Did you know that 44% of Republicans believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements?
John Oliver did a phenomenal breakdown of the rise of conspiracy theories during COVID-19 and why they’re dangerous. Here are the three questions he recommends to evaluate which conspiracy theories are real and which aren’t:
1. Is there a rational, non-conspiracy explanation?
2. Has this been help up to scrutiny by experts? And if so, what did those experts say?
3. How plausible is this conspiracy, as a practical matter?
The full 22-minute video is pasted below and is well worth a full watch. If you want to skip straight to the part about the three questions, skip to the 14:30 mark.
Some of the topics he covers include Plandemic, 5G Towers, #FilmYourHospital, Hello Flat Earth, and Bill Gates.
If you find this interesting, you’ll likely be interested in the Dunning Kruger effect and how it relates to conspiracy theories.