Misinformation

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by troutman

Do you appreciate that many think going to a chiropractor for anything other than lower back pain is insane?

You realize that I don't practice, right? I'm a science professor now. I'm not here defending chiropractic, so I don't know why you're trying to "gotcha" me. Seems like not the best way to engage with someone on a topic.

[troutman]

Did not mean to make personal attack. From your experiences, maybe we can conclude there is hope for your brother.

All of can be deceived.

[Zevo]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

I'm more polite about it. I explain that we will never agree on this subject, so it's best just to drop it and talk about something else. He struggles to do that and continues to rant about it, so that's when I end the conversation.

I just wish there was a better way to deal with this insanity.

Send him this as soon as he starts spewing...

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

Why can't I just get a normal happy birthday phone call from my brother without it instantly devolving into politics and extremist nonsense?

Within 5 minutes, he told me that he doesn't bother getting checkups and routine screenings from doctors because he's done a ton of "research" on healthy diet and therefore doesn't have any health problems*

Then it's a quick hop skip and a jump to him ranting about vaccines and how the COVID vaccine killed millions of people, including his neighbors. He goes on to list a bunch of anecdotal evidence cases that never confirmed anything scientifically related to getting vaccinated, but he's certain that hey died from it (during the height of the pandemic...so okay). He went on to rant about an RFK adjacent doctor who said you should never vaccinate during a pandemic (why was not made clear to me). He then boasted about how he's trained his children to fight, kick, and punch anyone in the school system who tries to vaccinate them. To which I responded ,"are you advocating for physical violence to health care workers over administering one of the safest and most effective forms of prevention that has saved billions of lives over countless generations?" only to hear him rant again about how vaccines killed millions of people every day and how they tried to put all the non-vaccinated in concentration camps all over the world. I tried to correct his understanding that there were quarantines during the height of the virus, which is not the same thing...the conversation ended pretty abruptly after that.

He still lives in Calgary. I'm pretty sure he's a UCP supporter too.

Someone help me cope with this crazy infesting my family. It's too upsetting to hear him still rant like this. I try and avoid this topic but it always comes up and it's just a non-starter on us having a decent relationship with each other. Help.



*that he knows of....because he isn't getting any screenings. The absence of information is not confirmation.

It reminds me of the old quote, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

[woob]

Happy Birthday Cali!

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

I'm more polite about it. I explain that we will never agree on this subject, so it's best just to drop it and talk about something else. He struggles to do that and continues to rant about it, so that's when I end the conversation.

I just wish there was a better way to deal with this insanity.

My 2 cents.

It is hard to get buy-in but I think a starting point is to just lay down ground rules for conversation (for all conversations going forward). If you can build a set of rules that both of you agree to then that could go a long way to having healthier conversations. Write it down and have both of you sign it and each of you keep a copy.

You should also try asking the question "Are you just ranting at me or do you want me to address this?". If he is just ranting then tell him to stop it and get over it. If he thinks he is sharing something interesting with you, you can tell him you do not find it interesting and you believe he is sharing misinformation. If he wants you to address his misconceptions then you should be able to use the rules of the conversation for him to start actively listening and asking questions instead of trying to ram his opinion into you.

If you cannot get him into the right mindset for healthier conversations then you can always drop the bomb on him and suggest that you two go to therapy together so he can learn the skills needed to have healthy conversations again. Therapy might be a good idea for him anyway... Maybe he can figure out how he let himself get brainwashed by the conservatives into not trusting experts in medicine and science while he probably still trusts other experts like mechanics or pilots.

Other ideas - Find a healthier way to scratch this itch of needing to talk "politics" with you:

• Learn together about a new political ideologies with a goal of dismantling misconceptions. Try to apply the learnings to see what each of your top 5 ideologies are and then try to describe the various parties and their evolutions in that framework. Learn about the origin story of "Left" and "Right" politics (spoiler, it is meaningless and was just which side of the room each group was sitting on). Learn about the difference between culture wars and class wars.
• Discuss new advances in real medical science, like the studies in COVID that are showing the long term effects of infections to people brains or weakening immune systems and making people more vulnerable to other infections or strokes. Challenge him to keep up with the science and not the facebook misinformation.
• Discuss other science advancements, like electrification, and discuss how it could change the world.
• Discuss misinformation, where are each of you going to find information? Is it trustworthy? Why is it trustworthy? Maybe get a family subscription to Ground.News
• Expanding on the above point, get him to stop using Facebook (and all meta products), Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, etc. If he doesn't trust actual medical experts then he should trust these platforms of misinformation even less.

The trick though would be to try and discuss these things as an intellectual that is trying to learn about subjects instead of an ideologue who has an opinion already locked in.

That all sucks though, sorry you are in this situation.