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Originally Posted by Sainters7
Watching good friends go down that rabbit hole in real time is depressing. Him being a conspiracy theorist was amusing a decade ago. I never thought it would get this mainstream with people. To him, it confirms all of it. He used to laugh at himself about it when you teased him, but he's so much more confident about them now post-Covid. Of course he's a massive Trumper too.
You can't even reason with him, he immediately shuts it down with another conspiracy. So just avoid those talks altogether and have fun, right? Nope, he's obsessed, it's coming up regardless. It just consumes them.
And with increasingly convincing AI videos /voice work combined with politicians leaning hard into conspiracies and lies for votes, I think it's only going to get worse (and harder to believe real videos, especially if you're on the ideological other side). Crazy times..
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It's fine to be skeptical about a few things, and you might even be right, but for so many people being a skeptic becomes part of their personality. Once they think they are getting a peek behind the curtain then of course nothing can be trusted. A big part of it is the algorithms on YouTube and elsewhere. Once you start looking down the rabbit hole you are led deeper and deeper by their suggestions.
As bad as Twitter and Facebook are, YouTube is the real killer here. It's always 'I saw this video', and if they saw that video then they had suggestions for a dozen more like it or worse. Honestly, at some point shutting down all social media might be the only answer.