How did we get so casual about conspiracy theories?

I was talking with someone today about nutrition. This person has a PhD in material science. They mentioned eating beef daily and I asked about the cholesterol implications. The answer was about a vague ‘they’ wanted us to think that, but it wasn’t true anymore.

I hear the vague ‘they’ so frequently now it’s just a normal conversation. In truth, as soon as I hear the vague they I dismiss the speaker’s credibility on the subject, but how did we get here? Vague they wanted us to think X is a valid counter argument by the most highly educated people in our society?

This sounds like more of a rant than a question, but I do truly want to know how this happened? Was it pop culture like the X Files that made conspiracy theories main stream? Was it social media? When will the vague they stop being an accepted explanation? Has it always been this way and I didn’t notice?

Thanks, love you!

  • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    Because the government keeps lying about extremely dangerous stuff to make 5 bucks profit.

    Case in point shell and otherd lobbying governments for decades to deny global warming.

    Microplastics are showing up everywhere because of products which were supposed to be safe.

    Israel controls half the Western governments not sure if it’s still “antisemitic” to point that out

    • dawnglider@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      Israel doesn’t control western governments, it’s just a very valuable tool of the US, for which they are ready to make a lot of concessions. Western governments in turn are broadly servile to the US. I’m not sure how you expect a small broadly hated state like Israel to control the whole west. Lobby and intelligence can get you far, but not that far.

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Deconditioning. If we had a really serious full-on plague we’d eventually get casual about the corpse disposal wagon.