As usual, Natalie Wynn puts together an interesting analysis of a difficult issue. As usual, in a giant video; this one is 160 minutes long. It's not a well-balanced analysis---as you can tell from my article's title---but entertaining enough and honestly about the best we can hope for, at this point. I don't think anyone who's researching conspiracy theories is likely to ever notice the conspiracy theories that "their own side" believed in or continues to believe in. <media href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teqkK0RLNkI" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/teqkK0RLNkI" source="YouTube" width="560px" author="Contrapoints" caption="CONSPIRACY"> At <b>20:00</b>, I'm absolutely down for a video that's <iq>[...] not about any particular conspiracy theory, but about conspiracism,</iq> but I'm a bit leery about balance when not a single example given in the preceding ten minutes was of any pill-brained lunacy like most, if not all, of Russiagate (whose impact was and continues to be profound), just a giant glaring example that is never mentioned, even though it's just as much a cult as QAnon was and has very arguably survived to this day, which QAnon hasn't really (as she mentioned). At <b>50:00</b>, Cites QAnon and deep-staters as the two examples. My hopes dwindle that anyone purportedly on the left will <i>ever</i> treat with the conspiracies believed by their own side. It does not lie in the nature of people to debunk the things that they themselves to continue to believe in. Why would you debunk facts? Far better, in fact, to debunk anyone who <i>doesn't</i> believe in Russiagate as a conspiracy theorist! (Which she, in fairness, does not do.) At 56:30, she says something about the invasion of Ukraine but luckily stops short of positing any subsequent conspiracy theories. Bullet dodged. At 2:00:00, she covers George Carlin's phrases being re-used by conspiracy theorist even though he was---as she points out---a rational leftist without really a trace of conspiracism to him. At <b>2:19:00</b>, <bq><img attachment="natalie_wynn_(contrapoints).jpg" align="right" caption="Natalie Wynn (Contrapoints)">Guys, I started out this video trying to be nice, but this post has spent the last of my patience. It's just so stupid. How can you be this stupid? I'm not asking you to be an intellectual, I'm not asking you to write a thesis on fucking Wittgenstein. I'm asking you to be 10% smarter than the absolute dumbest. It is possible for a human to be. It boggles my mind how susceptible to propaganda you are. It's not like someone tricked you by giving you a transcript without telling you who wrote it. They told you it was Hitler. And when you agreed with it anyway, did you question your own judgment? No. The first thought through that infinitesimally tiny brain of yours was that the mainstream media has lied to us about Hitler. There's a reason they only let us see him speaking German. I honestly can't believe it. I cannot believe how God-damn dumb you are.</bq> It's funny and, obviously it's the wrong conclusion, but an interesting topic would be that the populism holds allure <i>because</i> it talks about actual, real, and obvious problems. The solutions are dangerous and wrong. But that doesn't mean that the problems that they purport to solve don't exist. I learned about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law" author="" source="Wikipedia">Brandolini's law</a>, <bq>[...] also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle, is an internet adage coined in 2013 by Alberto Brandolini, an Italian programmer, that emphasizes the effort of debunking misinformation, in comparison to the relative ease of creating it in the first place. The law states:<bq>The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.</bq>The rise of easy popularization of ideas through the internet has greatly increased the relevant examples, but the asymmetry principle itself has long been recognized.</bq> This is the reason AI is so dangerous: it's a productivity and efficiency sink, unless you're very careful.