The Race Differences in Conspiracy Theories

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The race differences in conspiracism is not how much a conspiratory minded you are, but which conspiracy theories you embrace. African americans are more likely to think that the government planted crack cocane and inner cities,. or created aids to decimalia african American populations. Whites are more likely to the the second amendment is going to be abolished, and o bom is creating cocamps in texas for gun owners.

When it comes to what we believe, humans see what they want to see. We have what Julia Galef calls a “soldier” mindset: a drive to defend the ideas we most want to believe — and shoot down those we don’t. But if we want to get things right more often, argues Galef, we should train ourselves to have a “scout” mindset. Unlike the soldier, a scout’s goal isn’t to defend one side over the other. It’s to go out, survey the territory, and come back with as accurate a map as possible. Regardless of what they hope to be the case, above all, the scout wants to know what’s actually true. In The Scout Mindset, Galef explores why our brains deceive us and what we can do to change the way we think.