Here's something that I figure is at least partially true: in terms of government and most larger businesses, transparency is not complete.

This isn't a conspiracy theory, because I'm not being specific. And I'm not saying it's entirely a bad thing. But I think that, in general, there are some things we don't hear about. They might be defense plans, it might be accounting fraud, or any number of things, but I don't believe the picture is clear. This is often intentional.

I've met enough people in my slowly lengthening time on earth to know that I'm not the only one who feels like this. So let's assume I'm not entirely wrong, but that I'm just not sure of the details.

This thread that permeates our culture is responsible for the proliferation of gobs of misinformation. Conspiracies about the events of 9/11. UFOs. I saw a small portion of a terrible documentary on Netflix the other day claiming that if you removed processed foods from a culture's diet, all tooth decay disappears and dentistry becomes completely unnecessary.

Those are the details. People with a story, who rush to fill the gaps. And it works because people want to fill the gaps. We need the story to make sense of our surroundings.

Yes, the pharmaceutical industry is full of people and companies who are dishonest, and they gouge when it seems morally reprehensible at times. But that alone doesn't mean that Kevin Trudeau and his "natural cures" aren't one big swindle.

This is the power of a story: contradict a wrong with enough finesse, even with another wrong, and there's a good chance people will believe that it's right.