I have a good friend who has been helping me out lately. He’s lent money, given me rides to appointments, and is helping me get back into life after the liver/kidney end stage disease/transplant ordeal. I’ve known him since high school, but we lost touch for years until somewhat recently, he found me on facebook.
In getting to know him lately I see that he is firmly convinced in the idea that the Lizard men are running the Illuminati through the World Bank and the Trilateral Commission. FEMA is setting up camps where ‘excess population’ will be terminated, the US has miles of secret underground highways and giant shelters for the ones in on the conspiracy, and we are overdue for the declaration of Martial law where all dissidents will be rounded up.
I apprecialte his help, he’s always been a good friend. he introduced me to my first girlfiend after all. But my line of reasoning, honed by years of lurking here and on Snopes, is irrelevant to him and i would like to be able to coexist without strife. Nodding and smiling aren’t enough, and his sources on Youtube are careful to label skeptics as ‘being in on the conspiracy’.
While visiting him last night he showed me ‘convincing evidence’ of Bigfoot; all I saw was a suspicious looking overturned tree. He showed me a video from Project Camelot with a guy who rambled on for an hour about whatever came to mind, never actually answering questions about what was happening- he explained this as something that requires ‘further research’ at the guy’s website. ( I can’t remember the guy’s name, he’s a doctor who seemed to be in several exclusive positions where he could see the ‘truth’ such as Hillary Clinton is a reptile.)
So, how do I deal with him without breaking contact and friendship? He’s very cool otherwise, and he’s not 100% all time conspiracy, just when other matters aren’t on the table.
I feel for your situation. A have a reclusive, somewhat socially awkward, artist friend who had some minor surgery, they wouldn’t release him from hospital unless some one would be with him for 24hrs. (He was also shocked they wouldn’t let him leave hospital, after day surgery, in a cab, alone!) I went with him and we brought him to our place, and he was here over two nights.
I’ve known this person maybe 30 yrs or more, not exactly well, he is reclusive. But he walks my dog a lot and I see him often. He has no TV but we have, with Netflix. I parked him in the recliner and gave the remote.
Holy Hanna ! Talk about TMI, he started with something on the hill side strangler, then it was the Atlanta murders, then Nazi’s, then it was some cheesy crap about 911 being a set up, and the morning he left, while I was making him some coffee - Jeffrey Dalmer.
Hubby and I were both a little creeped out. It was unsettling at the very least.
(The 911 one started with the reasoning, that many people don’t believe what they were told, so something must be up. That’s where they started!)
I can keep the conversation steered away from it for only so long. He’s in deep. Yes, he’s convinced 9/11 was an inside job, some guy in a bar that he knew told him that he saw the fighter shoot down united 93, and he totally believes him, because people don’t lie but the government does.
I had a very good friend who believed in all kinds of things I find laughable, like psychics, alien abduction, and ghosts. I tried the “nod and smile and change the subject” approach for a while, but eventually I had to come right out and tell her that I didn’t share her views in these areas and we should probably avoid discussing them. I did this in a very non-judgmental, affectionate manner, and she accepted it in the same spirit, and we avoided those topics for the most part from then on.
Only you can know if your friend would be able to accept that kind of limit, though.
There’s no way you’re going to convince him he’s wrong and you’ll have to accept that. Think of it as an evangelical religion. That being understood, when he goes off all you can do is either try to steer him away, let him run with it, or suddenly remember an appointment you had. Is this ALL he talks about?
When I visit certain relatives, I always set the alarm on my cell to go off after some period of time so I’ll have an excuse to leave.
I caught up with an old university friend last year after 12+ years and had him over for dinner. It was there that he filled me in on all the conspiracies which were simultaneously going on; all the David Icke lizard stuff, 911, various crypto-antisemitic themes - even including the ‘Hollow Earth’ conspiracy, which was a strangely Jules Verne cherry on the cake. He was scathing of scientific orthodoxy, unaware of the irony of him swallowing the unorthodox world-view wholesale.
As for how to handle this sort of person, I sadly don’t know. He smiled condescendingly, feeling sorry for the extent of my delusion and I got quite angry in return. Shortly after that he got married - and my invitation wasn’t forthcoming.
One of my best friends is a devotee of Alex Jones, and believes in every government conspiracy that comes down the pike. I use to engage in arguments with him, but quickly realized it was futile. So now, whenever he brings up a conspiracy theory ("It’s a false flag! It’s a false flag!”) I just say “Uh huh” and quickly change the subject.
Whats interesting/ disturbing about conspiracy theorists is how all the conspiracy theories seem to get together in their head and start to form this intertwined narrative. Lizardpeople + Illuminati + every other idea out there that has a conspiracy tinge = the true story THEY are trying to cover up. Its like all the conspiracy ideas get stored in the same closet in the brain and start breeding. Then trying to attack one single idea with a barrage of logic is like an attack on the whole system.
It is like a religious worldview. I’m not sure how you can talk rationally to them when they get worked up. Get earplugs or just play along and make lizardpeople jokes.
I had a co-worker like that. He was absolutely ape-shit about chem-trails. He came up blithering to me about them, I shrugged and said, “I don’t accept what you’re saying,” and refused to let him bug me.
Naturally, this shifted his focus to me, and it became his holy mission to convince me. Eventually, I had to tell him to can it. He sulked for a while, but got over it, and we were able to be good co-workers and even friends.
And, yeah, every so often, he just had to push the boundaries a little…and I just brushed it off. “Dude, didn’t we agree that we weren’t gonna talk about that?” He’d say, “Oh, yeah,” and I got another week or two until he had to try it again.
I’m afraid that something like that may be the best you can possibly hope for…
My best friend won’t use a cordless or cell phone because she insists they will give her cancer, and she warns me often about being on the phone too long. She is anti-sugar-free and vegetarian. . .most of the time. She warned me when my daughter was diagnosed with autism about getting her immunizations because they cause autism. I have tried to be patient but I don’t understand how it’s even possible that these are the quirky beliefs of an otherwise intelligent, educated person. I just have to try to change the subject when these trigger topics come up and remember we all have our kooky beliefs and opinions.
Say to your friend: “Listen, I don’t like talking about any conspiracies. I can’t do anything about them, nor would I, even to save the nation-I already have too much on my plate. How about we don’t talk about them, OK?”
Also, see the last two paragraphs of Trinopus’ #12 post.
Just tell him, “Shut the fuck up. We have no idea whose listening in to this. Are you crazy openly talking about this? How long do you think they’ll let us live if they find out what you know? Never mention this stuff again! Never!”
So basically, pretend to agree with the [DEL]crazy[/DEL] incredibly dubious statements and theories, and further feed their paranoia.
Well, I’m sure that’ll certainly help matters. :rolleyes:
I would laugh about this with incredulity except a member of my own family is susceptible to conspiracy ideas. He isn’t extreme, merely wondering if Sasquatch is real, but suspects there is a World Order and knows that the Bible is literally correct.
But he is generous to a fault, kind-hearted, and a decent person. So I try to avoid trigger issues and don’t attack his ideas. Live and let live.
Well I was only joking but in my psych nursing days, with genuine paranoid schizophrenics, that was the preferred course of action. Trying to convince a genuine crazy that the government isn’t monitoring his thoughts through the TV is futile in the short term. To get him to bed it is better to agree, unplug the TV and lock it in the ward office.
Montreal is electing a mayor 8 days from now and one of the candidates is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. He believes that it was a conspiracy between the CIA and–inevitably–Mossad. He has played this down during the election campaign.
Of course, the government does lie all the time, but then so do other people. One thing I know is that a conspiracy that involves more than a small number of people will eventually be disclosed. The idea that you can hide indefinitely a conspiracy as big as 9/11 is fatuous.
Yesterday, I heard (although I was only half listening) a radio program about the, I think they were called, Sevenists, which involved a supposed conspiracy by the which the “Group of Seven”, a well-known group of Canadian artists, were running the country. Their paintings (landscape, mostly) were supposedly the mechanism by which they communicated (didn’t they have telephones?) It was the strangest conspiracy theory I have ever heard. Well, one of the stranger ones, anyway.
As for the OP, well, if I had a friend like that, I would try to change the subject. If he kept coming back, he would soon be an ex-friend.
If you know someone who believes in government conspiracy theories, and you engage in an argument with them, they will eventually accuse you of being “part of the conspiracy.”