All conspiracy theories contain a grain of truth. That's what makes them so dangerous.

Seeing an article going around about Marc Andreessen.

If you dig into it, it implies NYT misrepresented the interview, Marc's intentions, etc. Probably true, and you have to agree with the article to believe Marc is crying conspiracy. I can't state the details or auto mods will delete the post bc it's off topic.

The point of my post isn't about what Marc is saying specifically. It's about how rampant conspiracy theories are and how easily people believe them these days.

We've all heard tons of theories behind this, many of them conspiracies themselves. One of the most common theories is that people are just dumb now. They lack critical thinking skills.

Another less common theory, but one I believe, is that trust in mainstream media has deteriorated. (Ironic that NYT fudged the interview in this article, further eroding trust).

But one thing I don't believe is touched on enough is how often there is an element to the conspiracies that is probably true, and it's usually something that is rarely spoken about, or that the media or people in power don't want you thinking about. That ingredient, in my opinion, greatly strengthens the power that these conspiracy theories have, even if the other 90% of the theory is wrong.

Conspiracy theorists do take facts and run wild with them, often weaving many conspiracies together to make whatever theory satisfies them. That's what makes them conspiracy theorists. But a lot of the time, I hear a bunch of half true stories weaved together into one giant ball of nonsense, and that causes many people to throw the baby out with the bath water.

And that's not really an issue, throwing the baby out with the bath water. We suffer from information overload and can't parse every fact from nonsense every time somebody rants.

But the whole reason they can get that far is because there's some element of truth, for example:

• Pharmaceutical companies commit heinous acts and lie to the general public for profit.
• There are in fact multiple ways to control the weather, just not super predictably or wide spread (examples: cloud seeding, solar radiation management (designed to combat global warming, not control weather, but changes the weather as a side effect))
• All the recent stuff with UAPs

These are all facts, ones that our government and MSM don't usually cover head on, or honestly, unless they're forced to. And they inspire a plethora of conspiracy theories.

Add that in with distrust in the media (a distrust that has at least partially been earned) and you get a firestorm.

Yes there's other factors that go into the spreading and belief in conspiracy theories, bur I don't believe this phenomenon is acknowledged enough, even if it's partially implied in the definition.

And I'm not trying to make some black and white point here at all, like that we should believe conspiracy theorists all the time, or never. A small percentage of them end up being right.

My point is simply to show the nuance at play here, and provide some additional context and explanation as to the seeming rise of beliefs in conspiracy theories.