In this episode, we explore the conspiracy theories surrounding the July 13 assassination attempt on President Donald Trump. Despite the evidence suggesting the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, acted alone, numerous theories have emerged. These include claims that the Secret Service staged the event, foreign governments were involved, and the shooter was part of Antifa or backed by Never-Trumper Republicans. We delve into why such theories gain traction, examining cognitive and emotional factors like event magnitude, proportionality bias, anomaly hunting, personal incredulity, hindsight bias, patternicity, agenticity, uncertainty bias, and teleological thinking. While some legitimate questions remain unanswered, we emphasize the importance of applying the Conspiracism Principle: never attribute to malice what can be explained by randomness or incompetence. Tune in to understand why rational people often believe in irrational conspiracies.
Everything is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World
The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos
The Science of Happines
How Rhetoric Shapes Your Opinions
Accomplishment and Happiness (Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker)
Should We Prepare for Nuclear War? (Annie Jacobsen)
An AI... Utopia? (Nick Bostrom, Oxford)
Life on Mars? (Robert Zubrin)
Robots and the People Who Love Them
The Formation, Diversification, and Extinction of World Religions
The Wisdom and Wonder of Being Uncertain
The End of Race Politics (Coleman Hughes)
How to Repair America’s Broken Democracy
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up (Abigail Shrier)
An Unfinished History of the Holocaust
The Weirdness of the World
The Story of Female Empowerment & Getting Canceled: Elite Commando and Kickboxing World Champion Leah Goldstein
Who Wrote the Qur’an, Why, and What Does it Really Say?
Purpose in the Eyes of a Psychiatrist
Does Humanity Function as a Single Superorganism?
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