What do you think makes people vulnerable to conspiracy theories and how can they break free?

[Kendodd]

I don't think they can be dismissed as just stupid, they're not, some are very intelligent and well educated. What makes the susceptible to this nonsense though? Do you know anyone who believed the bullshit and then saw it for what it was? Realised the earth is not flat etc. How did that happen?

I don't have the knowledge so will assume the majority of views that are available to me are correct
No. There are a whole range of views available, it's not possible to believe all are correct because they're often contradictory. Most of the time I do assume that if the vast majority of experts (not politicians, or YouTubers etc) are on one side of a debate, they probably right. The good thing about experts as well is that they keep digging, they keep experimenting. Your point about smoking is a good one. At first doctors thought it wasn't bad for you, some even believed it was good, as evidenced mounted, they changed their opinion and fought the tide of (largely) non experts who were still insisting it didn't cause cancer.

Ken "Most of the time I do assume that if the vast majority of experts (not politicians, or YouTubers etc) are on one side of a debate, they probably right"

So you are doing what I said you were doing.

@lunaheather

Yes, she believes that my kids could get kidnapped by the government and sold into sexual slavery. When we talked about the vaccine (my mum has had it has she is a healthcare worker) she told me not to let my kids have it as that's how 'they' will track them and steal them. I changed the subject rather rapidly after that and refused to engage on this topic. Doesn't stop her sending me articles and videos and sending me messages about the kids. I know that she sincerely believe this stuff and as a result she is motivated by love not hate but I really have distanced myself from her. Its so scary. As I said I don't want to cut her out entirely as I love her and when we don't talk about this stuff she is her old wonderful self, but this Qanon stuff is so cult like. Honestly it's like she has been drugged or something.

That's why I was surprised mumsnet is knowingly allowing something as dangerous as Qanon on its forums. This stuff isn't harmless conspiracy theory, or even alternative political views, it's outright dangerous stuff.

My childhood best friend believes in them all. We’ve known each other for a very long time and I honestly couldn’t tell you why he believes in them. He’s fairly intelligent and well rounded otherwise but he thinks the Earth is flat and believes the David Icke crap too.

[quote startrek90]@lunaheather

Yes, she believes that my kids could get kidnapped by the government and sold into sexual slavery. When we talked about the vaccine (my mum has had it has she is a healthcare worker) she told me not to let my kids have it as that's how 'they' will track them and steal them. I changed the subject rather rapidly after that and refused to engage on this topic. Doesn't stop her sending me articles and videos and sending me messages about the kids. I know that she sincerely believe this stuff and as a result she is motivated by love not hate but I really have distanced myself from her. Its so scary. As I said I don't want to cut her out entirely as I love her and when we don't talk about this stuff she is her old wonderful self, but this Qanon stuff is so cult like. Honestly it's like she has been drugged or something.

That's why I was surprised mumsnet is knowingly allowing something as dangerous as Qanon on its forums. This stuff isn't harmless conspiracy theory, or even alternative political views, it's outright dangerous stuff.[/quote]
I have a really amazing friend who believes some odd things but it's an agreement that we don't discuss them and she never sends me anything.

I have learned a lot from her about being open minded. But if someone started sending me things like that, I would struggle.

It must be very traumatic to actually believe that children are at risk in this way. I can't see why anyone would be wanting to believe it, as has been mentioned upthread.

Ken you mentioned WHO in your list of trustworthy groups but they seem to have done yet another backtrack in the time we've been chatting. I can't keep up!

What have the WHO done? If its change their advice, why would that be problematic? They should change their advice as needed as they learn more.

I saw a documentary on this ( on swiss TV of all places). Some of the characteristics of conspiracy theorists are generally "outsiders" who dont quite fit in to society and/ or have inferiority complexes and/or self- worth issues. Believing conspiracy theories nobody believes in gives them a sense of status in their righteousness and justifies the " them vs me" feeling they have.
Who knows!? Was quite interesting though.

@Kendodd

What have the WHO done? If its change their advice, why would that be problematic? They should change their advice as needed as they learn more.

It's a backtrack on their statements about the origins of the virus.

What has emerged since Tuesday? Their statement was based on their inspection visit.

Have you ever worked for one of these organisations? They exist to get paid, not to "do good".

@lavender222

I saw a documentary on this ( on swiss TV of all places). Some of the characteristics of conspiracy theorists are generally "outsiders" who dont quite fit in to society and/ or have inferiority complexes and/or self- worth issues. Believing conspiracy theories nobody believes in gives them a sense of status in their righteousness and justifies the " them vs me" feeling they have. Who knows!? Was quite interesting though.

I think for me, and many MNers, the CTs we know are very kind of stereotype people with good jobs, businesses, children, highly educated etc, lots of friends.

Also, you say "CTs no one believes in" - loads of people believe them.

I have a friend who believes similar to @startrek90. She was almost in tears telling me to protect my dc from the paedophile rings that will take them if I don’t permit the tracking vaccine that Bill Gates has in store.
Whenever I try to reason with her views, she’s very disappointed and says she doesn’t understand why someone as intelligent as me hasn’t looked into all this stuff myself and realised what’s going on.
My friend is highly educated, has lots of confidence but has had some really bad luck over the last few years, with numerous things going wrong. Is that enough for someone to succumb to all this? I can’t figure it out.
I do feel like it’s a cult and she often believes ideas that contradict the other ideas she believes but can’t unravel them.

Dishonest/incompetent/untrustworthy governments.

If people believed that their government had their best interests at heart and was generally honest with the population including when they've made an error, then there wouldn't be a giant empty space devoid of truth for people to start trying to fill.

All this talk of government mistrust etc but going back a way, some people genuinely think Mary was a virgin. 🤷🏻‍♀️

So how surprised can we really be?

(Not half as surprised as poor Mary when she sprogged).

We have paradigm shifts - fundamental changes in a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitutes legitimate contributions to a field.

Darwin caused paradigm shifts with his theories on evolution. He went to being ridiculed to being accepted in most scientific communities. It now turns out that it is a lot more complex - evidence that doesn't support Darwinism is still valid. Darwinism is not the whole picture and some of the earlier theories are not completely wrong.

Accepting the current theories without any critical thinking is not going to change anything. We will just stagnate. We only understand the basics and we need to keep learning and discovering new things.

Not every conspiracy theorist is wrong and their beliefs stem from something. We know more about the MMR vaccine and autism because conspiracy theorists believed the MMR vaccine cause Autism. They noticed Autism came after the injection. Cause and Affect. They were wrong.

Conspiracy theorists noticed birth defects in an area after environmental pollution. They were right.

There is information that is classified. We can only wonder why we aren't allowed to see it. UFO's exist - maybe not Aliens but unidentified nether the less. I believe it's most likely spy planes. I don't know.

Also just remembered
While I was thinking, who trusts WHO, I remembered this

www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/apr/21/uk.medicalscience

The world is crazy. Some people are going to think even more strange things on the basis of what scientists admit to doing.

This is an incredibly moving article from children of QAnon believers. What they are going through is horrendous. People forget that this conspiracy theory crap destroys families because these people care more about what they believe in, than they care about their children or partners or wider family.

QAnon is a cult that can trigger something with the most vulnerable who often think they are the most intelligent and buying into this crap means they are in the know... unlike the rest of the sheep. But to read the stories in this article of children who have literally lost their parents to QAnon is heartbreaking.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/children-of-qanon-believers_n_601078e9c5b6c5586aa49077?ri18n=true

Really worth a read.

Has anyone seen Behind the Curve?
I thought it gave great insight into the flat earth movement. It looked great being a flat earther, a lot more fun than being a scientist. Flat earthers were all 'in the know' they hung out with loads of other flat earthers and could discuss loads of other conspiracies. They were explorers living in a world full of mystery and find easy answers from superficial one sided 'research'. Maybe that's part of the answer, it's fun and gives you community where as real science is slow, methodical and cautious, conspiracy theories lets you jump straight in to the exciting bit. I don't agree that's it's a replacement for religion though as the people I know hooked in and looking at their fb friends are all quite fundamental Christians. I think this is the case in the USA as well.

www.imdb.com/title/tt8132700/

I think being exposed to religion at an early age plays a part, even if the person goes on to reject that religion. I think it prepares people to accept things that can't be proved.

Yes, I suppose in some ways you can describe religion as the ultimate conspiracy theory.

I tend to take the view people can believe what they like - as long as it doesn’t impact my life, and is not dangerous to others.
There is obviously a basic human tendency to believe in ‘woo‘ be it religion, psychics, horoscopes, famous people being ‘special’. We love to contemplate weird stuff too - horror and sci-fi. It is part of our innate spiritual selves, I guess - legends and stories are part of our heritage. It’s why books like The Da Vinci Code were so very successful.

People believing the earth is flat or in UFOs doesn’t personally impact me. The problem is different now - social media has changed the way we behave and assess information and many conspiracy theories have become dangerous, not just for vulnerable individuals, but all of us.

People respond to ‘black and white thinking‘ and certainty, and no longer (quite rightly) trust politicians or those with power. Conspiracy theories fill that void and provide a level of certainty that only ‘belief’ can provide.

The only solution I can see is tougher regulation of social media, however that too can be dangerous - as challenging main stream thoughts and values is important to the development of any society. Who then decides what is and isn’t acceptable? Just look back over the past 70 years at all the social changes which would not have happened if people couldn’t challenge the status quo - women’s and gay rights, racial segregation.
Years ago people got their news from watching mainstream TV news or reading newspapers, now people immerse themselves in groups, and specific news sources that only reinforce their own personal views and do not give an in depth or balanced view.

I don’t know what the answers are, but we do need to help heal the issues that have alienated and disempowered people, but without giving a platform to those that are spreading dangerous misinformation. And put in place robust measures to hold politicians and people with power to account when they lie, mislead, and obfuscate - trust needs to be regained.

We have our own nutters here.

Notably, Kate Shemirani.

www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-54738471

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszvsf

www.onevaxxednurse.com/2021/02/you-arent-woke-you-are-paranoid/

Many conspiracy theorists have a paranoid streak to their natures, which the loony political climate, the virus, the lockdown and the vaccine have all stoked into relative hysteria.

I know someone best described as thick who believes the virus was created by the planet to cull human beings because we kill animals to eat.