The world of pseudoscience and conspiracy is incredibly disheartening. In the case of the Covid-19 Pandemic, its effects directly resulted in thousands, and more likely tens of thousands, of unnecessary deaths. These people had families. They had lives. Yet, because of the choices that they or someone near them made, they no longer have either. So many people who could have saved themselves instead went to a slow, painful death on a ventilator, unable to breathe. So many minority communities were disproportionately impacted–indigenous communities in particular throughout the world experienced much higher rates of infection and death due to the long-lasting effects of colonization.
Now, What Can You Do About It?
Firstly, throw away the idea that you or anyone you know are immune to pseudoscience. No one is. There isn’t a vaccine you can take to prevent you from believing any lies for the rest of your life–you have to take care of yourself with consistent intellectual upkeep. Practice your critical thinking skills–if you’re lucky, you learned them in English class, but it’s okay if you have to teach yourself from scratch. Everyone starts somewhere.
Keep a healthy level of skepticism and verify the claims that people present to you. Double and triple check to be safe--including people you trust! Including this exhibit! If you are reading this, then you have the widest breadth of human knowledge in history available at your fingertips–use it. Google questions. Google claims that people give you. Search, check multiple sources, and check the reliability of those sources as well. Even a simple Wikipedia search can often give you a lot of starting information on a topic–that’s why it exists!
It’s cliche to say, but it really is true: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If something sounds too fantastical to be true, it probably is as well.
When someone tells you something that seems too good to be true, think about who stands to benefit from you believing this. Even if you aren’t directly giving someone money, your attention is incredibly valuable, especially in social media algorithms.
Lastly, seek out reputable sources and science communicators to help you keep learning from genuine places. If you are running into pseudoscientific content online, chances are that you have an interest in learning about those types of subjects. There are plenty of people on the internet who have the proper credentials to teach you about science and history and are entertaining about it.
Understanding the impact that pseudoscience has on the world is the first step. The next is to keep learning so that you can assist those around you in this very same thing.