There were theories in the 1890s that Roman Catholics were seeking to take over the United States. It was under the color of law, but there are many women that were victimized by the Salem witch trials conspiracy theory that there were witches getting together in a in a den and trying to ruin society. For example, think about 1690s, Salem witch trials conspiracy theory that actually led to people being murdered, essentially. But I still don't think that this is a unique time for conspiracy theories. So that that is a new experience that we're going through. I mean, you could be a pamphleteer back in the 18th century, but whether your pamphlet would go viral was, it was a little bit harder than having a tweet go viral. Anybody can say anything and have it read or go viral, which is pretty unique to our time. Part of what we're seeing is the democratization of the information environment. Is it just more in our face? Are we are we engaging it more? It seems like social media, Facebook, Twitter is filled with this kind of information about conspiracy theories. I refuse to believe we've always been this paranoid. So no, we're not in the golden age of conspiracies, we're just in the newest iteration. And that was in that was in 1978, which I can't even remember what the conspiracies were in that year. In 1978, for example, Don DeLillo, who's an author of fiction and nonfiction, said this is the age of conspiracy, the age of connections, secret links, secret relationships. Would it surprise you to know that people have literally asked if we're in the golden age of conspiracies throughout American history? So am I the one being paranoid here? Are we in a golden age of conspiracy theories right now because of coronavirus? He teaches a course all about conspiracy theories. Geoffrey Dancy is an associate professor of political science here at Tulane. To help us make sense of it all, we have an authority on conspiracy theories. None of this is true, by the way, but that still hasn't stopped these wild conspiracy theories from spreading online. There's even a conspiracy theory that Bill Gates is using the COVID-19 vaccine as a global tracking device. Others swear it's all hoax, a bioweapon that escaped from a lab in China. In fact, almost a quarter of Americans believed that the pandemic was a big global conspiracy. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, there were more than 2,000 rumors and conspiracy theories explaining how the virus happened. You're gonna have conspiracy theories immediately emerge. Anything that scares people, makes them anxious, makes them feel like there's disorder or chaos. That's where conspiracy theories live and thrive. Instead, they look to the fringes to explain things. Think about it, in an average day, how many social media posts or news stories do you see? How do we make sense of all the conflicting ideas coming at us? Increasingly, some are turning into deep skeptics, they don't trust the media or traditional sources of knowledge. Today we're talking about how we process information, specifically complex information. So have at it.Thanks for joining us here On Good Authority, the podcast featuring Tulane experts. Then again, if it’s negative, she’ll probably call you a conspiring bitch. And trust me, Kat LOVES her Twitter so she’ll definitely respond to you. Per usual, if you’d like to respond to the interview, please include Kat’s Twitter handle ( in your replies. And dissect us until your heart’s content. And when you’re listening, hey, know you’re listening to two people who have been dating for the last 6 months. It’s just kind of a lot of craziness all over the board and it’s two hours long. There’s silliness, there’s seriousness, and we cover a lot of topics like spoiling, sources, Bachelor Nation, Big Brother world, Reddit, and plenty of others. Definitely the first podcast in 204 of them where I actually drink during it. She has her audience, I have mine, there’s a bit of a crossover but we figured we’d both use this as our podcast this week. On Monday night, Kat Dunn released our podcast on her “Conspire Away Podcast,” and now today, you get it again in case you missed it.
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