1/ One of the most fascinating things I learned while researching #ConspiracyTheories for my latest Rolling Stone feature is that certain personality traits predispose people for conspiratorial thinking.

2/ Eric Oliver is a political science professor at UChicago who has been studying conspiracy theories since the 1990s. And he has a brilliant quiz that helps tease this out.

3/

Would you rather:

Stab a photograph of your family five times with a sharp knife?

Or stick your hand in a bowl of live cockroaches?

4/

Would you rather:

Sleep in laundered pajamas once worn by Charles Manson?

Or pick a nickel off the ground and put it in your mouth?

5/

Would you rather:

Grind your heels into an unmarked grave?

Or stand in line for three hours at the DMV?

6/ Find out what your answers say about your relationship with "symbolic costs" and whether you're the kind of person who should guard against the gravitational pull of conspiracy theories here: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/qanon-anti-vax-covid-vaccine-conspiracy-theory-1125197/

7/ I came away from this reporting with a lot of empathy for people who get swallowed by conspiracy cults like QAnon. They're not crazy. They shouldn't be pilloried. They're anxious. They're looking for answers. They're trying to anchor themselves.

8/ “Conspiracy theories are not the product of a disordered mind; they’re the product of an overly ordered mind,” Ethan Zuckerman, formerly of the MIT Media Lab told me.

“Conspiracy theories happen when you have an enormous need for order in a disordered universe.”

9/ The #longread goes far beyond Charles Manson's pajamas.

More context here: https://twitter.com/7im/status/1359545487972470788