Things People Believe

Belief is Involuntary
It is irrational to believe that people choose to believe what they believe. But if you do believe it, you probably had no choice.

We all believe ridiculous things. But not because we've gone out of our way to be wrong, but because our ability to manage our beliefs is much more limited that we'd like to believe.

It is possible to change your beliefs, but first you have to believe that it's possible, and then you have to believe that it's necessary. And you can only believe that if you believed someone else who believed it.

So perhaps we should stop getting so angry about what people believe, and just celebrate the silliness of it all.

Key Questions

 * Why do people believe what they do?
 * What makes some beliefs unshakeable, despite evidence?
 * How do emotion and identify shape beliefs?
 * Are beliefs inherited?
 * What do other people's beliefs make people angry?
 * What would happen if everyone stopped believing?
 * Is rationality desirable?
 * is rationality possible?
 * What if all the crazy things people believed were actually true?

Exploring Things People Believe
We are ridiculous accidents of evolution and we believe the most ridiculous things (like that we're not ridiculous accidents of evolution for starters). And that's the awesome joy of it. Life would be so dull if everyone was rational and sensible. There would be no politics, no war, no religion, and what fun would that be?

All of the best opportunities for satire come from the ridiculous things real people believe with passionate earnestness and sincerity. People believe the darndest things.:
 * George W Bush allowed Bin Laden to bomb the twin towers because they are old family friends, and it would give him an excuse to attack Iraq.
 * AIDS is a conspiracy by drug companies, and all you need if you have HIV is Vitamin C: LOTS of Vitamin C.
 * Vaccinations cause Autism.

People earnestly believe these things. Real people. people with real brains and real families, and real jobs. people who are very capable of pointing out the ridiculousness of the things other people believe, but remain obstinately blind to their own bits of crazy.
 * God Created Dinosaurs just before he created Adam, and they lived together with people until quite recently (luckily they were vegetarians) and they just died a few thousand years ago but no one really knows why, especially not those scientists with their stupid assumptions.
 * Global Warming is a conspiracy of scientists who want to get more grant money and destroy the American Way Of Life.
 * We are all the possessed by the spirits of the alien convicts imprisoned on a volcano by a galactic warlord called Xenu.
 * Creating an open-to-everyone Wiki and granting free access to edit is a good way to do research for a satirical work of fiction

This theme is an exploration of the irrational beliefs that have made the first part of the 21st Century such a fascinating debacle... This is not about mocking ignorance or criticising opinions. This is about the ways in which people's beliefs are exploited for power and money. Because everyone believes things that are wrong. Everyone believes things that other people believes is stupid. Only some people deliberately use the things people believe to make themselves richer and more powerful.
 * Irrational politics
 * Irrational religion
 * Irrational science
 * Irrational fear
 * Irrational superstition
 * Irrational theories

That's who we are targeting: not the true believers, the manipulators.

Relevant Fodder
Buzzfeed: This is what creationists believe about dinosaurs