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RE: An Experiment In Critical Thinking
I haven't lost hope yet :-)
Like I said, I used to be a fully paid up member of the conspiracy club, yet I consider myself a critical thinker. However once I actually applied that critical thinking, that was the moment I realised I had been fooling myself and coming to heuristic conclusions.
There's hope for us all! (almost)
Good for you, thanks for attempting to share the power of critical thinking.
So was there a particular trigger that helped you get critical thinking powers? Any particular conversation, video, post, or thing (s) you learned that made it easier or obvious?
Yes there was, I remember it clear as day. I was watching what I thought to be a really good documentary on the 9/11 conspiracy.
It was probably around 2004/5, anyway, I called my (skeptical) flat mate into the room and said, OK, give me your honest opinion on this, I think this is pretty convincing.
He sat down and said OK, then this guy comes on screen that I wanted him to see, and my flatmate just suppressed a laugh, which was not the reaction I was expecting. Suddenly I wondered if I had been suffering from confirmation bias, only seeing what confirmed what I already believed to know.
That's when I started looking at the 'evidence' more critically, and realised that there were gaping holes that simply could not be accounted for. The more I looked the more I saw that I had been blinded by the excitement of uncovering a governmental conspiracy.
As my friend said that day; it is not wholly inconceivable that a bunch of pissed off Muslims, born in the most radical country on Earth, simply crashed planes into the Twin Towers et al.
He also said that at best, criminal negligence was involved, as in somebody knew it was going to happen, and simply didn't report/covered it up; which would be infinitely easier to hide than using jets, and explosives and missiles.
After that, I made sure I was more careful in examining things, I had always prided myself on being a logical thinker, so was quite shocked at just how far I had allowed myself to be duped.
All good though, we need these realisations in our lives, I just wish others would be more inclined to drop bizarre beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Cg