You don’t have to be a Lady Gaga fan to disagree with the Facebook video Alex Jones posted before the pop star’s Super Bowl performance this month. “To just condition them that I am the Goddess of Satan, ruling over you with the rise of the robots in a ritual of lesser magic.”While this sounds ridiculous to the outside viewer, devotees will see this as yet another example of the powerful elite conspiring to overthrow the government. In fact, conspiratorial thinking and social exclusion can trigger a vicious cycle that further isolates those who believe false narratives, according to a study published in the March edition of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology that’s already available online. This can lead to real world consequences, like when an armed man entered a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant to investigate Pizzagate, an outlandish conspiracy theory that some alleged 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and campaign chairman John Podesta were running a child sex ring from the venue. The claim was debunked, but not before people including retired Gen. Mike Flynn, who went on to briefly become National Security Advisor under President Donald Trump’s administration before resigning, tweeting the outrageous claims.

Source: Huffington Post February 24, 2017 17:11 UTC