Hi, I first heard about Metabunk around 18 months ago. I had read Escaping The Rabbit Hole and have heard/seen Mick on a few podcasts.
Only 3 or 4 years ago I used to be suspicious about the official JFK story and I used to believe the 911 conspiracy but at the same time had nagging doubts, I would tell friends about it, who would then also believe after watching the likes of Loose Change. I also used to believe some of the stuff in Zeitgeist the Movie.
One friend, whose opinions I take seriously, had said he didn't believe the 911 stuff, he'd watched Loose Change but found it wanting. I had started to have doubts that 911 was an inside job simply because I would have to believe that the people who had carried that out were then unable to sneak some fake evidence of WMDs into Iraq after the allies invaded the country during the second Gulf War.
After realising that a lot of YouTubers seemed to be making money out of videos with crazy claims (eg Flat Earth) and that friends of mine believed in things like chemtrails, faked moon landings, ghosts, Roswell I did a critical re-examination of what I had believed in and I changed my mind. I no longer believed any of it. I might be on the fence about some stuff, whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone for example, but that's not the same as believing he had help.
I listen to many podcasts including ones from Mick West, Michael Shermer, Sam Harris, Sean Carol and from Brian Dunning and I consider myself to be a skeptic. Carl Sagan's saying that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" really struck a chord with me.
I've managed to keep myself away from this forum then today I read a story on the BBC website about a man who supposedly came round from being unconscious and "was speaking in fluent French". It's been reported as a fact, I think that similar claims have been made in the past. I was going to post about it if nobody had already.
This kind of stuff was fun to read in Ripley's Believe it or Not, I loved all of that bumph when I was a kid, Bermuda Triangle, Chariots of the Gods etc. Now I see it as dangerous. When you have a US President who repeats conspiracy theories to suit his agenda, when you have people who 'don't believe' in Covid 19, or seemingly intelligent people who really think that 5G spreads viruses to control the population