Believer. Initially it was pretty darn annoying and I had to tune out his constant pleas for me to take him seriously. One time I fought back by compared his ne

Believer. Initially it was pretty darn annoying and I had to tune out his constant pleas for me to take him seriously. One time I fought back by compared his new direction to finding religion, which he seemed to take favorably. But eventually he settled down, somebody must be coaching these media outlets to encourage the conspiracy without fomenting revolution. Now he's in a comfortable routine, spouting nonsense to whoever will listen. He'll find ways to convert any topic we find ourselves on to an angle into the conspiracy web. I let him wander around the conspiracy space, trying to find an angle to get me interested in it, then I'll hit back with actual history as I read it. Since these discussions don't have the benefit of Google, we mostly talk around each other without getting into the meat of anything. Which is fine for my purposes. I try to walk the fine line between humoring and encouraging him, balancing my need for real intellectual stimulation with accommodating his emotional ones.