4 ms·

This is the best answer so far. See Last Week Tonight’s response to COVID conspiracies, very helpful for situations like this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0b_e

• soganess 6y ago
  LWT is great and all, but I thought that whole segment, even through the tongue-locked-in-cheek filter, was incredibly patronizing. The parent touched on the idea that conspiracy theorist don't want facts. I couldn't agree more. How do you expect to get through to someone who has a framework that insulates them from those type of fact? I'm likely being overly influenced by this recent RI talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80dwLniVwVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80dwLniVwVw I would take it further and ask, can you clearly nail down the specific reason driving that person's desire to be fooled? Can you then engage with those fears/concerns/whatever to the point where it starts a real dialogue? Getting there seems like the real groundwork one needs when attempting to redirect a conspiracy theorist. But that is a lot of legwork, like many conversations, and sometimes we don't want to do it. I know I sure as shit don't. It sort of reminds me of the old software development wisdom about getting to bottom of what is driving someone's specific feature request.
  • xen2xen1 6y ago
    I'd say work at the fear behind it (the world isn't ending), with both facts and reassurance? Hard road to hoe.