If your mind is already made up, do facts contradicting your position make any difference to you? Or do you ignore them?

It is that time of year when conspiracy theorists are turning their eyes towards Switzerland. The World Economic Forum is meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The WEF is the whipping boy for thousands of online conspiracy theorists. According to them, it is an organization of people conspiring to take over the world. I have to admit, that amuses me.

According to the Oxford definition I found online, a conspiracy is “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.” I don’t think thousands of people meeting in a Swiss village is a secret.

Nor are the aims of the WEF all that secret. Participants want to build a better society. That the society they envision might not what you want is not unlawful. Though I suppose it could be harmful, depending on the specifics. Secret? The sessions are streamed online.

That the movers and shakers of our society, politicians, business people, academics and influencers gather each year to discuss the state of the world would be, you would think, a good thing. Shouldn’t we discuss ideas and consider how we can make things better?

If you aren’t thinking about Geopolitics, Artificial Intelligence, Climate Change and the Future of Work (all topics being covered in this year’s gathering), perhaps you should be. Your life is impacted by all of these.

And it isn’t as if this is some exclusive club. Anybody can join, as long as they have the money. Which I suspect would be a barrier for most of us. An online only membership will set you back about $400 US a year. I would think attending the annual meeting in Davos is beyond the pocketbook of the average person.

When I lived in Germany I did think about attending, just to see what it was like. It was only a couple of hours drive, or I could have taken the train. But I didn’t care enough, and honestly, networking bores me. And why else do you attend a conference in person if not to network?

There is no conspiracy here. Attendees have a vision for what they think our world should look like and they promote that vision. There’s no conspiracy, and promoting a vision isn’t unlawful.

Yet the conspiracy theorists are convinced this organization is setting itself up as a world government. Soon, they tell us, we will all be dancing to the WEF’s tune. Just don’t ask them for evidence.

Yes, multinational businesses think they can run things better than democratically elected governments. They may be right – democracy is messy – but I have no desire for system change and don’t expect it anytime soon.

I’m wondering if the real issue is not conspiracy but envy. Those of us who can’t fly into Switzerland for a week, who are struggling to make ends meet, resent those who are able to live the high life while discussing the woes of the world.

Since we can’t be at Davos, since we are uncertain how the discussions will impact our lives, since we feel increasingly powerless in an increasingly complex society, we come up with ideas that help us cope.

Those ideas don’t have to be true, they just have to make us feel better. And social media is good at making us feel better. There is always someone to agree with our views that the other guy is out to get us.

It used to take a long time for conspiracy theories to spread, time in which they could be tested for veracity. Sometimes people still believed the lies, but most saw them for what they are.

Now though, when you can reach millions of people in a day, the truth filter seems to have vanished. That should scare you far more than anything happening in Davos this week.