People tend to deeply believe in conspiracy theory and love to spread it. I have always been wondering why conspiracy theories have such great power. The fact that some famous conspiracy-spread celebrities exploit these notorious theories to make fortune and show big influence on the public makes me feel more upset. I sometimes doubt their motivation on producing these conspiracy theories, for like just to make a living or want to be famous, and of course, this route to being famous relies more on live-performance and emotional expressions, not as high-demanding of time and effort as starting a company or working hard to earn a fortune. I think a Chinese proverb can accurately describe this phenomenon, which, translated into English, is that they are either too foolish or too evil, only these two possibilities.
I conclude several points about why conspiracy theory can spread so fast and extensively. First, sensational news can spread more quickly and get more clicks than objective news. People are likely to spread some horrible and shocking news to warn others to get away from such dangers or get together to tackle dangers, like an intuition inside a human being’s DNA. However, most news, especially only-present-facts news, doesn’t get a big reaction, these news cannot be spread fast and far, whereas people who first produce these conspiracy theories could be regarded as whistlers and savers.
Second, conspiracy theories are much easier than truth, or true news. Take global warming as an example. Most conspiracies still have deductions, arguments and conclusions. Conspiracy theorists declare that “because Texas is getting colder and colder, so global warming is just a lie”. It only contains one sentence and it’s easy to get the point across to the public. But the true news needs to say that “global warming is about climate rather than weather, and it could happen in the next few decades or even at the end of the 21st century, not now. Global warming is more about the whole Earth, instead of some specific areas, so somewhere cooling and warming in different regions can co-exist”. It takes 3-4 sentences to explain the fact, and people still need to look up more information to comprehend.
We need to admit that the education level is very imbalanced, not only in a country but also globally, and most people right now haven’t get the chance to learn the ability to think comprehensively, be open to other opinions, compare information from different sources, give up their original opinions if there’s something better and if they are convinced, and get their independent thinking system. So the issue of conspiracy theory still has a long way to go.
