Be Skeptical of Skepticism

One of the most frustrating things about conspiracy theorists is that they actually start off on the right track: they question what they’re told.  

I love that they’ve taken the first step of skepticism. 

But then many of them get stuck. Instead of continuing to question and examine, they latch onto the first or second alternative narrative that appeals to them and stop there. They treat “the mainstream” with deep suspicion, but often give fringe voices a free pass just because those voices are anti-mainstream. 

That’s not real skepticism. It’s just switching from one kind of uncritical belief to another.

Yes, it’s absolutely right to question the media and the government. These are big systems with conflicting incentives and a lot of room for error or even corruption. But those same issues exist just as much in alternative spaces.

Being a Skeptic of ‘Alternative’ Health and Homeopathy

Take alternative health, for example. 

People will criticize pharmaceutical companies for being profit-driven (fair enough), but then trust wellness influencers selling overpriced supplements, online courses, or speaking at $500-a-seat seminars without applying the same scrutiny. 

Want to test this? Just look up a few speakers from an alternative health conference and check out their websites. See what they charge for their services, what products they’re selling, and how hard they push you to buy in. 

It’s capitalism all the way down – just anti-mainstream because they know how well it plays to their audience. 

What’s frustrating is that so many people seem close to developing a more mature understanding of how to evaluate information but they stall out. I hope that all of this is part of a larger process, a kind of stumbling toward better thinking. 

But sometimes I wonder if that’s just wishful thinking. Because the truth is, when people talk about “the media” or “the government,” they often treat them like monolithic, evil machines. In reality, they’re made up of tens of thousands of people with different motivations, goals, values, and levels of power. 

Medical Skepticism and the Pandemic that Shook the New Millennium

At first glance, this may seem like just another unremarkable page out of a 19th century manual, but it’s actually incredibly influential… revolutionary, even.

Reading about the Covid Pandemic and the shut downs, the doctors and researchers at the CDC panicked a little and over corrected. But I can say that with 20/20 hindsight, I couldn’t say that in March 2020. I would rather they over protect than under protect? It’s the first real pandemic we had since the Spanish Flu (before electricity was widely used in the country). Its an example of, “did the institutions fuck up?” Yes, and those same people learned from their mistakes. 

Many of those workers are genuinely trying to do good work, often under pressure, with limited resources, or in flawed systems. Yet people will reject a consensus formed by hundreds of experts working in public institutions, only to put their trust in a random anti-vax soccer mom on YouTube just because she sounded right. 

Real skepticism should take you all the way to this uncomfortable question: “How am I supposed to know what’s true at all?”

That’s the point where you start developing real tools and methods for sorting truth from misinformation, fact from fiction, insight from BS. 

So yeah, be skeptical. But be skeptical of your own skepticism, too.