to be utterly shocked and heartbroken at how many intelligent, lovely friends and acquaintances have totally bought in to the radical global conspiracy theories...

[fuschia2000]

Seeing so much conspiracy stuff on Facebook threads, its totally alarming.... the folks can really make a good argument, with pseudo science, lots of data etc but we are looking at radical q'anon right wing conspiracy theories breaking through into the normal discussion groups and online groups.....

@Sillysandy I always hear it in that slightly sing-song voice children use when they're taking the piss out of something you've said. I could be wrong though.

No doubt it'll go out of fashion in the blink of an eye and I'll spend the next few months cringing for having bought into it. In fact, if we're doing it on MN it's a pretty good indication it's already not fashionable

OP, I hate to break it to you but those friends are not intelligent.

They insist all points of view are equally valid and equal weight must be given to them, as if the idle thoughts of someone who takes a lot of magic mushrooms deserve equal attention with decades of peer reviewed, exhaustively analysed research
But someone on Facebook said they know that all the laws are illegal since the Magna Carta and they don't consent to the police doing their job. Who can dispute the brilliant legal credentials of Fred Blogs on facebook and Sandra on Instagram? They have a lot of followers don'tyaknow. How many followers do these so called experts have?
Just sayin'
/sarcasm obviously

iSN't ThIS hOw You DO saRCaSm?

tHAt iS eXceLlEnT sArcAsM MsMarch

To those of you saying it's only the ill-educated who fall down this rabbit hole. I know someone with a first and then masters in politics, who is a uni lecturer who is spouting all this nonsense and using their credentials to back it up. I think they are a very dangerous person to be given access to young people with developing mindsets at this time and hope (but don't believe) they don't speak about this at work.

@MTwhyowhy

To those of you saying it's only the ill-educated who fall down this rabbit hole. I know someone with a first and then masters in politics, who is a uni lecturer who is spouting all this nonsense and using their credentials to back it up. I think they are a very dangerous person to be given access to young people with developing mindsets at this time and hope (but don't believe) they don't speak about this at work.

I agree. I know a man whose job involves research and analysis at a very high level. He's used to people listening to/agreeing with him and it's been quite hard for some of the people around him+, who have long respected his credentials etc, to say, "Hang on now, this isn't right."

+Not me - I've always just found him to to be pompous misogynist twat but I do understand why, if you weren't on the look out for that, you'd have been happily trusting that his views were, at the very least, based on actual facts and information all this time.

I think intelligent/well educated people are particularly susceptible precisely because they believe they are NOT susceptible. It is similar (on a much lower level) to my mum saying "oh well, if you are the kind of person who is affected by adverts." If you believe that you can't possibly be influences you are less likely to be alert to the possibility that you are being influenced, less likely to "check yourself" and less likely to listen to other people saying you are being brainwashed.

I too know a conspiracy theorist, I switched off when he started spouting 'the govt monitor all our emails', 'flat earth', 'there are birth bonds worth millions for each person, so the Govt can afford covid, they are hiding the fact' 'My benefits are from my birth bond, I'm entitled to it' 'the earth is covered by a dome' etc..I admit to be that he suddenly believes the govt when they say covid is dangerous as he has relatives CEV, if they werent I'm pretty sure he would be spouting 'its a hoax in order to chip us all/new order/Bill Gates etc.

@unmarkedbythat

Anyone who tells me to 'do my own research' tends not to have any understanding of what actual research entails. They usually can't define a 'theory' or explain what a hypothesis is or have any grasp of statistical significance. They often genuinely think that because something is very complicated and they don't understand it, that it cannot actually be true because if it were it would be as simple to explain as how to make a cake. They insist all points of view are equally valid and equal weight must be given to them, as if the idle thoughts of someone who takes a lot of magic mushrooms deserve equal attention with decades of peer reviewed, exhaustively analysed research.

Honestly, in most cases it boils down to recognising that they really don't understand a lot of things and not being able to cope with that. If they buy into these "theories" they never have to come to terms with not being intelligent and/ or educated enough to grasp very complex actual theories. Sad really, most of us aren't intelligent and/ or educated enough to understand a lot of it- and that is fine. Fine. Me not grasping quantum theory doesn't mean it's wrong, it just means I don't get it- and that's ok!

This is a quite brilliant post. I think some of it is because people get confused between 'all people are of equal value' which is true and a good development in society and 'the opinions of all people are of equal value' which is patently not true when some people spout things on particular issues based on no specialist knowledge, no research, no alignment with the facts, etc. Indeed this whole notion of having 'opinions' on scientific facts on which there is near total scientific consensus is itself a strange development, only a tiny number of people in previous generations would have had the arrogance to assume that they knew better than people who had devoted their whole careers to subjects. Now it seems to be endemic.

'there are birth bonds worth millions for each person
But someone has to put the money into the bonds, oh, silly me, it would have been they , they put millions into bonds for the whole world -

You're not the only one to find this frustrating and disappointing, OP!

The one good side of BREXIT being such a mess is that it MIGHT just make some people think about about populist bullshit and be a bit more skeptical of any messages propagated by the BREXIT crowd....

This completely

You only have to look at all the idiot anti-vaxxers on here and feel concerned for the future of the human race.

I agree with what @7Days said, nuance has been lost and we have to try to take the heat out of conversations and try to focus on the feelings behind why people take extreme positions. If conspiracy rags such as The Light support antisemitism, it’s really important to tackle that.

OP, your friends are brainwashed. It's a cult. I have no idea how you can change that.