I grew up in a world immersed in conspiracy theories. I grew up in Seventh-Day Adventism, one giant conspiracy theory (lifestyle SDAs are the least likely to believe in such theories and the most likely to achieve in the world and the least likely to stay in the church, while historic Adventists are the most likely to believe in such conspiracies, the most passionately devoted to the church, and the least likely group of Adventists to distinguish themselves in the wider world).
There are 15 million Adventists in the world but you almost never hear about them because they are about as irrelevant a group as you can find. They get almost no academic and journalistic coverage because their conspiracy theories and church-taught passivity (waiting for the soon coming of Christ to take them to a much better world) do not lead to achievement.
My father, an evangelist and Bible scholar, was constantly importuned by nutters who wanted his time so they could elaborate their various views on how the world would end, how the papacy would bring about national Sunday laws and persecute Sabbath-keepers and the like.
I grew up with people immersed in various conspiracy theories about how John F. Kennedy was not assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. Many of these same people had conspiracy theories about there never was a Holocaust.
All these conspiracy theorists had something in common — they were losers. My father’s friends who had PhDs from good universities or who were medical doctors were rarely prone to conspiracy theories.
People who feel in charge of their lives are rarely prone to conspiracy theories.
Blacks in America are particularly prone to conspiracy theories, but not the successful blacks, rather, the blacks who are at the bottom rung of society.
Palestinians are prone to conspiracy theories as is much of the Islamic world, because this is a low moral world with little intellectual and capitalist and artistic achievement.
As soon as you hear somebody spouting a conspiracy theory, you know you’re dealing with an unhappy loser (are there any happy losers?).
I know only one Jew who believes in conspiracy theories. This type of thinking is about as rare in Jewish life as bathroom humor (Jews rarely tell jokes about excretory functions).
Conspiracy theory is a national sport in Pakistan, where the main players
