What it really comes down to is two memes that get stuck in your head: first, the suspicious "if they're lying about this, what else are they lying about?" and second, the hubris "most people have no idea how the world really works."
You find out something interesting that used to be commonly dismissed, like that the gulf of Tonkin incident never happened, and you fall down a rabbit hole full of grifters and trolls and next thing you know you think the moon landing videos were shot in a studio and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The first thing you believe doesn't even have to be true, once you get that spark of something commonly believed being a lie, either one of those memes can creep into your head.
The trick is to not fall into either trap, and refine your bullshit meter and then trust your judgment. There's plenty of common wisdom that's wrong, truth is stranger than fiction, they are lying to you, about something anyway, but just because that's true, and just because you've found some truth that everyone told you was wrong, doesn't mean that everything everyone believes is a lie.
You find out something interesting that used to be commonly dismissed, like that the gulf of Tonkin incident never happened, and you fall down a rabbit hole full of grifters and trolls and next thing you know you think the moon landing videos were shot in a studio and directed by Stanley Kubrick. The first thing you believe doesn't even have to be true, once you get that spark of something commonly believed being a lie, either one of those memes can creep into your head.
The trick is to not fall into either trap, and refine your bullshit meter and then trust your judgment. There's plenty of common wisdom that's wrong, truth is stranger than fiction, they are lying to you, about something anyway, but just because that's true, and just because you've found some truth that everyone told you was wrong, doesn't mean that everything everyone believes is a lie.
Also, it's OK to be wrong.