Has anyone lost a friend to conspiracy theories?

[MerryPerry88]

....and what was the outcome? The covid pandemic really did a number on a close friend of mine....and anxiety fulled paranoia has meant that they have gone down a rabbit warren of conspiracy theories. It started off with the Great Reset stuff, but now has gone full blown into Chem trails, Flat Earth, Royal Family are lizards...you name it. They have pushed everyone away with how aggressively they air their views, and cannot be reasoned with at all. They are still holding down a responsible job, but colleagues have been making comments, as they air their views forcibly at work. My partner does not want to see this friend anymore, as their views have also gone into right wing US republican territory. I'm also good friends with this friends partner, and our children are all friends. It's such a sad situation as our friendship has gone down the pan. I'm still meeting up with friends partner and the kids, but it feels awkward. The partner to some extent is pandering to a lot of these views. I don't know how to put it nicely but they are a bit of a push over and have put up with a lot in the past from this friend. Sorry there's probably a lot of background stuff I've missed out....I guess I'm interested to hear from people that have experienced the same, and whether friendships have ever recovered. I'm struggling to see how we can repair things unless they have a massive reality check, but I'm not sure how that is going to come about so feeling a bit hopeless.

How many conspiracy theories have happened in history then years later oh by the way public x was actually true etc.

Go on. How many?

Yes, several. I distanced myself and IDGAF about what happens to them. They're neglecting work and family, ruining friendships with their argumentative monologue, to sit on their backsides immersing themselves in conspiracy theories when most of us wouldn't have the actual time to do all that much less the inclination. Main one I knew left his job and hasn't looked for another one. Smokes skunk weed in front of his laptop all day and night. His girlfriend's on the verge of leaving him. These people are cult-minded and there's nothing anyone can do about it

Hancock, according to his wiki page, stated that for 24 years he was "pretty much permanently stoned" on cannabis... which might explain some of his theories.

Yes, also pandemic-triggered and also more than one. It's very upsetting!

You can't argue with a zealot, so they are now ex-friends.

It's not much of a stretch to think covid could be a man-made illness and spread deliberately, when governments, especially in the US, have been testing how far they can spread bacterias and other nasty things for years! Apparently, to see what would happen if the soviet union were to release something in the US during the cold War, right up to the 80's (recorded).

Thousands of people have become ill or died because of it. Its not a conspiracy if its documented by the people who did it.

Kellogs were involved in poisoning kids with radiation through their porridge as an experiment for the US government. Kids that were disabled/intellectually challenged and removed from parents, moved into a "home" and experimented on in the name of eugenics.

9/11 - George W Bush, Bin Laden and the Carlisle Group were business partners since the 90s, with millions invested in military defense. Guess who made a shit tonne of money after 9/11 and after severing Bin Laden from the partnership.

Iraq didn't have WMD and probably weren't connected to 9/11. Invading them was a good distraction the above and they had a shit load of oil, though.

These are all things that are actually true but I have been told they're conspiracy bullshit.

I should add that I don't start random conversations about it or tell people to wake up etc. It's just things I'm interested in checking out myself, I'm not bothered about getting anyone else to care.

Millicent, if you're going to spread around this stuff, at least get it right. The company involved with the porridge poisonings you mention was not Kellogg's, it was Quaker Oats. It was localised to a boys' home, not widespread. The kids were not removed from parents, either.

How come so many people seem to have been taken by this?

It's like a new wave of a certain type of person, what are the characteristics?

Someone who wants to be superior? In a I know more than you sense you need to wake up

Someone who is naive? Who believes everything they see?

Someone who has mental health issues?

Is there a trend here?

My friend's partner went down all the rabbit holes, Covid was a myth etc. He broke up with her when she got vaccinated, for being a 'stupid sheep'. He caught Covid and died in 2021.

I've got a neighbour I try to avoid, we used to walk our dogs at the same time. His wife died in 2015 and he became obsessed with Trump and the "MSM."

He bought into the "Covid Hoax" and then into anti vax. I just can't have a conversation, without him launching into something bizarre.

Yep, a family member. There's no point trying to rationalise with her, we just shut it down as soon as she starts up.

Do you mean maga when you say “right wing Republican US territory,” @MerryPerry88?
Yeah, they’re past the point of any return. Insane people following insane people.

And I remember some very loud, very anti-vax people dying of COVID on ventilators. It was sad and appalling to me, but I read many a social media post of people laughing and saying it served them right. It just made me very sad - and people celebrating made it worse.

Yes, my son has gone down that rabbit hole. I deal with it by saying " you know I dont agree with you, I'd prefer to talk about something else" . He is ok at work because he works alone for the majority of the day. It's a real pain for his friends, I'm sure.

I find the psychology of people who believe conspiracy theories very interesting - they seem to love the superiority of it/having special knowledge that they can see but none of us poor sheep can.

I lost a friend to COVID conspiracy theories. The funny thing is: in the very early stages of the COVID outbreak when most people were ignoring or downplaying it, she was freaking out and masking and not leaving her home at all except for nighttime walks. Then she did a 180 degree turnaround and decided it was all a bit conspiracy theory, the vaccine was dangerous and so on. I stopped talking to her after she was extremely rude to me about vaccinating my two sons. It was very very much about wanting to be deliberately different and cleverer than everyone else. All very silly.

She has always had a contrarian and paranoid streak, but the last few years have really brought it to the fore.

She was, prior to this, one of the few people I could talk to about the whole genderwoo/trans crap thing. Trouble is, the lesson she took from the genderwoo thing was that "governments and institutions are always wrong/lying about things," rather than "governments and institutions are sometimes wrong/lying about things."

The United States is not out to get you, @MillicentBystander2022 - we’re too busy trying to debunk the moon landing and proving that Obama is the anti-christ and that John F Kennedy Jr is still alive and that he’s gonna be Trump’s VP.

We don’t have time to fuss over somebody like you, sorry.

well I don't know what the theory is with Extinction Rebellion but governments of all hues often do secretly organise and fund protest groups (sometimes in other government's countries just to be disruptive but that's a different story). The overturning of the Drax convictions is just an example of one case where we found out for a change that the main organiser, funder (he had £200k a year to spend on this), and person who drove the protesters to the protest (because they couldn't get there orherwise so the protest wouldn't have happened) was an undercover police officer. Gives them something to do I suppose. When not shagging the protesters and having kids with them.

Anyone who thinks a bunch of often unemployed eco hippies can organise anything without outside involvement has possibly not met any eco hippies. They are usually too stoned to organise anything. Kennedy was instrumental in many protests, making suggestions and financing activities as well as playing key roles in them.
He wasn't rogue. That was his job.

You sound nice

Yes. A colleague I was friendly with. First became weird with me when I wouldn't break lockdown rules to spend time with her and her children but I had a MIL who was vulnerable. Then NWO nonsense. Then right wing American stuff. Now it just seems she's spouting about everything and with such anger. Everyone else is stupid and wrong, of course. I can't see any redeeming qualities anymore.

It's the old joke about the anarchist meeting. Man stands up and declares he can't in all conscience continue in his lies. He is special branch. Next man stands up. He is M15. Next man stands up, he is Anti Terrorism unit. And so on. Til it turns out they are all government agents.

Truth stranger than fiction. There were eco protest tours of Europe where 2 out of 3 were undercover agents.

Yes a colleague didn't believe in covid , lockdown ect . Actually caught covid , that I somehow found funny that they had something that didn't exist.
Now they insist we shouldn't be in work with covid and should all isolate 🤷‍♀️.

So the risk of a conspiracy failing is four in a million.

I wonder if he took into account state actors in dictatorships where you just kill off or incarcerate the main players.

We will never get real proof of the origins of covid as many of the main actors/whistelblowers in China are either dead or have vanished.

My poor dad succumbed to it in the last months of his life and died raving and distressed. His mind had been deteriorating and he started dwelling on things that troubled him from his own lifetime like the Kennedy assassinations and it just snowballed from there.

The mental pain and suffering that the conspiracy theorists spread and suffer is horrendous.

My mum has been skirting these things for decades. She talks about one for a while and then moves on to another and doesn’t recognise her own inconsistencies. Dad was a steadying force until he got ill. I’m worried for her now.

I think it’s a not dissimilar phenomenon to other times in history where people have allowed an idea to infect their reason - witch trials, Spanish Inquisition, Crusades, racial or religious supremacy, nazism.

Personally I think that the real conspiracy is probably the sources and dissemination of this nonsense to destabilise and undermine us. But I’m not going to dwell on it too long because I understand, above all, the importance of protecting my mental health.

My dad is well and truly sucked in by it all. I’ve tried to discuss it with him but he’s absolutely wedded to the idea that we’re all being controlled by the WEF, and all the related conspiracies. I don’t know what I can do to help him.

The heartbreak of seeing people you love and once thought to be kind, revelling in this nonsense enjoying being cruel to others is awful.

@GoldenAye Sorry, it was 5am and I'm on day 2 of a chest infection awith little sleep. Of course its Quaker Oats! But the rest is still true.

@DreamTheMoors Who said the US is out to get me? I didn't. I'm not paranoid and spouting off to anyone who will listen, I genuinely just like researching this stuff. Some of it is so ridiculous that you think, that is not true, come on! But, all of what I mentioned is actually recorded.