Comments by "Mark Pawelek" (@mark4asp) on "How to Spot a True Conspiracy Theory" video.

Apparently, Michael Shermer wrote a book on Conspiracy; if the background scenery is to be believed. He's written a lot of books. I read one of his early ones from 3 decades ago: "Why People Believe Weird Things"; it's honesty and sincerity impressed me then but it didn't actually deliver and explain why people believe weird things. It just explained they did; Shermer too. His weird beliefs could've killed him. He was shocked into skepticism by an actual near death experience due to belief in weird things. Shermer was a skeptic when there were hardly any. His skepticism predates New Atheism by at least a decade or two. Today, many ex-New Atheists call themselves skeptics. That must be in homage to Shermer; because it's certainly not in homage the the skeptics of the Enlightenment; who will rolling in their graves with how narrow-minded, and authoritarian, the "skepticism" of many ex-"New Atheists" is.
6
The term "conspiracy theorist" annoys me for many reasons: -- the term was invented by US spooks in the 1960s to discredit people who didn't trust the official narrative of JK Kennedy's assassination. -- in UK law, Conspiracy is the name of an actual law. Criminal conspiracy is thing which can land you in jail. Labelling someone a CT implies they're criminal. -- people, in and out of government, actually do conspire - in secret. They brain-storm tactics and strategies to achieve their ends - which involve misinforming the public -- it's one of these debate-ending diss-words - like Fascist, Trumpist, transphobe, homophobe, racist, flat-earther, climate denier. As such it's used to spread hate and mistrust, to stop debate and actual critical thinking.
1