Sick to death of this anti science conspiracy nonsense.

[fakenamefornow]

People actually believe the earth is flat.
Anti vaxers.
Creationists.
Young earthers.
Even Brexit, so many people just wrong about stuff and don't believe the facts when they are put in front of them (90% of Boston are now Polish).

Why are these nonsense views increasing?

Anyway, aibu to think people are fucking stupid?

Why are these views increasing? Because of the internet, I'd say. It's great that we aren't forced into beliefs by organised religion any more, but instead there is a vast, bewildering mass of uncensored, uncorroborated information, and opinion (often hard to tell which), bombarding us on a daily basis. Some people are very gullible. And some people/organisations are very convincing.

because no over-educated MP with a top IQ ever believed that the Iraqi war was going to make for a safer world or that Brexit was going to be a piece of cake or that climate change wasn't happening, oooh noooo

Yes but there's a difference between peddling outlandish opinions to the public because it suits your agenda, and being the
fool who reads and really believes the outlandish opinions. The low IQ is surely more likely in the latter case.

Re. Brexit: people voted to leave the EU for as many reasons as they chose to remain

Yeap! I had no vote in the referendum, but I could see lots of benefits to leaving the EU, none of which are cited by the official brexiteers, who claim that everyone voted against immigration and the European Courts.

Well, in the past, when people didn't know much about something, they usually realised they didn't know, and therefore didn't speak up. It seems now, an opinion is more important than studying, keeping quiet, listening.

Re brexit. I'm sure there were many brilliant reasons for voting brexit, unfortunately, the vast majority of opinions I have heard in rl or social media or on mn are incoherent or nonsensensocal - and that's a compliment.

I agree Histfroze about the incoherent and nonsense opinions given on MN and SM from BOTH sides re Brexit. Funnily enough on R4 news today the govt are finally beginning to state a bit more coherently that it is impossible to plan for public services if you don't actually know how many people you are planning for and god forbid that it might actually suppress wages when you have an unlimited supply of workers.

Very little to do with believing the Earth is flat though.

Why? Why do these views seem to be increasing?

Its very simple. Historically for most people the more intelligent/educated you were the greater your chances of a comfortable lengthy survival. Evolution. However we have reached a point where a comfortable survival is no longer dependent on intelligence.

For a lot of people you can have a nice house, income, food, healthcare, luxuries etc all without much education. So why bother getting educated and a lot of people dont bother making them much more likely to believe all sorts of nonsense. Evolution is now actually decreasing average intelligence levels.

Well I've heard far more crap from brexiteers than I have from remainers. What has really stood out for me has been the blasé failure to support the opinions with evidence or facts and bizarrely getting really irate when encouraged to do so.

Now in the old days, people might say, ah, I don't know much about that so...but now people actually seem to think they are more expert than the experts.

Bollocks. Scientific theory is based on years of research, experimentation and all have been tested, peer reviewed and accepted by the general scientific community.

That doesn't contradict what I said about unproven assumptions being involved. The rock is observed to have a certain ratio of elements. We observe that the elements change ratio at a particular rate. We assume that the "rock" once existed in a starter state. The arithmetic says that it would take X million years for the rock to get from that initial state to having the ratios it does now. So we conclude that the rock, and by extention the planet that hosts it, must be at least X million years old.

The Creationist does not have to accept that assumption. Maybe the rock and everything else was created in an as-is state a few thousand years ago. Maybe the universe was created last Thursday in an as-is state.

Maybe we are all living in The Matrix and don't realise it.

You won't find me getting irate. I've spent the past year ignoring the blah blah insult insult. So I take it that you voted Remain as you think people that voted Leave mostly talk "crap", followed by your comment about what people did in the "old days".

Are these comments to be taken separately or together, in which case it's a poorly veiled attempt at calling those that didn't vote the same way as you as not knowing much, or as much as you think you do. Maybe you didn't bother to vote at all.

I said quite clearly that there may have many good reasons to vote brexit but that most of the reasons I've heard on social media, mumsnet or rl were incoherent or nonsensical.
This was my experience. (Shrug) what can I do?

Make the best of it hist, I think that's what people mostly did in the 'old days'. Anyway, who cares, the Earth is a Triangle anyway.

Don't get me started! It's the reason why I've gone NC with my dad!

Quantum physics 'proves' spiritual healing works, Big Pharma is peddling the vaccines lie to enrich itself despite homeopathy working just as well, everything we 'really know' was channeled to some greedy fucker who wrote a book with a purple cover by some spirit-guide-cum-extraterrestrial, religion is hogwash except it's all true on a deeper level and the government can't seem to decide if they want to mind control us all via fluoride in the drinking water supply or chemtrails or radiowaves emitted by our mobiles!

And don't you dare try to make a rational argument against any of this, because all this proves is that you're one of them!!!