To ask if you know any ex-conspiracy theorists?

[Merryoldgoat]

A friend has got caught up in the ‘covid isn’t real’ party and I’m a sheeple and won’t see the truth blah blah.

I’m not getting into a big fight with my friend but she’s well and truly fallen down the conspiracy theory well.

Do you know anyone who realised and came ‘back’? Or is she gone forever?

This is an intelligent (I thought) professional who seems to have become unrecognisable over the last 4/5 years.

It’s very sad 😔

YABU - lots of people wake up from this crap

YANBU - she’s gone forever I’m afraid

But OP - not wanting an untrialled vaccine doesn't make you antivax? And it actually isn't proven masks work. There are many scientists that have come forward and said they really don't! We just wear them because they want us to? So whilst some of her points might be extremely bonkers (microchips and whatever else) some of them might turn out not to be in the end? Only time will provide as answer. There are loads of historical things that didn't turn out how they were supposed to? So to question stuff isn't weird in its own way. I personally think it's more strange not to ever question anything or use your own brain to come to a conclusion that is your own, as opposed to just believing what you are told to?

Labeling people that question things around them, as mad? Why do other people (who actually have no clue what's going on either, other than what the tv tells them) actually have the right to do that? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Unfortunately discussions like this are a bit like politics. You will get people that sit all one way, all the other, or somewhere in between. But you'll never get people agreeing on anything! You just have to agree to disagree and it's best to avoid the topic altogether! 🤣

THE VACCINE HAS BEEN TRIALLED

Sweet fucking jesus 😩

I used to be an antivaxxer, much to my chagrin. I was in a very low point in my life, married to a gaslighting narc, and my mental health was shaky. I was also religious and part of a cult, so I feel like I was probably just looking for reasons to feel special or better about myself. I was bloody miserable and scrabbling around for relief.

When the situation with my ex escalated to DV, it's like I woke up from sleepwalking through life. I stopped all the conspiracy nonsense because I recognised their impossibility. Occams razor etc.

I always post a link to this on the conspiracy theory threads, it’s a really interesting discussion: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000dfqn

It’s an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage, here’s the summary:

“Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by comedian Shazia Mirza, science writer and cancer researcher Dr David Robert Grimes and psychologist Prof Karen Douglas to look at the weird world of conspiracy theories. From Flat Earth believers to people who refuse to accept that humans have ever been to the moon, why is fiction often so much easier to believe than fact - and does it matter? They discuss the psychology and profile of people who are more likely to believe in conspiracies and the devastating effect some, like the anti-vaccine movement, have had on public health. They ask whether being irrational is our default setting and how to convince the most hard-core believers with the power of evidence and critical thinking. Although they would say that wouldn’t they?”

The episode was broadcast in Jan 2020, so before Covid hit.

The basic conclusion was that education is key to countering conspiracy theories - critical thinking should be taught in schools to enable people to assess information sources, etc.

My personal feeling on conspiracy theories is that the human race, as a whole, is always looking for explanations for things. Ancient civilisations came up with various gods and monsters to explain natural phenomena like earthquakes, eclipses, etc.

Now as science has progressed and can explain all of these things to us, we still like to try and find “reasons” or “patterns” for particular events that we find shocking/unexpected.

Take something like Princess Diana’s death - the simplest explanation is the most likely answer: woman didn’t put on seatbelt and died when car crashed. Car crashes are random, tragic events and with a high profile person involved I guess it’s natural for people to want to look for deeper meaning. The “she was murdered” argument falls down on one simple fact - she would have survived if she had put on her seatbelt. Not exactly a rock solid basis for an elaborate and covert murder operation. It was just one of those tragic events that happens on a pretty regular basis to many “ordinary” people.

@CaveMum

My personal feeling on conspiracy theories is that the human race, as a whole, is always looking for explanations for things. Ancient civilisations came up with various gods and monsters to explain natural phenomena like earthquakes, eclipses, etc.

Now as science has progressed and can explain all of these things to us, we still like to try and find “reasons” or “patterns” for particular events that we find shocking/unexpected.

Take something like Princess Diana’s death - the simplest explanation is the most likely answer: woman didn’t put on seatbelt and died when car crashed. Car crashes are random, tragic events and with a high profile person involved I guess it’s natural for people to want to look for deeper meaning. The “she was murdered” argument falls down on one simple fact - she would have survived if she had put on her seatbelt. Not exactly a rock solid basis for an elaborate and covert murder operation. It was just one of those tragic events that happens on a pretty regular basis to many “ordinary” people.

This is a good point

The term 'conspiracy theory' is obviously quite generalised but I think that because the world is so chaotic and people have such little control over decision making, it is easy to latch onto these theories because it helps them to feel some element of control by having a sense of being 'in the know' and for others, it makes them feel special, like they have the attention of other people whereas perhaps under normal circumstances they don't feel that people do pay them much attention.

Personally, I feel like crediting our politicians - as useless as many of them are - with the competence to carry out a plan which would require an impressive amount of people, all of which are sworn to utter secrecy and manage to maintain that secrecy is for me, quite a stretch.

@Merryoldgoat

THE VACCINE HAS BEEN TRIALLED

Sweet fucking jesus 😩

Actually no. It was given an emergency licence and cannot have its full licence until its undergone enough usage (usually this would happen at strict trials, over a long time) but because of what was happening they released it anyway. So it has not undergone the full and proper trials like a vaccine usually would have.

www.who.int/news/item/15-02-2021-who-lists-two-additional-covid-19-vaccines-for-emergency-use-and-covax-roll-out

It will not be licensed until 2023 when it can be properly proven if it's safe or not.

Re the anti-mask thing, admittedly I don't enjoy wearing a mask myself and only do it when I have to, but in what way is it controlling people other than to be able to say "ha ha, look at all those mugs wearing a mask just because I told them to"? I mean, what financial or social advantage do the Powers That Be gain from me putting a bit of paper over my face when I go into the shop? Unless, I suppose, someone high up in government or virology has shares in a company that makes PPE... ooh, maybe...

Oh dear, I think I've convinced myself

Theunamedcat

he tried telling ds they were turning them into WiFi stations ds thought that was so cool he was disappointed to find out it was a hoax

Oh, that's so sweet! I can imagine one or two of mine thinking similarly when they were young (and one of them probably still would - he's in his 30s!).

@paintfairy

They might well need further testing and further evaluation but calling them ‘untrialled’ is inaccurate and inflammatory and you know it.

What is the benefit of giving people a vaccine that could harm them?

I thought “they” were putting facial recognition cameras everywhere to watch us, so why defeat them with masks ? Or maybe they want us to spoof the cameras so they can see if the vax microchip tracking is working

taps temple and nods sagely

@Merryoldgoat no one knows if it could harm them. Today they've announced astrazeneca is now a no for under 40s?! There's things changing all the time. The point is- no one knows. They don't themselves which is why things keep changing. So I'm not sure why you claim to know?

"It's my own truth". "It's an alternative fact". Anyone who states either of these to you is deluded, short-sighted and misinformed. That's the truth. It's a fact.

Information about drugs changed all the time.

I have zero issue with people being hesitant about taking a new vaccine, weighing up the risks and benefits based of real information.

I have an issue with the ‘they are controlling us with the vaccine’ narrative, the idea it’s completely untested, that no one needs it and that covid isn’t real.

Surely you can see the difference?
L

@Merryoldgoat a good article here for you.

Conspiracy theorist: ‘I have my own opinion on the whole thing. I research it’
via The Irish Times
www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/conspiracy-theorist-i-have-my-own-opinion-on-the-whole-thing-i-research-it-1.4545805

I thought the speed at which she became a full blown conspiracy theorist was very interesting

“ A review of Murray’s social media from last year – she usually posts several times a day across various platforms – shows that her pivot occurred remarkably quickly.
On March 16th, 2020 she was advocating the benefits of sea swimming as a great way to stay healthy while social distancing.
A month later she posted: “It seems to me that pharmaceutical companies and their financial investors such as Bill Gates is behind this pandemic and lockdown and control of our government…”

Thank you @ForeverAintEnough12

I’ll have a look.

I have a friend like this who posts all about it on FB but she also posts how she has all these mental health disorders so I just leave her to it.

I used to live with someone who believed that the Earth was 6000 years old and that the Great Flood happened, complete with Noah. There are masses of pseudo-scientific papers on the internet to back this up. She had answers for everything and you couldn't argue with things like 'the speed of light was different in the past', because, well, I don't know how to.

I've looked at an awful lot of conspiracy theories online and a popular tactic for sucking you in is to present you with a photo and then ask you a question about it that you can't immediately answer - something like 'if there's no wind on the moon, why is the flag flying?' Or 'if a plane hit the Pentagon, where did the wings go?'. You pause and go 'huh' and then they present you with a plausible-sounding solution. (moon landings fake/it was a bomb not a plane etc). They then bombard you with further, carefully curated 'evidence' that supports their narrative, and depending on how far you get sucked in, gets further and further removed from reality.

You have to be really careful, I've found myself needing to give my head a shake and remember what's going on when looking at photos of the gas chambers at Auschwitz from a Holocaust denial viewpoint, or the Boston Marathon (crisis actors). They confuse you, then try to capitalise on that confusion.

There was a long series of threads on MN a while back that believed that Louis Tomlinson's baby was fake and a doll. So many posts and photos showing why it was fake. I guess most would have given up when the baby was obviously not a doll, but there's probably a hardcore element that just amended that to 'they then bought a real baby'.

There have been articles lately from former QAnon believers who had the scales fall from their eyes when Biden was elected and Trump didn't return to the White House. But of course there are hardcore believers who just amend the conspiracy theory to continue to fit.

I guess your friend might stop believing it's a conspiracy when either it affects her personally, or lockdown continues to lift and things start to get back to normal without us all being microchipped. Or she might go further down the rabbit hole.

He tried telling ds they were turning them into WiFi stations ds thought that was so cool he was disappointed to find out it was a hoax.

Bless him. My DDs would love that too.

That’s the thing for me, though, some of these conspiracy theories do sound like something only a child would believe. They sound like a sci-fi film and not reality.

I’m not surprised at the concerns about the vaccines, though; all the news coverage about blood clots is bound to make people question whether the government have our best interests at heart.

I’ve had my first AZ jab, so I’m not anti-vac at all, but then I have Long Covid so I know that the risk from the virus is much greater than the risk of a blood clot. However, for a young person, who is extremely low risk from Covid will be very likely to feel differently from me.

That’s not a conspiracy theory, though, it’s a risk we keep hearing about on the news. The 5G type conspiracies regarding Covid and the vaccine are a completely different matter from realistic concerns about blood clots.

@noblegiraffe

That’s actually a completely incorrect interpretation of the Genesis creation accounts anyway. They weren’t written as a scientific treatise, but as a polemic against polytheism. Hence the heavenly bodies being created on the fourth day; other Ancient Near Eastern religions held that they were gods.

But when you try to argue this point with a ‘Young Earth’ Christian, they don’t listen.

Unfortunately I've watched a few people I know spiral deeper and deeper down conspiracy rabbit holes - Bill Gates, masks are control, vaccine micro chips. You know the drill.

What's quite worrying is that one of them was a dietician and so she can present her conspiracy theories in quite an eloquent manner, using unusual language etc. If you look into what she's saying it all falls to pieces of course but she comes across well and is probably pulling people into the rabbit hole with her.

That’s actually a completely incorrect interpretation of the Genesis creation accounts anyway

I know, but if you start off with the assumption that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, you have to keep finding ways to support that, in the face of the fact that you then have to believe ridiculous things or perform logical contortions to try to explain them away.

And arguing with a creationist means you can easily get bogged down with trivia like ‘the speed of light was different in the past’ when actually countering that won’t make the slightest bit of difference because the Bible is the inerrant word of God.

It’s the same with other conspiracy theories. If they believe that the world is secretly run by a cabal of super-wealthy people (usually the Jews when you dig down) then arguing with them that the vaccine doesn’t contain microchips won’t do much to disabuse them of that notion.

But the point I’m making is that believing that the Bible is the Word of God doesn’t mean that you have to believe that God dictated every word. That’s the Islamic understanding of how the Quran was written.

The Bible was written by human authors from within their own cultures during a timescale of over a thousand years. There are also many different genres: prophetic, poetry, stories, letters, wisdom literature, and yes, some historical accounts.

I also very much dislike the word ‘inerrant’, it’s very much based on a misunderstanding of what is meant when the Bible is referred to as the ‘Word of God’.