It's not very surprising that we now have so many conspiracy theories going around. The past 10 years of internet has uncovered thousands of years of monopolized and controlled information. Conspiracies were easily hidden until the internet came along. Now people can see the evidence for themselves and decide for themselves instead of needing someone to tell them what is real. Watch Secret Service agents being called off from protecting JFK right before he was assassinated. Watch JFK's speech about uncovering Secret Societies. Watch building 7 collapse. Find out from a fellow patient that your silver fillings are 50% poison - something your dentist conveniently never told you. The internet is probably responsible for 99% of the mercury amalgam awareness today. Never before could a group of patients discuss health together and not be at the mercy of whatever his doctor pontificated or failed to disclose. Americans could even "leave America" and talk to people in another country or get news from an unbiased source.

Of course there are some people who need to be told what to do and think, and the battle in their heads, that cognitive dissonance and battle between new reason and old propoganda makes them go back to that safe side where they refuse to believe that they have been poisoned and swindled by their own government and so called "experts" (doctors, dentists etc...) and that a huge chunk of thier life was wasted and they didn't even know it. That hurts real bad, like finding out you had a brother that you never knew you had and finding out he was killed a long time ago. One day you wake up and find out that there is a big hole in your life, in your past, in your present, with more to come in your future, and you never knew it because you had always believed. You believed what you were told and you felt safe. Now you realize that you aren't so safe now, never really have been, and never will be. That's hard to face. People have a lot invested in the American Dream and to give up that dream, or part of it, is almost incomprehensible. Ironically, the country which invented the internet is the one which will be uncovered the most with all of the new information coming out. The other ironic thing is that it is Americans who are the most disillusioned with America. Go outside of the US and see that most foreigners think that 9/11 was an inside job, that most foreigners don't think (and never really did) that the US was the greatest country in the world. The American Dream has some legitimacy but it's also partly just that... a dream.

One rule in life that I have adopted over the years is to always always always see and inspect both sides of a situation, no matter how revolting or one-sided things may seem. The internet has made a huge difference in how I personally see the world. That doesn't mean I believe all conspiracies, it means I now see both sides of the situation and can clearly use my own reasoning to decide for myself. The playing field is more level now. Some can not think on a level playing field, those who need hierarchy not only need someone to tell them what to think, they need to tell others what to think. As others in this thread have stated, there are people who won't be able to think for themselves. They are used to being told a conclusion by someone else and then only seeing evidence supporting that conclusion. They use hierarchy-minded terms such as "no evidence, no proof, peer reviewed, reputation, credentials, etc..." The problem is that they are stuck holding the bag of faith which was handed down to them, because others are no longer as willing to buy into it and go by faith alone. And after being systematically poisoned, one tends to look at things (and people) with a bit more caution.