With 911 basically everyone in America was very interested.

Out the entire population, probably 10% listened to the "truthers" at all. However, the "truthers" had a relatively easy sell because 911 fit into both the Christian and Muslim end of the world views to a certain extent.

With Fukushima, probably about 1% of the American population is really interested in it (and I doubt it's that high).

Out of the 1%, a tiny fraction of them are open to conspiracy theories at all. Only a tiny fraction of the people who are both really interested in Fukushima and are open to conspiracy theories are willing to listen to Fukushima conspiracy theories because:

1. A Fukushima conspiracy doesn't fit into their religious views or other similar views (woo woos and new agers for example)

2. It's too frightening to consider a Fukushima conspiracy, it scares people so much that they can't deal with it

There's more to it:

Cognitive Dissonance
Normalcy Bias
Mental Firewalls

People keep themselves in a mental cage of their own making frequently only because they're too afraid to even consider ideas outside of the cage. To consider ideas outside of the cage would mean that they may potentially have to leave the cage and they're scared to death of doing that.

I see it on Internet forums all the time. Somebody makes a comment telling someone else an "absolute fact." Often evidence is then presented to refute the "absolute fact." The person initially asserting the "absolute fact" then frequently immediately disappears from the thread.

Why?

Was it because the evidence was poor? On the contrary, the evidence is often TOO good. If the person who originally stated the "absolute fact" had to fairly deal with the evidence, that person would have to face the possibility that they were wrong and that then they may have to leave their cage.

Staying in the cage is more important than truth in that case, how pathetic can you get?

The scary thing is, that kind of closed-mindedness is becoming increasingly normal.

In most cases, you can't blame anyone but yourself for the mental cage you're in, it's almost completely self-imposed.



Thread: Increase Intelligence by OVERCOMING FEAR