Although gullibility and cynicism seem to be incompatible, there are many people who exhibit "gullicism."

Internet "trolls" are a good example of this, as are anti-vaxxers.

Gullicism helps to shed light on some of the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

A cynic is someone who doubts the truth of many things generally believed to be true, while a gull is someone who accepts the truth of many things generally believed to be false. On the surface, these seem to be incompatible, but they share two tendencies: (a) a need to take a contrarian position, typically as part of a circle of other contrarians, and (b) a lack of openness to the possibility that one might be mistaken. This explains how someone could be cynical about some things while gullible about other things, as the person may choose to believe or disbelieve assertions based not on evidence but on how they feel about their source or content.

The word “gullicism” was coined to describe gullible cynics by Adam Serwer. In a March 2026 piece in The Atlantic titled "Gullible, Cynical America: The trouble with believing anything and nothing at the same time” Serwer brought attention to this interesting phenomenon. In this post, I give some........

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