Having no access to politicalbargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power issinister and malicious fully confirmed. T

in fact the paranoid mind is far morecoherent than the real world

Paranoid writing begins with certain broad defensible judgments.

Catholics and Mormons—later, Negroes and Jews—have lent themselves to a preoccupation with illicitsex.

The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister,ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in thetoils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills,indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in anevil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and thenenjoys and profits from the misery he has produced

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth anddeath of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values.

The basic elements of contemporary right-wing thought can be reduced to three: First, there has been thenow-familiar sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax inRoosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of thefederal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism. A great many right-wingers wouldagree with Frank Chodorov, the author of The Income Tax: The Root of All Evil, that this campaign beganwith the passage of the income-tax amendment to the Constitution in 1913.The second contention is that top government officialdom has been so infiltrated by Communists thatAmerican policy, at least since the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has been dominated by men whowere shrewdly and consistently selling out American national interests.Finally, the country is infused with a network of Communist agents, just as in the old days it wasinfiltrated by Jesuit agents, so that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the massmedia is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans

Any historian of warfare knows it is ingood part a comedy of errors and a museum of incompetence; but if for every error and every act ofincompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open tothe paranoid imagination.

t the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largelytaken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent thefinal destructive act of subversion.

Why They Feel Dispossessed

The author,who purported to have escaped from the Hotel Dieu nunnery in Montreal after five years there as noviceand nun, reported her convent life in elaborate and circumstantial detail. She reported having been told bythe Mother Superior that she must “obey the priests in all things”; to her “utter astonishment and horror,”she soon found what the nature of such obedience was. Infants born of convent liaisons were baptized andthen killed, she said, so that they might ascend at once to heaven.

Anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan. Whereas the anti-Masons hadenvisaged drinking bouts and had entertained themselves with sado-masochistic fantasies about the actualenforcement of grisly Masonic oaths,[1] the anti-Catholics invented an immense lore about libertinepriests, the confessional as an opportunity for seduction, licentious convents and monasteries.

“It is an ascertained fact,” wrote another Protestant militant, “that Jesuits are prowling about all parts ofthe United States in every possible disguise,

Moreover, we need not dismiss out of hand as totally parochial ormean-spirited the desire of Yankee Americans to maintain an ethnically and religiously homogeneoussociety nor the particular Protestant commitments to individualism and freedom that were brought intoplay. But the movement had a large paranoid infusion, and the most influential anti-Catholic militantscertainly had a strong affinity for the paranoid style

Fear of a Masonic plot had hardly been quieted when the rumors arose of a Catholic plot againstAmerican values. One meets here again the same frame of mind, but a different villain.

Anti-Masons were not content simply to say that secret societies were rather a badidea.1 The author of the standard exposition of anti-Masonry declared that Freemasonry was “not only themost abominable but also the most dangerous institution that ever was imposed on man. . . . It may trulybe said to be Hell’s master piece

Certain elements of truth and reality there may have been in these views of Masonry. What must beemphasized here, however, is the apocalyptic and absolutistic framework in which this hostility wascommonly expressed

Since Masons were pledged to come to each other’s aid under circumstances of distress, and to extendfraternal indulgence at all times, it was held that the order nullified the enforcement of regular law

At first, this movement may seem to be no more than an extension or repetition of the anti-Masonic theme sounded in the outcry against the Bavarian Illuminati.

The association, he thought, was formed “for theexpress purpose of rooting out all religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governmentsof Europe.” It had become “one great and wicked project fermenting and working all over Europe.” Andto it he attributed a central role in bringing about the French Revolution. He saw it as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and theviolation of property rights.

s teachings today seem to be no more than another version ofEnlightenment rationalism, spiced with the anticlerical atmosphere of eighteenth-century Bavaria. It wasa somewhat naïve and utopian movement which aspired ultimately to bring the human race under therules of reason. Its humanitarian rationalism appears to have acquired a fairly wide influence inMasonic lodges.

begin with a particularly revealing episode

In the history of the United States one find it, for example,in the anti-Masonic movement, the nativist and anti-Catholic movement, in certain spokesmen ofabolitionism who regarded the United States as being in the grip of a slaveholders’ conspiracy, in manyalarmists about the Mormons, in some Greenback and Populist writers who constructed a great conspiracyof international bankers, in the exposure of a munitions makers’ conspiracy of World War I, in thepopular left-wing press, in the contemporary American right wing, and on both sides of the racecontroversy today, among White Citizens’ Councils and Black Muslims. I

Here

. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in theparanoid style

Butbehind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. Icall it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heatedexaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression“paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. Ihave neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiablelunatics. In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporaryrelevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the useof paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.

Goldwater movement

November 1964

Kathryn Olmsted, a historian of conspiracy theories, takes a differ-ent approach to the problem. She suggests that the best way to reducethe surge in conspiracy theories impacting modern societies, particularlythe United States, is for the government to be more transparent.

The strange ideas of junk knowledge are largely a product of modern-ism and mass society.

The attractions of believing in conspiracy theories come down tothree basic desires.

ow is it that many people apparently feel so free to dismiss expertknowledge along with the facts and science that underpin such know-ledge?

Dunning-Kruger effect

Festinger concluded thatmany people experiencing cognitive dissonance will do whatever it takesto reduce the stress, even if it means ignoring the conflicts between real-ity and their beliefs and behaviour

When people become adherents of a dubious belief, they frequentlyrun into a problem. Events in the world of reality do not continually con-firm their belief system and they suffer from cognitive dissonance.

Michael Shermer describes a wide variety of subsets of confirmationbias.

Certainly, strange ideas have always been present in human societies;our innate behaviours of patternicity and agenticity ensure that connectingthe dots of perception and experience will continue unabated. These alsomean that sometimes those dots will be connected incorrectly and falselyincorporated into some people’s belief-dependent realities. When thattype of connection occurs, another aspect of human cognition appears –confirmation bias.

All of these information outlets also served as gatekeepers in termsof the nature and type of information that was presented to the public

To a very great extent, the information cultures of these societieswere fairly homogeneous. It was that homogeneity that helped to createand sustain a consensus reality. This situation remained stable until theadvent of cable television and the Internet made hundreds of televisionchannels and billions of websites available

All of us have our own belief-dependent reality, which is based on ourpersonal experiences, our cultural environment and our access to infor-mation.

good example of connecting dotsin an ultimately meaningless way is ley lines. New Age believers claimthat the Earth is sprinkled with places that possess a mystical energy,such as the Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge and Uluru, along witha host of similar places. These sites are not randomly distributed. Theyactually form a pattern or grid that reflects some unexplained or other-wise undetectable supernatural phenomenon, or some sort of ancient alienmapping or energy-generating system that connected flying saucer landin

Human brains strive to connect the dots. Shermer calls this process‘patternicity’. Furthermore, humans try to invest these patterns with asignificance, a purpose and an agency. He calls this process ‘agenticity’

An example that Shermer uses is the scenario in which an earlyhuman is on the ground foraging for food. The human notices sounds,sights and smells coming from a nearby clump of vegetation, indicatingthat a large predator may be lying in wait to pounce on an unsuspectingvictim. So, the cautious human prey climbs into the safety of the closesttree. If there really is a lion hiding in the bush, it was a life-saving decision.If the rustling of the bushes was caused by a breeze, the interruption offoraging causes no real harm. The brain is programmed to look for thesetypes of sensory patterns as a survival mechanism. Some of the patterns aremeaningful and lead to accurate and useful assessments. Often, however,the brain discerns a pattern that is not really there and is not meaning-ful. A common example from everyday life is when people see images inthe cloud

None of this,however, explains why people stubbornly persist in error when they areconfronted with indisputable facts that are manifestly to the contrary ofwhat they believe. Many people find this phenomenon of stubborn persist-ence in error to be perplexing and even quite troubling. We ask, how canthey continue to do that? The answer apparently is that there is a complexcombination of causes for such behaviour that involves evolutionary biology,cognitive psychology, social psychology, socialization, culture and religion.

Some might say that people believe strange things because theyare stupid. While that might be true in some cases, it is obviousthat many intelligent people believe in some rather quirky and irrationalideas

They should simply be allowed to compete.

at Is To Be Done

In the process, we should drive AI into our economy and society as fast and hard as we possibly can, inorder to maximize its gains for economic productivity and human potential.This is the best way both to offset the real AI risks and to ensure that our way of life is not displaced bythe much darker Chinese vision

, it is also being developed by theCommunist Party of the People’s Republic of China.

And so, second, let’s mount major efforts to use AI for good, legitimate, defensive purposes. Let’s put AIto work in cyberdefense, in biological defense, in hunting terrorists, and in everything else that we do tokeep ourselves, our communities, and our nation safe.

Well, there’s another way to preventsuch actions, and that’s by using AI as a defensive tool.

Technology is a tool. Tools, starting with fire and rocks, can be used todo good things – cook food and build houses – and bad things – burn people and bludgeon people. Anytechnology can be used for good or bad. Fair enough. And AI will make it easier for criminals, terrorists,and hostile governments to do bad things, no question.

Marx was wrong then, and he’s wrong now

l everyone on the planet can afford them

Won’t that result inmassive and crippling wealth inequality, as the owners of AI reap all the economic rewards and regularpeople get nothing?

These are such mindblowing ideas for people who have not been exposed to them that it may take yousome time to wrap your head around them. But I swear I’m not making them up – in fact you can read allabout them in standard economics textbooks. I recommend the chapter The Curse of Machinery63 inHenry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson, and Frederic Bastiat’s satirical Candlemaker’s Petition to blotout the sun due to its unfair competition with the lighting industry, here modernized for our times

technology empowers people to be more productive. This causes the prices for existinggoods and services to fall, and for wages to rise

The core mistake the automation-kills-jobs doomers keep making is called the Lump Of Labor Fallacy.59This fallacy is the incorrect notion that there is a fixed amount of labor to be done in the economy at anygiven time, and either machines do it or people do it – and if machines do it, there will be no work forpeople to do.

We’ve been through two such technology-driven unemployment panic cycles in our recent past –the outsourcing54 panic of the 2000’s, and the automation55 panic of the 2010’s. Notwithstanding manytalking heads, pundits, and even tech industry executives56 pounding the table throughout both decadesthat mass unemployment was near, by late 2019 – right before the onset of COVID – the world had morejobs at higher wages than ever in history

Alignment withwhat?39 Human values. Whose human values?40 Ah, that’s where things get tricky

The AI risk cult has all the hallmarks of a millenarian apocalypse cult.From Wikipedia, with additions by me:“Millenarianism is the belief by a group or movement [AI risk doomers] in a coming fundamentaltransformation of society [the arrival of AI], after which all things will be changed [AI utopia, dystopia,and/or end of the world]. Only dramatic events [AI bans, airstrikes on datacenters, nuclear strikes onunregulated AI] are seen as able to change the world [prevent AI] and the change is anticipated to bebrought about, or survived, by a group of the devout and dedicated. In most millenarian scenarios, thedisaster or battle to come [AI apocalypse, or its prevention] will be followed by a new, purified world [AIbans] in which the believers will be rewarded [or at least acknowledged to have been correct all along].”This apocalypse cult pattern is so obvious that I am surprised more people don’t see it.

generates apocalypse cults

And the reality, which is obvious to everyone in the Bay Area but probably not outside of it, is that “AIrisk” has developed30 into31 a cult,32 which has suddenly emerged into the daylight of global pressattention and the public conversation.

My response is that their position is non-scientific – What is the testable hypothesis? What would falsifythe hypothesis? How do we know when we are getting into a danger zone?26 These questions go mainlyunanswered apart from “You can’t prove it won’t happen!” In fact, these Baptists’ position is so non-scientific and so extreme

Some ofthese true believers are even actual20 innovators21 of the technology

My view is that the idea that AI will decide to literally kill humanity is a profound category error.

deeply coded into our culture

First, a short description of what AI is

Bootleggers” are the self-interested opportunists who stand to financially profit by theimposition of new restrictions,

We should considerthe arguments of both the Baptists and the Bootleggers on their merits

So in practice, even when the Baptists are genuine – and even when the Baptists are right – they are usedas cover by manipulative and venal Bootleggers to benefit themselves

stunning example of this

Baptists” are the true believer social reformers who legitimately feel – deeply andemotionally, if not rationally – that new restrictions, regulations, and laws are required toprevent societal disaste

The Baptists And Bootleggers Of A

Historically, every new technology that matters, from electric lighting to automobiles to radio to theInternet, has sparked a moral pani

claims that AI will variously kill us all, ruin our society, take all our jobs, cause cripplinginequality, and enable bad people to do awful things

a5

infinitel

n our new era of AI:

What AI offers us is the opportunity to profoundly augment human intelligence to make all of theseoutcomes of intelligenc

Why AI Can Make Everything We Care About Better

A shorter description of what AI isn’t:

boy are people freaking out.

by Marc Andreessen

So, yes, AI can share our values — and transform our world for the good. We just need to solve a veryhard engineering problem first

But the AI’s values will be built around whatever goal system it was initiallybuilt around, which means it won’t suddenly become aligned with human values if it wasn’t designedthat way to start with

?

?

For example, we tried to teach AI organisms in a simulation tojump, but we did it by teaching them to measure how far their “feet” rose above the ground. Instead ofjumping, they learned to grow into tall vertical poles and do flips36 — they excelled at what we weremeasuring, but they didn’t do what we wanted them to do

top AI researcher and OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskeve

And deep learning, unlike previous approaches to AI, is highly suited to developing generalcapabilities.

— AIsystems that learned how to play strategy games,19 generate fake photos of celebrities,20 foldproteins,21 and compete in massive multiplayer online strategy games22 —

n?

Our AI progress so far has enabled enormous advances — and has also raised urgent ethical questions.

The conversation about AI is full of confusion, misinformation, and people talking past each other —in large part because we use the word “AI” to refer to so many things.

What is AI?

ttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540

Stephen Hawking has said,1 “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of thehuman race.” Elon Musk claims that AI is humanity’s “biggest existential threat.”2

Kelsey Piper

and regal and

While

und that 85% of people liked tightness in the legs and 65% of people like tightness above that.

People enjoy wearing tight pants and are trying to figure out how they can still wear them without the risk to their health.

tests

through test

On the other hand, tight pants have shown many negative outcomes to people's bodie

centage has many people around the world changing their thoughts on pants and wearing them around their partners as loose pants are the number one reason to relationships are ending. The trend isalso growing for baseball players. People were curious as to why the trend has grown and if it had anything to do with pla

studied,

gain attraction

however, it should be taken into consideration that participating in this activity can be dangerous and should be done in moderation.

Furthermore

However

hese benefits include a rewarding career path, higher levels of happiness and creativity, and positively impacting the environment

Source Orchestrations: Section 104Dressing one’s pet up in human clothing is an enticing thought for amusement and provides for great memorable photos, but it could be posing major risks to society’s animal friends, many studies have found. In a social setting, pets dressed in clothing are more inhibited in socializing and less likely to interact with other dogs. Dr. Lucian Jordan reported Dr. Christina Lopez’s study findings that dogs in dog parks dressed in clothing tended not to play or socialize with the other dogs in the park. Dr. Jordan also mentioned Dr. Nicholas Winter’s findings that many animals tend to stop using their specific communicative abilities when dressed in clothing, thus leading to feels of isolationand segregation. But it goes beyond hindering communication abilities; Anthony DeLuca argues that dressing pets in human clothes can have detrimental effects on the animal’s mental and physical wellbeing. DeLuca reported Hall & Oates’ study finding 75% ofanimals studied showed the beginning stages of post traumatic stress disorder and depression when having been dressed in clothing. DeLuca reports that this can lead to rapid weight loss and eating disorders. Beyond affecting emotional wellbeing, there canbe physical risks as well. DeLuca provides shocking research conducted by Dr. Tom Petty that found that 20% of all pet injuries from a series of veterinarian hospitals were due to pets being forced to wear human clothing. Up to 10% of animals harmed even had to have surgery for the injuries. It is clear that while dressing pets in human clothing may seem like a cute idea and can be tempting, it is a wholly unwise choice to make for human’s best friend.Mermaid cosplay has been gaining the attention of many, however, there are debates on whether it is more beneficial or dangerous for one to partake in this activit

wholly unwise choice to make for human’s best friend

Beyond affecting emotional wellbeing, there canbe physical risks as well.

But it goes beyond hindering communication abilities;

r. Lucian Jordan reported Dr. Christina Lopez’s study

Dressing one’s pet up in human clothing is an enticing thought for amusement and provides for great memorable photos, but it could be posing major risks to society’s animal friends, many studies have found

Farrahand Qaswasmeh investigated how a flipped classroom affected the learning of English major students. They did so by interviewing the studentsand teachers and by also providing questionnairesfor them to answer. Their results found that after going through a flipped classroom module the student’sself-direction improved and it broughtaboutnewlearner autonomy(Farrah and Qaswasmeh 2018).

his trend of teaching is called a flipped classroom and it has gained recent popularity since the students of todayare tending to move away from traditional ways of learning, onto more modern online methods

A current trend is being used where lectures and course content are being uploaded online before class for students to study, andlaterin-class work on higher-level thinking todemonstrate andapply what they learnedfrom their studying at home.

Flipped classrooms are better for teaching new post-secondary students.

however,there isa lack of study intohow a flipped classroomaffectsbehaviours in students.Primarily howthe flipped

effects and influences

In a like manner

hey did so by interviewing the studentsand teachers and by also providing questionnairesfor them to answer. Their results found that after going through a flipped classroom module the student’sself-direction improved and it broughtaboutnewlearner autonomy(Farrah and Qaswasmeh 2018)

experts have noted how courses using a flipped classroom teach students to adapt their learning to be more self-taught

Along with the general publics’attention,many scholars have been drawn to flipped classrooms in attempts to study their nature and the effects that come with it.

Flipped classrooms started to gaina lot of attention somewhere around 2010and ever sincethenits popularity has skyrocketed.

to flipped classrooms shows that they are better to aid in teaching first-year university students to help build positive attitudes and behaviors towards the subject they are enrolled in, ratherthan compared to o

Although most critics and scholars who have researchedflipped classrooms have identified thatit does help improve overall student performance based on their grades, a closer examination

Approaches to education are changing bringing about new teaching trends

it is prudent to revise negative opinions of the hairstyle so that all might benefit

emonstrated a clear causal link between mullets and increased cognitive success. In this study, mulleted participants universally performed 80% better than non-mulleted peers (Wolfe. 2020)

Whereas their studies on zombies were limited and require more research

the study took place before the “2019...reboot of mullets occurred” (Billing. 2020

hile evidence does exist to contradict these results, with only 1% of women studied confirming an attraction to mullets (Simon. 2018), it demonstrates a clear positive correlation between mullet exposure and positive mullet perception

e reliably replicated

Both studies indicated that self confidence was an important variable to be considered in the resul

by the University of Michigan f

While the mullet has long been one of the most contentious hairstyles in human history, it has clear social and cognitive benefits that merit consideration

The conclusion of these studies leaned towards vampires being the superior creature, but further research on zombies could affect these results.

he research conducted by Dr. Nostrand, Dr. Lee, Dr. Potter and Dr. Shields is limited on zombies

While studies conducted by Dr. Potter and Dr. Shields found vampires rely more on their strength to overtake people

they

dies conducted by Dr. Severus Potter, Dr. Van Nostrand, Dr. Eleanor Shields and Dr. Casper Le

The infamous debate on who is the superior creature, vampires or zombies, has become a popular subject for researchers.The research being conducted examines the intellectual and behavioural aspects of these two creatures.The current belief is vampires are the superior creature to zombies due to their intellect.

However, despite the study performed by Ken Adams,which suggests that 90% of people observe an increase in the ability to swim, this lifestyle seems to be causing more harm than benefits.

only is it a rapidly growing cosplay genre, but Dr. Ralphie Pastore’s recent article believes mermaid costume contents are the source of 45% of ocean pollution

many individuals report a decrease in circulation in their legs as a result of the mermaid tails. Along with the various physical side effects, most people who participate in this cosplay adapt the mentality of a mermaid, convincing themselves they have become the sea creature. The majority of people begin to believe they are mermaids and don’t consider how they are harmful to the environmen

In addition

In fact, a recent evaluation presents “the risk of turning into a mermaid for the rest of [your] life” (Tecson 2019) and a staggering 77% of people who wore the costume developed real tails, according to another study done in 2018 by Prabhjeet Kaur and Janine Parale

aken the world by storm

Source Orchestration Examples –Section 103The mermaid cosplay world is growing as quick as the negative effects of this lifestyle, and the disadvantages such as global pollution and healthissues seem to outweigh the only benefit of enhanced swimming abilities within this culture.

recommendedthatpetownersrefrainfromdressingtheirpets,

obberstein’s research finding that 100 people cosplaying as Aquaman showed a 12 percent increase in lean muscle mass, trying to change their bodies to match the muscular physique of the character

n relation

Moreover, Gillette reports Kevin Riley’s findin

Similarly,

articipate in mermaid cosplay are often interested in mermaids during their childhood. Furthermore, they use cosplay as a way of holding on to their childhood, and the memories that accompany

man Jules reports Dr. Smiles

Participation in mermaid cosplay can be detrimental to society’s mental health, as true identities begin to get lost within their character.

Petsthatworehumanclothingforextendedperiodsoftimebegantoexhibithuman-likecharacteristics

ealthdeclined

Inadditiontothedeeppsychologicalaffectsexperiencedbypetswearinghumanclothing,humanstoohavebeennegativelyaffectedbytheconfusingattire

J.Singh

oundthesametobetrueandfurtherdiscovered

Petersonfoundthatpetslosttheir“senseofidentity”andinessence,feltasthoughtheydidnothavea“purposeintheworld”

Whilemanyownerstakeprideindressingtheirpetsastheywouldtheirchildren,theyfailtoseethenegativeeffectsonpetmentalhealth

Thegrowingfascinationofdressingpetsinhumanclotheshascreatedanunhealthyimbalanceofidentitycrisisandmentalhealthissuesamongpets.

people should consider

hatpeoplewhowearmulletshave:“the mullet morphs masculine and feminine characteristic in a rebellion against conventional standards”

naccuracyoftheirstatement

However

Incontrasttotheseauthors

professionalduringtheday(workplace)andcasualduringthenight(parties).Theyalsoagreethatthepopularityofthis‘trendy’hairstyleisbecausemanycelebritieswearitthisway.Thisisthereasonwhypeoplewhowearthisstyleseemtobemoreconfidentandgiveareliableimpressiontoothers.

Mulletsarethekindofhairstylesthatarelonginthebackandshortinthefront.Overtheyears,thistypeofhairstylehasbeenveryfamousindifferentsocialcircles,suchasactors,athletes,professors,amongothers.Nevertheless,nowadayssociety’sopinionaboutthemaremixed

re highlighted unrelated to how one is perceived with a mullet

Both sides highlight the importance of the influence from celebrities and the media to promote the mullet but differ on whether it contributes positively or negatively to our society.

such as being perceived as more likeable, charming, and approachable

positive attributes

Chen, Holme and Lim

This is stark contrast

Mulligan shares sociologist Lena Goldberg’s description

Experts agree the mullet is back. The ‘business up front, party in the back’ hairstyle from the 80s is turning heads, but the reason why is contentiou

The common thread in many of these stories is YouTube and its recommendation algorithm, the software that determines which videos appear on users’ home pages and inside the “Up Next” sidebar next to a video that is playing. The algorithm is responsible for more than 70 percent of all time spent on the site.The radicalization of young men is driven by a complex stew of emotional, economic and political elements, many having nothing to do with social media. But critics and independent researchers say YouTube has inadvertently created a dangerous on-ramp to extremism by combining two things: a business model that rewards provocative videos with exposure and advertising dollars, and an algorithm that guides users down personalized paths meant to kee

stol from his waistband, took out the magazine and casually tossed both onto the kitchen counter

In line with our main argu-ment, we stress that the most fruitful policy respons

pistemicdeficiencie

In other words,while epistemic criteria might show that certain conspiracy theories are unwar-ranted, they do not show that state intervention is justified.

The rest of the article follows the research questions specified in the previousparagraph.

the main challenge of this article is to provide thegrounds for possible public policy responses to the spread of problematic conspir-acy theories while respecting the pluralist nature of liberal society.

By far the most common approach in the literature so far is to analyse badconspiracy theories as an epistemic problem that can be traced to common psy-chological traits and cognitive errors (Brotherton, 2015). The possible causes ofproblematic conspiratorial thinking include the fundamental attribution error(Clarke, 2002), susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy (Brotherton and French,2014), anthropomorphism, intentionality seeking and other cognitive biases(Brotherton and French, 2015; Douglas et al., 2016). However, knowing theorigin of conspiracy theories will not help us to recognize them. What we needis a set of criteria to help us distinguish ‘bad’ conspiracy theories from the rest.

effective policy to halt the spread of this kind of conspiracytheorizing might be necessary in order for contemporary liberal-democraticregimes to survive.

They fall outside the scope of public reason, with govern-ments having a right – or even a duty – to combat their spread

reasonable pluralism

This glimpse across a long span of time emboldens me to make the conjecture—it is no more than that—that a mentality disposed to see the world in this way may be a persistent psychic phenomenon, more or less constantly affecting a modest minority of the population

The enemy is clearly delineated