The kind of sophistication you’re describing here is not a bunch of Tea Party rednecks trying to muddy the waters. This sounds like big-money, hi-tech Madison Avenue stuff, backed up by some heavy duty PHd psych, Socio, Anthro and PoliSci types. This is corporate psychowarfare.

Now THERE’s a conspiracy theory I can get behind.

I think it is both natural and created. And it is getting worse. Our brains naturally fill in gaps of perception, knowledge, or understanding. But there is big money filling gaps with garbage. Religions, of course, have done this since forever. Then books. And radio and TV. Now the internet. Guys like Alex Jones do it for the cash. But I do think that promotion of crap can be used by others to dumb us down. Or does that sound like a conspiracy theory?

I’ve heard the term before, but I don’t know what it means. Just what is “woo”?

I’ve lately started to come to the conclusion that even though the majority of Americans are decent, reasonable people, the fact remains that so many of us aren’t. I don’t know which is worse: whether this state of affairs arose naturally, that it just shows some facet of our national character, or whether it has been deliberately and maliciously engineered, put in place and set in motion simply because someone wanted to.