How can you help people who believe in conspiracy theories?

[PurpleTree]

10 minutes ago, Terell Kirby said:

Truth is at the baseline of every perspective, but there are lower and higher forms.

The lower forms are based in fear, the higher forms are based in love.

Guiding someone from a fear-based perspective, to a love based perspective is one of the most challenging things you'll ever do. It requires loads compassion .. which most people are not able to give (we are too judgemental).

But then with something like covid. How do you decide which "side" is more fear or love based? Or are fear and loved based people on both sides and the side is not even important?

 

[Terell Kirby]

11 minutes ago, Vincent S said:

But guiding itself isnt that what is causing harm to yourself?

The lower parts of yourself (that which is based in fear), cannot guide itself out of that low state. The counter force comes from the Higher Self, which is based in unconditional love. You cannot be an effective conspiracy theorist and be loving at the same time .. most conspiracies people come up with are a reflection of some lingering trauma. You realize this as you get closer to Truth.

[Terell Kirby]

11 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

But then with something like covid. How do you decide which "side" is more fear or love based?

By how selfish that perspective is (preservation of self at the expense of other).

Love comes from selfless-ness.

[PurpleTree]

2 minutes ago, Terell Kirby said:

By how selfish that perspective is (preservation of self at the expense of other).

Love comes from selfless-ness.

So i think you're saying that the people who are critical of restrictions, vaccines etc. are more fear based.

But i don't think it's necessarily true. I know people, extremely pro vaccination and restriction who are extremely afraid, they don't see anyone, they want harder restrictions less freedoms, they watch the news everyday and are paranoid etc.

And i know people who are critical of the vaccination/booster/restrictions and aren't scared at all and seem much more "loving"

i'm not saying either side is totally right btw.

[Vincent S]

3 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

So i think you're saying that the people who are critical of restrictions, vaccines etc. are more fear based.

But i don't think it's necessarily true. I know people, extremely pro vaccination and restriction who are extremely afraid, they don't see anyone, they want harder restrictions less freedoms, they watch the news everyday and are paranoid etc.

And i know people who are critical of the vaccination/booster/restrictions and aren't scared at all and seem much more "loving"

i'm not saying either side is totally right btw.

@Terell Kirby
But, both sides are taking what they know to be "True" or "Truth" and using that as their way to be biased and call what they are doing Love?
What I was trying to point to, is that both of them are just perspectives and not Absolute Truth: Which is none of them. Its the freedom from both sides.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Vincent S

[Terell Kirby]

5 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

So i think you're saying that the people who are critical of restrictions, vaccines etc. are more fear based.

But i don't think it's necessarily true. I know people, extremely pro vaccination and restriction who are extremely afraid, they don't see anyone, they want harder restrictions less freedoms, they watch the news everyday and are paranoid etc.

Of course, there are many pro-vax people who could care less about the health of others as it relates to the survival of themselves and their families. This is fundamental to human nature.

But typically more pro-vax folks are considerate of the collateral damage to others from disinformation and science denial, than anti-vaxers.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Terell Kirby

[Opo]

15 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

So i think you're saying that the people who are critical of restrictions, vaccines etc. are more fear based.

But i don't think it's necessarily true. I know people, extremely pro vaccination and restriction who are extremely afraid, they don't see anyone, they want harder restrictions less freedoms, they watch the news everyday and are paranoid etc.

And i know people who are critical of the vaccination/booster/restrictions and aren't scared at all and seem much more "loving"

i'm not saying either side is totally right btw.

I'll take that person and raise you someone who believes that all governments and major institutions are working together to kill us all. 

[DocWatts]

Worth pointing out, and this is just my personal experience, but the individuals that I've known who've fallen in to a conspiracy rabbit hole have tended to have serious unmet deficiency needs (such as a failing marriage, poor health, a terrible and unfulfilling job, etc). Or just more generally they were people who were in want of a purpose in life.

While this could be just a sampling bias from the individuals of my various social circles, my intuition is that this speaks to society not having enough outlets for people to build meaning in thier lives.

In want of healthy outlets for individuals to find meaning and community, should we be surprised that a society plagued by widespread alienation, cynicism, and loneliness is also one where pathological ways of finding these things are as common as they are?

Edited February 1, 2022 by DocWatts

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

individuals that I've known who've fallen in to a conspiracy rabbit hole have tended to have serious unmet deficiency needs (such as a failing marriage, poor health, a terrible and unfulfilling job, etc). Or just more generally they were people who were in want of a purpose in life.

So... most humans then.

[Abc109]

I am surprised that the people who believe the mainstream media in this forum are so convinced that they are in possession of the sole truth. Could it not at least be that the truth lies in the middle between the two views?
In order to build a bridge between the two sides and come to a greater mutual understanding, the following open letter from an employee of German public broadcaster ARD is helpful.(which I'm sure no one here has read yet)

https://multipolar-magazin.de/artikel/i-cannot-do-it-anymore

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Abc109
correction

[DocWatts]

@Abc109 I think the problem is the way that the issue is being framed: that there's two narratives, a 'mainstream' narrative, and a counter (conspiracy) narrative. And that the truth is somewhere in between these two.

The problem is that framing it in this way is that it gives the false impression that experts are roughly 'evenly split' between the two narratives. Fossil fuel companies for instance used exactly this tactic to disinform the public on climate change, by creating a false impression that there was broad disagreement among climate scientists and the issue was largely unsettled. Cigarette companies used basically the same tactics to disinform the public about thier products.

Rather, a less misleading way to frame it would be that for something like vaccines or climate change, %99 of professionals in that field are in agreement on the 'mainstream' narrative, and %1 of thier colleagues have a counter narrative that they're promoting.

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by DocWatts

[rnd]

On 30/1/2022 at 2:03 PM, Luca001 said:

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.

Why do you know that your own worldview isn't made of  conspiracy theories?

Are you the one who can help others? Or are you the one, as a listener of the mainstream media who even assumes that he's worldview is therefore the only correct one, should instead seek help from others?

Edited February 1, 2022 by rnd

[rnd]

17 hours ago, Terell Kirby said:

But typically more pro-vax folks are considerate of the collateral damage to others from disinformation and science denial, than anti-vaxers.

Your reasoning is naive.

The only reason the most vocal and angy pro-vaxxers (not all of them) get a vaccine and then go around like a sect leaders trying to convert others to getting it too, is selfishness and fear. They're afraid of their own ass. Why? Because they've fallen into believe that this virus with 1% of mortality rate,  would wipe them own. What gives? The mainstream media has accomplished it by presenting the facts via lie by omission.

1 unvaccined has died --  what a tragedy! "You see? And without a our magic vaccine you will too."

99 unvaccined have recovered -- nobody pretends to notice.

1% of mortality rate? 99% of people who won't get harmed.... that's not scary at all. "You should look at the absolute numbers -- you see how big they are? Hospitals, ICU... -- and how petrifying"

 

How about millions deaths from other causes, every year? How about long term 2nd order consequences from covid vaccines? How about thousands of other viruses? "Those are conspiracy theories"

---

By the way, developing and testing a new drug takes around 10 years. Not 1 year.  Therefore,  the vaccines that've been around for a decade or multiple ones are probably safe.

Edited February 1, 2022 by rnd

[PurpleTree]

1 hour ago, DocWatts said:

The problem is that framing it in this way is that it gives the false impression that experts are roughly 'evenly split' between the two narratives. Fossil fuel companies for instance used exactly this tactic to disinform the public on climate change, by creating a false impression that there was broad disagreement among climate scientists and the issue was largely unsettled. Cigarette companies used basically the same tactics to disinform the public about thier products.

That certainly seems true and something to consider. I don't know how true it is in the case of covid though.

[cookiemonster]

On 1/31/2022 at 1:47 PM, Philipp said:

A lot of my friends believe in many conspiracy theories ( plandemic, deep state, 9/11, giants, aliens, pyramids, etc. ) 

 

The idea that Bin Laden was the architect of 9/11 is literally a conspiracy theory. Not my words, but Noam Chomsky's.

It is a conspiracy because it involves more than one antagonist.

It is a theory because it is a charge without conviction made by the US Government.

Bin Laden was never brought to trial (unlike Nuremberg, the trials of Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milošević etc). Instead he was merely killed and disposed of at sea. Therefore the charge never became an established fact, and remains a theoretical belief by the US Government. 

Hence the official narrative of 9/11 is literally a conspiracy theory.

Another example is Iraq. On the run-up to the Iraq War. it was the belief of the US Government that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed within 45 minutes.

That theory turned out to be false. The conspiracy against Iraq however turned out to be very real.

 

[Philipp]

@cookiemonster  It doesn't matter, one or the other conspiracy theory might even be true, but folks who get down that rabbit whole, are collecting conspiracy theories, as if they are pokemon cards.

Most conspiracy theories will never be proven nor disproven. They are distractions.

There is enough real and clear evil, that could be adressed, but conspiracy theoriest often don't even care about that undeniable evil. They want their unique special kind of evil and ignore the mainstream evil that should actually be adressed. 

[Epikur]

1 hour ago, Philipp said:

@cookiemonster  It doesn't matter, one or the other conspiracy theory might even be true, but folks who get down that rabbit whole, are collecting conspiracy theories, as if they are pokemon cards.

Most conspiracy theories will never be proven nor disproven. They are distractions.

There is enough real and clear evil, that could be adressed, but conspiracy theoriest often don't even care about that undeniable evil. They want their unique special kind of evil and ignore the mainstream evil that should actually be adressed. 

It might be important to not become like man countries where the official narrative is mostly a lie.

[dalink]

Also how can we help people who believed in conspiracy theories that turned out to be true? 

Edited February 1, 2022 by dalink

[rnd]

 

On 1/2/2022 at 3:19 PM, dalink said:

Also how can we help people who believed in conspiracy theories that turned out to be true? 

How about this conspiracy theory that claims that natural immunity stronger than the one from a vaccine?

Spread by anti-vaxxers, of couse. Oh, I mean, by CDC

 

 

 

[Dabidoe]

Trying to control what other people believe may be a waste of time. I write a satirical conspiracy blog called https://paranoidechochamber.com and my goal is to make fun of conspiracy theories (hence the name... paranoid echo chamber a joke on anyone who shares it without seeing obvious satire) while trying to steer people in the right direction (my "cure" for reptilian mind control is to love your neighbor.)

Anytime you answer a flat earther you are giving them energy and attention. People who want to believe in the illuminati, flat earth, reptilians are all just misinformed people and you are definitely going to just convince them further. I think that all of this vaccine misinformation"pushback" is doing themselves a total disservice. 
 

If you want to persuade people to believe you you can't start off with demonizing them. That's going to have the opposite of the intended affect. If people calmly went through "the claims" and explained them better, without saying "This is the law! you are evil!" then you'd probably have a better chance of convincing them. This country is so fucked.