Wow, wasn’t expecting a reasonable and emotionally grounded response as one of the top comments.
Keep up the good work my dude.
last_philosopher@lemmy.world 3 days ago
A lot of people are saying cut them off, but I have a family member who was into the anti-vax conspiracy theories and kinda still is, but it’s much less of a focus now and is pretty obviously just being carried forward by cognitive dissonance at this point. There will never be total victory, but there can be a reasonable truce.
What I’d suggest is the most counter-intuitive strategy - show genuine interest. Say “Ok, I want to know more, but I need you to be specific. Tell me what your theory is and what the evidence is, I’ll take my time looking at it, and respond in detail.”
Keep in mind, they probably won’t pay attention to whatever your respond with. That’s ok. The response isn’t the point, pinning them down on what they think is. So often these things are purely emotional, and forcing them into a logical framework will make them do the work for you. As for the response, odds are it’s some combination of cherry-picked data and spurious correlations, if not outright made up facts.
DahGangalang@infosec.pub 3 days ago
jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
You’re not going to satisfy unmet emotional needs with logical arguments.
Notyou@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
So often these things are purely emotional, and forcing them into a logical framework will make them do the work for you.
This is a good point. While I was recruiting, they used to say that people make decisions based on emotion and then later go back and try to use logic to explain why they did it.
I have been also suggesting to these people I meet in the real world that it’s probably the micro-plastics that are causing the rise in deaths/autism/whatever bullshit they say. I’m trying to get them to focus on more environmental stuff and blaming companies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
JennyLaFae@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
My sister once tried to come at me with the 5g antenna vaccine thing.
“Do you have a source? That sounds like fox news.”
She spent almost an hour on her phone trying to find something credible and then never brought it up again.
Lvdwsn@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’ve been waiting for over a year now for my dad to send me his source for “the new information that’s come out about the vaccines” when he asked me if I regretted getting it yet…