How can you help people who believe in conspiracy theories?

[Luca001]

Hello everyone, the questions I have for you are,How do you deal with people who believe in conspiracy theories?And what's the most effective way to help them to break free from them?

I'm in fact a little bit worried for my mom, she has always showed interest in esoteric and non-mainstream information,and I would say she is in stage green,but damn, since the start of the pandemic she begun to fall more and more into conspiracy theories.She is constantly bombarded with this type of news by her friends and can't be critic about what she reads in untrustworthy websites and articles.She is so caught up into it that she won't hear logic and all she says is "that's what they want you to believe" ecc. ecc.It all started to go even more downhill when she got really sick after a Covid vaccine shot that reinforced what she red.

So,what approach should I use to lead her to better select the information that she reads? I'm honestly worried for her future.

Thanks

[Ulax]

Sincerely, love them unconditionally, or get them to work to love themselves unconditionally.

Otherwise people just see through the lens of trauma, and that they see is bleak, colourless, and full of things worthy of suspicion. 

[Yarco]

Telling them that they're wrong or stupid will only make them dig in their heels deeper.

Basically you need to find a way to get them to come to the realization for themselves. It'll be far more powerful that way then anyone else telling them.

You can't go straight for the big thing upfront. You need to feel out for weaker ideas that they maybe only half-believe that you can pull them away from, and then start chipping away at the larger idea.

The trustworthy source thing is the worst part, and more difficult now than ever. Even I don't trust mainstream media any more... they tell us there's no grocery store shortages, then I went to the store and took pics of basically the entire frozen food section being empty, saw it firsthand with my own eyes.

Either ask what sources she does find trustworthy... you can go down a list of all different news outlets, CDC, WHO, etc. Then take whatever most credible source she trusts and find info to change her mind. Otherwise take the most obvious fake/disinfo source and try to explain to her why it isn't credible.

For example, most conspiracy theoriests are big on the VAERS reporting system for showing how harmful the vaccines are. But if you actually go through the stats on the VAERS report with her you can show that the risk of getting the vaccine is far lower for death/serious side-effects than getting covid.

If she lacks critical thinking and analysis entirely, you need to help her build those skills independent of triggering current events that will make her evasive.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Yarco

[PurpleTree]

maybe they're "right" and you're "wrong" ever thought about that?

[vladorion]

Stop playing a saviour.

[Luca001]

@vladorion If someone you cared about was starting to take a bad path you wouldn't try to help?I'm not making it my life mission,but at least help.

@PurpleTree I'm not discussing the validity of questioning mainstream media, but how she is doing it. 

@Yarco Thanks for the tips. I agree,it is really difficult for a person that is not familiar with internet (but for anybody really) to recognize which are quality informations,also given the fact that mainstream media do not promote truth but propaganda to boost whichever agenda the government (or the pharmaceutical industry) is trying to push,it's like a maze.It takes a bit of critical sense that needs to be developed trought studying valuable resources,otherwise it's better to not read news at all.

About the stats,conspiracy theorist are so good at making their own stats,so people who fall for them will think those are the real numbers, and convince themeselves that the official ones are there just to fool the citizens.

 

 

 

[BadHippie]

Feels kinda like with my father a few years back. I always thought he is a conspiracy theorist, until I realized he has good reasons for most of the stuff he believes in.

And it turned out I have been brainwashed by germanies school system, media and stuff. 

[Opo]

There's a yt channel called street epistemology. 

Try that approach. 

Maybe start with this below before you go to other people. 

22 minutes ago, Luca001 said:

also given the fact that mainstream media do not promote truth but propaganda to boost whichever agenda the government (or the pharmaceutical industry) is trying to push

 

[Opo]

Oh and this is a must. 

 

[Gesundheit2]

Conspiracy theory at its core is a paranoid state of consciousness, more like a mental illness. This Paranoia is often generalized and involves various areas of one's life. It does not go away easily in my experience, but CBT can help. You can notice fearful patterns of behavior and thinking in almost every domain of a conspiracy theorist's life. Conspiratorial thinking used to be harmless before at least to society at large, even though still delusional. But right now it's becoming dangerous with the anti-vaxxers and shit like that. It's really tragic.

Essentially, to heal a conspiratorial mind, you need a trusted authority that can actually calm down the fear. But it's a catch-22 problem, because there's an inherent lack of trust in all authorities, including yourself or any other authority you may try to establish. They have a faulty epistemology that's very hard to fix.

Your best bet would be to offer a bigger picture perspective every time a conspiracy topic is brought up, and then lead from there by your intuition.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Gesundheit2

[vladorion]

45 minutes ago, Luca001 said:

@vladorion If someone you cared about was starting to take a bad path you wouldn't try to help?I'm not making it my life mission,but at least help.

How would you feel if someone close to you thought that you're on a bad path following Leo (or whomever else) and tried to save you from it?

It's pretty arrogant to think you know what path she should (or shouldn't) be on.

Edited January 30, 2022 by vladorion

[Lyubov]

Don't waste your time 

[Blackhawk]

They are beyond help.

Unless you can physically change their brain so that they become more intelligent.. they will remain stupid and believe in bullshit.

[Johnny Galt]

@Luca001 I would share this video with them. This might help in bringing clarity to where there is confusion 

 

https://rumble.com/vtlmm9-it-comes-with-a-smile-part-1.html

[Timothy]

if one day some of her beliefs ended up being proven right then how would you feel?

[Leo Gura]

Help them learn epistemology, self-deception, and meta issues.

The solution to bad epistemology is good epistemology. Which requires education. This is an education problem.

[a7xKingz]

Data. 

Data doesn't lie. 

Enough reading emotional hit pieces from either side (anti-vaxx/pro-vaxx) and learn how to read and interpret data. 

If you don't know how to do that then don't comment, you might not know what you're talking about either. 

You mentioned her getting injured by a Covid vaccine and not liking the fact that that further entrenched her in her ways.

Are you serious ?

Look, her sources may look bogus but in the end she could be right and you could very well be wrong. 

And you also need to understand that not everyone is the same - to the above poster that talked about VAERS and that the vaccine is less dangerous than dealing with Covid ? 

Oh really ? 

For what cohort bud ? Pre-existing conditions or no co-morbidities ? 

You're going to apply this claim to children as well ? 

There's peer reviewed literature that refutes this. 

Please don't make blanket statements like that, that's as much of a problem as "anti-vaxxers" making false claims as well.

 

[Carl-Richard]

14 hours ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Conspiracy theory at its core is a paranoid state of consciousness, more like a mental illness. This Paranoia is often generalized and involves various areas of one's life. It does not go away easily in my experience, but CBT can help. You can notice fearful patterns of behavior and thinking in almost every domain of a conspiracy theorist's life. Conspiratorial thinking used to be harmless before at least to society at large, even though still delusional. But right now it's becoming dangerous with the anti-vaxxers and shit like that. It's really tragic.

Essentially, to heal a conspiratorial mind, you need a trusted authority that can actually calm down the fear. But it's a catch-22 problem, because there's an inherent lack of trust in all authorities, including yourself or any other authority you may try to establish. They have a faulty epistemology that's very hard to fix.

Your best bet would be to offer a bigger picture perspective every time a conspiracy topic is brought up, and then lead from there by your intuition.

All mental illnesses exist on a spectrum of normal human functioning. You have more in common with conspiracy theorists than you think, or what I like to say: we all have a little conspiracy theorist inside of us. It's in many ways a battle against the human condition: of internalizing a contracted perspective on emotional grounds and defending it through post-hoc rationalization. The issue is really just about how honest or transparent you want to be about this process and how self-aware you are about which rationalizations you use, which is essentially what epistemology, self-deception and meta-awareness is about. Conspiracy theorists are generally less aware of exactly how they arrived at their position, but the exact way you arrive there is very similar across all value systems.

[Gesundheit2]

19 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Conspiracy theorists are generally less aware of exactly how they arrived at their position,

I don't know why this would be the case. If there's no objective measure of awareness levels, how can we assert such a claim?

I agree with the rest, even though I don't like that post-modernist way of thinking.

[HypnoticMagician]

How can you help naive people who trust everyone so easily? Your mom can be crazy for exaggerating the side effects of the vaccine but that doesn't prove these vaccines are effective to avoid the illness. I invite everybody to be more open minded about conspiracy theories. And I highly encourage the moderators to remove this condition of membership that you can't share or talk about conspiracy theories in any way as if it was not Leo who have constantly talked about open mindedness. Of course, there are silly conspiracy theories too but that doesn't mean we should pretend that we will never encounter any danger in our self actualization journey. Unfortunately, the real world is not Alice wonderlands full of do gooders. Your doctors may not be so willing to try to find root cause of your illness instead of just suppressing the symptoms. Evil people can deliberately mislead you regardless of how educated they are. You can even unknowingly undergo technical surveillance. Certain people may misinform your loved ones about you to label you as "crazy".  For example, entire internet is full of misinformation about targeted individuals. Wikipedia is no longer a reliable medium. So I am not surprised much when I see that old things was deleted and in the changed article, targeted individuals is called "troubled unfortunates". The author of this article was either too naive or a liar.