We all hate realizing we're wrong, but it's an essential part of the scientific process and maturity. We believe something that seems plausible, we get new evidence, and then we have to rethink things. Being wrong is natural.
What we really hate, though, is admitting we've been duped. That's why it's so hard for people to move away from conspiracy theories.
This is a fabulous question and I've been mulling it over in my mind, and my initial suspicion is that it's possibly a factor of population: the US population is yyyuge, at 340 million, they're the 3rd most populated country on earth, behind only India and China, and ahead of Indonesia. The next most-populated primarily-english-speaking country is the United Kingdom, all the way down at #21 with about 68 million! Although India uses English quite a lot, I wouldn't say they're primarily english-speaking.
This gargantuan population probably also says a lot about why we in the rest of the english-speaking world especially are subjected to so much American media and pop culture: there's just so darn many of them, it's hard to escape!
Great article and comments here. I have used some of the same stories to understand the newspaper rhetoric and that crazy alien civilizations show as well. I actually watch or read that stuff and do see a value to the structure of the chaos they are weaving / spinning.
Creating froth so real issue rise to the top is the structure to the rhetoric.
A lot of what prevents us from making rapid progress is not rational but emotional in nature. - “I don’t want to know”, “I don’t want to talk about it”.
What is wrong with a “tell me I’m wrong” approach to rhetoric? It is a rhetorical device that separates those who can see from those who can not or do not want to see.
For those with the foundation to see it, it creates a “what for” and “why” to consider - Why would someone so smart say something so stupid?, What for?
This strategy is used by business leaders a lot. It is both tangy and yangy, with a seed of yin in the middle of it all.
From a “business guy, consultant or merchant standpoint” it is a bait and switch inside a bait and switch in side a bait and switch. I used to get frustrated when I saw it, but when I started to go with the flow, not join them per se, but not fight it either, I figured out what it really was. But it takes a really long time to blossom.
This is how I view RFK, Musk, Gates, and Trump, as well as many others. RFK in particular because I’ve considered what he is saying today in the context of the arc of his career and his profession (consultant). For Trump, I have listened and thought about his daughter Ivanka’s rhetoric.
I think about what they do not say, what “key words” they use, why do people do what they do, and I don’t fight it but rather try to understand it. I give them the benefit of the doubt because I can see how it could, and most probably will end (rational thought). Often times they cannot say much at all because they have signed so many Non Disclosure Agreements - these chains they wear are heavy indeed and should be viewed as a means to enforce team work.
Are you open to *some* events being orchestrated by conspiracies? Open to *the coverage* of events being directed by conspiracies? Then you should be open to the idea that our sources of information have been compromised entirely.
Of course. Some conspiracies do happen. Watergate, much of the history of Nazis, the CIA in Central America, Iran and other places. Conspirators, especially powerful ones, do try to control narrative, but in western society that is increasingly difficult to control with the free flow of information. I just believe that we should use occams razor on things when we don't have good evidence for more complex explanations.
It's good to question things, no doubt, but it's also important to remain rational.
The events of the french revolution, particularly the violence, was driven by conspiracy theories - some of which were true, but many were not - that there were austrian spies all throughout the convention and in the military and just everywhere. By simply denouncing someone as an austrian spy, that would be enough for the denounced person to be summarily executed.
During the Cholera outbreaks of the 1830s on the British Isles, only 2 years before, a big story came out in the newspapers about a pair of serial killers who killed some 16 people in order to sell their bodies as cadavers to anatomy schools, so when Cholera came around and people started dropping dead, everyone jumped to the assumption that it was the anatomists and doctors poisoning the poor in order to harvest their bodies for dissection. I wrote about it here: https://chemicalmind.substack.com/p/deliver-us-from-evil-part-3?utm_source=activity_item
“Free flow” of information compared to when? Is your opinion that information has flowed progressively more freely over the past 30 years or so? I look back at the 90’s, 1999 in particular, and see mass subversion in the majority of the era’s best films. Then suddenly Dre released 2001: The Next Episode and everything changed.
If you combine the known “conspiracies” from the past with the oppressive atmosphere of the present, extreme conspiratorial control seems like an unavoidable conclusion...
The known conspiracies are miniscule in volume compared to the innumerable instances of non-conspiracies. If I flip a coin a million times and it comes up heads every time but one, I'm not sure that the "unavoidable conclusion" is that the coin will always come up tails?
Humans are guaranteed to be fallible. Conspiracies involving more than a handful of people and lasting any length of time, and not being leaked / discovered, are essentially impossible. As an evolutionarily selfish species made up of individuals, we just don't have the tools. It’s scary, because it means no one is steering the boat...but there's endless concrete evidence to support it, and no real evidence against it.
Isn’t that circular reasoning? You’re just taking it as a foregone conclusion that all the yet-unverified conspiracies floating around out there were made up rather than leaked. But consider for a second if they are in fact true, and we have in fact heard of them, then woah! That’s the exact outcome your fallible human theory would predict!
Have you ever seen that episode of The Office where Michael let’s slip that Stanley is having an affair, then to cover his tracks he makes up a bunch of other fake rumors and spreads them around? That’s what they’re doing, and it’s why no one can agree on what’s true anymore. They’ve poisoned the community well we all rely on for a functioning society...
Just to check I understand you correctly. If there are too many conspiracy theories, that proves that extreme conspiratorial control is real. If there aren't enough conspiracy theories (which is my position as, even if they were all true, they are a vanishingly small number of incidents amongst the overwheming deluge of human incompetence ), then that also proves extreme conspiratorial control is real?
I'm not sure the circular thinking is on my part.
Think about it another way. Sport is an event that we try to control by creating artifical rules and conditions. Yet the best team doesn't win every game. Why not? It should. I think it's due to a mixture of human fallibility and random events. Even the match fixing scandals that occur are caught up in that equation of human fallibility. Sometimes attempts to fix matches even fail. Such is Humanity and life. Your position seems to be that the existence of one match fixing scandal proves that every contest, in every sport, is rigged. "Extreme conspiratorial control"
I mean, can a parent even guarantee that their teenage child doesn't sneak an underage brew? You refer to 'they' a lot, flawlessly running a worldwide conspiracy of hundreds/thousands/millions of humans...but 'they' are that parent. And their co conspirators are other parents, just the same as them. The same parents who lock their keys in the car, or leave their laptop at Starbucks, or accidentally hit 'send' on that email that felt good to write but they were never really going to send, or that has resented Bob for getting that undeserved promotion to VP of Bill Gates' nanotechnology brain injection Div so will sabotage his next work project and see how they like it? 'They' aren't super humans or aliens or lizards, 'they' are humans. 'They' are you and me. Do you think that you could flawlessly run and keep perfectly secret extreme conspiratorial control? Do you think you could recruit the vast number of other, equally flawlessly performers to fill all the other positions in the organisation? Pat Mahomes can barely throw a ball to another human 2/3rds of the time and Erling Haaland can't score a goal, even if presented with a penalty. They are at the very pinnacle of an incredibly simple endeavour (relative to the full complexity of the world). Extreme conspiratorial control? Or human fallability?
I mean, heck, why even bother? If I had that level of perfection available just to me, I'd simple play the Markets for six months and amass enough wealth to make Musk look like a pauper begging for alms, and then I'd buy / pay for whatever I want. Why go through all the hassle and bureaucracy and office politics?
No, there is no “proof” that conspiratorial control is real, because hiding proof is the entire mission of conspiracies. Obfuscating the true causal chain of events is exactly what they do. In spite of that, there is still a true version of reality, we just can’t rely on ordinary epistemology to prove or disprove it either way.
So instead, look at what they’ve admitted to doing in the past. Examine the apparent standard operating procedures for powerful people in society. Look at discrepancies in your own life. As “unscientific” as it may be, listen to your gut. I have no proof that any particular conspiracy is true, and yet I’d bet my life that some are, and I’d bet my life savings that a few particular ones are... That’s a lot of arrows pointing in one direction for me, and from there it isn’t too difficult to rank them in order of approximate plausibility.
“Sometimes attempts to fix matches even fail”
Agreed, humans are an unpredictable element. The Chicago Black Sox conspiracy failed because the White Sox conspired to make the attempted conspiracy too transparent for anyone to believe.
“Do you think that you could flawlessly run and keep perfectly secret extreme conspiratorial control?”
No, I think people would talk, and then people like you would say “it couldn’t be a conspiracy because if it was people would talk!”
I kid :) but you might have missed my whole series on Deliver Us from Evil, about the origins of the Mind Control stuff, for which MKUltra was a very real attempt, but which also was used to target individual scientists that had nothing to do with it.
Conspiratorial thinking isn't about whether or not they're true, just the tendency to believe them, with or without evidence.
Humans conspire, it's a thing that happens, I mean to not believe that would be to not believe that the Nazis once existed, or that Watergate happened.
That doesn't mean that the moon landings were a hoax or that Obama is the Antichrist.
From the paper I was quoting a lot from:
"Thus, the definitional recipe of conspiracy theories involves three primary ingredients: (a) conspirators, (b) hidden plans, and (c) malintent against others or society; this definitional recipe holds whether conspiracy theories turn out to be true or not (see Brotherton, 2015; van Prooijen, 2018). Conspiratorial ideation, therefore, refers to a tendency to endorse conspiracy theories."
the world we are forced to live in does not work without conspiracy.. your gov conspires, business conspires.. if you want to get ahead in this sea of sharks.. you guessed it, you have to conspire!
I would have had to go slightly louder and that would have clipped like nobody’s business, which, on second thought, would have perfectly encapsulated his entire persona. Universal clipping.
Also, beautifully written! Love how you cared to share something so personal with the world. I'm sure it'll help people to get out of the pipeline. I'm gonna share the article (also the one you referenced on conspiratorial thinking) to my dad. I'm sure that'll make for a nice family gathering
Great article. If you want to go further down this road, I recommend reading “Mental Immunity.” It discusses many of the same things (and more) so I think you’d enjoy it.
This was a fabulous book, and so much like every philosophy book I've ever encountered (Which isn't many lets be honest), and it's taking me several attempts to finish, but I like the immunity concept, though he does tend to mix metaphors a lot. Thank you for the recommendation!!
The meaning is in the phrase, think carefully about “climate change”, the most obscure and imprecise phrase in the world, obviously used by people to virtue signal and project a religious impulse through a vague category.
You’re rational now that you reject conspiracy theories? But you’re an irrational religionist, so whatever. You just traded one cult for another
> You're rational now that you reject conspiracy theories?
I think you might be imagining what I actually said.
> But you're an irrational religionist
I'm a human, and humans are inherently irrational. It's why we developed things like the scientific method, as an attempt to hold that irrationality at bay and find an approximation of the truth. That approximation comes out through scientific consensus. When there is a scientific consensus in a field that I don't have enough time or interest to deep dive into myself, I will accept the consensus. The consensus is as clear as it can be on the subject of human-caused climate change. When the consensus changes, let me know.
Right, you blindly follow consensus, you claim to support “science” while simultaneously refusing to engage critical thinking, you’re in a cult with a bad conscience
Again, it feels like you're imagining things I'm saying and responding to that instead of what I'm actually saying.
I've never been to Paris. If someone asks me where the Eiffel Tower is located, I'm gonna say Paris. Although I'd love to visit Paris someday, I just don't have the time or energy right now, which is dedicated to many other things, so I can't go and validate that the Eiffel Tower literally exists in Paris myself. Climate science is a lot more complex than this, and requires so much more time and energy than a return trip to Paris. However, this is the consensus, and add to that the fact that "Eiffel" is a French word, that there is video and imagery of the Eiffel Tower in what I believe must be the city of Paris, it's pretty clear.
So if some random comes along and tells me "You idiot! There is no Eiffel Tower! Use your critical thinking: have you ever SEEN the Eiffel tower?! No!"
Oh my, who am I to believe? The overwhelming consensus that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris, or some random who seems irrationally upset and angry about my acceptance of that consensus?
Note that Scientific Consensus is different to Popular Consensus or Popular Wisdom. For example, the popular wisdom says that dopamine is a "happiness chemical", which is in fact wrong. The scientific consensus today is that dopamine has some secondary modulating effect on mood but no direct mood-enhancing effect, although there was a period of time in the early studies when correlation was mistaken for causation, due to endorphin - endogenous opioids - release causing a follow up release of dopamine to signal value error correction.
We all hate realizing we're wrong, but it's an essential part of the scientific process and maturity. We believe something that seems plausible, we get new evidence, and then we have to rethink things. Being wrong is natural.
What we really hate, though, is admitting we've been duped. That's why it's so hard for people to move away from conspiracy theories.
For me, being wrong and being duped feel essentially the same. It's humiliating. It sometimes feels like I duped myself!
i don't understand why there are so many cultists in the usa. what's the reason?
This is a fabulous question and I've been mulling it over in my mind, and my initial suspicion is that it's possibly a factor of population: the US population is yyyuge, at 340 million, they're the 3rd most populated country on earth, behind only India and China, and ahead of Indonesia. The next most-populated primarily-english-speaking country is the United Kingdom, all the way down at #21 with about 68 million! Although India uses English quite a lot, I wouldn't say they're primarily english-speaking.
This gargantuan population probably also says a lot about why we in the rest of the english-speaking world especially are subjected to so much American media and pop culture: there's just so darn many of them, it's hard to escape!
CULTures are full of cultists.
Great article and comments here. I have used some of the same stories to understand the newspaper rhetoric and that crazy alien civilizations show as well. I actually watch or read that stuff and do see a value to the structure of the chaos they are weaving / spinning.
Creating froth so real issue rise to the top is the structure to the rhetoric.
A lot of what prevents us from making rapid progress is not rational but emotional in nature. - “I don’t want to know”, “I don’t want to talk about it”.
What is wrong with a “tell me I’m wrong” approach to rhetoric? It is a rhetorical device that separates those who can see from those who can not or do not want to see.
For those with the foundation to see it, it creates a “what for” and “why” to consider - Why would someone so smart say something so stupid?, What for?
This strategy is used by business leaders a lot. It is both tangy and yangy, with a seed of yin in the middle of it all.
From a “business guy, consultant or merchant standpoint” it is a bait and switch inside a bait and switch in side a bait and switch. I used to get frustrated when I saw it, but when I started to go with the flow, not join them per se, but not fight it either, I figured out what it really was. But it takes a really long time to blossom.
This is how I view RFK, Musk, Gates, and Trump, as well as many others. RFK in particular because I’ve considered what he is saying today in the context of the arc of his career and his profession (consultant). For Trump, I have listened and thought about his daughter Ivanka’s rhetoric.
I think about what they do not say, what “key words” they use, why do people do what they do, and I don’t fight it but rather try to understand it. I give them the benefit of the doubt because I can see how it could, and most probably will end (rational thought). Often times they cannot say much at all because they have signed so many Non Disclosure Agreements - these chains they wear are heavy indeed and should be viewed as a means to enforce team work.
Are you open to *some* events being orchestrated by conspiracies? Open to *the coverage* of events being directed by conspiracies? Then you should be open to the idea that our sources of information have been compromised entirely.
Of course. Some conspiracies do happen. Watergate, much of the history of Nazis, the CIA in Central America, Iran and other places. Conspirators, especially powerful ones, do try to control narrative, but in western society that is increasingly difficult to control with the free flow of information. I just believe that we should use occams razor on things when we don't have good evidence for more complex explanations.
It's good to question things, no doubt, but it's also important to remain rational.
The events of the french revolution, particularly the violence, was driven by conspiracy theories - some of which were true, but many were not - that there were austrian spies all throughout the convention and in the military and just everywhere. By simply denouncing someone as an austrian spy, that would be enough for the denounced person to be summarily executed.
During the Cholera outbreaks of the 1830s on the British Isles, only 2 years before, a big story came out in the newspapers about a pair of serial killers who killed some 16 people in order to sell their bodies as cadavers to anatomy schools, so when Cholera came around and people started dropping dead, everyone jumped to the assumption that it was the anatomists and doctors poisoning the poor in order to harvest their bodies for dissection. I wrote about it here: https://chemicalmind.substack.com/p/deliver-us-from-evil-part-3?utm_source=activity_item
“Free flow” of information compared to when? Is your opinion that information has flowed progressively more freely over the past 30 years or so? I look back at the 90’s, 1999 in particular, and see mass subversion in the majority of the era’s best films. Then suddenly Dre released 2001: The Next Episode and everything changed.
If you combine the known “conspiracies” from the past with the oppressive atmosphere of the present, extreme conspiratorial control seems like an unavoidable conclusion...
The known conspiracies are miniscule in volume compared to the innumerable instances of non-conspiracies. If I flip a coin a million times and it comes up heads every time but one, I'm not sure that the "unavoidable conclusion" is that the coin will always come up tails?
Humans are guaranteed to be fallible. Conspiracies involving more than a handful of people and lasting any length of time, and not being leaked / discovered, are essentially impossible. As an evolutionarily selfish species made up of individuals, we just don't have the tools. It’s scary, because it means no one is steering the boat...but there's endless concrete evidence to support it, and no real evidence against it.
Isn’t that circular reasoning? You’re just taking it as a foregone conclusion that all the yet-unverified conspiracies floating around out there were made up rather than leaked. But consider for a second if they are in fact true, and we have in fact heard of them, then woah! That’s the exact outcome your fallible human theory would predict!
Have you ever seen that episode of The Office where Michael let’s slip that Stanley is having an affair, then to cover his tracks he makes up a bunch of other fake rumors and spreads them around? That’s what they’re doing, and it’s why no one can agree on what’s true anymore. They’ve poisoned the community well we all rely on for a functioning society...
Just to check I understand you correctly. If there are too many conspiracy theories, that proves that extreme conspiratorial control is real. If there aren't enough conspiracy theories (which is my position as, even if they were all true, they are a vanishingly small number of incidents amongst the overwheming deluge of human incompetence ), then that also proves extreme conspiratorial control is real?
I'm not sure the circular thinking is on my part.
Think about it another way. Sport is an event that we try to control by creating artifical rules and conditions. Yet the best team doesn't win every game. Why not? It should. I think it's due to a mixture of human fallibility and random events. Even the match fixing scandals that occur are caught up in that equation of human fallibility. Sometimes attempts to fix matches even fail. Such is Humanity and life. Your position seems to be that the existence of one match fixing scandal proves that every contest, in every sport, is rigged. "Extreme conspiratorial control"
I mean, can a parent even guarantee that their teenage child doesn't sneak an underage brew? You refer to 'they' a lot, flawlessly running a worldwide conspiracy of hundreds/thousands/millions of humans...but 'they' are that parent. And their co conspirators are other parents, just the same as them. The same parents who lock their keys in the car, or leave their laptop at Starbucks, or accidentally hit 'send' on that email that felt good to write but they were never really going to send, or that has resented Bob for getting that undeserved promotion to VP of Bill Gates' nanotechnology brain injection Div so will sabotage his next work project and see how they like it? 'They' aren't super humans or aliens or lizards, 'they' are humans. 'They' are you and me. Do you think that you could flawlessly run and keep perfectly secret extreme conspiratorial control? Do you think you could recruit the vast number of other, equally flawlessly performers to fill all the other positions in the organisation? Pat Mahomes can barely throw a ball to another human 2/3rds of the time and Erling Haaland can't score a goal, even if presented with a penalty. They are at the very pinnacle of an incredibly simple endeavour (relative to the full complexity of the world). Extreme conspiratorial control? Or human fallability?
I mean, heck, why even bother? If I had that level of perfection available just to me, I'd simple play the Markets for six months and amass enough wealth to make Musk look like a pauper begging for alms, and then I'd buy / pay for whatever I want. Why go through all the hassle and bureaucracy and office politics?
> Yet the best team doesn't win every game. Why not?
God ain't that the truth, especially in my sport of Hockey. ;_;
No, there is no “proof” that conspiratorial control is real, because hiding proof is the entire mission of conspiracies. Obfuscating the true causal chain of events is exactly what they do. In spite of that, there is still a true version of reality, we just can’t rely on ordinary epistemology to prove or disprove it either way.
So instead, look at what they’ve admitted to doing in the past. Examine the apparent standard operating procedures for powerful people in society. Look at discrepancies in your own life. As “unscientific” as it may be, listen to your gut. I have no proof that any particular conspiracy is true, and yet I’d bet my life that some are, and I’d bet my life savings that a few particular ones are... That’s a lot of arrows pointing in one direction for me, and from there it isn’t too difficult to rank them in order of approximate plausibility.
“Sometimes attempts to fix matches even fail”
Agreed, humans are an unpredictable element. The Chicago Black Sox conspiracy failed because the White Sox conspired to make the attempted conspiracy too transparent for anyone to believe.
“Do you think that you could flawlessly run and keep perfectly secret extreme conspiratorial control?”
No, I think people would talk, and then people like you would say “it couldn’t be a conspiracy because if it was people would talk!”
> 2001: The Next Episode
La la la la la, it's the mothafuckin D-O-double-G!
(SNOOP DOOOOGGGGG)
So I guess we just call a nothing burger on...
The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
MKUltra: the CIA Mind-Control Project
The 1990 Testimony of Nayirah
Operation Snow White: The Church of Scientology Versus The U.S. Government
Operation Mockingbird: The CIA Propaganda Machine
COINTELPRO: The FBI vs. 1960s Activists
Operation Paperclip: Nazi Scientists Find Employment in America
Operation Northwoods
You know the classics
Mmmm delicious nothingburger
I kid :) but you might have missed my whole series on Deliver Us from Evil, about the origins of the Mind Control stuff, for which MKUltra was a very real attempt, but which also was used to target individual scientists that had nothing to do with it.
Conspiratorial thinking isn't about whether or not they're true, just the tendency to believe them, with or without evidence.
Humans conspire, it's a thing that happens, I mean to not believe that would be to not believe that the Nazis once existed, or that Watergate happened.
That doesn't mean that the moon landings were a hoax or that Obama is the Antichrist.
From the paper I was quoting a lot from:
"Thus, the definitional recipe of conspiracy theories involves three primary ingredients: (a) conspirators, (b) hidden plans, and (c) malintent against others or society; this definitional recipe holds whether conspiracy theories turn out to be true or not (see Brotherton, 2015; van Prooijen, 2018). Conspiratorial ideation, therefore, refers to a tendency to endorse conspiracy theories."
the world we are forced to live in does not work without conspiracy.. your gov conspires, business conspires.. if you want to get ahead in this sea of sharks.. you guessed it, you have to conspire!
That´s sounds conspiratorial. The overlords might be upset about this freedom speak…
I appreciate your candour about your escape from conspiracy theory thinking.
You might find these interesting:
https://sharpenyouraxe.substack.com/p/sharpen-your-axe-beta-version
https://philipskogsberg.substack.com/p/no-conspiracy-theory-has-ever-been
This looks like a fabulous collection of resources, thank you!!
Just a little bit more raspy and you would have ABSOLUTELY NAILED the Alex Jones bit
I would have had to go slightly louder and that would have clipped like nobody’s business, which, on second thought, would have perfectly encapsulated his entire persona. Universal clipping.
Rip headphones users...
Also, beautifully written! Love how you cared to share something so personal with the world. I'm sure it'll help people to get out of the pipeline. I'm gonna share the article (also the one you referenced on conspiratorial thinking) to my dad. I'm sure that'll make for a nice family gathering
That is super kind of you! If I get any comments that look like they were written by a furious Italian, I will know where it came from :D
I don't know the latest here, but I really hope the Onion gets infowars.com
They did lol
Judge said no
Booooo
Great article. If you want to go further down this road, I recommend reading “Mental Immunity.” It discusses many of the same things (and more) so I think you’d enjoy it.
This was a fabulous book, and so much like every philosophy book I've ever encountered (Which isn't many lets be honest), and it's taking me several attempts to finish, but I like the immunity concept, though he does tend to mix metaphors a lot. Thank you for the recommendation!!
You’re welcome! I’m glad you’re enjoying it.
Nice, I think I've heard of this one before but not seen it. Gonna go find it!
But now you’re a climate change religionist, so what does any of this matter?
What's a climate change religionist?
The meaning is in the phrase, think carefully about “climate change”, the most obscure and imprecise phrase in the world, obviously used by people to virtue signal and project a religious impulse through a vague category.
You’re rational now that you reject conspiracy theories? But you’re an irrational religionist, so whatever. You just traded one cult for another
> You're rational now that you reject conspiracy theories?
I think you might be imagining what I actually said.
> But you're an irrational religionist
I'm a human, and humans are inherently irrational. It's why we developed things like the scientific method, as an attempt to hold that irrationality at bay and find an approximation of the truth. That approximation comes out through scientific consensus. When there is a scientific consensus in a field that I don't have enough time or interest to deep dive into myself, I will accept the consensus. The consensus is as clear as it can be on the subject of human-caused climate change. When the consensus changes, let me know.
Right, you blindly follow consensus, you claim to support “science” while simultaneously refusing to engage critical thinking, you’re in a cult with a bad conscience
> you blindly follow consensus
Again, it feels like you're imagining things I'm saying and responding to that instead of what I'm actually saying.
I've never been to Paris. If someone asks me where the Eiffel Tower is located, I'm gonna say Paris. Although I'd love to visit Paris someday, I just don't have the time or energy right now, which is dedicated to many other things, so I can't go and validate that the Eiffel Tower literally exists in Paris myself. Climate science is a lot more complex than this, and requires so much more time and energy than a return trip to Paris. However, this is the consensus, and add to that the fact that "Eiffel" is a French word, that there is video and imagery of the Eiffel Tower in what I believe must be the city of Paris, it's pretty clear.
So if some random comes along and tells me "You idiot! There is no Eiffel Tower! Use your critical thinking: have you ever SEEN the Eiffel tower?! No!"
Oh my, who am I to believe? The overwhelming consensus that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris, or some random who seems irrationally upset and angry about my acceptance of that consensus?
Note that Scientific Consensus is different to Popular Consensus or Popular Wisdom. For example, the popular wisdom says that dopamine is a "happiness chemical", which is in fact wrong. The scientific consensus today is that dopamine has some secondary modulating effect on mood but no direct mood-enhancing effect, although there was a period of time in the early studies when correlation was mistaken for causation, due to endorphin - endogenous opioids - release causing a follow up release of dopamine to signal value error correction.