Healthy Skepticism: Testing a Hypothesis

Sometimes things don't make a lot of sense. Sometimes we may be skeptical of the government or the people around us. Sometimes we may feel manipulated into certain beliefs or ideologies. Sometimes these feelings are right. Sometimes these feelings are wrong. There is nothing wrong with skepticism. Many of our thoughts and beliefs of the past have been proven wrong. Some other beliefs have been shown to be true. But when skeptical, one must test their theory against some baseline and show their theory to be superior in every way. This is how we forge knowledge.

The whole thing was a government conspiracy, it never happened, you're a brainwashed sheep!

The Classic Example

At one point in time it was popular belief that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Most people bought into the teachings of the Church and thought this was true. But eventually through mathematical predictions, the Heliocentric models outperformed the Geocentric models and thus we eventually adopted the Heliocentric model. This is not to say that such a model is a certain fact, but when we build each hypothesis and test the hypothesis using reality as our measuring stick, the model that performs the most accurately should be adopted as dominant "theory".

Skeptics Versus Morons

Skeptics in particular models need to test their alternative models in order to show that these views are superior. If you are skeptical that your neighbor's car gets more than 40 miles per gallon, then you should either test your alternative hypothesis or shut up. You can still believe your hypothesis, but you shouldn't preach to everyone that your hypothesis is correct when your neighbor drives their car everyday and gets more than 40 miles per gallon. You can use skepticism into pressuring your neighbor into a test of these hypotheses, but you should not tell everyone you know that your neighbor is a liar and that you are right despite the fact that you have never driven their car. Skeptics test their hypothesizes, anyone who preaches their hypothesis as fact without testing could be spreading an outright lie and such behavior shouldn't be condoned.

But The Government

All conspiracy theories are alternative hypotheses. They are told as an alternative viewpoint to the adopted truth. It's okay to believe in conspiracy theories. Its also okay to believe in ghosts. But you shouldn't tell people that your ideas are definitive truth unless you have tested your hypothesis. Usually in terms of conspiracy theories, different hypotheses are tested using pieces of evidence. In order for your conspiracy theory to be an adoptable truth, you need to outperform the competing theory in terms of evidence. Most people understand this.

Unfortunately, many people have adopted certain beliefs that they hold as truth without little skepticism. One of these beliefs is the government is out to destroy their way of living and that the government brainwashes people. And this is adopted as fact before we even get to the hypotheses. Then, when we finally test the conspiracy theory, they throw out evidence of the dominant view as the government seeking to control us, or the government seeking to manipulate us to act certain ways. Suddenly, innocent people are turned into government actors who fake evidence to prove their side. Which may actually be true. Unfortunately, you never really tested your initial skepticism of the government and let it fester into paranoia. But again, you may be right. But in order to get everyone onto your side you need to convince us of the steps that you skipped in order to make your conclusion. You never know, you might be right. You never know, you might learn that you were wrong the whole time.

TLDR: If you are going to be a conspiracy theorist, you may as well do a good job.

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