From where I'm standing, it doesn't matter what things that were called conspiracy theories get wrong if particularly lately they are also routinely getting things right.
That doesn't mean that you should believe everything that you see, but it's certainly does mean that just because something is called a conspiracy theory doesn't mean that you should dismiss it out of hand. Especially when the people telling you it's a conspiracy theory are the ones who stand to gain from you ignoring the thing they are doing.
Seems like the smartest thing is to use your brain like a human being. Both allowing information uncritically because you like the source or rejecting information uncritically because you don't like the source are fallacious.
Another fallacy that I see committed along the same lines is grouping different arguments together as if they are the same. You could make reasonable and unreasonable arguments as to why human beings without any additional technology cannot fly, the fact that there are unreasonable arguments does not change the fact that there are reasonable arguments, and in fact human beings cannot fly. Conversely, just because there are reasonable arguments for or against a thing does not mean that the unreasonable arguments are true. One might make extremely reasonable arguments that human beings generally walk on two legs, and one could also make extremely unreasonable arguments. Just because the thing is true, and just because there are reasonable arguments for the thing, does not mean that the unreasonable arguments are also true.
It's kind of a pain in the ass, we can end up with a bunch of extra work when we could just shut our brains off and believe whoever we like at the moment, but that's not going to help us find the truth.
Ultimately, we need the truth. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what unreasonable arguments wanting to make, if our mental models of the universe are flawed and we will make incorrect decisions as a result of that incorrect mental model, and the people who have a better model of the universe are more likely to make better decisions and end up better off.
That doesn't mean that you should believe everything that you see, but it's certainly does mean that just because something is called a conspiracy theory doesn't mean that you should dismiss it out of hand. Especially when the people telling you it's a conspiracy theory are the ones who stand to gain from you ignoring the thing they are doing.
Seems like the smartest thing is to use your brain like a human being. Both allowing information uncritically because you like the source or rejecting information uncritically because you don't like the source are fallacious.
Another fallacy that I see committed along the same lines is grouping different arguments together as if they are the same. You could make reasonable and unreasonable arguments as to why human beings without any additional technology cannot fly, the fact that there are unreasonable arguments does not change the fact that there are reasonable arguments, and in fact human beings cannot fly. Conversely, just because there are reasonable arguments for or against a thing does not mean that the unreasonable arguments are true. One might make extremely reasonable arguments that human beings generally walk on two legs, and one could also make extremely unreasonable arguments. Just because the thing is true, and just because there are reasonable arguments for the thing, does not mean that the unreasonable arguments are also true.
It's kind of a pain in the ass, we can end up with a bunch of extra work when we could just shut our brains off and believe whoever we like at the moment, but that's not going to help us find the truth.
Ultimately, we need the truth. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what unreasonable arguments wanting to make, if our mental models of the universe are flawed and we will make incorrect decisions as a result of that incorrect mental model, and the people who have a better model of the universe are more likely to make better decisions and end up better off.
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