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Ex-conspiracists, what made you stop believing conspiracy theorie(s) you believed? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 4 days ago by Merlu@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

14 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Let's be clear: i'm not saying conspiracies doesn't exist. By conspiracy theories, i mean the plots whose existence is at best highly unlikely, at worst totally senseless, notably if:

-They are breaking the laws of physics.

-They are too costly (logistically and/or financially) to be profitable.

-They are defended by untrustworthy sources (populist or cult leaders, random people, celebrities without expertise in the concerned domain, parodies taken seriously,...).

-They are often involving far-right's scapegoats.

-They are involving a large amount of people.

-They reject science by principle.

-The interests of the supposed conspirators are unclear or incoherent.

-Their so-called proofs are incoherent, manipulated or are proving nothing at all.

-They would be funny if they were published as parodies in The Onion.

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[–] Kwakigra@beehaw.org 11 points 3 days ago

I went to college and learned that not only was pretty much everything I was raised to believe as a young conservative a lie, but they were obvious lies that didn't bear any scrutiny whatsoever. I learned everything that made me really uncomfortable when I was young was because I was surrounded by people living their entire lives in bad faith while I was genuinely curious about investigating things and learning why people thought what they did. The other cultists recognized I did not belong in the cult before I did, though my parents still emphatically try to get me to reintegrate because they are absolutely certain that their evidence-free belief system is in my best interests. I was never really integrated in the first place so I didn't lose much other than a lot of very evil shit.