How Do You Deal with Family Members who Subscribe to Conspiracy Theories?

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

It's a mistake trying to debate people who have constructed a self-identity based on willful ignorance.

Yep yep.

[smallcleanrat]

I know that arguing against people's political or religious opinions can be taken personally.

But why dig your heels in over a factoid about ants?

[mamselle]

Low self-esteem.

M.

[ergative]

I took an AP Psychology class in high school. We were learning about sleep disorders, among them sleepwalking.

'The technical term for sleepwalking,' said our teacher, 'is snombulism.'

'Snombulism?' said young Ergative. 'That doesn't sound right. Teacher, I thought the word was somnambulism.'

'No,' said the teacher, 'it's snombulism.'

So young Ergative went home, fetched a dictionary, turned it to the page where 'somnambulism' was defined, and showed it to the teacher.

'Oh,' said the teacher, 'I was using a different dictionary.'

Uh-huh, thought young Ergative, sure you were. And that was the day that young Ergative decided this AP Psychology class was terrible and not worth spending any more time on. It was clear that the teacher preferred willful ignorance over actually correcting errors in the face of literal dictionary evidence.

[Myword]

   Agreed. They are way off the deep end, and is so many students, people just don't want to learn! You can't teach them anything because they are too stupid to correct mistakes.

  I have a friend, Ph.D. professor who talks like he knows everything. He thinks global warming is a conspiracy began by scientists and weather experts who only want grant money. But he is very anti-science,  anti-government pro religion. He also thinks the Moon Landing in 1969 is a fake. The media conspired this story. Well, I watched this myself on TV. To say this is to ridicule and shame brave astronauts and NASA. (This theory has been around many decades.) He also thinks Trump won the election and accepts this big lie. His Ph.D. is an elite university.

   My mother with her wacky anti intellectual notions was also grossly illogical. All fallacious.
    This is a collapse of critical thinking, totally. I taught this. They have no idea how to assess the truth and don't even want to try. For their own ego, these people must think they are right.

Jonathan Swift:   you cannot reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place.

[mahagonny]

   Agreed. They are way off the deep end, and is so many students, people just don't want to learn! You can't teach them anything because they are too stupid to correct mistakes.

  I have a friend, Ph.D. professor who talks like he knows everything. He thinks global warming is a conspiracy began by scientists and weather experts who only want grant money. But he is very anti-science,  anti-government pro religion. He also thinks the Moon Landing in 1969 is a fake. The media conspired this story. Well, I watched this myself on TV. To say this is to ridicule and shame brave astronauts and NASA. (This theory has been around many decades.) He also thinks Trump won the election and accepts this big lie. His Ph.D. is an elite university.

   My mother with her wacky anti intellectual notions was also grossly illogical. All fallacious.
    This is a collapse of critical thinking, totally. I taught this. They have no idea how to assess the truth and don't even want to try. For their own ego, these people must think they are right.

Jonathan Swift:   you cannot reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place.

What makes you think you know this (ego motive?) Of course when people square off in debate it may go downhill to a reptile brain thing. But people are genuinely afraid of the new liberal orthodoxy.

[ciao_yall]

   Agreed. They are way off the deep end, and is so many students, people just don't want to learn! You can't teach them anything because they are too stupid to correct mistakes.

  I have a friend, Ph.D. professor who talks like he knows everything. He thinks global warming is a conspiracy began by scientists and weather experts who only want grant money. But he is very anti-science,  anti-government pro religion. He also thinks the Moon Landing in 1969 is a fake. The media conspired this story. Well, I watched this myself on TV. To say this is to ridicule and shame brave astronauts and NASA. (This theory has been around many decades.) He also thinks Trump won the election and accepts this big lie. His Ph.D. is an elite university.

   My mother with her wacky anti intellectual notions was also grossly illogical. All fallacious.
    This is a collapse of critical thinking, totally. I taught this. They have no idea how to assess the truth and don't even want to try. For their own ego, these people must think they are right.

Jonathan Swift:   you cannot reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place.

There is also something about the "just in case" mindset. They are afraid to be considered suckers so if they profess to not believe something, then they don't have to discover they might be wrong.

[ergative]

   Agreed. They are way off the deep end, and is so many students, people just don't want to learn! You can't teach them anything because they are too stupid to correct mistakes.

  I have a friend, Ph.D. professor who talks like he knows everything. He thinks global warming is a conspiracy began by scientists and weather experts who only want grant money. But he is very anti-science,  anti-government pro religion. He also thinks the Moon Landing in 1969 is a fake. The media conspired this story. Well, I watched this myself on TV. To say this is to ridicule and shame brave astronauts and NASA. (This theory has been around many decades.) He also thinks Trump won the election and accepts this big lie. His Ph.D. is an elite university.

   My mother with her wacky anti intellectual notions was also grossly illogical. All fallacious.
    This is a collapse of critical thinking, totally. I taught this. They have no idea how to assess the truth and don't even want to try. For their own ego, these people must think they are right.

Jonathan Swift:   you cannot reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place.

There is also something about the "just in case" mindset. They are afraid to be considered suckers so if they profess to not believe something, then they don't have to discover they might be wrong.

That doesn't really work, though--because you can be a sucker for not believing something that's true or for believing something that's false. This basis for illogical belief is not based on sound logical principles!

[Caracal]

   Agreed. They are way off the deep end, and is so many students, people just don't want to learn! You can't teach them anything because they are too stupid to correct mistakes.

  I have a friend, Ph.D. professor who talks like he knows everything. He thinks global warming is a conspiracy began by scientists and weather experts who only want grant money. But he is very anti-science,  anti-government pro religion. He also thinks the Moon Landing in 1969 is a fake. The media conspired this story. Well, I watched this myself on TV. To say this is to ridicule and shame brave astronauts and NASA. (This theory has been around many decades.) He also thinks Trump won the election and accepts this big lie. His Ph.D. is an elite university.

   My mother with her wacky anti intellectual notions was also grossly illogical. All fallacious.
    This is a collapse of critical thinking, totally. I taught this. They have no idea how to assess the truth and don't even want to try. For their own ego, these people must think they are right.

Jonathan Swift:   you cannot reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place.

There is also something about the "just in case" mindset. They are afraid to be considered suckers so if they profess to not believe something, then they don't have to discover they might be wrong.

Maybe, but I think conspiracy theories come out of deep distrust. After Watergate, political conspiracy theories became much more common. After all, there really were a series of plots involving highly placed people in the government and the President. It made it much easier to believe all kinds of things might be true, including that the government had faked the moon landing.

You can read all these documents about pharmaceutical companies trying to sell as many opioids as they could and trying to convince everyone they were safe even though they knew they were highly addictive. Does that mean Covid Vaccines are dangerous and part of a plot? No, it doesn't, but you can see where conspiratorial ideas come from.

[Cheerful]

Learn to accept that some minds will not be changed and there is no sense harming family bonds over these kinds of disagreements.

+1

There's so much fear, distrust, emotion, anger, confusion, depression, anxiety, fatigue, and many loud voices these days.  Maybe just listen a little and let loved ones vent.  No need to educate or try to convince them when emotions are on fire all around.  Try to understand why they might feel the way they feel (though you may disagree strongly) and move on to other topics.

[Cheerful]

About that moon thing...how come we've never gone back?

[Caracal]

About that moon thing...how come we've never gone back?

We did.

[Cheerful]

About that moon thing...how come we've never gone back?

We did.

In 1972 and not since then, right?

[Wahoo Redux]

About that moon thing...how come we've never gone back?

We did.

In 1972 and not since then, right?

That's what they WANT you to think!

[Caracal]

About that moon thing...how come we've never gone back?

We did.

In 1972 and not since then, right?

Yeah, although apparently they are planning a crewed mission that would happen in the next few years. The Moon Landing hoax theory never made much sense to me. It isn't like the whole thing is technically infeasible. We can send rockets into space. The moon isn't really that far away. Also, it would be weird to imagine that the Soviets wouldn't have been able to figure out that the whole thing was a fake and in the context of the Cold War they would have been pretty excited to expose a massive American fraud.

Sorry, I've obviously been watching For All Mankind...