I mean the default assumption/mode of thought of the average uninformed person today seems to be a cynical one, at least judging from friends/family and top ran

I mean the default assumption/mode of thought of the average uninformed person today seems to be a cynical one, at least judging from friends/family and top ranked posts from random people on the Internet. Given a situation in which they have zero knowledge, they will assume a conspiracy, cheating, corruption, malice, or some kind of deliberate inequality or unfairness in which they are the disadvantaged party. Usually the way these assertions are frame leaves anyone who disagrees in the position of having to prove the negative. Lack of evidence is no mater because "we know", while any trivial facts, even completely circumstantial ones, are held as proof. For example, I spent many too many hours arguing with my partner that Epstein wasn't "certainly murdered", that not having camera footage wasn't proof. While possible, we simply didn't have evidence, and suicide was hardly inconceivable given the circumstances. Yet seemingly everyone I know seems to not merely believe that this happened, but that they know this for certain and that there is a mass conspiracy to cover this up. There's a belief that a) you have to take an absolute position of fact on unknowns and b) the case that attributes the most malice to the greatest number of the highest status people is always the correct one. The result is kind of interesting to me, because you end up where a majority of "regular people" end up sharing a common view of the world, even without any coordination and often when their ideologies are polar opposite each other.