Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.
Interpretation
Humans naturally seek explanations or patterns, even preferring flawed ones over uncertainty.
This quote by Christopher Hitchens highlights the inherent nature of humans to look for explanations and patterns in the world around them. When faced with ambiguity or a lack of understanding, people are often inclined to adopt even incorrect theories, including conspiracy theories, in a desperate attempt to make sense of their experiences and the complexities of life.
In practice
In a discussion about social media misinformation, one could say, 'As Christopher Hitchens observed, human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.'
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
I never killed anybody, I never raped anybody, I never committed no crimes that weren't honorable.
The custom and fashion of today will be the awkwardness and outrage of tomorrow - so arbitrary are these transient laws.
When like-minded people, talking mostly with one another, end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk... If you put a bunch of rebels in a room and ask them to discuss rebellion, they'll get more extreme.
When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.
Every one of us has a bad conscience, which he tries to escape by going to sleep as quickly as possible.
The aim of life is to be fully born, though its tragedy is that most of us die before we are thus born.
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