Really refreshing update to the con-spirituality wave, which I have been following with interest since 2020. My view is closer to yours on most of this bizarre “mind virus” that has peaked since 2020. I too am involved with tools and technologies to handle things like online misinformation and even the scenario you end your article with…so very close to home.

There is one thing however you may have not yet considered in questioning how much of this came to pass like it has, and what I will tell you may surprise you.

We agree that the new age conspiracy crowd were overtly influenced by foreign and Russian channels, but this phenomenon occurred far earlier and the first “crack” was the rise of individuals who believe in a flat earth. This was as far back as 2012.

Why? Why is there such a lack of critical thinking in many spiritual communities? Why such a distrust of science?

And what is a partial cause to that is the early adoption of web tools and broadcast technologies at scale by large groups of (mainly white males) who identify themselves as “skeptics” or “atheists” (but the more juvenile version) all of whom were deeply inspired by Richard Dawkins “militant atheism” and were highly proactive and confrontational on the web (as early as 2004). This was quite a large large large segment of influence online and this movement erupted online during GamerGate and split in two groups, with one group of skeptics becoming the alt right and “dark enlightenment” crowd and the other group the more traditional James Randi type skeptic.

Anyway, point is, this very early and aggressive approach had a very negative effect on early internet culture and in my view, this type of hyper militant atheism I believe has been absolutely horrible for the rational communication of science to people who would need it the most, it turned science and critical thinking into an ideological movement, and I truly believe this needs to be considered.

For me the red flag was long before 2020, when belief in a flat earth was rising , it was clear that a segment of society was “pushing back” on mainstream views, but not many want to look at the messengers of those views, or the impact turning science into an ideology has had on the communication of science itself.

So I would say the above has been a major factor along with the “audience reach problem”. During Covid, reliable news publishers on the web only have 1% audience reach while ad networks have 100% reach which is sold to influencers and channels. Reliable information is not distributed evenly while misinformation is.

Plus Russians.

Oye.

Keep up the great work !