Help! I'm surrounded by CT idiots all day!

[ricbritain]

Am I the only one who feels surrounded by credulous idiots all day long? Without exception all of my work colleagues believe all and ever CT fed to them and dismiss actual evidence to the contrary. Today I had to bite my tongue whilst they discussed the CT of 911, JFK and the moon landing. A few days ago I had one talking about crop circles even though I had already explained their origins and debunked them! It is so so frustrating I feel like screaming!:jaw-dropp I think my only option is to say nothing as they hate it when I disagree or present an argument against them.

[Bikewer]

Usually, I find that my colleagues in police work avoid talking about such subjects, but I found that my sergeant is big into the New World Order nonsense...

[Caustic Logic]

Am I the only one who feels surrounded by credulous idiots all day long? Without exception all of my work colleagues believe all and ever CT fed to them and dismiss actual evidence to the contrary. Today I had to bite my tongue whilst they discussed the CT of 911, JFK and the moon landing. A few days ago I had one talking about crop circles even though I had already explained their origins and debunked them! It is so so frustrating I feel like screaming!:jaw-dropp I think my only option is to say nothing as they hate it when I disagree or present an argument against them.

Ric, hey! Didn't ralize you were so new here (9 posts). It can be exasperating, I'm sure. But one thing you can do is get philosophical about it - it might be people don't believe believe the things they talk about, but are just having fun reassembling reality into something more exciting. Turning it into a "no that's wrong and not factually scientifical" situation can be such a buzzkill.

One thing you can do is participate whimsically, wonder long with them "what if" and then also gently remind them there is a real reality that their odd little theories don't change - you can go there too and still come back sane.

[mikeyx]

Usually, I find that my colleagues in police work avoid talking about such subjects, but I found that my sergeant is big into the New World Order nonsense...

no mention of the rfid chips in ice cream? The hollow earth, what fun is that?

[dropzone]

But one thing you can do is get philosophical about it - it might be people don't believe believe the things they talk about, but are just having fun reassembling reality into something more exciting.Hey! I thought that was My Little Secret. :mad:

Really, though, Real Life is a snooze. "What Ifs" can liven it up.

However, the CTers I encounter who are not me swallow it, hook, line, and sinker. :(

[arthwollipot]

Usually, I find that my colleagues in police work avoid talking about such subjects, but I found that my sergeant is big into the New World Order nonsense...Agreed. Most of the time we don't discuss things like that at work. But last week one of my cow-orkers came out as a full-on CT believer - with the Zeitgeist and the Loose Change and the What The Bleep and the contrails and everything. It was quite sad. All I could do is laugh and say "What possible motivation could they have for wanting to kill everybody?"

[dropzone]

I've concluded that some people find being crazy is more interesting than their normal lives. This comes from my Woo period, which was more interesting than my life at the time, except I was able to mentally separate myself from my crazy ideas. Less-well-developed creatures ( ;) ) cannot do this, so they are stuck piling on more and more Woo to unsuccessfully climb out of an ever-deepening hole.

[wollery]

So, all those Libyans discuss 9/11, JFK, and the Moon Landing?

Who knew they were so USA centric?

[fromdownunder]

Yes, I am surprised that they do not have in depth regular discussions on the murder of Princess Di by [select your favourite whipping boy(s) here]. A bit closer to home I would have thought.

Is everybody so bored by Charlie that they do not even accuse him of murder any more?

Norm

[bluesjnr]

Ric, I'm sure your colleagues speak very highly of you also.

Have you ever considered you may have a credibility issue? After all, surely if you have debunked various CT's then they're cured? That's how it seems to be in your world.

I'd go down the better to say nothing route.

[ricbritain]

So, all those Libyans discuss 9/11, JFK, and the Moon Landing?

Who knew they were so USA centric?

I'm talking about mainly British here:( It's not even worth mentioning the beliefs of Libyans.

[Safe-Keeper]

My colleagues are scared of aspartame and genetic modification and support organic farming. I feel your pain.

[ricbritain]

Ric, I'm sure your colleagues speak very highly of you also.

Have you ever considered you may have a credibility issue? After all, surely if you have debunked various CT's then they're cured? That's how it seems to be in your world.

I'd go down the better to say nothing route.

To say I 'debunked' something was obviously a bit strong on my part. I should say that I tried briefly to explain a realistic and likely explanation for crop circles based on actual facts. I simply find it sad and frustrating that every one of my collogues seems to have some knowledge of the psudo-facts of each CT and seem enthusiastic and more than satisfied to take these CT as the actual fact. A big contributor to this was the film 'Zietgiest' which did the rounds here a short time ago. Some guys reacted as if they had experienced something truly enlightening in watching this, and enthused about it for days.

[Pure Argent]

Am I the only one who feels surrounded by credulous idiots all day long? Without exception all of my work colleagues believe all and ever CT fed to them and dismiss actual evidence to the contrary. Today I had to bite my tongue whilst they discussed the CT of 911, JFK and the moon landing. A few days ago I had one talking about crop circles even though I had already explained their origins and debunked them! It is so so frustrating I feel like screaming!:jaw-dropp I think my only option is to say nothing as they hate it when I disagree or present an argument against them.

Come over to the Religion and Philosophy forums sometime. It'll be a nice break. Oh, wait - no it won't. We have the same thing, but with theist trolls like Yrreg instead of CTs like SabreTruth.

I tried posting in the CT forums, but 9/11 conspiracy theories are really beyond my level of debunking skill. The ones that are within my reach, sadly, don't come up very often - "The Holocaust didn't happen", "we didn't land on the moon", "crop circles are made by aliens", etc. But from what I've seen, there isn't much you can really do to convince these people.

[YourSpleen]

For reasons that are best left out of the message due to them probably being grounds to get moved to AAH, I am presently staying at a homeless shelter. Friends and neighbours of the skeptical persuasion, RUN, don't WALK, to your local shelter and start trying to deprogram these people ASAP, before we lose them.

I had a three hour discussion last night over the validity of Nostradamus (a nice 23 year old young man who swore by them, of course). I went over the usual stuff about it, but he couldn't get past the idea that they weren't generalized rantings. He was really fixated on that alleged Twin Towers one.

I have the sweetest 63 year old woman who wears only white because she is in God's Grace, and literally goes around telling others that 'God is going to get you'. She believes in a literal, physical Hell, that she seems to take as being somewhere near 'Iran'. She shares cookies with me, though, so I don't confront her about any of it. ;)

I have the one stereotypical 9/11 Truther that I have widely avoided because I know it's one of those CTs that really gets me emotional; the closest we got to talking about it was when I said that I didn't believe MIHOP/LIHOP, but that the government took advantage of the attacks. He is the 'of the gaps' mindset, essentially decreeing that anything that can't be explained makes his CT right (although to his credit, he at least came to to acknowledge after a little bit that a plane did hit the Pentagon, except of course it was loaded with thermite or whatever wacky chemical of choice is in this week). Beyond him, we have a fair handful more who believe that the government had something to do with it, or else isn't telling us everything.

There is a roughly 17 year old girl who is troubled on her own accords, but also uses Tarot Card Readings (!) from a local psychic (!!) to make really important life decisions (!!!). I haven't managed to get our of her exactly how much she pays weekly for this amazing service, but she doesn't have enough money by Saturday to even take a bus somewhere.

We have SEVERAL anti-vaccination people, although their depth of argument is pretty much limited to whatever Jenny McCarthy said on Oprah. It's amazingly sad to realize how many people basically create their entire life views based on what daytime teevee in general and Oprah specifically tell them. I can't even begin to crack their shells, because we don't share anywhere near similar enough ground in shared reality to work from. I do however go through the vaccination stuff, but I am not on teevee. Yes, I am aware that living in dormitory-style living with people who pooh-pooh vaccinations is probably not a great long term idea. Mostly because of guilty by association - if they don't believe in vaccinations, what else don't they believe in?

One guy who is homeless but doesn't stay there comes in pretty much exclusively to try to get us to come to his little plot of organic farm, and exhorts its awesomeness. He has turned up at the local farmer's market from time to time pretty much crapping on everyone's stuff but his own. He has all the keywords - corporate farming, organic is clean, healthier, and will do your taxes too. He himself looks pretty anemic, since I assume he only eats his own stuff, but I get pooh-poohed when I point that out.

More than half the people I talk to think 'big pharma' is just trying to make money and turn us into zombies by 'giving us pills for everything but breathing, and they are working on that one too, HA HA HA.' BIG PHARMA is big in here. It gets the blame for pretty much any health related problem.

I swear on my life, we have one person who thinks Michael Jackson is still alive. Seriously. She sincerely believes this. Pretty much same reason as Elvis - tired of the media spotlight, all those 'false' accusations, blah blah. I'll be impressed if someone sees him pumping gas in the midwest US.

Pretty much all of them are religous to one degree or another. One of the places that serves lunches every second day or so is a church, but they just let people come in and eat and go. Another place, a real life monastery (!), they say prayers before it, and so that subtle recruitment that Amway would be proud of.. "Are you happy with your life?" Anyone who asks you that, RUN the other way. This past Sunday we had to sit through a service before the BBQ (it was a good BBQ, I should note), but there was this woman who got up to give testimony. She explained she was a doctor and was somewhere in Africa at the time, and someone came in with pain. She couldn't find the reason, so she asked if she could pray with the sufferer. They prayed, nothing happened. Then after a bit they prayed again, and all the pain was gone. IT'S GOD! Seriously. The same doctor went on to say that she had a hernia patient in and they prayed and the hernia had disappeared by the next visit. Wow, God is Great. Well, no. I was really creeped out at the thought of this doctor saying, "Do you mind if we pray?" That smacks way too much of "Can we talk about alternatives before I prescribe this RU-486?" :P Other people got up and gave equally compelling anecdotes. That place itself is almost predatory in a subtle way about their religion, and I was surprised how many present or former residents of the shelter were 'converted' by their persistence.

Anyway, I have to go soon, almost out of computer time, but yeah, if this is the mere sampling of what is going on in the homeless shelters, you guys had better get down there ASAP, because they are easy pickings. ;P

pete

[Caustic Logic]

For reasons that are best left out of the message due to them probably being grounds to get moved to AAH, I am presently staying at a homeless shelter. Friends and neighbours of the skeptical persuasion, RUN, don't WALK, to your local shelter and start trying to deprogram these people ASAP, before we lose them.

Very interesting, detailed post. Thanks for using your allowed time for this contribution. I could draw different messages from this, from a link between woo, mental illness, and socio-economic dysfunction, or a sarcastic way of saying something about debunker priorities. Go help the homeless... stop believing in psychics! Either way it's all in there, as the real world always has many lessons to teach us. It's all part of God's magical plan.

;p

[borealys]

I run into them at the gym. There's a group of guys who are always always always there, age range about late 20s to mid 40s, who I often overhear in earnest, pseudoscientific conversation. Most of it is health-related stuff, which I guess isn't entirely surprising. GM foods, cell phone towers, vaccines, aspartame, compact fluorescent lights, irradiated foods, plastics, Big Pharma, yadda yadda, must live an organic lifestyle, blah blah. But the credulousness seems to be spreading beyond health. ("You guys should check out this documentary, Loose Change, it'll really make you think.")

I don't know enough about most of these CTs to hold my own in a debate, and frankly, the thought of debating a group of guys in the co-ed sauna doesn't appeal to me. So I keep my mouth shut and ignore them.

[Almo]

I point them here, or at associated sites like Gravy's anti-9/11-dorkiness site. Sometimes it helps, like when the one guy said after looking at Gravy's site that the pentagon CT stuff was silly. Other times, it doesn't help much. But it's worth the attempts for the times it helps. :)

[arthwollipot]

I point them here, or at associated sites like Gravy's anti-9/11-dorkiness site. Sometimes it helps, like when the one guy said after looking at Gravy's site that the pentagon CT stuff was silly. Other times, it doesn't help much. But it's worth the attempts for the times it helps. :)Do you have a link to that site? I want to pimp it to my CT-believing cow-orker.