Skeptic Intervention

[HumanityBlues]

I was just listening to the Skeptoid podcast on my daily jog, and the one of the topics brought up was what to do if a family member or someone close to you is being taken advantage of by charlatans (psychics, alternative medicine, healers, etc).

Best case scenario was to do nothing, but for the worst case scenario the podcaster (can't remember his name) suggested having an actual intervention. Has anyone done one of these? I'd be curious to hear your stories.

[Skeptical Greg]

What are we talking about here ? Kidnapping ? Deprogramming ?

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

My mom was into blood type diets for some time. I tried to show her why they were false but that didn't work.

What worked was that she was bought a few books about it and tried to do it but then forgot all about it after a few months.

With pet rock woos, you should just wait it out.

[HumanityBlues]

What are we talking about here ? Kidnapping ? Deprogramming ?

The guy described it pretty much going the same way as the kind of drug abuse intervention you might have seen on tv. Family members and friends show up, yada yada yada.

[blutoski]

The guy described it pretty much going the same way as the kind of drug abuse intervention you might have seen on tv. Family members and friends show up, yada yada yada.

It's probably hard to say whether it would work in individual cases, even if it's worked in others.

Warning: skeptics have had problems when crossing the line to unlawful confinement.

eg: The Cult Awareness Network.

[jakesteele]

It's funny when you bring that up as a topic. Some friends and I did a spontaneous intervention on an acquaintance of ours one time. Only in this case he billed himself as an open minded skeptic. We didn't intervene on his beliefs, but more his attitude and behavior. If somebody brought up any topic like UFOs he would launch into this aggressive attack mode and verbally berate and belittle the person by telling they were a fool, an idiot, etc.

It happened at a party where he started that **** and we all proceeded to jump his **** and pointing out the hypocrisy of how a skeptic is supposed to be open minded and how his mind was closed like a bear trap and how he was giving real skeptics a bad name, etc.

He was stunned and flustered and started back pedaling and trying to defend by we kept on him by calling him a bigot and a hypocrite. He left the party and was a very humbled person after that when it came to attacking other people for their beliefs. We were happy because now he was learning what critical thinking and true skepticism was really all about.

There's nothing worse than a bigoted wannabe skeptic.

[Sledge]

So you bullied your friend into acting like you? Good job. :rolleyes:

Edit ~ w00t! 1701!

[jakesteele]

So you bullied your friend into acting like you? Good job. :rolleyes:

Edit ~ w00t! 1701!

No, we spanked him because he was bad. He needed to learn a lesson in manners and boundaries and respect for other people's viewpoints.

He lived by the Debunker's Law of Immaculate Perception - they are the only ones who see reality exactly as it is unhindered by any cognitive biases. So therefore, to disagree with them is to disagree with reality itself.

Nobody likes a know-it-all, especially one that is aggressive, belittling, and rude.

The important thing to remember is that had he not done what he was doing that negatively impacted the people around him, we would never have done that to him.