Flat earthing is maybe a little more extreme than I am comfortable with, but it is easy to see how the same psychological mechanisms that produce flat earthers

Flat earthing is maybe a little more extreme than I am comfortable with, but it is easy to see how the same psychological mechanisms that produce flat earthers would also produce some truly original research. The obvious parallel is the old story about hot water freezing faster than cold water [1]. An experimental character who notices this and gets laughed down by the vast and overwhelming majority of people who who only agree with consensus facts could logically end up in a /weird/ mental space. They'd basically discover that they are surrounded by people who don't assess the facts directly, but do so through a lens of other people's opinions. It wouldn't take much to push them into conspiracy theories - clearly no-one around them is dealing directly with reality. Any who didn't take to conspiracies would probably be grounded enough to drive real change in the world. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpemba_effect