More Things are Dumb, the More They Stay the Same

You probably have a conspiracy theory in your pocket.

If you look beneath the figure of FDR on any dime, you'll see the initials JS near the date.

The initials are for John Sinnock, Chief Engraver of the he US Mint from 1925 to 1947.

When the first Roosevelt dimes were issued in 1946, conspiracies believed the JS stood for Joseph Stalin. This was compounded in 1948 when the mint issued a Sinnock-designed half dollar with the same initials.

I'm reading about this in Avi's "Catch You Later, Traitor," a book set in New York during the Red Scare of the 1950s.

Which brings me to the title of this post.

There's a lot of crap being believed out there, from flat earth (I thought we'd sorted that one out, honestly) to any number of idiot theories about The Man trying to keep us all down. It's discouraging and depressing.

But looking very closely at the dimes in my pockets at least tells me that people believed stupid stuff in the past and very likely will believe in stupid stuff in the future. Only thing is with the Internet, a lot more people having stupid stuff in their heads are finding others who do the same, so they seem louder.

And maybe that's wrongthink, because there were plenty of periodicals and such back in the day that helped people spread their nonsense. Maybe the Internet just speeds it up.