Jim Swire

Harris talks about conspiracy theorists dogmatically accepting alternative sources, although many often don't.

Um, Harris says, "Given the level of skepticism that conspiracy theorists must adopt towards certain sources of information, it is unclear how a conspiracy theorist can maintain trust in the alternative sources needed to derive warrant for their preferred conspiratorial explanation," which reminds me a little bit of, uh, what we talked about last episode and, uh, in talking about the "Lochaby" podcast, how we had Dr., Dr. Jim Swire, and one of the things they sort of said was he, he was completely distrusting of the CIA and the sort of, of American and British intelligence agencies as an information source, but had no problem accepting information from what he believed was a Mossad agent.

And so I think, I think Harris is, is trying to say the same sort of thing, that conspiracy theorists, you know, if, if they're that sk- but, but in the opposite direction, if they're, if they're that skeptical of the mainstream media, why aren't they as skeptical of these alternative sources?

And I mean, and that is fair in some situations, but it, once again, it's not all conspiracy theorists.

Mm.

People like Jim Swire end up being kind of extraordinary in that they are rare individuals in that kind of space.

And so Curtis says again, it's not clear that conspiracy theorist skepticism or dogmatism is such that it wouldn't be possible to trust alternative sources.

He says, "For one thing, it is often possible to check these secondary sources with primary sources.