The Internet and paranoid thinking

This New York Times video is quite a good overview of the current phase online conspiracism is moving through in its ongoing evolution. As I have been writing before, the details of the conspiratorial claims are no longer really what scholars of the phenomenon need to focus on and engage with - all the silliness of the Pizzagate and Illuminati New World Order claims have no evidence whatsoever to back them up and they are really not worth the time to argue with - but the dynamics of cyberspace technology and audiences of the disaffected who create communities around the claims are really the most fascinating and troubling glimpses of 21st century culture. As this Times story points out, the core of conspiracism now is no longer to make specific claims about aliens, reptilian "elites," the Antichrist, the New World order or the Freemasons. The new phase of the conspiracy culture had evolved to a state where all consensus knowledge must be denied. The "ask questions" mantra of Alex Jones and all his imitators boils down to a call to reject the very concept of facts and all evidence-based rationality. The modern world of "alternative facts," indeed. The 21st century at its most disturbing.