chapotraphouse

Brother, this man hasn’t found a conspiracy theory he doesn’t believe

Chem trails, cloud seeding, body doubles, anti-medication (except when he actually understands how the medication is beneficial), poisoned food supply, moon landing, and my personal favorite, “lesbians have more domestic violence than straight couples”

He’s the general manager of a Chain Pizza Restaurant and I had to explain to him 2 days ago what gluten is, how it’s made, what it does, that most people can digest it perfectly well, and that it’s not added to food to poison people.

This summer was way rainier here than usual and I had to explain the mechanics of climate change and plant transpiration and why the hotter temperatures plus our location means lots of rain

Honestly he’s one of the most understandable conspiracy theorists I’ve met, like he came by it honestly. It seems like he understands the world as being deterministic and that events have causes you can interpret into a holistic view. (This is what makes him a better manager than the people above him - a materialist understanding of the situation our store is in and what is needed for it to function)

But he’s a high school drop out former heroin addict who spent several years homeless and several more in prison. He doesn’t have the education and knowledge to actually form the things he sees into a comprehensive world view. So he ties it together with whatever conspiracy theories he’s been exposed to or comes up with them himself to fill the gaps.

“It’s raining way more this summer than usual, and I keep seeing weird clouds coming out of the forest. They must be making it rain!” Obviously that’s insane but you need some information to know why. First you need to know that climate change is happening and means this summer was hotter. You need to know that hotter air holds more water. You also need to know that the way trees bring water up to their leaves is by evaporating more water out of them (transpiration), and that this process is less efficient when it’s hot outside. Hotter temps mean the trees are dumping more water into the air (the strange clouds rising out of the forest), which all has to come down.

This is why we need mandatory continued adult education. Everyone should be taking one college class either per year or per semester forever. This should be a normal, expected part of adult life. This man needs an environmental science class and a couple intro bio classes.