>>It would seem about 43% or more of the population of the United States is infected with a means of operation which eliminates or completely disables critical

>>It would seem about 43% or more of the population of the United States is infected with a means of operation which eliminates or completely disables critical thinking mechanisms and relies exclusively on internal.. IMO, it is about 100%. Conspiracy people are not less rational, or radically so, on average. People just aren't as rational as we believe ourselves to be. Many of our positions and beliefs are acquired socially in practice. Logic and reason are part of it, but remember that we learn from other people. We learn who to learn from. Trust plays a role. As I said in the original comment, the epistemology can be interesting. In practice though, the sociology is often meta to epistemology