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The ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory of 2016 claimed that Hillary Clinton and other high-ranking US Democratic Party officials were operating a child sex-trafficking ring from a popular pizzeria in Washington, DC. The conspiracy had migrated from internet message boards to the national news when a 28-year-old man wielding a rifle set out to investigate the claims for himself, and ended up firing three shots inside the restaurant before finding nothing suspicious and surrendering to the police. It’s easy to write off the gunman, and anyone else who came to believe ‘Pizzagate’, as gullible, disturbed and severely misguided. But as this short documentary from the UK filmmaker Charlie Lyne argues, the insidious way in which conspiracy theories plant seeds in the human brain is far more complex. In fact, it’s likely that you’ve fallen prey to one or two conspiracies yourself. Shrewd and darkly funny, Personal Truth has been a film festival favourite in 2018, screening at the Full Frame Documentary Festival, AFI Docs and Aspen Shortsfest, among others.
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Social psychology
What happened when a crypto scam swept over a sleepy town in the Caucasus
18 minutes
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Values and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes
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Food and drink
The passage of time is a peculiar thing in a 24-hour diner
14 minutes
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Art
Radical doodles – how ‘exquisite corpse’ games embodied the Surrealist movement
15 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes
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Childhood and adolescence
The police camp where tween girls enter a sisterhood of law and order
28 minutes
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Bioethics
Is it ethical to have a second child so that your first might live?
10 minutes
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Anthropology
Why are witchcraft accusations so common across human societies?
4 minutes