How did we get so casual about conspiracy theories?

I was talking with someone today about nutrition. This person has a PhD in material science. They mentioned eating beef daily and I asked about the cholesterol implications. The answer was about a vague ‘they’ wanted us to think that, but it wasn’t true anymore.

I hear the vague ‘they’ so frequently now it’s just a normal conversation. In truth, as soon as I hear the vague they I dismiss the speaker’s credibility on the subject, but how did we get here? Vague they wanted us to think X is a valid counter argument by the most highly educated people in our society?

This sounds like more of a rant than a question, but I do truly want to know how this happened? Was it pop culture like the X Files that made conspiracy theories main stream? Was it social media? When will the vague they stop being an accepted explanation? Has it always been this way and I didn’t notice?

Thanks, love you!

  • Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    22 hours ago

    Just going through the wikipedia and a lot of health organizations still recommend reducing saturated fat including the WHO, the American Heart Association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the British Dietetic Association, the World Heart Federation, the British National Health Service. These organizations are run by health professionals, not politicians with some vague anti-fat agenda.

    Here’s a study going over some meta analysis and finding that

    Saturated fat was associated with an 8% increase and trans fats; a 13% increase in total mortality compared with carbohydrate. Thus, replacing 5% of energy from saturated fats with equivalent energy from PUFA ( polyunsaturated fat) and MUFA ( monounsaturated fat ) was associated with estimated reductions in total mortality of 27% and 13%, respectively

    It goes on to say that there is less evidence for fat in general to cause cardiovascular disease and mortality, but saturated fat and trans fats definitely do.