If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is… right?

Why is this phrase something I remembering hearing a lot when I was younger and one that I have not heard in recent history? That used to be common sense, a reasonable response, the smart response. Everyone knew it, and everyone who didn’t follow it and got burned admitted they knew it sounded too good to be true. Perhaps I’m viewing my childhood with rose-tinted glasses, but I swear I remember people not falling for stupid shit all the time.

Today things seem bleak. Anti-vaccine, anti-science views are on the rise; homeopathy and naturopathy are alive and well; psychics and astrologers are doing good business; that Nigerian scam made loads of bank and apparently still does… what the hell is going on? Was I sheltered from stupid when I was young or are people just getting more stupid, more credulous, and less skeptical?

If someone came up to me after I was in a car accident and told me that to cure me of my accident he’d take a piece of the car that hit me, dilute it ten million fold in water, then put three drops of that solution on my tongue, I would think he’d lost his mind. If I had a child and someone suggested to me that instead of preventing things like polio, rubella, and measles with vaccines, that I should not vaccinate because my child might suddenly become autistic and those other diseases weren’t that bad anyway, I’d assume that person was a lunatic. If someone came up to me after a funeral and told me they could help me talk to my dearly departed, I’d assume that person to be a scam artist and a genuinely evil person. If was engaged to that special someone and some guy told me that, due to the star pattern that I’d be born under, our marriage would fail, I’d think him insane and an asshole to boot. If someone from Nigera emailed me and told me they could help me make money if I’d only give them my bank account information, I would giggle at the utter ridiculousness of that request.

People fall for each of those situations I listed every single day. Beyond that, people don’t seem to be ashamed for falling for this crap; they seem to be even more stubbornly arguing that these fairly pathetic and obvious scams must actually be true because they heard about some guy somewhere for whom it worked. Anecdotes trump evidence these days.

When did skepticism, questioning the unlikely, and belief in science take such a fall? Why is it when I question something that sounds ridiculous, like taking royal jelly from a bees to improve fertility in a human, do I become the asshole? Why is not just accepting something that sounds insane now a bad thing? Are the kids not asking questions anymore?

Unfortunately, I think I have an answer: despair. Life is hard right now, there’s no denying that unless you’re ungodly wealthy or a Republican with your blinders on. People are struggling with jobs, money, housing, health care, children, and more. Businesses are closing, even when they aren’t being run by idiots. The world is heating up, bacteria are becoming more prevalent and more dangerous, and the calamity is Japan is fresh on everyone’s mind at the moment. How is this an answer to why people are more credulous? Simple: people need hope.

Hope is powerful. Hope can make life bearable again. Having recently had a complete 180 in my hope situation at work, I can attest that this is a real thing. And, though it pains me to say this, what I think all these things I mentioned have done for people is given them hope. It’s a long shot, but given how people still buy lottery tickets religiously, long shot hopes might be even more appealing to desperate people. And these days, with hope being in short order, any hope in a storm will give succor.

Even though I can be an asshole when it comes to believing stupid shit (especially homeopathy and vaccines), I have a hard time denying people the only hope they have, no matter how stupid the hope. This may shock you, but sometimes even I know when to just nod, smile, and say nothing. I guess I'm going to just have to bite my tongue for a while. Either that or accept that I really am a know-it-all asshole.