went to CVS, eager to make sure I had enough candy, and a woman told us we were parallel parked. She had the window down and she and she had a beautiful car. I said: What is it? She said: It's a 2001 Jaguar convertible. Okay. And it was beautiful. The question is well, I need a comment on this anyway, but he said that people are jealous of me and every time I park it, they hit it.

There was nothing. It was perfect. Well. Anyway, she said, Nancy Pelosi has taken $700,000 of Social Security money and taken illegal immigrants to the DMV and also registered them to vote. And then she said, you know, Obama, he's from Indonesia. His father is the king of Tunisia, right? Oh boy. And his real name is Berry. And I said, where do you get your information? And I was waiting for Fox News. And, you know, he said, I'm a journalist. And then she said the real Barack Obama is in Kenya. And we flew there to interview him and we waited and he didn't show up and they told us he was dead.

And then, wow, well, there's more, but I'll close with this. Yes, she said, you know about Michelle Obama. I said, oh, I'm all you know, she's a man. She is mayor. Of course. She said: Well, everyone knows it. I'm using her arm muscles. Yes. I, you know, she has a man who doesn't have children. Those are just the ones they made it seem like. Actors of the family crisis. And then she said, I have to get back to, okay, okay, I'm going to finish, but I have a comment and she had left CVS and it was only 20 minutes later.

She's the one I kicked everyone out and they're all Asian. I'm white and they're Asian. And I told them, don't understand it, don't understand it. You're going to die for that. And she said: My 20 minutes were up. I have to go in and get my second booster shot in the other arm. Oh yeah. I don't know what to do with that. Yes, some people are. But the thing is, you know, I'm a teacher and I'm very well educated, Phi Beta Kappa summa cum laude. So this woman's vote counts the same as mine. That's how it is.

That's how it is. That's how it is. Good. Yes. And I would say that there are people like that. I mean, they are always part of my daily work. They write me long letters. Alright. Thanks for the discussion. Big question. So I'm curious. So a lot of what was said is that it could be evolutionary or biological in nature. And what I was wondering is whether, you know, to what extent you might think that might be a function of our values. So, for example, a lot of times when I try to talk to someone and maybe try to get them to change their perspective, it's almost like I'm attacking them personally and that this pattern is part of their identity.

And it made me want to study philosophy and engineering, but it made me wonder if, you know, you know, maybe it has something to do with what we're taught to be, right? As if we were celebrating one of the rights. But, you know, maybe it was, let's find out. Or, you know, the goal is, you know, to be right, is to figure it out, or anyway, to what extent could it be a function of values? And that's a construct of how people think, as opposed to something that's biologically ingrained and the rules are programmed to be that way.

Well, we know that norms can be changed from the bottom up if everyone changes their language or how they respond to other people. I mean, people don't use the N-word anymore. How did that happen? No law was passed. We all decided, you know what? This is really offensive. We're just not going to do this anymore. Good. Or tell, you know, gay jokes or jokes about women and a wife. Wife jokes, you know, used to be very popular. Now it's just not right, you know? And if too many of us speak up or refuse to laugh at someone's idiotic joke that is offensive, then the norms slowly change.

You know, thinking about this, I had a podcast yesterday. We were talking about what is the fastest known civil rights revolution. You know, it was, you know, the same-sex marriage thing happened pretty quickly, you know, since 2011, when there were about 5,050 in polls about whether it was acceptable or not. And then, in 2015, the Supreme Court voted to make it the law of the land. You know, same-sex marriage is now legal. And then, very quickly, everyone stopped talking about it and it became commonplace. Good. And the same goes for interracial marriages. There weren't many, you know, it was illegal until 1967.

And even in places like the 1990s, there were only like 1% interracial marriages, mostly black men and white women. And now it's much higher. It's like ten times higher than anything else. It is, it is, and somehow that changes slowly slowly enough. You don't really notice it. And then suddenly here we are, wow, things are so much better. And I think if those of us in the skeptical

rational

ity kind of community, you know, just talk about how it's okay to change your mind, you know, actually, it's not just okay, it's a virtue. Yes, it is a scientific way.

If you give me more evidence, I will change my. Mind. That's how it is. And moving away from black and white is true or false. Think about it in a more Bayesian way. It's probably true. It's probably fake. Maybe it could be 5050 like these UAP. Are they all really aliens or not? Well, okay, you know, you means unidentified. That's all we know. I do not know what it is. Let's hope. You do not have to say anything. We don't have to decide. Just wait and make it a. Virtue without another question. Well. Yes. I was wondering if you think there's any danger in satirical conspiracy theories like birds aren't real.

Oh, I like that. I actually thought that was really funny. If you're not familiar with this, this is a young man. I forgot his name. Do you remember his name? The birds are not real. Yeah. Anyway, it started with this thing that all the birds you see are actually drones, and people took them very seriously. He was driving around with a van. And you know, birds aren't real. And he had a megaphone. He's like Alex Jones on the road. And, you know, he finally says that The 60 Minutes actually did a piece on it. It was great.

I think it's cool because it shows the absurdity of really far-out conspiracy theories. But then let me make a comment about Alex Jones in that verdict against him, the ruling against him. You know, I'm a little conflicted about this. It's like, you know, freedom of speech, you know, but you can't hurt people. And his words almost directly led to people going to these houses and harassing these people. But I can't help but wonder. I only know of one woman who was arrested and jailed for harassing someone in her house. But why did everyone else we've heard about take Alex Jones' stories and then go to these houses?

Do you know why they aren't also guilty of that? So it's like, you know, Trump's speech that morning on January 6, is he responsible, it's an interesting problem. Most First Amendment lawyers have told me that it is a very high bar to reach, to go from speech to violence by another person. And they probably won't be able to get them because they are responsible for January 6. We'll see. But it's okay. Well, we have time for maybe one more question. It is rather. So most of the conspiracy theories we've talked about come from the conservative side of the political spectrum, IQ and so on, and the big lie.

What are the most common false narratives or beliefs you see among liberals? MM Yes. So, as a predictor of conspiracy beliefs, Republicans and Democrats are roughly equal, but what you're interested in is the specific type of conspiracy or race. You know, black Americans are more likely to think that the CIA planted and cracked cocaine or invented AIDS to decimate black populations. White Americans are more likely to think the government is taking away our guns. They are plotting to put gun owners in FEMA camps in Texas and so on. You know, Obama's was supported more by Republicans, 911's, more true, is supported by more liberals.

So, you know, those kinds of demographic characteristics are more proxies for specific conspiracy theories than just general conspiracism or kind of paranoia or whatever, anyway. Yes. And there is a lot on the left. I mean, in most elections, the losing side, so this is the little slogan: conspiracies are for losers, whoever loses thinks the other side did something. And Democrats do this every election. They always dislike Republicans. What's different now is that they usually abandon it a couple of weeks after the election. Everyone understands, let's focus on the next one. And that's what's different now because, you know, the people.

Mt. did not lie. Trump still believes the 2016 election was rigged. It's like, dude, you won. You're supposed to. Being. Talking about research in social sciences. You're supposed to shut up now. Well, maybe I have one more. I just saw this. You mentioned that the rise of social media and technology has increased the replicability of many of these beliefs and therefore we are seeing a rise in conspiracy theories. I'm wondering what solutions you recommend we adopt on a societal level or which ones you've seen actually exist. It's kind of an act, although I'm conflicted about this. You know, these are private companies.

I'm not willing to have the government come in and regulate them and divide them and that kind of thing, and in general I think that just countering bad speech with better speech is kind of a general principle, with obvious exceptions of defamation and slander. someone who harms them physically or financially or whatever. You can't post nuclear codes on Twitter, you know, stuff like that. You know, those are low-hanging fruit. But in general, I think it's better to counter it, you know, and social media is still pretty new, right? 27 is actually when it was released. So that wasn't that long ago.

It could be in ten years. No, he will use Twitter. It'll be something else, like, you know, mice. But what happened to MySpace? And now Facebook is too old for people like me to use. And kids today don't use Facebook, they use any Instagram tik tok in ten years, it may be something we can't even think about and none of these will be that influential. So before we panic and think, well, this is an existential crisis, you know, I mean, there's evidence that there's been an increase in depression, anxiety, cutting, and suicidal ideation in teenagers, approximately double in girls. and boys.

Why is that? Is it social media in general? I mean, is it screen time in general? Is it social media in particular? Is that place, you know, Facebook, the fear of missing out? Regardless, they are being excluded. The research is still unclear on this. We do not know. There are a few things suggested in the September 29 talk. We talked about some of them, but, for example, you could add what's called friction to things like Twitter, etc., that you can't just forward something immediately. First you have to prove that you have read it. You can only resend it five times.

You only increase the friction of things exploding. Everyone's interested in your theories about how, you know, does it really help to add something at the end that says this has been debunked? That helps? Does it make it worse? One of the things that's happening is that many corporations are now encrypting everything. Oh, we will do it for your privacy. Well, they really are to some extent. Therefore, they cannot monitor whether it is encrypted, they cannot be held responsible for the content. And yet we can say that there has been some research on Twitter that we can guess whether something is true or false by looking at the pattern, if it starts simultaneously at the top from about ten locations and explodes down with the coefficientintellectually, those people do arise from The lower part of the people does not have many connections and little by little grows outwards.

Maybe even if you can't see the actual content. A lot of people are working on it, but I don't think they have an answer. And that is something we have to do, of course, there is legislation. How do you hold someone responsible for this? And that is quite a legal mess. There have been many discussions about that. Yeah, well, good point. We should end this. So our thanks to Dr. Michael Shermer for being with us today. We are all ready. Thank you. Thank you all for. And we also thank our audience present and those who listen to the recording.

And now this meeting of the Commonwealth Club of California is adjourned, commemorating its 119th year of enlightened debate. Oh.