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How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

bbc.co.uk

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Re: How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

#121

Post by netcan »

desilentio wrote: post #76
netcan wrote: post #24

I've been in these conversations several times recently. My tips: Go in friendly. Make an effort to assume and embody good will and rationality. The premise of most conspiratorial thinking is very dichotomous. They see themselves as the open minded against dismissive, closed minded opposition. Don't play into this by being dismissive. Be generous instead and assume that they are truth seeking just like you. Don't be…

Have you ever had any success with this method; did you ever get anyone (sooner or later) to understand he had been deluded?

yes

Re: How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

#122

Post by [deleted] »

blix wrote: post #50
thih9 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A "fact" is the _interpretation_ of something that has happened. This is not how I'd understand it. From Cambridge dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fact , "something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information"

Objective reality doesn't have a native representation in human language. When an event is recorded in text or speech it is neccessarily an interpretation. Even in memory, the record of an event is a mere interpretation of reality. I'd also argue the words "known", "proof," and "information" all require interpretation as well.

[deleted]

Re: How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

#123

Post by netcan »

kordlessagain wrote: post #77
netcan wrote: post #24

I've been in these conversations several times recently. My tips: Go in friendly. Make an effort to assume and embody good will and rationality. The premise of most conspiratorial thinking is very dichotomous. They see themselves as the open minded against dismissive, closed minded opposition. Don't play into this by being dismissive. Be generous instead and assume that they are truth seeking just like you. Don't be…

Do you have any data on the form their mind is creating to hold these theories "true"? The form could be factual data (lists of things) supporting or disproving their theory, creative imagery (internally seen things) obscuring what is normally viewed as reality, or perhaps sound or voices in the form of hallucinations (internally heard things). After armchair analyzing this for nearly 4 years, I'm pretty sure Trump i…

>>It would seem about 43% or more of the population of the United States is infected with a means of operation which eliminates or completely disables critical thinking mechanisms and relies exclusively on internal..

IMO, it is about 100%. Conspiracy people are not less rational, or radically so, on average. People just aren't as rational as we believe ourselves to be. Many of our positions and beliefs are acquired socially in practice. Logic and reason are part of it, but remember that we learn from other people. We learn who to learn from. Trust plays a role.

As I said in the original comment, the epistemology can be interesting. In practice though, the sociology is often meta to epistemology

Re: How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

#124

Post by netcan »

arethuza wrote: post #48
blhack wrote: post #19

>Are they quoting a fringe YouTube video (which may have been fact-checked and debunked) We have got to get away from this idea that you can "debunk" something with some authoritative source of truth. That is just not how reality works, and the idea that you can "fact check" and "debunk" your way to a healthy, functioning system of rhetoric is absurd. NO argument has EVER been won by somebody pointing to a third part…

"infallible arbiter sounds like it is lifted directly from an Orwell novel" Actually, I think 1984 was more about the fact that the party was clearly not infallible but that ultimately that this didn't matter as all records were constantly rewritten to be consistent with what the party claimed was true at any moment in time. "Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past"

So the solution is a party that is, in fact, infallible?

Re: How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

#125

Post by holidayacct »

komali2 wrote: post #11
holidayacct wrote: post #5

There is no such thing as a conspiracy theory. Every conspiracy theory in existence can be explained in terms of math, technology, physics, psychology and behavioral biology. They are conspiracy theories because the average person refuses to believe basic science that was discoveres i the early 1900s. It's 2020 and if you use science and technology from the early to mid 1900s in the right way people get confused and…

Right but specifically a conspiracy theory involves malicious and powerful actors. >A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation So 5g mind control, moon landing is fake, earth is flat are all examples of conspiracy theories. No matter how much science you apply to demonstrating the theories are incorrect, the…

Agreed, and you don't want the answer to those questions.

On a side note:

Its easy to understand why people believe in the whole mind control thing. It's just advertising and sometimes its people running "Debility, Dependency and Dread" on other people to re-train them without having an understanding of what "Debility, Dependency and Dread" really is. For some reason people have a difficult time making the logical leap that humans are mammals. Everyone wants to believe that we are better than all other mammals in a way that none of that is possible.

Re: How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

#126

Post by krapp »

CyanBird wrote: post #104
kordlessagain wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any data on the form their mind is creating to hold these theories "true"? The form could be factual data (lists of things) supporting or disproving their theory, creative imagery (internally seen things) obscuring what is normally viewed as reality, or perhaps sound or voices in the form of hallucinations (internally heard things). After armchair analyzing this for nearly 4 years, I'm pretty sure Trump i…

> Do you have any data on the form their mind is creating to hold these theories "true" I can't address the rest of the comment, but I can address this True and truth are what the collective believes it is true, you can see this from the Desert Storm invasion based on the "truth" that the Iraqi army was taking babies out of incubators, to the modern idea of Genders being exclusively binary when we have literal Roman…

"When people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." -- Isaac Asimov

Re: How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

#127

Post by krapp »

ghthor wrote: post #85
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the article, the mother was attempting to indoctrinate her son with “lizard people” conspiracy theories from a young age, among other things. At the extremes, these conspiracy theories are clearly false. The problem is that it’s not simply harmless to believe something so wrong at large scale. The believers aren’t just holding an opinion, they’re making decisions, taking action, voting, and even at times encouragi…

Clearly is a pretty strong term. I'm sure skeptics arguing against Galileo would have used string words like "clearly" to dismiss his ideas.

>I'm sure skeptics arguing against Galileo would have used string words like "clearly" to dismiss his ideas.

The fact that people dismissing Galileo's claimed turned out to have been wrong does not mean people who dismiss COVID conspiracies or reptoids are equally as likely to be wrong.

People who believe in a conspiracy of globalist elite reptilian shapeshifters are clearly wrong. Clearly is a strong term, and it's justified in the case of such beliefs. There is no danger that in the future those who hold such beliefs will turn out to have been correct in hindsight, as Galileo was proved correct in hindsight.

Reasonable people can agree or disagree on reasonable conspiracy theories. Did Epstein kill himself? Maybe, maybe not. Did Trump or his staff collude with Russia? Maybe, maybe not. Was 9/11 an inside job? I don't believe it was but it's at least within the realm of metaphysical possibility. Are mattress stores just money laundering fronts for the Mafia? Probably not but it is weird how you can have, like, twenty of them on a single street. Who buys that many mattresses? How do they stay in business?

There is, however absolutely no need to give anyone who claims Bill Gates created COVID-19 as a pretext to tag people with mind control chips through vaccinations in order to harvest adrenochrome from their brains for satanic ritual orgies the benefit of the doubt. They. Are. Clearly. Wrong.

Re: How I talk to the victims of conspiracy theories

#128

Post by krapp »

jungletime wrote: post #97
mthoms wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a wide gulf between believing that " the government can listen in on any conversation " and " the government is comprised of lizard people ". The article is about the latter.

Wikileaks was a place for consciences objectors to reveal government corruption, and it quickly gained respect in the eyes of the public. With the arrest of Julian, and the downfall of Wikileaks. We are now left with much less reputable places to disseminate that information. I take issue with the article, because it attacks and delegitimizes independent investigative effort. Unfortunately that effort is now done in…

It's perfectly reasonable to believe that corruption exists in government. It's not reasonable to believe government is so corrupt that Tony Blair is probably a space lizard wearing a human skinsuit or that Hillary Clinton probably drinks the blood of child sex slaves.
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