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Trying to help a friend avoid doing something very damaging (Conspiracy theory stuff)
The Ender
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Registered User regular
This has been a frustrating weekend.
A friend of mine that I haven't seen or really had meaningful communication with for maybe half a year caught up with me at the end of Friday and confided in me a series of concerns he had about a host of topics, most of them centered around 2012 and 9/11 conspiracy garbage. He has apparently been listening to Alex Jones's radio show for the past year, wound-up buying a series of books & DVDs related to different conspiracy theories and then spun his own interpretation of these different (often contradictory) materials to link them all together. To summarize/bastardize a day's worth of commentary, he believes that at the end of next year several organizations of wealthy elites are going to 'pull the plug' on every public service & utility (shut down he electrical grid, shut off gas & water, release all regular police & military personnel from duty, etc) and bunker themselves down in underground shelters, hording all resources to themselves and leaving the rest of us to starve/dehydrate, get rounded-up for use in entertainment / experimentation, and to be used as foodstock for some apparently strictly carnivorous extraterrestrials that he believes are at the center of all this (and most of the world's problems).
The story is absurd, but believe me when I say that this guy is not crazy or stupid (he's not very well read, but he's incredible at mathematics) - and he's one of the most generous, selfless persons I've known.
He has already apparently convinced his wife and (less surprisingly) 6 year old that he's right, and came to me wanting/expecting some confirmation of his beliefs (which he did not get). The really hazardous part of this fantasy, though, is that it's convinced him to:
A) Try and invest in a survivalist shelter in the United States (He was also hoping that I could/would help him out with the initial payment). It's a total scam, of course.
Begin replacing all of his money (and family's money) with gold.
This guy has lived from paycheck to paycheck as long as I've known him - it was infuriating to hear him talk about buying books & DVDs and sending donations off to pick pockets; hearing him talk matter-of-factly about his intent to start buying up gold and investing what is likely most of what savings he has in a 'property' that doesn't even likely exist has me somewhere between rage and panic.
I've already tried pointing him to websites debunking911.com & skeptoid.com, explaining to him that all of the 2012 hype has simply been based off of very poor interpretations of Mayan calendar systems, telling him all of the reasons that no space agency or government would be interested in covering up the finding of extraterrestrials if the were found, explaining that it would be unlikely that money would immediately simply lose all trading value even if things really did go pear shaped, explaining that gold would not likely become the trading commodity of choice if/when money lost it's trading value... the debunking websites were dismissed as disinformation, my own explanations he was able to make fit into his conspiracy theory (the 2012 Mayan connection hype, for example, is seen as just a smokescreen produced by government disinformation agents).
When I told him that I was more or less flat broke and neither could help him with his investment plans nor would if I had the money and tried to urge him to just hang onto his money and that if he was really so concerned for his own well being & that of his wife & child I would help him start to stockpile some bottled water & non-perishable food in case things went wrong (I thought it would be an alright compromise; it can be handy to have these things around in any case, in reasonable quantities, and the cost is spread out). He essentially said thanks but no thanks, expressed some sympathies and told me he'd try to get a loan from elsewhere because apparently the 'shelter' is up for grabs only for a limited timeframe.
I don't know what to do at this point. I've talked with some mutual friends and they have suggested contacting the RCMP to see if there's anything that they can do - my experience has been that the RCMP do not usually follow-up on anything that isn't an immediate emergency that can be dealt with right away.
I might contact them anyway, but does anyone know of another way to intervene or try to talk sense into someone like this?
A friend of mine that I haven't seen or really had meaningful communication with for maybe half a year caught up with me at the end of Friday and confided in me a series of concerns he had about a host of topics, most of them centered around 2012 and 9/11 conspiracy garbage. He has apparently been listening to Alex Jones's radio show for the past year, wound-up buying a series of books & DVDs related to different conspiracy theories and then spun his own interpretation of these different (often contradictory) materials to link them all together. To summarize/bastardize a day's worth of commentary, he believes that at the end of next year several organizations of wealthy elites are going to 'pull the plug' on every public service & utility (shut down he electrical grid, shut off gas & water, release all regular police & military personnel from duty, etc) and bunker themselves down in underground shelters, hording all resources to themselves and leaving the rest of us to starve/dehydrate, get rounded-up for use in entertainment / experimentation, and to be used as foodstock for some apparently strictly carnivorous extraterrestrials that he believes are at the center of all this (and most of the world's problems).
The story is absurd, but believe me when I say that this guy is not crazy or stupid (he's not very well read, but he's incredible at mathematics) - and he's one of the most generous, selfless persons I've known.
He has already apparently convinced his wife and (less surprisingly) 6 year old that he's right, and came to me wanting/expecting some confirmation of his beliefs (which he did not get). The really hazardous part of this fantasy, though, is that it's convinced him to:
A) Try and invest in a survivalist shelter in the United States (He was also hoping that I could/would help him out with the initial payment). It's a total scam, of course.
Begin replacing all of his money (and family's money) with gold.This guy has lived from paycheck to paycheck as long as I've known him - it was infuriating to hear him talk about buying books & DVDs and sending donations off to pick pockets; hearing him talk matter-of-factly about his intent to start buying up gold and investing what is likely most of what savings he has in a 'property' that doesn't even likely exist has me somewhere between rage and panic.
I've already tried pointing him to websites debunking911.com & skeptoid.com, explaining to him that all of the 2012 hype has simply been based off of very poor interpretations of Mayan calendar systems, telling him all of the reasons that no space agency or government would be interested in covering up the finding of extraterrestrials if the were found, explaining that it would be unlikely that money would immediately simply lose all trading value even if things really did go pear shaped, explaining that gold would not likely become the trading commodity of choice if/when money lost it's trading value... the debunking websites were dismissed as disinformation, my own explanations he was able to make fit into his conspiracy theory (the 2012 Mayan connection hype, for example, is seen as just a smokescreen produced by government disinformation agents).
When I told him that I was more or less flat broke and neither could help him with his investment plans nor would if I had the money and tried to urge him to just hang onto his money and that if he was really so concerned for his own well being & that of his wife & child I would help him start to stockpile some bottled water & non-perishable food in case things went wrong (I thought it would be an alright compromise; it can be handy to have these things around in any case, in reasonable quantities, and the cost is spread out). He essentially said thanks but no thanks, expressed some sympathies and told me he'd try to get a loan from elsewhere because apparently the 'shelter' is up for grabs only for a limited timeframe.
I don't know what to do at this point. I've talked with some mutual friends and they have suggested contacting the RCMP to see if there's anything that they can do - my experience has been that the RCMP do not usually follow-up on anything that isn't an immediate emergency that can be dealt with right away.
I might contact them anyway, but does anyone know of another way to intervene or try to talk sense into someone like this?
With Love and Courage
The Ender on
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It seems to me like your friend has some pretty hardcore paranoia going on, and if it's getting to the stage where it's affecting his everyday life there might be grounds for some kind of medical intervention. I don't know what the Social Services are like in Canada, though. Either way, don't say to him that you doubt his mental stability.
I am reasonably sure that he does not have dementia; of course, I'm not a mental health expert, so I could be mistaken.
Social Services in Alberta are rather impotent, unfortunately.
Don't feed into his scenario. Don't offer compromises like stockpiling materials. Shut him down flat out and tell him that you won't be a part of his conspiracy based lifestyle. As far as doing something useful for him and his family, perhaps you can invite him and the family over for dinner from time to time or offer to make dinner at their place so you can see how everyone is doing.
As for contacting the authorities, he hasn't really done anything illegal has he? He may be flushing his money down the toilet for all the good it's doing, but so long as he's not breaking any laws or endangering his family, I don't know that there's much they can do.
Hopefully when 2013 rolls around he'll come to his senses (if he hasn't already), but it's possible some new conspiracy will be the new center of his world. Or you might have to apologize and ask for some space in the shelter should he be right :rotate:
You absolutely cannot engage with him in a test of logic as to whether these theories of his are true. It's quite possible to have a logically consistent set of views, or at least internally consistent, that actually have little resemblance to reality. He only has to take a few small things as true on faith and it supports everything else. In other words you've been trying to debate him on something he believes in (currently) as strongly as anyone who believes in a supernatural deity or otherwise.
What you should do is let him know that you're still his friend and while it's been an interesting thought exercise, that there may be more to life than obsessing over these fears, and that you'd still like to hang out as friends when he's got time. After all, shouldn't we all appreciate what we have today instead of fearing the future?
You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that any of us could find ourselves dead through some accident, later today even, and by worrying constantly you're just robbing yourself of your appreciation for the present. The post apocalyptic scenario he envisions doesn't sound worth surviving through anyway.
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tl dr - Don't freak yourself out over it, Don't debate him on facts, Do offer your continued friendship and unrelated activities or conversation.
Even if a child is involved? I agree on what others' said, you can't change his mind, and you should not "play along" in any way. Do you care enough about him to try to contact her family?
Or the guy's parents, who likely have more sway over him than the OP does.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
I actually ran into one of the sons a few years back and he let me in on the story. Apparently his dad was huge into the Y2K end-of-the-world theories and had been collecting non perishable foods and not paying his taxes in order to 'prepare.' When New Years came and it was 'Y2K' and the world didn't end he moved his entire family to the middle of nowhere to avoid being fucked by the IRS or something.
I think my point is that your friend sounds very serious and should be taken very seriously because he could ruin his family's lives by doing something very silly and crazy and the odds are very high of this happening. I suggest like others have in trying to talk to his wife or maybe the guy's parents or somebody that may be able to talk to him.
Bother me on steam: kabbypan
That's probably not the word you're looking for. Unless you're a psychiatrist, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to pick up more specific signs of mental illness. I don't know how the system works for you guys, but you need to try and persuade him to see a psychiatrist and get evaluated.
Exactly this. That is some fairly serious head-fuckery for a kid to be going through. It might be worth talking to social services or someone similar.
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Based on this story, it might also be helpful to give examples of earlier conspiracy theories that didn't pan out. These things seem to follow a pattern of predicting that the wealthy elites will finally put the screws to the common man, and the only way to get by will be a totally self-sufficient life off of the grid. If he can recognize why those debunked conspiracies turned out to be bogus, he might see why his own paranoid fantasy is also likely to fall through.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
Professional help and counseling will probably be in the best interest for him, unless there are underlying physical problems causing the mental issues.
The world will keep basically keep him in check, he has to buy food and pay bills, and the gas company won't take nuggets. If he has gold on hand, it's more or less like putting money in your mattress, and these days with interest rates so low and service fees high, a minimal bank balance operates at a loss anyways. He may just come out ahead on that.
It's odd sure, but he won't be the first whacko on the planet, nor the last. Why the race for the cure?
The best way to win him over is to convince him you know more than him and do it in a way that doesn't make him defensive. There's a lot of resources out there debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, maybe you could convince him to at least look into it in good faith. If he gets convinced 9/11 conspiracy stuff is bullshit, it'll be a gateway to an overall saner view of the world.
I think your best bet would be pointing out to him the destructive consequences of his behavior (completely divorced from whether what he believes is correct or not). Specifically, if the survival shelter thing is obviously bullshit, you really ought to be able to make that clear to him even if the world is ending in 2012 and 9/11 was an inside job and everything. None of those have any bearing on whether this survival shelter thing is on the up-and-up, and consequently I think that's your best move.
Of course, at this point it sounds like maybe he's not all there, so to speak, and the conspiracy crap and the survival shelter might just be symptoms of a bigger problem. At that point I'm not sure what you could do beyond contacting his family or his other friends or staging some sort of intervention or something.
tl;dr - You can't reason people out of being crazy, but you can reason them out of bad business investments, unless they're really far gone.
A guy named Hiram Edson believed just like every one else in the church the world was coming to an end 166 years ago... when it didn't end he rationalized it and the Seventh Day Adventist still exist with their beliefs.
One doomsday idea can just role to the next. Y2k brought us 2012 and 9/11 brings us number of the beast and collapsing world ideas.
I had a client once with some crazy paranoia as well... Spoilered for crazy:
This guy bothered us for weeks, a couple coworkers refused to even take his calls anymore. He was just absolutely goddamn convinced that up here in the asshole of Michigan we'd be prime targets for an EMP attack. Nevermind that such an attack would leave far worse concerns ramifications than his router frying. We couldn't convince him of the severity of such an attack negating any attempt to secure his home computer, he was convinced terrorists were mass producing small shoebox devices made of cell phones that would unleash a 50 kilometer EMP that would plant viruses on everyone's computers (Which was very frightening as this guy didn't quite grasp the distinction between computer and biological viruses).
The only way we could get rid of this guy was to build him a Faraday cage. I charged the fucker $5,000 for some sticks and wire I bought at Home Depot for 50. It's not going to work, but I figure if there's an actual terrorist EMP attack, he's free to sue me and I'll gladly give him a refund.
A lot of people believe shit like this. The whole Mayan calendar crap still enjoys belief levels in the double digit percentages, and if you extend it to more general doomsday scenarios you're looking at close to a third of American adults buying into something or another. In some states studies have purported as many as two thirds believe in something ridiculous from the Sovereign Citizen/Redemption movement to aliens at area 51. I don't know how things look in Canada, but I've heard some spectacular conspiracy theories about your government, so I doubt things are much better off in the crazy department.
Even in places where social services aren't impotent as yours, it's pretty hard to get anything done to help people like that, even when they have children exposed to it. A lot of places don't even take children's mental well-being seriously enough to consider exposure to any kind of crazy in the home an actionable thing until they're actually being physically harmed or neglected. It doesn't help that a lot of kinds of crazy are protected by civil rights laws.
The wife's probably the one to convince. The closest thing you can actually get anything done about is him getting scammed out of his money. She's in the best position to stop that, and if she decides he's not mentally fit to make his own decisions, she's probably the one person who can get him help whether he likes it or not.
No, you didn't.
And the kid isn't in any real danger, going to social services is just going to cause problems where there currently are none.
I had many friends growing up who had "out there" parents and most of them did not turn out fine.
Kid could learn bad things that will show themselves when he grows older and repeating the same cycle -just like hoarders are often kids of hoarders and bigots are kids of bigots.
Coming from someone who greatly enjoys listening to or reading the Conspiracy theory stuff I hate to say it but you won't be able to talk sense into him by trying to debunk his theories. Showing any minor support like stock piling water, foodstuffs really wont help the situation in hes head ether. But I'm only really repeating what has already been said.
How capable is he for taking care of himself? On a day to day basis does his Conspiracy interests effect his wellbeing in a negative fashion? If his family has a roof over their head and food on the table I wouldn't worry so much if this is in jeopard then I would be more concerned.
It seems that if he cannot even afford the first payment and is looking for donations then it's even unlike he will follow though with his plan. He can't convince you to give him the money then he won't be able to convince a lender or bank to give him the money. If he can get the cash required from the payment then someone is going to chump him out of it.
Your best short term course of action is to get him to show you the material for the bunkers and play on his perception of conspiracy and try and convince him that the bunkers being sold by other people is in fact a scam and that he should look elsewhere.
The key with dealing with discussions with him is that the desire to contemplate that someone is out to get him is what leads most of his though processes. In stopping him from making a bad decision you can play on this to try and convince him otherwise.
Ask him questions like:
How do you know not know the bunkers are a scam by the wealthy elites to rob the poor of their money and when the time comes they won't even be built.
Have you been inside one of these bunkers which are for sale? Why would you pay money for something you haven't even been inside of?
Or if he has seen or been in these bunkers ask him how he can be sure that they are not overselling the bunkers and that when the time comes there won't be enough of these buildings to go around for everyone who paid for one?
Keep suggesting these sorts of questions and even if he knows some of the answers to these sorts of questions or gets annoyed at them, Even if he disagrees with you HE WILL take them into consideration and stew over them because hell hes a Conspiracy theorists and hes own thoughts will do the rest of the work in creating doubt in his own mind. Don't attack him with these suggestions ask them in a way which is least threating as you want him to comprehend the whole question and not block what your saying in aggression.
There isn't a whole lot you can do with the rest of his future doomsdays theories as they are predictions on what is going to happen in the future and have yet to happen. No amount of debunking conspiracies of past government cover ups will have any effect on doomsday theories in the future because hey, its in the future and the connections he is making in his own predictions of the future are not really logically connected to the past anyway.
I have more thoughts on how you could attempt to approach this but if he considers you a government sheeple not much you say is going to have any great effect.
Edit: I should add that I think your friend is mentally deficient in some way, if this is the case your not going to have much success in pulling his thought track off the Conspiracy's as a whole and that any success you have will simply lead him to replace one theory with another.
i really don't think it's a great idea to reinforce his notions like this
honestly i don't think there's much you can do. while this certainly exhibits traits of mental illness, i think it would be counteractive to bring up paranoia - instead, if it were me and one of my friends, i'd call them out as acting simply and frankly moronic. i wouldn't argue the ideas, i would engage them as little as possible, i'd just say 'you are being an idiot and i don't pity you; go to some other dope for charity and call me when you get your priorities straight.'
that said, with a child involved the matter is complicated. if you perceive a concrete threat to the kid's wellbeing you can only contact social services about it. just know that any kind of intervention from authorities would probably send him down the rabbit-hole for good.
Try convincing him that that shit is a scheme from THE MAN and say he has to build his own shelter. While making one yourself it still expensive, it's better than getting into a scam.
Not that I think you should act like you buy what he says, but just say that IF it were true you'd wouldn't be so dumb to replace your money with gold or depend on someone else for a shelter. I actually had such a conversation with a friend of mine about getting gold and I basically told him: "look, if this whole thing about paper money falls down why on earth would people start giving a shit about pieces of soft metal you have? You're not going towards some old-school society with stability, you're going towards mad-max-shit and ammo and oil are faaaar more important than meaningless bars of gold"
If hes too far down the rabbit hole, Don't really see it as much as a reinforcement as much an attempt to nudge him out of a stupid choice. Honestly though the guy is going to need professional help and support to make any real difference.
Do this but not in a "THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU" way. A conspiracy theorist is a person who needs to connect events and pieces of information, and create patterns out of them. They want easy answers to questions that don't have easy answers.
Why would gold be useful at all? Scientists can create diamonds/gold in labs (give links to scientific articles that vaguely agree). Although it'd be bad if he suddenly starts hoarding guns....
You might be able to argue that gold would in fact be rather useless if what the paranoid guy describes actually came to happen (a better currency would probably be bullets in that case), but even then you're just juggling around one form of crazy for another. I'm not sure that's the best route to go down; you might even start to legitimize this whole thing even further.
Yeah that was what I was thinking. It's gonna be damage-control for now.
Talk to his wife. Ask how she feels about it, tell her you're worried. Any time he tries to talk to you about it, shut down the conversation. Just tell him you won't talk to him about it. Any time he asks for "help," tell him gently but firmly that you believe it's a scam and that you won't help him throw his money away. If he presses you on why you're acting like this, tell him the truth: you think he's buying in to fake conspiracy theories and that he's hurting himself and his family. Don't engage him. Don't argue with him. You'll get nowhere.
I didn't miss it. I just don't think it's a big deal. Pretending that it is an actual deal of some kind, then buddy has invested in some land in the middle of nowhere. It's a bottom barrel land deal, if he pays what its actually worth, then it will still be worth something when things keep ticking. If its an actual bomb shelter, or a building, it's still real estate. You can sell it back. Or live there. Or whatever.
Just because buddy needs his screws tightened dosen't mean the laws of investment go out the window. Sure, if it's a bad deal, or misrepresented land value, or a scam, then don't go for it. But if the deal is 'buying a place in Fuckallsville at current market value', then there will still be a market value after.
As for the second part about utilities, you're just wildly guessing about a person you dont even know. There was another story posited which had something like that take place, but it is not related in any particular way to the events in the OP.
There is very little harm in creating a shelter with basic supplies capable of lasting a year or two. Lots of people invest in thier dreams, even when they are highly unlikely to come to fruition. There's no difference between this, and building a professional recording studio in the hopes of making it big. Failure is the most likely outcome, and yes, its a gigantic waste/mistake. But its his mistake to make. There's not much to be done about it anyhow, except to not get sucked into the vortex of epic failure.
coz if is some loon with some land berrying 14 school busses and covering them in concreat. then you know that there is some one more paraniod than your friend and thats telling him this stuff. consperasy theroy nuts userly dont jump to these theroys on there own, the mostly get (for want of a better term) brainwashed
and when 2013 rolls round the will say "they" couldnt go ahead with there plan coz too menny of us knew about it (or somthing) and deside on a new date or event and carry on the same.
possably worth watching penn and teller bullshit end of the word
there is a few episodes anout it. one is about all the 2012 stuff and the other has some stuff about savaior groups
This sort of "uncharacteristic behavior" can absolutely be a sign of sudden onset of mental illness rather than the fact that you haven't seen him in a while. The older he is, the more likely it is that he's just fallen for a scam rather than a mental illness. If he's under 25 it's a pretty bad sign, if he's under 30 I'd still likely call RCMP.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
I think it's worth putting in a little more effort to convince him. The rest of the thread is probably right, and he's beyond reason, but he might not be.
Ask him how he's gonna rationalize all these things happen when the "rich elites" don't know how to run industry?
They're not the laborers. At some point in time while they're in their bunkers, whoever knows how the flip the switch and it's location will probably go back to flipping it in directions required.
Does he think that without any "rich elite" to lead us, we'll all just sit like turkeys staring into the rain or something?
*insert bob the angry flower comic*
EDIT
Also, as someone mentioned above, there's a difference between being stupid, gullible, misled, etc, and the beginning stages of some form of mental illness. If your friend continues to get more irrational (especially if he starts to get very obsessed), you may want to look for help else where.