Intelligence doesn’t make you immune to conspiracy theories – it’s more about thinking style

https://theconversation.com/intelligence-doesnt-make-you-immune-to-conspiracy-theories-its-more-about-thinking-style-220978

70 points · 9 comments · view on lemmy.world

9 Comments

DarthGraben@mander.xyz · 11 pts · 2y (2 replies)

It's pretty common to come across someone online claiming they’re just too smart to ever be fooled by conspiracies/cults (religious, political, commercial), but it's actually really important not to assume intelligence is all you need to avoid it. Everyone should be aware of and have a guard up against tactics of undue influence. It might be easier to reach the conspiracy/cult believers if we could say 'look, it's not that you're stupid', but it seems like this article is suggesting the rest of the sentence is 'it's just that you're bad at thinking', which isn't a lot better... ha.

Onii-Chan@kbin.social · 3 pts · 2y

There's nothing worse than a smart person who gets lead down the wrong path.

PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com · 1 pts · 2y
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cmbabul@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2y (4 replies)

Im too lazy to find the statistic but im pretty sure the likelihood of joining a cult increases with intelligence. And cultic and conspiratorial thinking ain’t that dissimilar

surge_1@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 2y

Sounds like a conspiracy

DoYouNot@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Eh, 90% of statistics are made up anyway. 🙃

SendMePhotos@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2y

Actually 89.67.

neurogenesis@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 2y

Higher intelligence increases your ability to rationalize anything to yourself, and I think some people are less aware of the influence of various cognitive biases on their judgement.

Fairly unintuitive rabbit hole.. leading into a network of warrens.

MasterNerd@lemm.ee · 0 pts · 2y (1 reply)

I mean I know the article isn't actually about that image, but Bill Gates is evil. Not for putting microchips in the vaccine, but for trying to force the patent on the covid vaccines, keeping low income countries from having access to the vaccine.

HotDogFingies@kbin.social · 4 pts · 2y

Also for being a god damn billionaire. It's intrinsic.