"My Gentle, Intelligent Brother Is Now A Conspiracy Theorist And His Beliefs Are Shocking"

[Nevilledog]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brother-conspiracy-theory_n_61dd94afe4b061afe3b83cec

My brother is a modern conspiracy theorist.

He calls himself an “Evolutionary Linguist-Spiritual Warrior Fighting for Human Free Will on Earth” on his TikTok account, which has 12,500 followers. He uses hashtags like #zombe #apocolypse #weare #freedom and #1111. The latter, as far as I can tell from doing a little Googling, is a symbol that often represents interconnectedness and synchronicity, and that inspires individuals to attempt to manifest their intentions and take action to turn their visions into reality. On the surface, this sounds sedate, even inspiring — especially as we come out of COVID isolation. None of us seem to want to “go back to normal” because normal didn’t serve us.

Last April, my sister-in-law texted me to warn me that my brother was heading, unannounced, to my doorstep in Idaho, where I care for our elderly father. I knew he believed “everyone on the planet who received the vaccine will be dead in a few years,” but I had no idea of the depth of his fantastical beliefs.

Our evening together started with him mansplaining why cryptocurrencies are our only hope and how he had the idea for Amazon before Jeff Bezos did and how he would be the richest man in the world if not for some bad breaks along the way. Although he wasn’t physically at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., he referred to the Jan. 6 rioters as “we.”

Later that night, my brother announced, “The real reason I’m here is I’ve come to warn you that over the next two weeks, a lot of shit is going to come out about what’s been going on for the past 50 years, 100 years, 4,000 years. It is going to shock you to your core. All the conspiracy theories ― everyone you ever heard from politics to Big Oil to wars in Afghanistan to Biden not being president ― this pulls it all together.” At this point, I excused myself to go to the restroom, turned on the Voice Memos app on my iPhone, and tucked it in my back pocket in case he divulged any plans for violence, which, thankfully, he did not. The following is a transcribed summary of the main points he “knows with certainty” that “the media won’t tell us about.”

*snip*

[PortTack]

1. The guy needs to see a psychiatrist!

[Solly Mack]

2. No comment

[Laffy Kat]

3. I stopped reading at...

"As a Libra...." I consider astrology as nonsensical as religion.

[Silent3]

9. I had a hard time reading beyond that too, but I pressed on

The author makes many good points, and is generally cogent and thoughtful... but, yeah, I get where you're coming from.

[Farmer-Rick]

10. It's an interesting take but she's seems to desparage thinking and intellect

"In trying to come to grips with the deep division within my family, and indeed our nation, I recognize now that I turned to my intellect to gather facts and scientific evidence to help me better understand this situationb. In doing so, I’ve lost my balance between intellect and my core values of affection and kindness."

She mistrusts her own intellect, as if it has negative emotions attached to it's use. Her intellect is the opposite of affection and kindness.

But using your intellect does not make you distant and mean. It doesn't make you anything except a little bit smarter than you were before. Giving up on using your brain and thinking through things leads to acting on emotions. And emotions are not a reliable path to the truth.

We need to promote more thinking and less feelings because lies feel really good. That's how people get conned. Because the con artist knows just what to say to make you feel good.

[Skittles]

11. I think she's just acknowledging things are different when the person is a loved one

your reactions are much more conflicted

[soldierant]

24. 0I would agree more thinking is good,

but, beu=ing humanm we have human feelings. I would suggest we promote thinking designed to recognize and understand out feelings, so as to be capable of taking them into consideration yet not surrendr to them without thinking.

There's a book, "Descartes Error," which examines brain injuries which affect feelings, including the ability to have them, and the effects on decision making. It turnes out major decisions made without regrd to feelings tend to be catastrophic. After the initial section it gets very technical, and I'm not qualified to comment on that. But that first section is eye-opening. Also, Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, has written (and spoken) against attempting to ignore feelings. But all that neither disparages tthinking not has any intention of doing so. It does pertain to the importantce of learning how to think.

[Farmer-Rick]

28. I'll have to find that book.

Seems to me you are saying we need to think more about our feelings.

I agree humans without feelings aren't all there. I think that is the problem with psychopaths to some extent. I don't want to stop feeling. Just don't prioritize them over thinking.

I just see all around me people doing heartless, cruel and just rediculus things and those people are not acting on facts and intellect. They are acting on pure emotions. I see people being conned out of their life savings and those people are acting on emotions too.

[soldierant]

41. We definitely need both, and as much as possible,

we need them to be working together. But we also need strategies to reconcile thm when they are not.

It googles very easily - I have to google it myself every time bcause I keep forgetting the spelling of Damasio. (Antonio Damasio wrote it) I always recommend looking in librarires or used because so much of it is so highly technical.

[Chellee]

29. That book sounds really interesting.

Thank you for the recommendation.

[soldierant]

42. YVW. Antonio Damasio is the author.

I always recommend looking in librarires or used because so much of it is so highly technical.

[Chellee]

43. I already have it on hold at my library.

[soldierant]

46. Good!

[shrike3]

32. Exactly. I have had the odd experience of encountering atheists who allegedly rely on reason

but are antivaxxers. It appears to be an emotional response, as you say. "No one is going to tell me what to do."

[dchill]

25. There you go. Just the facts, ma'am.

Believing and knowing are two different things.

[GaYellowDawg]

27. Same here.

I can’t take anyone seriously who believes in that stupid shit.

[skylucy]

4. Interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

[dem4decades]

5. Was disciple of that sicko Chad Daybell, he was into the end of the world,

And zombies and from Utah and moved to Idaho.

[dalton99a]

6. Kick

Conspiracies lend themselves to nationalism and racism when a definable person or group is targeted for blame. Philosopher Aldous Huxley once said, “One of the great attractions of patriotism ― it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation, we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”

The middlemen in the spread of conspiracy theories are the individuals, politicians, corporations and media celebrities who benefit from their proximity to the malignant narcissist by taking the most radical and outrageous stances. They will excuse, justify and look past the despicable actions of the malignant narcissist to retain their money, power and status as well as the approval, security and control that comes with all of that.

[FrankTC]

7. Conspiracy Theorist or Clinically Paranoid Hot Mess?

At some point conspiracy theorists may reveal themselves to be mentally ill. Not all conspiracy theorists are mentally ill, but some are. Moreover, the mentally ill are more vulnerable to belief in conspiracy theories — at least those on the schizophrenia spectrum, including Paranoid Personality Disorder. The more the issues appear to be elements of a delusional system and the less they seem to be aberrant political beliefs, the less it makes sense to argue them, and the more helpful antipsychotic medication is likely to be. Some people are mad, some people are bad, and it is useful to know the difference.

[kcr]

35. I'd bet on the second

Thinking he'd invented Amazon before Bezos? Straight up delusional.

[Xipe Totec]

8. I went through a similar episode in college

I was convinced that every other human being was a puppet that could be manipulated with the right social/verbal queues.

Turned out the problem was psychosis brought about by hypoglycemia. You see, I was surviving on 32 ounces of half chocolate milk, half coffee a day, a meal every other day, and a pack of cigarettes a day. This came to an end when I passes out during weight-lift training and the coach asked me when I had my last meal. He ordered me under threat of flunking to start eating regularly. The symptoms disappeared almost at once.

Sometimes we don't realize what we're doing to ourselves. It's a slippery slope.

[Skittles]

12. just curous, why were you doing that to yourself?

why were you, er, "surviving" on that

[Xipe Totec]

14. That's a rational question. I have no rational answer

Other than teenager... I was a sophomore at 17.

[Skittles]

15. that actually IS a rational answer

I don't even want to get into some of the poor decisions I made as a teenager!

[leighbythesea2]

17. Had a coworker

Go thru something similar. She had a complete personality change. Her family thought she might be bi-polar. Lots of testing. (This was in the 80s)
I'm hypoglycemic, so we used to talk a lot. I never had that kind of reaction to my chocolate chip cookie & coffee diet, freshman year in college. But I did fall apart at 18, and changed my diet forever.

[Jim__]

13. Seriously, I think her brother is having some kind of mental breakdown.

I came to that conclusion when I read this paragraph:

“The banking system here in the U.S. has already collapsed,” he told me. “They are just trying to figure out how to tell everyone. We, as a race of human beings, for 4,000 years going back to the Sumerians, have been used as food by the elites. It’s about to come to an end. They got rid of the race that was using us as cattle. They drove them out of all these tunnels ― there’s a tunnel from Washington, D.C., to LA that takes half an hour on a bullet train. There’s a whole fucking society that lives underground. In Australia, there’s [a tunnel] all the way around the continent and it’s being used for human trafficking and organ harvesting and basically using human beings like cattle. JFK found out about it 50 years ago, and it’s taken 50 years to drive them out. And it’s now over. The Catholic Church, the military industrial complex and Wall Street have fucked us for the last 200 years.”

That sounds like something other than conspiracy theories.

[cbabe]

18. Alex Jones/George Noory have been going there for years.

[shrike3]

33. My step-nephew was severely bipolar.

This sounds just like him.

[leighbythesea2]

16. This part

humans have three core needs ― approval, security and control ― and when a human being’s needs for approval and security are inadequate, control is their last resort.

So the control leads to conspiracy theories.

The research done in this article is good, described in 2nd half. The brother is in trouble though.

[ProfessorGAC]

36. I'm With You!

Immersing this deeply into wholly illogical beliefs is inconsistent with intelligence
It seems an inability to control emotional elements while willing to ignore the simplest logic.

[PatSeg]

20. K&R for later

[eissa]

21. Sounds similar to my brother

Pro-union, really chill, apolitical (leaned right, but voted for Obama twice) who went hard for trump. His friends are all in law enforcement or ex military, most with just a high school degree, and they greatly influenced him. Voting for trump was bad enough, but the pandemic sent him over the edge. Not sure what happened, but he became increasingly angry and conspiratorial and started spouting nonsense that sounded like it came straight from the Q playbook. We don’t discuss politics anymore in an effort to maintain civility, but it’s sad how many otherwise normal people have gone so far down the rabbit hole.

[DENVERPOPS]

22. There is a guy up here in Colorado at Supermax

that also had thoughts way outside of the mainstream. He made a few bombs as I remember......
Please be careful......

[vercetti2021]

23. I couldn't finish reading

Don't ponder. Find a way to help him. God I hate when people answer their own damn questions

[BobTheSubgenius]

26. I completely agree that a way should be found to help the brother.

But...it is very difficult to do. Having bizarre ideas is not, in and of itself, grounds for any interventional mental health "correction." Any direct attempt by the author would end badly, I think, both in terms of her brother digging in his heels, cutting off contact with her....and seriously harming her relationship with the older sister. An actor in this play that isn't without fault.

Again, my opinion.

It's extremely unlikely that a professional would be able to make a case for a psych hold and still hold true to professional ethics and guidelines.

I have a former friend who, while very warm and kind on a personal level, believes some of the wackiest shit you can think of. Vaccine causing autism? That's a given. Planetary alignments causing earthquakes? You know it.

The fact that Wakefield not only lost his medical license buy was charged criminally is, as the writer said, proof of a conspiracy by Big Pharma. That the Earth has such a vast number of earthquakes every year - every day! - that you can find correlation with any phenomenon that you care to name draws a shrug.

I've given up on her. She is probably still where I almost always saw her - sitting at her computer in the basement bedroom in the house of her bf's mother. A harmless nut.

Hopefully.

[shrike3]

34. VERY difficult. Up thread I mentioned my severely bipolar nephew

Last edited Mon Jan 24, 2022, 01:43 PM - Edit history (2)

He lived with an aunt. The only person willing to take him in. He came close to killing her. She got out of the house, ran across the street. The neighbor was home and let her in.

Finally, the system intervened. It took attempted murder. He was put in a locked group home. Other than one of them offering a home, the family had been able to do nothing up until that point. I realize this example is an extreme case. But being a kook or mentally ill is not illegal.

[BobTheSubgenius]

39. I have a few friends and relatives in the same boat.

Not nearly as extreme as your nephew, of course, but there are mercifully few cases as awful as that. Still more than people are willing to admit, it seems.

[shrike3]

40. My sympathies to your friends and relatives.

The aunt didn't hold it against him because she remembered the little boy he used to be.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

30. They need to be arrested as soon as the crazy causes them to directly

threaten to do harm to others.

The insidious *Special Blend, Plus!* of Kool-Aid, Snake Oil, and Conspiracy Salad that they drank inevitably leads them them to go dark and conclude that committing acts of violence against innocent people is justified in service to ol' Captain Howdy's ancient, most effective tool for bringing about hate, death, and destruction...

"The Cause".

I feel sorry for them, but we simply can't have them murder election officials, hang elected officials, set off bombs in motorhomes on city streets, kidnap governors, or attacking the Capitol after the Kool-Aid has driven them dangerously batshit crazy psychotic.

Freedom of speech is wonderful, but it ends as soon as the line is crossed, when violence is threatened.

[shrike3]

31. Given her platform, "Teton Strong," she has a lot in common with her brother

However, she's not mentally ill and he obviously is. Why he veered into fantastical beliefs and she did not.

[lagomorph777]

37. Sounds like either bipolar or schizophrenia.

I'm not a psychiatrist, but have known people with those afflictions.

I wonder whether Trump has found a way to gather large masses of people with actual disorders together under one big crazy tent.

[ellie]

38. How do I find

common ground with people who think I am a lizard person? That aliens control our brainwaves? That there are tunnels underground trafficking people?

I can't.

[ismnotwasm]

44. "As a libra, I pride myself on finding balance"

Kinda lost me there. Interesting insights though, it’s cool she tries to understand her brother

[niyad]

45. Sorry, Sue, but there is NO "grain of truth" in utter bilgewater like lizard people,

genetically "modified", cross-bred human sacrifices, the mothership parked in orbit above the earth, but visible against the sun, the White House destroyed,, the medbeds being manufactured on Mars, to which military members suffering from PTSD because of the horrors they saw in the tunnels will be sent, and on and on.