📼Video Interview: Stephen Knight talks to Michael Shermer about conspiracy theories and the anti-vax movement.

This week on The Knight Tube, Stephen Knight (@Gspellchecker) welcomes the return of Michael Shermer. Michael Shermer is an author and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine. They will be talking about Michael’s new book titled ‘Conspiracy: Why The Rational Believe The Irrational’.

                                                                                                                                                                    
0:00 Intro
0:46 Is it possible for a ‘rational’ person to believe in conspiracy theories?
3:57 Why did you write this book? Was it inspired by the recent conspiracies surrounding ‘stolen elections’ and COVID?
8:37 Why do people believe conspiracies? The tribal, political and emotional reasons.
14:43 Are conspiracy theories becoming more sinister and dangerous? Has there been an escalation?
17:59 Is it worth pushing back against conspiracy theories? Is the best tactic to just ignore them? Why didn’t you push back against Brett Weinstein and Heather Heying?
30:25 If something worse than COVID comes along, will we be able to convince the public to lockdown again?
31:31 Are the COVID anti-vax arguments any different than the ones we have heard for previous vaccines?
35:42 Is it a waste of time to debunk conspiracy theories?
39:28 Peddlers of anti-vax nonsense achieving huge popularity and success
44:41 Should Alex Jones’s conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook have been protected under the First Amendment?
48:09 Is Trump legally culpable for the Capitol riots?
49:26 Does Michael know that Bill Murray’s character in Ghost Busters (2016) is based on him according to Dan Aykroyd?
51:21 Haunted locations and exposing ‘Paranormal Investigators’.

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