How to help a conspiracy theorist: an ex believer and an expert weigh in

All In The Mind

ABC listen

Life Sciences, Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 4 May 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

So you've got a loved one who's fallen deep down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Are they destined to stay there forever?

Today, we hear from a former conspiracy theorist and a social psychologist on what fuels these beliefs, how likely people are to change their minds, and what you can (and can't) do to help.

Want to listen to more All in the Mind? Check out our episode, The Certainty Myth.

Transcript

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0:00.0	ABC Listen, Podcasts, Radio, News, Music, and more.
0:07.9	Goodness, all right.
0:09.0	How are you today?
0:09.9	Here we are.
0:10.5	I'm very well.
0:11.5	Yeah, yeah, I'm well.
0:12.5	How about you?
0:13.1	I'm good.
0:13.8	This is someone that we are going to call Jane.
0:17.0	All right, do you want to just tell me your story then?
0:19.7	What happened with your son? Let's start there.
0:24.1	It began back in, I think it was between the two lockdowns during COVID, and he had broken up with a long-term girlfriend and was feeling pretty low, so moved in with me, kind of seemed to be getting
0:39.6	things back on track. But he was listening to and really, I could tell, being very influenced by
0:46.6	the Josh Rogan. Is that his name? Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan, I think you're pardon. And by all accounts,
0:53.9	Joe Rogan was getting into some pretty wacky COVID theories.
0:57.8	And, you know, he thought this guy was great.
1:00.8	So it started off fairly low key.
1:03.4	But then that really started to ramp up.
1:05.6	He started to post things online on Facebook that were derived from QAnon, things about the end of the world,
1:13.0	and pizza gaitish. And the whole pedophile ring conspiracy. All sorts of things that are really
1:18.1	very strange. So fairly deep down that rabbit hole.
1:26.2	Four years later, Jane's son is still firmly deep down that rabbit hole.
	...

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