"In January 2015, I spent the longest, queasiest week of my life on a cruise ship filled with conspiracy theories."
In this intriguing opening to her prologue, Merlan describes her time on the Conspira-Sea cruise ship, on which she "heard about every wild plot, secret plan, and dark cover-up imaginable." She describes the surreal experience she had there, meeting a number of eccentric people such as "psychic and UFO expert" Sean David Norton.
"Morton and the other conspiracy theorists on the boat were confident of a whole lot of things I found unbelievable... Some of them asserted that mass shootings like Sandy Hook are staged by our own government with the help of "crisis actors"... The moon landing was obviously fake... The government was covering up not just the link between vaccines and autism but also the cures for cancer and AIDS."
Here, Merlan describes some "typical" conspiracy theories prevalent in modern-day America. Although unbelievable to her, she asserts that many people actually believe these incredulous examples, such as the idea that the moon landing was fake.
"I stop in front of two beautiful women standing behind a table heaped with different kinds of gemstones promising to cure everything from anemia to depression and gout. A guy with full-sleeve tattoos offers me Starfire Water, a mere $6 for a bottle and capable of curing PTSD, he promises."
Merlan describes the salespeople outside the Conscious Life Expo in this surreal passage. Here, she emphasizes that people are capitalizing and profiting from other people's vulnerability to believing conspiracies.
