Dear lemmy, someone very close to my heart is starting to fall into conspiracy theories. It’s heartbreaking. Among other things, he has now told me that soy beans are not supposed to be consumed by human beings and is convinced that despite the literal centuries of human soy bean cultivation and consumption, we shouldn’t eat it or anything derived from it for this reason (ie tofu, soy sauce, etc…evidence that soy is present in other common foods doesn’t seem to register with him).
I don’t even know where he got this information from and can’t find a single source to back it up (even disingenuously). I’ve tried explaining to him that sure, in its original state it’s not edible, but undergoes processing (LIKE MANY OTHER FOODS) to become edible. And that this has gone on since at least the 11th century, so it’s not like Big Soy is trying to poison the little people.
He’s normally a very reasonable and intelligent person, and I don’t know how to reach him. I thought it might be helpful to show him where these myths have come from with hard data sources to prove it. He seems open to the possibility, so I don’t think he’s a lost cause yet!
Help?
If it’s conspiracy theories in general, and not just the soy thing, then I think you might be taking the wrong approach. Just trying to debunk the soy thing might prove impossible because there is some underlying cause that is making him want to believe it.
Your friend might be being radicalised. By a person he trusts, a community he is a part of, or simply by the algorithm of a website he is spending his time on. In which case, getting him to let go of the conspiracies is going to be extremely difficult, because to do so would lose him those connections.
It doesn’t sound like he’s too far gone though. Maybe reasserting healthy connections will help, and if you can try breaking his media habits.
You make a good point that people who believe these conspiracies often have an underlying reason making them want to believe. Dan Olson came to the same conclusion in his video about flat earthers which I would recommend to anyone who hasn’t seen it yet.
“Flat Earthers are not otherwise-empty vessels who believe one kooky thing. They believe that thing because it suits their purposes. […] it says something they already believe about the nature of the social world. Flat Earth is a thing people want to believe because if it were true it would be irrefutable proof of everything else they believe.”
Folding Ideas, In Search of a Flat Earth ~29 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
As for the soy thing, Hbomerguy covered the topic pretty thoroughly.
https://youtu.be/C8dfiDeJeDU?si=-WBPUYTJxhJqbNnQ
I think a lot of conspiracy theorists wrestle with the fact that the world is kind of shitty and there’s not really a good reason for it to be this shitty.
Once you have that thorn in your side to deal with then you start trying to figure out why the world is so shitty.
Having a convenient enemy like the Illuminati or a conspiracy about the Earth being flat or some evil group of billionaires or leftists or whatever who have organized to make the world shittier so that their lives can be wonderful and perfect in every way is a great scapegoat for dealing with the underlying issue of “why is the world so shitty”.
And this is a pill that many people will find it impossible to swallow, but the reason why the world is so shitty is this:
We, as a group, believe the world is shitty. Therefore, we act as if we live in a shitty world. Therefore we make the world shitty.
There is no other magic sauce than that. If humanity came together and decided that they would not live in a shitty world any longer we could have the world completely and totally fixed in 12 years or less.
But we don’t do that because we believe that we live in a shitty world.
I think the problem is that no one can agree on what makes the world shitty. Some people think the rich should be taxed, some people think other people shouldn’t have equal rights. And then other people are purposely using the disagreement to get what they want. It’s a mess with no clear fix in sight.
I would like someone who isn’t afraid of being an asshole or trampling on the people who get in their way to take charge.
Someone who will move the way Trump does but who has at their core an incorruptible nobility and drive to improve every facet of life for every human on the planet.
I don’t dare hope for or expect a perfect leader but I long for a good King Richard after a lifetime of Prince Johns and sherrifs of Nottinghams.
Well, in American there was Bernie Sanders.
It’s a confounding thing, that so many people will vote for leaders who straight-up tell them that they will make the world a worse place for them (Reagan, Trump, Thatcher).
Good thing the Democrats shot themselves in the foot and gave us Trump, and now Biden who is in a dead tie with Trump still acording to most polling.
We could have had FDR 2.0