Plandemic and the seven traits of conspiratorial thinking

The video Plandemic is a textbook example of conspiratorial thinking. And so it’s instructive looking at examples from this video. Working with Stephan Lewandowsky, Ullrich Ecker, and Sander van der Linden, we put together a video examining the traits of conspiratorial thinking found in Plandemic. The purpose of our video is to help build our resilience so we’re not misled by other conspiracy theories.

Also, here are some stills from the video which can be freely reused (they’re 1920×1080, ideal for PPT slides). There are seven techniques found in conspiracy theories—seven traits of conspiratorial thinking. Learning these traits helps us spot the red flags of a baseless conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy theorists are so committed to disbelieving an official account, it doesn’t matter if their belief system is contradictory.

Conspiracy theorists are overwhelmingly suspicious towards the official account. That means any scientific evidence that doesn’t fit into the conspiracy theory must be faked.

In a conspiracy theory, the conspirators are assumed to have nefarious motives. In the case of Plandemic, there’s no limit to the nefarious intent, which involves killing millions of people for billions of dollars of profit.

Although conspiracy theorists may occasionally abandon specific ideas when they become untenable, those revisions don’t change their overall conclusion that “something must be wrong” and the official account is based on deception.

Conspiracy theorists think of themselves as the victims of organized persecution. They also see themselves as brave heroes taking on the villainous conspirators.

It’s so hard to change a conspiracy theorist’s mind because their theories are self-sealing. Even absence of evidence for a theory is evidence for the theory: the reason why there’s no proof of the conspiracy is because the conspirators did such a good job covering it up.

Conspiracy theorists see patterns everywhere – their whole thing is about connecting the dots. Random events are re-interpreted as being caused by the conspiracy and woven into a broader, interconnected pattern. Any connections are imbued with sinister meaning.