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Conspiracy Theories: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational | Michael Shermer

Hidden Forces

CHAPTER

What Is a Constructive Conspiracy Theory?

In many ways, there's a kind of rationality behind most conspiracy theories. There's a tiny little element of truth, even in Alex Jones's crazy rantings about false flag operations at Sandy Hook. The subtitle of my book is why the rational believe the irrational. I talk about MK ultra, you know, the CA dosing American citizens with psychoactive drugs like LSD as a form of research on mind control. It's better to make a type one error in which you assume a conspiracy theory is true when it's not just in case versus a type two error where you miss a real conspiracy that could harm you.

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