> Conspiracy theory is a self-reinforcing loop and people primed for this sort of thing do jump onto the next one without much critical thinking. Just the othe

> Conspiracy theory is a self-reinforcing loop and people primed for this sort of thing do jump onto the next one without much critical thinking. Just the other day someone posted on a social network that they believe the war going on in Ukraine is "fake". I believe they used the word "Psyop". They claim they do not see any footage of the war, unlike the war in Israel, so it must be fake. So, I posted links to footage of several battles, which are very easy to find even on Youtube, and linked to one of the many "mappers" who post map update videos of the changes in the frontlines daily, which also always include plenty of footage of battles (usually with a couple of weeks delay given that videos from the battles that are still going on are highly sensitive as the military can use them in their favour). The person still denied that those things prove anything, and doubled down by saying the footage just proves their point that the war is not killing a million people (the one-million dead figure seems to be circulating in part of the media in the USA. I believe that's a high estimate , but still realistic when thousands of soldiers seem to be dying on both sides every day, and the war is approaching 3 years already). It's incredible to me someone that seems like a real person who appears to participate in politics locally (looking at their profile, they are highly politically engaged in Texas with the Republican Party) could just dismiss obvious evidence like that just because it does not support some bizarre belief that they formed... but this seems to be really common these days!