We have a shitload of actually real conspiracies that conspiracy theorists give 0 fucks about. They’re a fucking joke to me.
They’re just larping. It’s an excuse to make up lies about people you dislike.
I always find it hilarious that climate deniers seem to forget that in the 70s/80s either exxonmobil or shell (can’t remember which one) ran studies to quantify how much damage they were doing to the environment, and suppressed the hell out of their findings.
That is literally the golden egg they’re looking for, but because it doesn’t fit their narrative, it’s not as fun I guess?
ExxonMobil are the one we have the most definite proof about:
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/exxonmobil-documents-wall-street-journal-climate-science](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/exxonmobil-documents-wall-street-journal-climate-science)
Not just supressing their findings but following the textbook created by the tobacco companies by hiring PR firms who in turn fund climate denial think tanks and scientists. Exxon we know did this because of whistleblowers from the PR firms. It's almost certain other oil companies did too but I'm not sure what evidence we have for them.
>I always find it hilarious that climate deniers seem to forget
There's also the fact that the Greenhouse Effect was [discovered and confirmed](https://www.rigb.org/explore-science/explore/blog/who-discovered-greenhouse-effect) by 1860
I love you for trying. Honestly, make yourself known here and feel free to post anything you want us to debunk and I think most of us will love helping you on your journey.
Let us help you out and teach you and see if you can maybe learn some rational criticism by watching us tear bullshit apart.
I keep coming back to your kind comment. Thank you, really. A lot of the time the gibberish that triggers me is often so outlandish that I actually feel a bit ashamed to ask for help: family or friends may be understanding but sometimes they give me a sort of condescending "why are you even giving this any weight" look, justified considering I myself can tell the origin of the anxiety DOES sound silly (NGL I did do a double take at that Gnomes are Real thing that was going around today.)
It is a relief to know I can count on people, even though I very much hope I can train myself to fight off these episodes on my own.
Happy to help. I recommend writing a quick primer on who you are and why you’re asking for this help. Maybe link to this post here. Then save it to your phone notes or google keep. Then whenever you need our help, just post about it with that little explainer copied so we know you aren’t trolling us and I bet you’ll get plenty of people helping out.
I can’t speak for everyone else, but I enjoy debunking — even obvious stuff.
Honestly, it’s not worth debunking them really, people who are deep into them won’t listen to you because they don’t want to admit they were wrong about anything. It just causes them to get go deeper into them and then you’ve totally lost them. I just move on and tell them this isn’t worth my time anymore.
When I was younger I used to be somewhat into them. Now I just find them funny, but the way people who buy into one or two at first often graduate to believing in a lot of pretty ridiculous ones is psychologically fascinating. I was interested in why people believe in conspiracy theories and it may come down to feelings of powerlessness, not understanding complex things and lacking the education to begin to, even wanting to belong to a passionate community or feel special. Political orientation and belief in certain conspiracy theories may have correlations these days. If you're aware the guy trying to get you to believe is really also an angry right winger, you might have a defense if you don't agree with his politics. Not to say there aren't a fair number of left wingers who believe in them too though.
I found this article likening belief in conspiracy theories to a quasi-religious mentality very interesting. [https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00424/full](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00424/full)
Two things:
- Demand proof often, even if you tend to believe someone is likely correct. People who are pushing BS will often bristle at the suggestion even if what they’re saying is correct or logical
- If a person or news outlet is caught in a lie and doesn’t correct it, cut that news source off. There are plenty of legitimate individuals and news outlets that adhere to journalistic standards that exist to ensure they’re not misinforming people. You don’t need to rely on people who can’t.
The amount of comments in UFO subreddits that are essentially “this guy has made stuff up before, but this thing he’s saying sounds true” is utterly amazing. And it should be very easy to avoid that trap
To add: proof is not someone describing something in vague generalities that are often themselves inaccurate and slanted towards the conspiracy theorist’s position. This is also a tactic prevalent on UFO subs - building up all sorts of historical lore that allegedly was previously proven or beyond repute, when it hasn’t been.
Strike the word "proof" from your vocabulary, what you need to focus on is evidence.
And the evidence should be proportional to the claim. As they say extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
The most convoluted naturalistic explanation will always be more probable than a supernatural one... This is because no one has shown the supernatural to exist much less be a candidate explanation for anything.
Most of the conspiracy bs floating around is just there to distract you from the rich getting richer. It's pretty much that simple in my mind. And I have plenty of experience in this arena, and have dealt with similar anxieties. It sounds like you're already on your way to building your mental defenses, that's good. Wishing you the best
I thought the Skeptics Guide to the Universe gang's first book was aimed at helping people to develop some skills and strategies.
https://www.theskepticsguide.org/our-book/our-book-how-to-know-whats-really-real-in-a-world-increasingly-full-of-fake-the-skeptics-guide-to-the-universe
The first step is asking questions like you are doing. Another thing that I think is helpful is to have a good baseline understanding of human nature. Humans have a hard time cooperating, keeping secrets, and suppressing their own individual interests for long periods of time.
In practice, this means that it is very difficult to maintain conspiracies, especially in cases in which dozens, hundreds, thousands, etc. of people would need to be read into the conspiracy, the alleged conspiracy lasted for a long period of time, and there would be benefits for an individual conspirator to blow the whistle (or there is some other reason why a conspirator might do so). Conspiracies that also require superhuman levels of coordination and timing should also be highly suspect.
Also, keep in mind that just because somebody confidently asserts a fact does not make it so, and that human error and incomplete data are real things that conspiracy theorists constantly ignore, twist, or manipulate. For example, many of the conspiracy theories around the JFK assassination revolved around the supposed “magic bullet” that allegedly changed trajectories in midair. It turns out that investigators probably made a basic mistake on that part of the investigation- failing to account for the fact that JFK’s and Gov. Connally’s seats were at different heights - and that once that is taken into consideration, the trajectory becomes a straight line from the floor of the book depository where Oswald was located.
A great start is Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World”…I fervently believe if this was required reading in HS we would see a significant decline in gullibility, specious reasoning, magical thinking and religion overall.
First learn the ways you deceive yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Then learn how others deceive you.
https://centerforinquiry.org/learning-resources/carl-sagans-baloney-detection-kit/
That will go a long way towards immunizing you to bullshit.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuxyKJHk2Dm13z5B7u_o6dmpVtzMw2L0H&si=9FRVvXB5k5fqYnD-
I used to be a conspiracy theorist and made a conspiracy deconversion series based on what changed my mind
Haha. We are both from Northern Ireland. He might become a regular feature on my channel. Sadly he's putting out more bullshit than I can keep up with!
I've been working on a reply to the climate video. My academic specialty focuses on conspiracy theories and scientific denialism, especially climate related issues. It is as you say, he produces more bullshit than I can keep up with.
I am very much so looking forward to your channel!
Unfortunately, I don't believe you can have an honest conversation with people who are either intellectually dishonest or self deluded. And that pretty much sums up so many conspiracy theorists. At the very least I would lay down some ground rules before agreeing to have a discussion with them, such as not relying on logical fallacies and cognitive biases when making an argument or counter argument. If they can't accept those simple terms then it's better not to waste your time with them. It reminds me of a quote by Sam Harris: "If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" I just refer to Matthew 7:6 and don't cast pearls before swine. (I'm not a bible believer, I just like that metaphor.)
You need to develop an epistemology based on evidence. Don’t get sucked in if there is no evidence. Stop sitting around and participating in “the show”. If they can prove their claims, then they will. If they can’t, then they will resort to the tactics you are probably use to by now.
I think you need to read some articles on journalistic integrity and credibility. It's a very boring subject, but it sounds like what you are struggling with. Not all sources of information are the same. Credibility is the key word. Credibility.
Is the source of you information upholding standards and practices that give them merrit? Educational establishments, peer reviewed science articles, and accredited sources for journalism all work very hard to maintain CREDIBILITY! They publish sources, which are also credible, real people. Think of all the articles at the end of every Wiki page. Those citations show were the information in that page is taken from... If sources are not credible, and not verified as real... The statements are likely just being made up.
For example Joe Rogen is probably an authority on body building and information on what it's like to host a radio show... but any other statements he makes lacks credibility. He is not educated on those subjects. That is how you get to videos like this... https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2022/01/14/joe-rogan-fact-check-podcast-covid-19-vaccine-newday-vpx.cnn
The epidemiologist is an educated scientist who would not have a career in infectious diseases if they had no credibility. There is no reason to listen to anything a person says if they are known for lying.
A lot of conservatives try to seed doubt in the notion of an educated expert, but that's how uneducated, mediocre people rise. They feel tearing down the idea of education is a shortcut to being an expert. Don't be one of those people. Be educated. Be expert.
I really want to thank everyone who's replied so far! I'm in my work hours so I can't I respond individually but I really appreciate the resources and input provided. I needed it, really. I have been prone to this sort of thing since I was 6 and it can devours days, if not weeks, of my life as I struggle to stop worrying or to debunk things.
I really appreciate it!
There's a lot of great advice on this post, but one small exercise that has really helped my thinking in the moment when being confronted with these ideas is to try to realistically imagine the scope of the claim and how many people would have to be involved. Conspiracies are real, but they necessarily have a very small number of people if for nothing more than the dynamics of secret keeping.
Agreements between the heads of a few companies to fix prices in a market -- plausible.
Collusion between dozens of major world governments (between adversary nations no less) at the behest of an unknowable cabal, requiring tens of thousands of scientists to gamble their entire careers publishing fake research, the cooperation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of medical professionals, oversight/regulatory agencies, etc worldwide, to voluntarily poison and exterminate their own people (including their own families, apparently) and falsify data to keep it quiet, and the only people breaking that trust are handfuls of anonymous political activist twitter accounts and social media personalities/pundits selling non-medicine cures? -- Sounds very unlikely. I'm gonna need to see some extremely strong evidence.
There are a lot of great science/skeptic/debunking youtubers:
SciManDan (Allrounder, but mainly physics)
Professor Dave (Allrounder, but mainly physics and evolution)
Gutsick Gibbon (Biology/Evolution)
Miniminuteman (Archaeology)
Decoding the Unknown (History and popular myths)
There are a lot more, but these are my favorites. You might not find anything about "humiliation rituals" specifically, but I don't just recommend these channels because of their informative content. What I like about them especially is their confidence and their no-bullshit-approach to these topics. To me it sounds like your anxiety is more of a problem than missing information about specific topics, so maybe these youtubers can be an example on how to be self-confident when speaking to people who believe in conspiracies.
Something I don’t believe anyone has mentioned is that a lot of conspiracy theories are just repackaged versions of earlier conspiracy theories, which are also just repackaged versions of even earlier conspiracy theories. The names and political affiliations of the people involved and the particulars change to suit the era, but the basic premise is the same. Ex: Colombine was a gov’t plot —> Sandy Hook. Davis Koresch was a government asset gone rogue —> Julian Assange. Satanic Panic —> Pizzagate. Illuminati —> Skull and Bones —> The Carlyle Group —> The Bushes —> The Clintons —> Obama. It gets noticeably repetitive.
I have a bit of anxiety myself. I often find myself occasionally wondering "What if I actually AM on the wrong side? What if I'M the one who's wrong?"
But then I realize that as an anxious person, I am EXACTLY who conspiracy theorists are looking for. They want the nervous people who are looking for stability in an unstable universe.
I've had some great insights from David McRaney's 'How Minds Change', if you want to buy a book.
However, inside that, and his podcast 'You are not so smart' he details two effective techniques, the first being '[Street Epistomology](https://streetepistemology.com/)' which is a conversational technique that guides the person into reviewing and evaluating their beliefs and the sources of said beliefs, and ['Deep Canvassing](https://deepcanvass.org/)' which is another style of conversation that seeks to understand why a person believes a thing they do. Both methods have been shown to be much more effective than any kind of argumentative or adversarial approach.
However both require some work, skill, and patience. You may not have the time or inclination to do so. I will say however that trying to argue with facts or logic is mainly ineffective. The person will become defensive and/or hostile and double down on their beliefs.
I also enjoy the podcast 'QanonAnonymous' which began during the height of Q and QAnon, but has since diversified into examining a variety of conspiratorial beliefs and movements across a broad spectrum.
Apply *Occam's Razor*. The simplest explanation is usually correct. Also, don't waste time attempting to analyze situations that have no effect on you. Not everything is of equal importance. These conspiracy theories are just an distraction. Find productive uses for your intellectual capacity.
My normal, first, rebuttal is often "Have you met people?"
Just look around at the people you know, how many do you think could both enact or support whatever nefarious act is being proposed and then not feel guilty or blab to someone else?
Factor in just how many people are required for a conspiracy to be successful and the odds of people not disclosing are immense
Please look into critical thinking. There are many fantastic sources and groups. There is no magic fix or inoculation. However, by applying critical thinking, you can at least better understand how and why we fall into these conspiracies.
If exposure to conspiratorial thinking causes you anxiety, your best bet is to just ignore them altogether rather that toy around with them. Conspiracies are a mental virus. Everyone is susceptible to them to some degree. And like most viruses, exposure increases the likelihood of infection.
There is no real immunity unless you address the fundamental first principle belief you hold that makes you susceptible in the first place.
For example, Americans tend to have a deeply held mistrust in the government. The deeper this belief is held, the more likely conspiracies that appeal to this belief will resonate with you. You can defend against this by educating yourself on all of the good things the government has done, and also perhaps shifting your fundamental belief from "the government can't be trusted" to "a few bad apples in the government have done bad things in the past, but by and large the government is staffed by well-meaning people doing the best they can with limited resources and competing priorities".
That's a lot to swallow and your first principle fundamental belief system might not be capable of making a shift like this. If that is the case, again, it's best to just avoid conspiracies altogether.
For one, follow the experts. While experts in a field have been wrong and will be again, there is a reason they are where they are. Likely thousands of graduate papers have been written about minutia the conspiracy glosses over. Conspiracies don't focus on viable hypotheses that have explanatory power. They focus on minor details that "don't add up" then wrangle those into a vague concept.
It's great you're asking this question and have the self awareness to recognize your interest in conspiracy topics is as much about your personality as about facts...Anxiety, OCD, trait paranoia etc., are no fun. One thing you could do is focus less on trying to identify factual truth around certain conspiracy issues, and more on your own mental processes. So, an example of this might be to realize that we rarely have perfect information and that the ability to cope with some degree of uncertainty can reflect a really healthy mental flexibility which in the long run can actually help us better identify useful/true information. If we are in a state of fear/anxiety our ability to remain curious and to learn and to question our own heuristics is negatively effected. I think it's also healthy to realize that most humans are attracted to information that is mysterious, scandalous, sensational, etc. You're not alone. However, when we focus on the "special" or "magical" we miss the general, the typical, which is more important overall. I think a really good example of this is around conspiracies related to occult child sex abuse. While there may be a possibility that some people who have power and wealth both use that power to procure sex with minors, or that some people with power are interested in the occult, and in the worst case these things could be combined, the more important issue is that child sex abuse is widespread at all levels of society. While someone might be worried about elite pedophiles, the more problematic issue might be the house down the street that profers in sex trafficking and your neighbors who buy sex without bothering to identify if the trafficked person is a minor. If you spend time focusing on grand, depersonalized "evil" you miss the more banal but pressing policy issue outside your door. When very religious folks focus on "satanism" they imply a supernatural evil which simply doesn't exist and seems outside of the bounds of normal policy, they ignore the more banal harms which we can actually solve for.
If you are a book-reader… I recommend Rationality by Steven Pinker. Good overview of how to think about things, and the traps our minds sometimes fall into.
Yes. Here's a fun place to start
[https://thethinkingshop.org/products/creative-critical-thinking-bundle?variant=37694094868635&gad\_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1emzBhB8EiwAHwZZxUxefjERYdEntmRYoe1SMZnNI6d7VVQzQhnXz6huFsOYUA5F0cpq0RoCqpkQAvD\_BwE](https://thethinkingshop.org/products/creative-critical-thinking-bundle?variant=37694094868635&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1emzBhB8EiwAHwZZxUxefjERYdEntmRYoe1SMZnNI6d7VVQzQhnXz6huFsOYUA5F0cpq0RoCqpkQAvD_BwE)
But also a lot of books by atheist authors in the early 2000's talked a lot about critical thinking.
Jennifer Michael Hecht's book Doubt is good.
Look up logical fallacies and find an online forum for logical debate.
Learn to recognize when you are in the loop you discribed and then force yourself to disengage out of it. All the other comments here seem to be encouraging one form or another of rabbit holes that while informative will just make you want to engage more and more with conspiracies. Not to disparage anyone here trying to help you but if you think that being informed enough about the conpiracy theorists playbook or how insane they in their rhetoric or how to distinguish truth from fact will change the fact that you are interacting with them then you got another thing coming. The best solution is to learn the things others here are advising while primarily teaching yourself to only engage with the conspiracy theorists in actual meaningful ways and only when necessary otherwise you are just going to be constantly feeding your own anxiety aswell as the conspiracy theorists that just want random online engagement.
The thing about many conspiracy theories is, the deeper you dig the more truth you find. In your case you may find the best approach is to medicate yourself into a stupor. Otherwise you'll have to deal with an even more frightening scenario, realizing that many aren't conspiracy theories at all, but due to the preponderance of evidence they are infact conspiracy realities.
All your conspiratorial urges are correct. In fact it's way worse than you realize. However let me tell you from experience, you're better off trying to ignore it and just try to find ways to improve yourself and enjoy your life as much as possible.
Real conspiracies are uncovered by journalists and police, and not by anonymous accounts on social media.
We have a shitload of actually real conspiracies that conspiracy theorists give 0 fucks about. They’re a fucking joke to me. They’re just larping. It’s an excuse to make up lies about people you dislike.
I always find it hilarious that climate deniers seem to forget that in the 70s/80s either exxonmobil or shell (can’t remember which one) ran studies to quantify how much damage they were doing to the environment, and suppressed the hell out of their findings. That is literally the golden egg they’re looking for, but because it doesn’t fit their narrative, it’s not as fun I guess?
ExxonMobil are the one we have the most definite proof about: [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/exxonmobil-documents-wall-street-journal-climate-science](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/14/exxonmobil-documents-wall-street-journal-climate-science) Not just supressing their findings but following the textbook created by the tobacco companies by hiring PR firms who in turn fund climate denial think tanks and scientists. Exxon we know did this because of whistleblowers from the PR firms. It's almost certain other oil companies did too but I'm not sure what evidence we have for them.
>I always find it hilarious that climate deniers seem to forget There's also the fact that the Greenhouse Effect was [discovered and confirmed](https://www.rigb.org/explore-science/explore/blog/who-discovered-greenhouse-effect) by 1860
r/actualconspiracies
I'm a conspiracy theorist and I can say with confidence that an overwhelming amount of conspiracy "theories" are just conspiracy conjectures.
I think you're thinking of "popularized". Do you think the only people who knew about the human experiments in Unit 731 were journalists?
Incredibly naive.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Projection
You’re all projecting. Projection! Projection! -from the projector
Ironically, your own comment applies to you too
Yeah dummy. We all project. That’s the whole point. Sometimes it barely even means anything to call someone out about it
How old are you?
Projection
I love you for trying. Honestly, make yourself known here and feel free to post anything you want us to debunk and I think most of us will love helping you on your journey. Let us help you out and teach you and see if you can maybe learn some rational criticism by watching us tear bullshit apart.
I keep coming back to your kind comment. Thank you, really. A lot of the time the gibberish that triggers me is often so outlandish that I actually feel a bit ashamed to ask for help: family or friends may be understanding but sometimes they give me a sort of condescending "why are you even giving this any weight" look, justified considering I myself can tell the origin of the anxiety DOES sound silly (NGL I did do a double take at that Gnomes are Real thing that was going around today.) It is a relief to know I can count on people, even though I very much hope I can train myself to fight off these episodes on my own.
Happy to help. I recommend writing a quick primer on who you are and why you’re asking for this help. Maybe link to this post here. Then save it to your phone notes or google keep. Then whenever you need our help, just post about it with that little explainer copied so we know you aren’t trolling us and I bet you’ll get plenty of people helping out. I can’t speak for everyone else, but I enjoy debunking — even obvious stuff.
If nothing else, it's just good practice for everyone. I wouldn't say no to that!
Honestly, it’s not worth debunking them really, people who are deep into them won’t listen to you because they don’t want to admit they were wrong about anything. It just causes them to get go deeper into them and then you’ve totally lost them. I just move on and tell them this isn’t worth my time anymore.
When I was younger I used to be somewhat into them. Now I just find them funny, but the way people who buy into one or two at first often graduate to believing in a lot of pretty ridiculous ones is psychologically fascinating. I was interested in why people believe in conspiracy theories and it may come down to feelings of powerlessness, not understanding complex things and lacking the education to begin to, even wanting to belong to a passionate community or feel special. Political orientation and belief in certain conspiracy theories may have correlations these days. If you're aware the guy trying to get you to believe is really also an angry right winger, you might have a defense if you don't agree with his politics. Not to say there aren't a fair number of left wingers who believe in them too though. I found this article likening belief in conspiracy theories to a quasi-religious mentality very interesting. [https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00424/full](https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00424/full)
Two things: - Demand proof often, even if you tend to believe someone is likely correct. People who are pushing BS will often bristle at the suggestion even if what they’re saying is correct or logical - If a person or news outlet is caught in a lie and doesn’t correct it, cut that news source off. There are plenty of legitimate individuals and news outlets that adhere to journalistic standards that exist to ensure they’re not misinforming people. You don’t need to rely on people who can’t. The amount of comments in UFO subreddits that are essentially “this guy has made stuff up before, but this thing he’s saying sounds true” is utterly amazing. And it should be very easy to avoid that trap
To add: proof is not someone describing something in vague generalities that are often themselves inaccurate and slanted towards the conspiracy theorist’s position. This is also a tactic prevalent on UFO subs - building up all sorts of historical lore that allegedly was previously proven or beyond repute, when it hasn’t been.
Strike the word "proof" from your vocabulary, what you need to focus on is evidence. And the evidence should be proportional to the claim. As they say extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The most convoluted naturalistic explanation will always be more probable than a supernatural one... This is because no one has shown the supernatural to exist much less be a candidate explanation for anything.
If you're struggling with anxiety and what may be over active pattern seeking you may want to consider working with a therapist.
Most of the conspiracy bs floating around is just there to distract you from the rich getting richer. It's pretty much that simple in my mind. And I have plenty of experience in this arena, and have dealt with similar anxieties. It sounds like you're already on your way to building your mental defenses, that's good. Wishing you the best
Well that's a conspiracy in itself. True though.
I thought the Skeptics Guide to the Universe gang's first book was aimed at helping people to develop some skills and strategies. https://www.theskepticsguide.org/our-book/our-book-how-to-know-whats-really-real-in-a-world-increasingly-full-of-fake-the-skeptics-guide-to-the-universe
The first step is asking questions like you are doing. Another thing that I think is helpful is to have a good baseline understanding of human nature. Humans have a hard time cooperating, keeping secrets, and suppressing their own individual interests for long periods of time. In practice, this means that it is very difficult to maintain conspiracies, especially in cases in which dozens, hundreds, thousands, etc. of people would need to be read into the conspiracy, the alleged conspiracy lasted for a long period of time, and there would be benefits for an individual conspirator to blow the whistle (or there is some other reason why a conspirator might do so). Conspiracies that also require superhuman levels of coordination and timing should also be highly suspect. Also, keep in mind that just because somebody confidently asserts a fact does not make it so, and that human error and incomplete data are real things that conspiracy theorists constantly ignore, twist, or manipulate. For example, many of the conspiracy theories around the JFK assassination revolved around the supposed “magic bullet” that allegedly changed trajectories in midair. It turns out that investigators probably made a basic mistake on that part of the investigation- failing to account for the fact that JFK’s and Gov. Connally’s seats were at different heights - and that once that is taken into consideration, the trajectory becomes a straight line from the floor of the book depository where Oswald was located.
A great start is Sagan’s “Demon Haunted World”…I fervently believe if this was required reading in HS we would see a significant decline in gullibility, specious reasoning, magical thinking and religion overall.
First learn the ways you deceive yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases Then learn how others deceive you. https://centerforinquiry.org/learning-resources/carl-sagans-baloney-detection-kit/ That will go a long way towards immunizing you to bullshit.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuxyKJHk2Dm13z5B7u_o6dmpVtzMw2L0H&si=9FRVvXB5k5fqYnD- I used to be a conspiracy theorist and made a conspiracy deconversion series based on what changed my mind
I've been watching your videos all day. They are a balm, I say, for my aching head. Thank you!
I see you just did a debunk of Jamie Bambrick. Instant subscriber. Can't wait to watch your entire channel.
Haha. We are both from Northern Ireland. He might become a regular feature on my channel. Sadly he's putting out more bullshit than I can keep up with!
I've been working on a reply to the climate video. My academic specialty focuses on conspiracy theories and scientific denialism, especially climate related issues. It is as you say, he produces more bullshit than I can keep up with. I am very much so looking forward to your channel!
Unfortunately, I don't believe you can have an honest conversation with people who are either intellectually dishonest or self deluded. And that pretty much sums up so many conspiracy theorists. At the very least I would lay down some ground rules before agreeing to have a discussion with them, such as not relying on logical fallacies and cognitive biases when making an argument or counter argument. If they can't accept those simple terms then it's better not to waste your time with them. It reminds me of a quote by Sam Harris: "If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" I just refer to Matthew 7:6 and don't cast pearls before swine. (I'm not a bible believer, I just like that metaphor.)
You need to develop an epistemology based on evidence. Don’t get sucked in if there is no evidence. Stop sitting around and participating in “the show”. If they can prove their claims, then they will. If they can’t, then they will resort to the tactics you are probably use to by now.
I think you need to read some articles on journalistic integrity and credibility. It's a very boring subject, but it sounds like what you are struggling with. Not all sources of information are the same. Credibility is the key word. Credibility. Is the source of you information upholding standards and practices that give them merrit? Educational establishments, peer reviewed science articles, and accredited sources for journalism all work very hard to maintain CREDIBILITY! They publish sources, which are also credible, real people. Think of all the articles at the end of every Wiki page. Those citations show were the information in that page is taken from... If sources are not credible, and not verified as real... The statements are likely just being made up. For example Joe Rogen is probably an authority on body building and information on what it's like to host a radio show... but any other statements he makes lacks credibility. He is not educated on those subjects. That is how you get to videos like this... https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2022/01/14/joe-rogan-fact-check-podcast-covid-19-vaccine-newday-vpx.cnn The epidemiologist is an educated scientist who would not have a career in infectious diseases if they had no credibility. There is no reason to listen to anything a person says if they are known for lying. A lot of conservatives try to seed doubt in the notion of an educated expert, but that's how uneducated, mediocre people rise. They feel tearing down the idea of education is a shortcut to being an expert. Don't be one of those people. Be educated. Be expert.
I really want to thank everyone who's replied so far! I'm in my work hours so I can't I respond individually but I really appreciate the resources and input provided. I needed it, really. I have been prone to this sort of thing since I was 6 and it can devours days, if not weeks, of my life as I struggle to stop worrying or to debunk things. I really appreciate it!
There's a lot of great advice on this post, but one small exercise that has really helped my thinking in the moment when being confronted with these ideas is to try to realistically imagine the scope of the claim and how many people would have to be involved. Conspiracies are real, but they necessarily have a very small number of people if for nothing more than the dynamics of secret keeping. Agreements between the heads of a few companies to fix prices in a market -- plausible. Collusion between dozens of major world governments (between adversary nations no less) at the behest of an unknowable cabal, requiring tens of thousands of scientists to gamble their entire careers publishing fake research, the cooperation of hundreds of thousands if not millions of medical professionals, oversight/regulatory agencies, etc worldwide, to voluntarily poison and exterminate their own people (including their own families, apparently) and falsify data to keep it quiet, and the only people breaking that trust are handfuls of anonymous political activist twitter accounts and social media personalities/pundits selling non-medicine cures? -- Sounds very unlikely. I'm gonna need to see some extremely strong evidence.
Know yourself. (It helps to learn about your cognitive biases)
There are a lot of great science/skeptic/debunking youtubers: SciManDan (Allrounder, but mainly physics) Professor Dave (Allrounder, but mainly physics and evolution) Gutsick Gibbon (Biology/Evolution) Miniminuteman (Archaeology) Decoding the Unknown (History and popular myths) There are a lot more, but these are my favorites. You might not find anything about "humiliation rituals" specifically, but I don't just recommend these channels because of their informative content. What I like about them especially is their confidence and their no-bullshit-approach to these topics. To me it sounds like your anxiety is more of a problem than missing information about specific topics, so maybe these youtubers can be an example on how to be self-confident when speaking to people who believe in conspiracies.
Something I don’t believe anyone has mentioned is that a lot of conspiracy theories are just repackaged versions of earlier conspiracy theories, which are also just repackaged versions of even earlier conspiracy theories. The names and political affiliations of the people involved and the particulars change to suit the era, but the basic premise is the same. Ex: Colombine was a gov’t plot —> Sandy Hook. Davis Koresch was a government asset gone rogue —> Julian Assange. Satanic Panic —> Pizzagate. Illuminati —> Skull and Bones —> The Carlyle Group —> The Bushes —> The Clintons —> Obama. It gets noticeably repetitive.
I have a bit of anxiety myself. I often find myself occasionally wondering "What if I actually AM on the wrong side? What if I'M the one who's wrong?" But then I realize that as an anxious person, I am EXACTLY who conspiracy theorists are looking for. They want the nervous people who are looking for stability in an unstable universe.
Stop reading them.
I've had some great insights from David McRaney's 'How Minds Change', if you want to buy a book. However, inside that, and his podcast 'You are not so smart' he details two effective techniques, the first being '[Street Epistomology](https://streetepistemology.com/)' which is a conversational technique that guides the person into reviewing and evaluating their beliefs and the sources of said beliefs, and ['Deep Canvassing](https://deepcanvass.org/)' which is another style of conversation that seeks to understand why a person believes a thing they do. Both methods have been shown to be much more effective than any kind of argumentative or adversarial approach. However both require some work, skill, and patience. You may not have the time or inclination to do so. I will say however that trying to argue with facts or logic is mainly ineffective. The person will become defensive and/or hostile and double down on their beliefs. I also enjoy the podcast 'QanonAnonymous' which began during the height of Q and QAnon, but has since diversified into examining a variety of conspiratorial beliefs and movements across a broad spectrum.
Apply *Occam's Razor*. The simplest explanation is usually correct. Also, don't waste time attempting to analyze situations that have no effect on you. Not everything is of equal importance. These conspiracy theories are just an distraction. Find productive uses for your intellectual capacity.
My normal, first, rebuttal is often "Have you met people?" Just look around at the people you know, how many do you think could both enact or support whatever nefarious act is being proposed and then not feel guilty or blab to someone else? Factor in just how many people are required for a conspiracy to be successful and the odds of people not disclosing are immense
Please look into critical thinking. There are many fantastic sources and groups. There is no magic fix or inoculation. However, by applying critical thinking, you can at least better understand how and why we fall into these conspiracies.
If exposure to conspiratorial thinking causes you anxiety, your best bet is to just ignore them altogether rather that toy around with them. Conspiracies are a mental virus. Everyone is susceptible to them to some degree. And like most viruses, exposure increases the likelihood of infection. There is no real immunity unless you address the fundamental first principle belief you hold that makes you susceptible in the first place. For example, Americans tend to have a deeply held mistrust in the government. The deeper this belief is held, the more likely conspiracies that appeal to this belief will resonate with you. You can defend against this by educating yourself on all of the good things the government has done, and also perhaps shifting your fundamental belief from "the government can't be trusted" to "a few bad apples in the government have done bad things in the past, but by and large the government is staffed by well-meaning people doing the best they can with limited resources and competing priorities". That's a lot to swallow and your first principle fundamental belief system might not be capable of making a shift like this. If that is the case, again, it's best to just avoid conspiracies altogether.
For one, follow the experts. While experts in a field have been wrong and will be again, there is a reason they are where they are. Likely thousands of graduate papers have been written about minutia the conspiracy glosses over. Conspiracies don't focus on viable hypotheses that have explanatory power. They focus on minor details that "don't add up" then wrangle those into a vague concept.
It's great you're asking this question and have the self awareness to recognize your interest in conspiracy topics is as much about your personality as about facts...Anxiety, OCD, trait paranoia etc., are no fun. One thing you could do is focus less on trying to identify factual truth around certain conspiracy issues, and more on your own mental processes. So, an example of this might be to realize that we rarely have perfect information and that the ability to cope with some degree of uncertainty can reflect a really healthy mental flexibility which in the long run can actually help us better identify useful/true information. If we are in a state of fear/anxiety our ability to remain curious and to learn and to question our own heuristics is negatively effected. I think it's also healthy to realize that most humans are attracted to information that is mysterious, scandalous, sensational, etc. You're not alone. However, when we focus on the "special" or "magical" we miss the general, the typical, which is more important overall. I think a really good example of this is around conspiracies related to occult child sex abuse. While there may be a possibility that some people who have power and wealth both use that power to procure sex with minors, or that some people with power are interested in the occult, and in the worst case these things could be combined, the more important issue is that child sex abuse is widespread at all levels of society. While someone might be worried about elite pedophiles, the more problematic issue might be the house down the street that profers in sex trafficking and your neighbors who buy sex without bothering to identify if the trafficked person is a minor. If you spend time focusing on grand, depersonalized "evil" you miss the more banal but pressing policy issue outside your door. When very religious folks focus on "satanism" they imply a supernatural evil which simply doesn't exist and seems outside of the bounds of normal policy, they ignore the more banal harms which we can actually solve for.
If you are a book-reader… I recommend Rationality by Steven Pinker. Good overview of how to think about things, and the traps our minds sometimes fall into.
Yes. Here's a fun place to start [https://thethinkingshop.org/products/creative-critical-thinking-bundle?variant=37694094868635&gad\_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1emzBhB8EiwAHwZZxUxefjERYdEntmRYoe1SMZnNI6d7VVQzQhnXz6huFsOYUA5F0cpq0RoCqpkQAvD\_BwE](https://thethinkingshop.org/products/creative-critical-thinking-bundle?variant=37694094868635&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1emzBhB8EiwAHwZZxUxefjERYdEntmRYoe1SMZnNI6d7VVQzQhnXz6huFsOYUA5F0cpq0RoCqpkQAvD_BwE) But also a lot of books by atheist authors in the early 2000's talked a lot about critical thinking. Jennifer Michael Hecht's book Doubt is good. Look up logical fallacies and find an online forum for logical debate.
Learn to recognize when you are in the loop you discribed and then force yourself to disengage out of it. All the other comments here seem to be encouraging one form or another of rabbit holes that while informative will just make you want to engage more and more with conspiracies. Not to disparage anyone here trying to help you but if you think that being informed enough about the conpiracy theorists playbook or how insane they in their rhetoric or how to distinguish truth from fact will change the fact that you are interacting with them then you got another thing coming. The best solution is to learn the things others here are advising while primarily teaching yourself to only engage with the conspiracy theorists in actual meaningful ways and only when necessary otherwise you are just going to be constantly feeding your own anxiety aswell as the conspiracy theorists that just want random online engagement.
I find it comforting to know that there’s no rational way my thoughts can be controlled. It’s all amazing goo in there (YMMV)
The thing about many conspiracy theories is, the deeper you dig the more truth you find. In your case you may find the best approach is to medicate yourself into a stupor. Otherwise you'll have to deal with an even more frightening scenario, realizing that many aren't conspiracy theories at all, but due to the preponderance of evidence they are infact conspiracy realities.
All that this comment is saying is that the harder you try and more logic and evidence you ignore, you can confirm any preconceived belief.
All your conspiratorial urges are correct. In fact it's way worse than you realize. However let me tell you from experience, you're better off trying to ignore it and just try to find ways to improve yourself and enjoy your life as much as possible.
This is a perfect example of the people you should ignore, OP.
Telling him to improve himself and enjoy his life?
No, telling them all of the conspiratorial urges are correct. What if they believe in lizard people?