A common belief among all is not proof.

Have you ever heard someone insist that something is true because, “X people can’t be wrong?” Obviously, you will have to replace X with a number such as one million. Personally, I never liked this argument. It’s like saying, “I’m right because other people said so.” That’s not exactly compelling.

A lot of people are exposed to common influences. For example, society consists primarily of products of our schools. The schools’ insistence that schooling is beneficial combined with the pressure to conform to the role of a successful student will ensure that most people who graduate school will believe in schooling regardless of what schooling actually accomplishes. In this situation, the mainstream develops a strong belief that is not rooted in reality.

This brings up another point. The mainstream is highly influential. If enough people believe something, people will assume that it’s true. After all, we will look stupid if we don’t know what is assumed to be fact. The problem with this is that the mainstream is rather mindless, and anyone who can manipulate the mainstream can shift the beliefs of a significant portion of the population.

In addition to fear of looking stupid, accepting the mainstream’s beliefs is easy. We don’t have to bother looking for evidence and using that evidence to form our own beliefs and opinions. That’s a big part of the reason that I view the mainstream as the mindless masses.

If one million people believe something because they are adapting their beliefs to what a million people have said, it raises an interesting question. How many people truly believe it? The number of believers is insignificant and irrelevant. Personally, I don’t care if everyone else on earth believes the same thing. That doesn’t make it true. If it did, we might as well all try to believe that everything is flawless just to make everything flawless.