My dad is a massive conspiracy theorist and it's so frustrating

A very close friend is like this. Literally EVERY person who dies or gets ill, no matter their age or sex or history, is a victim of the jibby jab. What does he think people died of prior to 2021?

Sad isn't it. Keep an eye on his mental health.

Yes, my dad is like this now. Only in the last few years. Tbh I don’t know how much of it he really believes (although I suspect he does genuinely believe at least half of it) but I think he is also using it to wind people up. He has always taken totally contrary views just to start arguments and I’ve learned to just not engage with him. I will totally tune him out, yawn, even walk out of the room but I don’t disagree with it. He gets bored after a while and stops.

DH is like that, he's never off ticktock, listening to "experts" (influencers) on middle east crisis, tax avoidance schemes, anything. It drives me mad!!

It's always odd how little actual conspiracies interest these people. You rarely see them going on about the Panama Papers, Russian troll farms, the oil companies hiding the data about climate change from us, etc etc.

*Say we need to pay for parking or we need to be careful not to drive in yellow boxes, as we can get fined- he takes all of it as a sign of control. If a place doesn't take cash, it's also a control thing and we are so dumb for going along with it all.
It's literally every little thing. Everything is so shit now and the world is ending. *

In a way he's right. We recently parked in London, checked the ticket was correct and put it on our car. Weeks later we received a fine. In the good old days, a tragic warden would have come along, took note of the ticket on our car and that would be that. Instead we were fined by their automatic system and our failure in admin (couldn't find the ticket weeks later) cost us. We have no idea on this case whether we were fined because of an error we are unaware of or whether it was computer error.

There's a tunnel in offer area that charges a toll. You used to drive up to a barrier, throw your pound into a bucket, the barrier would raise and you'd continue through. Worst case scenario would be you'd realise you didn't have change. Inconvenient but not costly.

Now you have 24 hours to pay otherwise it's a £30 fine. Signage is minimal, so it will catch out people who are not local. I know ever so many people who have been caught out by this and usually it's when they have a combination of other stressful things happening.

It is a bit shit that making a simple human mistake is now so much more likely to end in the added stress of an expensive fine

It is 100% rooted in a compulsion to disagree (contrarianism), nothing else. It’s completely empty.

This is exactly the case with SIL. It’s a talking point because she has nothing else to say

I have a a very good friend who has become like this. The problem is that their beliefs don't seem to make them happy or contented in any way. She's angry and cross and complains about everything but does nothing about it and it seems to consume everything that's good about her life - which is a lot - and she can't talk about anything happy now.

This is one of the podcasts I listened to https://www.google.com/amp/s/youarenotsosmart.com/2020/01/29/yanss-170-exploring-the-reasoning-of-flat-earthers-a-conversation-with-mark-sargent/amp/

From memory I think he does other podcasts on conspiracy theorists. This link has a conversation with someone who believes in a flat earth

My elderly family member will believe/support literally anything he perceives “them” as not wanting us to believe/support. So at the moment: pro Russia, pro Trump, anti climate or environment anything, anti woke, anti vax.

To be fair, he is pro immigration and pro Palestine, but that just gives him more scope to criticise America etc.

It’s a pity because he always used to be politically alert and there is a lot going on in our home country that he could usefully engage with but he is not interested unless it’s some 2 hour video on YouTube about how Putin is always right.

It is 100% rooted in a compulsion to disagree (contrarianism), nothing else. It’s completely empty. He used to be clever.

There's a growing feeling that a lot of this is being caused by a concerted and long-term effort by Putin to destabilise the West via social media algorithms and bots. Constantly pushing anti-immigration, anti-EU, anti-government to anyone who engages and keeping them in an echo chamber.

It's really worrying, I don't know how it came be stopped.

IQ of 100 is an average. 50% of people don't meet that.

Tell him by being constantly negative and focusing on all the things that are wrong he is literally letting the elites win! They are keeping him suppressed with anxiety and lowering his vibrations and that is how they control people through spreading fear and unhappiness. Tell him the only way to beat them is to stay positive and happy and grow his own vegetables…. Who knows it might help!

It's just the government and the banks that are the issue - everyone else, including large capitalist corporations, are all kosher.

Because the idea that the government could be being paid off by the big corps is too complex a thread for them to follow.

6th January 2021

Anyone using angle grinders on speed cameras and mobile phone masts

CT marches with Jeremy's loony brother Piers Corbyn and Kay Shemirani

Much of what they do is insidious, by bringing this ranting loonery to the mainstream, they are influencing public opinion - nearly a quarter of the general public thinks Covid may have been a hoax

This may seem trivial, but in the event of another public health emergency, compliance cannot be relied upon

We're seeing a massive uptick in the numbers of people with vaccine preventable diseases - measles, mumps etc and a marked decline in the numbers being vaccinated

Except every one I know is also a devout Christian.

Just play him at his own game and say the Trump cult is a propaganda conspiracy to hand political power to wealthy business men. Every time he brings up a conspiracy just say sorry that's a propaganda conspiracy to keep sheep like you from discovering the truth. Go sorry Dad I think you've been too brain washed by Trump propaganda and think we should spend less time together.

It is true though he's the one that's been brainwashed. Just keep reminding him of that fact.

Edit: also with vaccinations being control devices or whatever, why the hell would "they" be trying to control the people who are compliant? Surely it's people like him they would want to control? In which case they would want to actually save the people who took the vaccine and kill the rebels who don't, so maybe unvaccinated people are in trouble. Lol.

What on earth do they drink then? Surely ‘they’ would be adding things to bottles too?

So annoying on vaccinations they should watch videos of what damage the actual diseases do!

Spending a lot of time around other people in normal society and situations is a good thing. Especially for people who are predisposed/vulnerable to this kind of madness, because it gives them access to a wide range of opinions and not just YouTube conspiracy theorists who will say anything for attention because views = money.

Oooh where can I buy one of these toddlers? I'd love one to brighten the house up and have checked the Wayfair website... nothing.

It's slow dangerous when it's a million people who can be controlled

It's like its replaced mainstream religious extremists. I knew a few of these growing up, genuinely believed this or that would cause you to burn in hell. Warning people that they were sinners and needed to repent, strayed from God's path etc. They were just as bad when you think of it. My Mum had to cut off a family member because of it.

They do do things though. Remember Jan 6th ?

The joke is, much of their 'research' is some mis/interpretation of something that's either been withdrawn (proof of conspiracy) or misquoted or utterly made up

All this via their favourite podcasters/websites

They aren't doing any 'research', just re-hashing and encouraging each other on some forum or other

Yes you see loads of it these days. I think it started before Covid and was the Brexit/Trump era when it mainly ramped up.