Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Mhm.
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Conspiracies are an alternative way of interpreting the world around us.
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They offer an explanation for the events that are happening and have happened.
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This explanation refuses to take things at face value.
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All events are simplified and twisted to fit the conspiracies narrative
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and everything is connected as evidence to fit the conspiracy theory.
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Therefore you can visit the whole world is out to get you.
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This turns into the paranoid style which Hofstadter describes as a
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feeling of being dispossessed from the rest of the world.
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Lastly, conspiracy theories offer us an explanation when we want control,
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which is why they appear and thrive in times of crises.
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But it is also when they are the most dangerous.
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Operation infection is a conspiracy theory created by the KGB,
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The Soviet Union Secret Service.
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This conspiracy theory created in the 1980s
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theorized that AIDS the disease was created
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in an American bioweapons laboratory for Derek
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and began testing it in populations in africa and Haiti
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AIDS was then spread by the CIA to restore the american more moral majority,
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the white and wealthy populations,
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which is why it mostly spread around the outcasts.
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These being the black and gay communities.
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Some characteristic conspiracists troves appear
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such as the clear delineation of good and evil,
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pinning the overarching powerful establishment as the bad guy
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and the lower classes as the victims.
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The self justifying belief in conspiracy theories,
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made it very difficult to stop belief in them
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as conspiracists would never trust a mainstream source,
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especially the government who according to them was spreading AIDS.
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Thus
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this conspiracy, like many others increased mistrust in the system.
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Thus the government as a whole.
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Operation infection increased polarization in an already hostile environment.
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The 1980s were already years of of political hostility,
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especially in the us from the Cold War to the fall of the Berlin Wall
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to the climax of the war on drugs,
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conspiracy theories only exacerbated this hostility.
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As ordinary people are dispossessed from the society they once formed. Part of
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many avoid democratic participation and turn to self marginalization.
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Some on the other hand
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turned to more populist leaders whose
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anti establishment narrative is quite attractive.
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But having political figures that engage with
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conspiracy theories creates more damage than good
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because it normalizes misinformation to a point where
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it is hard to distinguish truth from it.
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When truth disappears,
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it becomes even more challenging to maintain a functioning democracy.
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Mhm.
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It is important now to remember that operation infection was created by the KGB.
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Along with other conspiracies such as the C. I. A. Being behind JFK's assassination
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conspiracy. For the KGB was a form of warfare.
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If a conspiracy spread enough, if enough people believed in it,
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it could start to be credible.
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Maybe not to a point where the majority of the population
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believes word for word that the CIA created and spread AIDS
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but more people would start to be skeptical of public institutions.
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Trust in government would decrease.
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Fringe polarized groups would gain popularity.
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A conspiracy theory doesn't need to be true to cause damage.
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It just needs to be credible
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adding to this conspiracy be breeds conspiracy.
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The web of conspiracies grows and grows
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when more people feel dispossessed from society.
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At the center of this web remains the same narrative,
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MS stressed in everything mainstream,
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this is internal chaos.
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It is distrust in government as society as a whole.
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What makes the situation even more complicated is that debunking
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the conspiracy won't change much given that the conspiracy,
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given that conspiracy is not a truth based matter,
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it is a belief based matter
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and it is very hard to gain the population's trust
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when they think you are the devil reincarnated.
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Here is an example of how mainstream conspiracies can become
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academics write books to support conspiracies claims.
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Even South African President Mbeki accused the CIA of spreading AIDS.
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And even though this is a conspiracy theory from the 80s,
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it still remains relevant in current in current conspiracy
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theories such as Cuban in and the deep state.
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Lastly,
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are we conclude with some data that
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shows the lasting effects of this conspiracy theory
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In 1990 to 15% of Americans considered it definitely, or probably true,
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that the AIDS virus was created deliberately in a government laboratory
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In 2005, a study revealed that nearly 50% of African Americans
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thought AIDS was man made
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and of those, 50%,,
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12%
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believed it was created and spread by the CIA.
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Regardless of how many people believe operation infection.
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To be true, it has put a strain on democratic and democratic governance.
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It is now common to find outlandish claims about the state's actions or intentions.
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This is not due to the state being more evil,
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but rather society becoming more prone to conspiracies to believes
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we must take care of democracy in times of conspiracy.