We're All Conspiracy Theorists Now. Psychology Says So.
New research in psychology explains what makes conspiracy theorists tick. More and more of us fit the profile.
They're everywhere.
You can't go online anymore without tripping over a conspiracy theory these days. Right now, Disease X is trending on... X. Conspiracy theorists think they've found a hidden clue that the global elite are creating a virus specifically for Elon Musk and his fans. Yeah, I know...
It's a fresh level of crazy.
This is sort of how a garden variety conspiracy theory operates. It feeds existing worldviews while giving the conspiracy theorists themselves an elevated sense of importance, even connection to each other.
If you've been paying attention, "Disease X" has been popping up in the news for a long time. It predates Elon Musk's rebranding of Twitter by a solid year or two. It's simply the name epidemiologists give to whatever new pathogen is going to cause the next pandemic. It could be avian flu.
It could be a fungus.
We don't know.
Conspiracy theorists can't believe that scientists have learned how to predict pandemics. They're absolutely positive that "predictin…