Yes. We are on the bed.
You could call it an homage to old YouTube.
I call it...
comfortable for my butt.
Conspiracy theories.
So as somebody who's lost many a night
tumbling down Wikipedia rabbit holes,
I love a good conspiracy theory.
It's like, "Ooh, aliens!"
"Ooh, how do people make such big triangles?"
I think that that it's just fun
imagining the world to be more interesting
than what I was taught.
But then something weird happened?
A couple weeks ago, I found myself
in the middle of a conspiracy theory.
And then, all of the fun was replaced with just...
pure confusion.
The conspiracy itself is, like, weird and fun and innocuous.
However, what I really cared about is, like,
how do you get to that point?
How do you start seeing signs that were never there to begin with.
That's what I want to know.
And I also want to, like, disprove this whole conspiracy theory
'cause it's whack.
However, as the person in the middle of all of this,
I can imagine why I'd be seen as unreliable.
So...
...I'm calling on a friend!
Uhh, I don't know how to put this. How do you put this?
People think that I am part of the Illuminati.
Uh-
Well, are you?
[laughs]
This is just one of the comments,
but I think it really summarizes the issue.
"I find this channel to be highly disingenuous-"
"-Corporate product masked to have the appearance of
an independently run YouTube channel." "There's no way a single person is that skilled
at animation, editing, presenting, research-" "Everything is too professional for that-"
"There's no way this girl is the one who did this"
"A production company put this video together with you just as a host."
So now- Now... Now what?
Why am I calling you? Right?
Yeah. I'm, like, "How do you want me to prove this?
I am wondering if you could explain to me and the viewers of this video,
how could somebody see something so mundane
that's just, like, a part of my life, I guess.
How could someone see that and think, like, "There must be more."
I'm interested. I'm fascinated.
'Cause I'm, like...
I'm not only interested in your conspiracy, as interesting as it is.
I think conspiracies have a knack for, especially nowadays,
to just....
just ruin people's lives, you know?
I'm gonna solve this mystery. ♪ Scooby-dooby-doo ♪
We don't have the copyright on that.
We're going to investigate this conundrum. I'm-I'm-
You're doubling down on it, I see.
Hello, I'm Taha.
I'm apparently Sabrina's only British friend.
I've been given free reign over this part of the video,
so, welcome to my chaos.
Sabrina's asked me to get into the mind of a Sabrina Cruz truther
and figure out what's going on.
Okay, hold on.
It needs pictures.
Let's read some conspiracy theories.
"This is a fake channel
A propaganda channel paid by others. Why the spotty uploads?"
Maybe because it's- it's just one person?
I love this one. "Who do you work for?
We all know this isn't your channel. Whose script are you reading?"
"I think she works for the government."
Oh. This is the best one.
"Her main channel is crash course with 10 million subs."
John and Hank Green, eat your heart out.
Okay, so basically,
people think that Sabrina doesn't make her own videos,
that she's a presenter, that maybe she works for the government.
How did people get here?
Let's figure it out.
Okay. So, here's what I found out.
There are loads of ways to define conspiracy theories,
but they all kind of boil down to the same thing.
It's basically the belief that a group of people
are secretly working together to do something bad.
But here's the thing:
When we talk about conspiracy theories,
we aren't talking about every time everyone has gotten together
to secretly do bad things.
So what are people talking about when they say "conspiracy theory"?
Or when they talk about conspiracy theories on the internet?
They talk about a specific type of conspiracy theory.
It's the type of conspiracy theory that Sabrina is in the middle of right now.
These conspiracy theories seem to be unlikely by design.
Here's the really interesting thing that I found.
These theories have pretty distinctive features that you can spot
and these features make them not only unlikely to be true
but also difficult to argue against.
These features are that they're speculative,
based on educated and not-so-educated guesswork
rather than solid evidence.
The rationale being that if a conspiracy was successful
then it wouldn't have left a trace.
They can become contrarian.
They form in opposition to the obvious or official explanation.
Conspiracy theories will dismiss this explanation, citing
"that's what they want you to think."
Because of this, theories can become esoteric.
If the obvious explanation isn't true, then the theory is based on speculation.
The conspiracy theory can run wild.
Explanations can become increasingly detached from reality.
Theories are also amateurish.
Now, that isn't a comment on a theorist's intelligence.
That's a comment on how qualified these theorists are.
In most cases, they don't have the relevant expertise
to be conclusively analyzing evidence.
Even when they do, they're in the small minority
and the professional consensus doesn't agree with them.
And is it more likely that all experts are lying
or that most informed and qualified people are coming to the same conclusion.
Conspiracies can also become premodern.
These conspiracies believe that incredibly complex events
can be controlled by a small number of people acting in secret.
Nothing is a coincidence or a series of uncorrelated events,
but a coordinated conspiracy.
And lastly, these conspiracies are self-sealing.
What this means is that
the conspiracy is difficult to argue against.
If a conspiracy is based on speculation,
it dismisses the obvious explanation in favor of a more obscure one.
if it ignores expert consensus
and believes that a small group of people can control complex events,
any explanation against the conspiracy is just what they want you to think.
Now, that doesn't mean that every time you hear the word "conspiracy theory"
you should just dismiss it.
'Cause we know that throughout history, there are well-documented conspiracies.
I find this really interesting concept
that distinguish between conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact.
Essentially, when you have a bunch of solid evidence
that supports the fact that a conspiracy occurred,
you can consider it fact,
but it isn't sensible to believe conspiracy theories,
the ones that tick all of the boxes that make them unbelievable.
And not unbelievable in a way like, "Oh, that's unbelievable!"
In a way that's like, "I don't believe you."
And even if conspiracy theories aren't true,
they still have a function.
Not a good function, but still a function.
So, what is it?
People believe in conspiracies
that reinforce their political or ideological bias.
Nobody's believing a conspiracy theory
that goes against what they think the world is like.
We patterns and theories that reinforce our ideology
and we're happy to get onboard.
In this way, conspiracy theories are a type of ideological propaganda.
By spreading the theory, you also end up spreading your world view.
In order to believe a theory,
you have to believe that the world is a certain way.
So, by convincing people of your conspiracy theory,
you are also implicitly convincing them that the world is the way
that you believe it to be.
Okay. So, in the process of researching this video,
I ended up going down a lot of conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
Some of them I obviously know were untrue, but others I thought,
"Maybe they could be true?"
That was kind of scary to me.
And I wanted to find out what it was about conspiracy theories
that made them so... attractive.
And that's when I got into the psychology of conspiracy theories.
There are 2 key psychological phenomenon that drive a natural inclination
towards conspiracy theories.
First is "pattern perception".
We're bad at recognizing randomness.
Instead, we are more likely to see a pattern when there is none.
And, secondly, is "agency detection".
We tend to think that events occur due to agents acting intentionally,
rather than recognizing neutral or accidental occurrences.
These 2 phenomena are compounded by cognitive biases
that make conspiracy theories believable.
These include "proportionality bias",
which leads to thinking that the cause of an event
has to be as big as its consequences.
When the explanation is not as grand as the event itself,
people can find it difficult to believe.
This means we assume things happen on purpose rather than by accident.
When the conspiracy explains how something was intentional,
believing that it was an accident becomes difficult.
"Confirmation bias" means that once we believe a conspiracy,
we tend to only pay attention to evidence that supports our conclusion.