We all know the stereotype of the conspiracy nut. A tin-foil hat wearing person who says Illuminati reptile aliens from an underground lair in a hollow Earth are responsible for the destruction of the World Trade center by secretly placing explosives in the building that caused the devil's laughing face to appear in the smoke as the buildings went down because the Knight Templar-based Masons told them to...
... and nobody wants to be seen as that crazy. And this aversion, ironically, is giving rise to a new type of crazy.
These are people who can have all the evidence right in front of them that things are not okay, and still say, "Oh, everything's okay, there's nothing wrong, nothing would be done that would harm me."
For example, the leaked Snowden documents that talked about how the NSA was collecting and saving metadata on the entirety of the phonecalls in the U.S., and having active listening by computers to communications (especially email) to search for specific keywords[1]. When the NSA admitted that it was doing this, "but for our own good." And it's further been reported that the data has been used in cases not related to the NSA's mandate. It is further well known that your rights being violated is not uncommon for police to boost how they look in their reports if they can get away with it[3]. (This latter point is especially emphasized by the NYPD's "stop and frisk" policy.)
With both these facts as public knowledge, I still hear many saying, "Oh, the NSA's work is fine, it's just trying to stop terrorists." or "They can search my stuff all I want, I have nothing to hide" or something similar."
This tendency is even creeping into the community of skeptics. I've lost track of how many skeptics I've seen that think people shouldn't even bother labeling if foods are GMO, when the main reason for labeling GMOs is to know which crops have been modified to handle roundup ready genes, which make them capable of taking on significant amount of pesticides (or, alternatively, produce their own pesticides) when those pesticides have been proven to harm people[4], harm the environment [5], and most of all, have not been properly tested[6] in the context of the impact of the change and the resulting change in how its handled in the agricultural process in regards to human health. These "skeptics," (unlike actual skeptics) aren't being skeptical at all, but just accepting things at face value without judgement or research, assuming the most benign answer is the true one, even when all evidence flies in the face of that assumption.
Other examples of "nut trustiness" in action, is assuming that items were stress tested for items beyond their purposes (Examples phrases being, "Oh, its common enough that they test these kind of things to prevent accidents." when plugging in a toaster near a bathtub due to a desire to have breakfast while soaking. or "They expect you to red-line your car all the time, it won't hurt it. Otherwise they wouldn't make it able to go that fast in the first place," etc.)
The first three rules of avoiding becoming a trust nut apply also to avoiding becoming conspiracy nut:
1. Research the idea. Look it up, is there any reason to (dis)believe from an accredited scientific source? How much research is there on it? Pay attention to what scientific articles say (if one article says, "Causes diabetes", and another says, "It doesn't cause cancer", that doesn't mean its safe).
2. Could I be wrong?
If your answer is "no" to question 2, congratulations, you're a nut. With anyone who's skeptical or open minded, they know there's always a chance they could be wrong. So if you're that certain you're probably too passionate about it, and need to back off.
3. If you're not sure sure about number 2, or think your answer is yes, ask yourself this, "What would it take to convince me otherwise." Compare what you're asking to similar questions. If you expect more proof that the system you live in could do something to harm you than a conspiracy nut needs as proof for a lunar landing... you're probably still a trust nut.
4. Is your reasoning, "God will protect you," "Governments always look out for their citizen's best interests," or something similar? If so, you're a trust nut.
5. Ask, "Is there any way that this idea that could harm me would benefit anyone else in anyway whatsoever?" If the answer is yes, there's probably then a reason you should look into it a little bit more.
Remember, the reason we evolved a complex brain for analytical purposes was specifically for survival (as are most adaptations we have). If you're using yours to explain away actual dangers, you're on a one-way ticket to winning the Darwin awards.
[1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/08/nsa-domestic-email/2784141/
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/the-nsa-is-giving-your-phone-records-to-the-dea-and-the-dea-is-covering-it-up/
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
[4] http://www.annalsofepidemiology.org/article/S1047-2797%2801%2900298-8/abstract
[5] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.5620200725/abstract;jsessionid=D1EDED96CF142B3C0BC988C9DA962D13.f01t02?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
[6] http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1013814108502
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