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About the video: “The problem with conspiracy theories is they’re not just telling you a story, they’re telling you a really good story. There’s a hidden cabal behind everything that’s happening, there’s a secret pattern that you just have to be smart enough to detect.”
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The modern world is full of conspiratorial thinking: People see an event and come up with an extraordinary story, a “hidden truth” that explains everything. These extravagant stories are so sticky in our minds because we are predisposed to finding patterns and we’re allergic to explanations that involve either randomness or banality, explains Brian Klaas, a professor and political scientist.
This allergy to randomness is one of the reasons there is so much polarization and democratic breakdown around the world; because we simply inhabit different realities due to the fact that there has been such a surge in global conspiratorial thinking. So how can we fight these increasingly pervasive falsehoods?
Our brains are driven to find explanations that fit a pattern and fit a narrative, a story that really compels us. When it comes to understanding conspiracy theories, there are 3 main cognitive biases that you need to grapple with.
Timestamps:
0:00: The modern world and conspiratorial thinking
1:56: 3 cognitive biases
2:14: Narrative bias
3:13: Magnitude bias
4:49: Teleological bias
Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/great-question/brian-klaas-conspiracy-theories/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description
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About Brian Klaas:
Dr. Brian Klaas is an Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London, an affiliate researcher at the University of Oxford, and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He is also the author five books, including Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters (2024) and Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us (2021). Klaas writes the popular The Garden of Forking Paths Substack and created the award-winning Power Corrupts podcast, which has been downloaded roughly three million times.
