Cranky Uncle takes on conspiracy theories

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One sobering lesson from last week’s Capitol riot is the dire consequences of conspiracy theories and misinformation. Today, the Cranky Uncle game expands to inoculate people against conspiratorial thinking.

As we explain in the Conspiracy Theory Handbook, the way to inoculate people against conspiracy theories is by raising their awareness of the red flags of conspiratorial thinking. So today, we’ve added the first trait of conspiratorial thinking: contradictory thinking. Conspiracy theorists are so opposed to the official account, they’ll embrace any idea that conflicts with the official account even if they contradict each other.

Over the next seven weeks, I’ll be adding each of the seven traits of conspiratorial thinking. This equips players to spot traits of conspiratorial thinking in the many conspiracy theories that are polluting our information landscape.

Oh, and all this new content will also help you gain a lot more cranky points, getting your mood get crankier and crankier (if you play enough, you can even get to the point where steam starts to come out of Cranky Uncle’s ears!)

P.S. one technical note – if “Contradictory” is not appearing at the bottom of your Denial screen, close the app then reopen it.

  1. Grant Lauzon

    I don’t know if it would belong in the Conspiracy Theory or the Fallacy section but I think a Circular Reasoning technique could be helpful.

    eg.
    The Earth is flat and it’s being hidden by the government. Those pictures from space were faked. They were faked by the government. The Earth must be flat because it’s being hidden by the government.

    I won’t vote because I know my party will lose, so I won’t vote.

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