WEBVTT

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Yes. We are on the bed.

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You could call it an homage
to old YouTube.

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I call it...

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comfortable for my butt.

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Conspiracy theories.

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So as somebody who's lost many a night

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tumbling down Wikipedia
rabbit holes,

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I love a good conspiracy theory.

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It's like, "Ooh, aliens!"

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"Ooh, how do people make
such big triangles?"

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I think that that it's just fun

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imagining the world
to be more interesting

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than what I was taught.

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But then something weird happened?

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A couple weeks ago,
I found myself

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in the middle of
a conspiracy theory.

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And then, all of the fun
was replaced with just...

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pure confusion.

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The conspiracy itself is, like,
weird and fun and innocuous.

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However, what I really
cared about is, like,

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how do you get to that point?

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How do you start seeing signs
that were never there to begin with.

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That's what I want to know.

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And I also want to, like, disprove
this whole conspiracy theory

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'cause it's whack.

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However, as the person
in the middle of all of this,

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I can imagine why I'd be
seen as unreliable.

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So...

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...I'm calling on a friend!

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Uhh, I don't know how to put this.
How do you put this?

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People think that I am
part of the Illuminati.

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Uh-

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Well, are you?

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[laughs]

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This is just one of the comments,

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but I think it really
summarizes the issue.

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"I find this channel to
be highly disingenuous-"

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"-Corporate product masked
to have the appearance of

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an independently run YouTube channel."
"There's no way a single person is that skilled

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at animation, editing, presenting, research-"
"Everything is too professional for that-"

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"There's no way this girl
is the one who did this"

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"A production company put this video
together with you just as a host."

NOTE Paragraph

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So now- Now...
Now what?

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Why am I calling you? Right?

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Yeah. I'm, like, "How do you
want me to prove this?

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I am wondering if you could explain
to me and the viewers of this video,

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how could somebody see
something so mundane

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that's just, like, a part
of my life, I guess.

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How could someone see that
and think, like, "There must be more."

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I'm interested. I'm fascinated.

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'Cause I'm, like...

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I'm not only interested in your
conspiracy, as interesting as it is.

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I think conspiracies have a
knack for, especially nowadays,

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to just....

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just ruin people's lives,
you know?

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I'm gonna solve this mystery.
♪ Scooby-dooby-doo ♪

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We don't have the copyright on that.

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We're going to investigate
this conundrum. I'm-I'm-

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You're doubling down on it, I see.

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Hello, I'm Taha.

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I'm apparently Sabrina's
only British friend.

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I've been given free reign
over this part of the video,

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so, welcome to my chaos.

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Sabrina's asked me to get into
the mind of a Sabrina Cruz truther

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and figure out what's going on.

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Okay, hold on.

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It needs pictures.

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Let's read some conspiracy theories.

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"This is a fake channel

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A propaganda channel paid by others.
Why the spotty uploads?"

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Maybe because it's-
it's just one person?

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I love this one.
"Who do you work for?

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We all know this isn't your channel.
Whose script are you reading?"

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"I think she works for the government."

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Oh. This is the best one.

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"Her main channel is crash course
with 10 million subs."

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John and Hank Green,
eat your heart out.

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Okay, so basically,

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people think that Sabrina
doesn't make her own videos,

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that she's a presenter,
that maybe she works for the government.

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How did people get here?

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Let's figure it out.

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Okay. So, here's what I found out.

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There are loads of ways to define
conspiracy theories,

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but they all kind of boil down
to the same thing.

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It's basically the belief that
a group of people

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are secretly working together
to do something bad.

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But here's the thing:

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When we talk about conspiracy theories,

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we aren't talking about every time
everyone has gotten together

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to secretly do bad things.

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So what are people talking about
when they say "conspiracy theory"?

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Or when they talk about conspiracy
theories on the internet?

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They talk about a specific type
of conspiracy theory.

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It's the type of conspiracy theory that
Sabrina is in the middle of right now.

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These conspiracy theories
seem to be unlikely by design.

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Here's the really interesting thing that I found.

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These theories have pretty distinctive
features that you can spot

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and these features make them
not only unlikely to be true

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but also difficult to argue against.

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These features are that
they're speculative,

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based on educated and
not-so-educated guesswork

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rather than solid evidence.

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The rationale being that
if a conspiracy was successful

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then it wouldn't have left a trace.

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They can become contrarian.

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They form in opposition to the
obvious or official explanation.

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Conspiracy theories will dismiss
this explanation, citing

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"that's what they want you to think."

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Because of this, theories
can become esoteric.

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If the obvious explanation isn't true,
then the theory is based on speculation.

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The conspiracy theory can run wild.

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Explanations can become increasingly
detached from reality.

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Theories are also amateurish.

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Now, that isn't a comment on
a theorist's intelligence.

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That's a comment on how qualified
these theorists are.

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In most cases, they don't have
the relevant expertise

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to be conclusively analyzing evidence.

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Even when they do,
they're in the small minority

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and the professional consensus
doesn't agree with them.

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And is it more likely that
all experts are lying

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or that most informed and qualified people
are coming to the same conclusion.

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Conspiracies can also become premodern.

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These conspiracies believe that
incredibly complex events

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can be controlled by a small number
of people acting in secret.

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Nothing is a coincidence
or a series of uncorrelated events,

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but a coordinated conspiracy.

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And lastly, these conspiracies
are self-sealing.

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What this means is that

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the conspiracy is difficult
to argue against.

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If a conspiracy is based on speculation,

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it dismisses the obvious explanation
in favor of a more obscure one.

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if it ignores expert consensus

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and believes that a small group of people
can control complex events,

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any explanation against the conspiracy
is just what they want you to think.

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Now, that doesn't mean that every time
you hear the word "conspiracy theory"

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you should just dismiss it.

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'Cause we know that throughout history,
there are well-documented conspiracies.

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I find this really interesting concept

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that distinguish between
conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact.

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Essentially, when you have
a bunch of solid evidence

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that supports the fact
that a conspiracy occurred,

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you can consider it fact,

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but it isn't sensible to believe
conspiracy theories,

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the ones that tick all of the boxes
that make them unbelievable.

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And not unbelievable in a way like,
"Oh, that's unbelievable!"

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In a way that's like,
"I don't believe you."

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And even if conspiracy theories
aren't true,

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they still have a function.

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Not a good function,
but still a function.

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So, what is it?

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People believe in conspiracies

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that reinforce their
political or ideological bias.

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Nobody's believing a conspiracy theory

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that goes against what they think
the world is like.

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We patterns and theories that
reinforce our ideology

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and we're happy to get onboard.

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In this way, conspiracy theories
are a type of ideological propaganda.

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By spreading the theory, you also end up
spreading your world view.

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In order to believe a theory,

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you have to believe that
the world is a certain way.

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So, by convincing people
of your conspiracy theory,

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you are also implicitly convincing them
that the world is the way

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that you believe it to be.

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Okay. So, in the process of
researching this video,

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I ended up going down a lot
of conspiracy theory rabbit holes.

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Some of them I obviously know were untrue,
but others I thought,

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"Maybe they could be true?"

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That was kind of scary to me.

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And I wanted to find out what it was
about conspiracy theories

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that made them so... attractive.

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And that's when I got into the
psychology of conspiracy theories.

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There are 2 key psychological phenomenon
that drive a natural inclination

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towards conspiracy theories.

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First is "pattern perception".

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We're bad at recognizing randomness.

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Instead, we are more likely to see
a pattern when there is none.

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And, secondly, is "agency detection".

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We tend to think that events occur
due to agents acting intentionally,

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rather than recognizing neutral
or accidental occurrences.

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These 2 phenomena are compounded
by cognitive biases

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that make conspiracy theories believable.

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These include "proportionality bias",

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which leads to thinking that
the cause of an event

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has to be as big as its consequences.

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When the explanation is not as grand as the event itself, people can find it difficult to believe