'Conspiracy' theories and 'Mainstream' - Can there be a middle ground??

[slugsaver]

Firstly, I'll say I don't like the terms 'conspiracy' or 'mainstream' , but it's the only way I could find to describe what I mean, and I'm sure most know what I'm talking about when I use these terms.

I have a close relative who is really into conspiracy theories. Every - and I mean every - thing has to always be a big conspiracy. It came to a head yesterday when they asked me to watch a 'documentary' about the Manchester bombing. I'll spare you the details but seriously!! When footage was shown in hospital of an interview with someone saying their daughter was in surgery for injuries, I said to the family member - if it's faked then how can all the nurses, medics, and surgeons not have come out and said so?? They looked befuddled for a moment and then said that the medical staff must be all 'on the payroll' . Crazy if it wasn't so tragic for those involved.

On the other hand, I have other close family members (many more of them than the conspiracy theorist) who immediately shut down any mention of any theory opposing what is the 'mainstream' reporting on a topic, dismissing it as nonsense. In their worlds, the powers that be (government's etc) definitely have our best interests at heart at all times, and nothing is ever covered up or not what it seems. What the 'mainstream' media reports is always fact.

Myself I do believe that some things are covered up, tampered with, bad agendas hidden. Even on a large scale sometimes. But not everything.

I think both of these factions suffer from a serious lack of critical thinking.

AIBU to wish the people in my life would take more of a middle ground and actually 'think' ??

Prepared to be told I'm an idiot but quite frankly it maddens me

You’re right; it’s a lack of skills to critically evaluate information and come to a viewpoint backed by data.

It’s perfectly reasonable not to take everything in the mainstream media at face value: in fact it’s healthy.

The problem is when people are so desperate to discount everything they read that they come up with wildly implausible alternative theories. There have been some genuine conspiracies in history. But in most cases the conspiracy theory being proposed is patently not plausible. So in the example you give, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that not everyone could have been “on the payroll”.

If we were taught to evaluate this more robustly at school it would help. I think also the media has been its own worst enemy with some of its behaviour in recent years.

But most of the time it’s just a lack of common sense, combined with vulnerable and not very bright and gullible people who jump on anything which they think makes them sound more clever.