From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Rating. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul, Mission controlled dec and most importantly, you are you. You are here that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Uh, folks, we're so glad you joined us today because, frankly, part of this episode is gonna be us asking you for insight and advice. Uh. This is part two of a continuing series, and it's something that a lot of our fellow listeners had asked us about after they heard part one of How to Be a Skeptic. I'm thinking, guys, maybe we start by painting the scene. Okay, you're at dinner, maybe with your extended family or maybe with your partner's family. You're just like hanging out with an old friend you haven't seen in a while. Conversations pleasant, Oh, how's your mom and them? Et cetera. And then there's a plot twist. It might be a crazy hot take in extreme political realms, or it could be a weird red flag statement like well, you know how they are, and they could be anyone. Honestly, has this happened to you, guys? Oh god? Yes, I mean when I was married, my ex's uh family was quite large and quite politically opposed to me, and so I kind of had to put on a happy face and uh and play nice most of the time. But you know, family holidays, the booze starts to flow and sometimes a little harder to to bite your tongue. I think that's sort of what we're talking about here, is how to maybe bite your tongue a little better, or at least be a little more constructive and uh and positive in the rhetoric around these kinds of tricky situations. Yes, I would just say I've encountered a lot of people that have different views than me, and I think maybe that's why, at least internally, I feel like I have a well rounded perspective on things because through this show, really and through several highly influential people in my life, I've learned some of the things we're going to talk about today. Those highly influential people, by the way, are not null nor me hopefully mostly mostly. Yeah, we'll get in that club one day. So in this earlier episode How to Be a Skeptic, Part One, we talked about the importance of critical thinking and how we, as consumers of not just media but any kind of information, can use some pretty simple tactics to make sure we're doing our best to think objectively even when our brains don't want us to because your brain hates this stuff. It's like making someone eat vegetables, uh, if they're not a vegetarian, in which are delicious. They're great. I love man roast some Brussels sprouts, you know what I mean. I want, Yeah, they're fabulous. And maybe not even a vegetarian, just someone who has either decided or is cognitively opposed in some way, shape or form to the taste or texture of vegetables, like my fourteen year old. It's never gonna happen. Guys, it's never gonna happen. I gotta hide that stuff inside spaghetti sauce. Well still it still works. Uh. And that's what that's kind of what we're talking about. That's a surprisingly good comparison to what we're talking about. The idea of sort of hiding the nutritional stuff in the fun stuff. Uh. Today's episode is gonna have us tackling something a little more difficult than applying critical thinking to your own thoughts, but just as important. How do we talk our loved ones off the cognitive ledge of wild or dangerous beliefs? How do we help them think objectively? Uh? Here are the facts? Start with some bad news. This is becoming increasingly common and increasingly important, especially in US society today. I think the if you look at partisanship by almost any metric, it is skyrocketed, meaning that people are less and less likely to view themselves as um maybe party agnostic or politically independent. There people are less and less likely to pick policies or stances that they like, and they're more and more likely to say, my fund this party is my fundamental identity. So if I see you know and are on a ballot, there's no way I'm voting for If I see a D on a ballot, there's no way I'm voting for him. And if they're an independent, well I don't trust it. Well, and I mean there there may be used to be days we've talked about the history of political parties and and politics where the two parties may be shared more things in terms of like ideology, or had more things somewhat in common, and the differences were a little more nuanced today unfortunately whichever side you fall, and that's just not the case. Uh. And that's by design, um, even if there are some things buried within those policies, you know, of opposing political parties, the rhetoric could not be more opposed to one another. And and it is designed to create that divide that we're talking about. Yeah, And and what's weird about that too, is if you if you follow the money, a lot of people who are um career politicians who are ideologically opposed, the same companies are giving both of those folks money. That's just like part of the business practice and stacking the deck. And uh, you know, we know that sometimes politics can be a third rail here, but what we're really talking about it's not so much political episode. This is an episode using that as a lens uh to explore critical thought because we've seen it, Uh, we've seen this be kind of the the fulcrum for a lot of these conversations right now. If you look around the United States, you'll see that about half of the American population agrees with at least one thing you could call a conspiracy, and a big chunk of the population, be honest, your your faithful correspondent included, have a strong what's called dispositional inclination towards believing that unseen and intentional forces exist, you know, alls, uh dirty money stuff like that. This comes from a University of Chicago's study by Jay Eric Oliver and Thomas J. Wood. And I mean, come on, right, there are secret groups, there, there is dirty money like there are, there are hidden hands at play and acknowledging. That doesn't make you crazy. I don't think it's even inherently bad to say you agree with at least a few things that are not the official narrative. I think it's probably uh somewhat good and healthy, you know, to just at least temper what you're being sold by politicians and pundits and the news, you know, and just give it a little bit of an extra think before diving in wholeheartedly and saying, yes, this is the truth. Well, I think that's what some people get wrong maybe about skepticism. If you're truly being skeptical, you're analyzing all information, no matter what the sources, even if that's a source that you generally agree with or trust, you take that information in and you analyze it the same way you would just a random person walking on the street that gave you similar or the same information, Right, I mean, that's I think that's how we have to think about it in our daily lives. So you've got to be skeptical of the official story as well as the TikTok post. Trust you what? Uh? Yeah, you know that these are all shades right of just doing a little extra homework. Yeah, right, because that's what people love, is having to do more stuff. Uh. That's It's also strange because if you look at the US in particular and you look at it objectively, US history is shock full. It's rife with proven conspiracies and cover ups and corruption. There's nothing wrong, there's nothing logical about seeing those precedents and saying something similar could be going down now or in the future, because the majority of US history is all about how people didn't have a problem doing that in the past. Uh, and a lot of times escape consequences. But that same, like, that same very reasonable assumption can be dangerous because you know, like like you're saying with homework, it can make you avoid looking at primary sources or questioning stuff that we should question, or looking at a like you said, Matt, a TikTok video or a breathless headline and saying let me learn more about that. Folks love being right. They hate being wrong. If you contradict a strongly held belief, sometimes the people it can feel like a personal attack. That's why it's so crazy difficult. It's pretty much impossible to win an argument online. But I have a strong emotional reaction. You're not telling you know, you're not sharing with me NASA data that proves anything about the shape of the planet. You're attacking me as a person, and you're a jerk. And now I know you're not in my tribe. Well, yeah, you think about it the individual person, with all the things you just described, Ben, I believe this, and I'm not a dumb person. So you're telling me it's not right, but I believe it. So that equates to me being a dumb person, right, or at least that's the feeling. That's the internalized feeling, and totally makes sense. Yeah, because most people obviously are quite intelligent when again given the access to information and a safe place to kind of pour over that stuff. There are two big factors to this, two reasons that, uh, sometimes people may bucket you when you're when you're disagreeing with them. Uh. And Julie Beck, writing for The Atlantic, put it perfectly talking about cognitive dissonance and some cost fallacy. So this is what Julie has to say writing for The Atlantic. UH. Quote. The theory of cognitive dissonance, the extreme discomfort of simultaneously holding two thoughts that are in conflict, was developed by the social psychologist Leon Festinger in the nineteen fifties. Uh. The quote goes on um. In a famous study, Festinger and his colleagues embedded themselves with a doomsday prophet named Dorothy Martin, which is very pleasant and innocuous name for a doomsday prophet. I don't know why. I think the doomsday promis have to have some sort of like spectacular name, but Dorothey Martin just seems like just a sweetie. Uh. Anyway, I continue Dorothy Martin and her cult of followers who believed that spacemen called the Guardians were coming to collect them in flying saucers to save them from a coming flood, as is often the case um with doomsday prophecies, This did not transpire. Neither spacemen nor flo had ever graced this planet. Uh that we know for that they were aware of. Perhaps they were in the wrong place and they landed elsewhere and they just got the math wrong. Anyway, the quote goes on, but Martin just kept revising her predictions again, something that we know doomsday profits often do. Uh. Sure, the spaceman didn't show today, but hey, they were sure to come tomorrow, and so on and so on. The researchers watched with fascination as the believers kept on believing. It was what believers do. Yeah, don't stop believing unless you know it's literally harmful to you and those around you. Than maybe it's time to rethink those beliefs. Despite all the evidence that they were wrong, these folks kept on keeping on. They kept on trucking, and Uh, this was so interesting to these scientists who conducted this that they wrote a book about it back in nineteen fifty seven, I think, called When Prophecy Fails, And they summed it up like this, We've said it before, But they were in the trenches on the research. They said, quote, a man with conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree, and he turns away, showing facts or figures, and he questions your sources, appeal to logic, and he fails to see your point. Suppose he is presented with evidence, unequivocable and undeniable evidence that his belief is wrong. What will happen? The individual will frequently emerge not only unshaken, but even more convinced with the truth of his beliefs than ever before. I don't know why he got increasingly excited in British there. That's not a faithful rendition. But we've talked about this, right, like you double down sometimes when you're presented with stuff that would make you question your previous assumptions. We found a fancy name for this, too motivated reasoning, which sounds a little bit more scientific than cherry picking. Right. It's kind of a fancy way of describing a bias. Right. Yeah, like you stuff that's already floating around in your you know, consciousness, that shapes the way you take in other information. And again we talk about that brain always kind of wanting to maintain that base level. A K. A. Ben taught me something that bias, you know, the same as on a guitar amp. You want to have that base level be dialed in, and the machinery wants to maintain that base level, as does the machinery in us, in our heads, our brains, So that's what the brain is gonna do. Imagine you're looking at a large screen, like a computer screen, and on that screen there are tiny little articles, but you can read the headlines. Imagine that screen is filled with headlines that agree with whatever position you have, and then that disagree with whatever position you have. If you have a really hardline belief like this, and you have that motivated reasoning, your brain, your eyes, and your brain are going to hone in on the ones that agree with what you're saying, and the other ones you're either going to ignore and pretend like they're not there, or even if your brain scans them and reads them, you're way more likely to just forget those and throw them out of your your whole system and then remember, like be able to quote to your friends the ones that agree with what you think. It's weird, yeah, even if they're from the same publication. Right, the Wall Street Journal up ed that you like is probably going to be the one that makes you feel like you were correct. And it doesn't matter if it's fully contradicted in the next one that's there not at all. Uh And we found this this is a that's a beautiful picture there, Matt And and it's something a lot of people have experienced, right. Uh. We know that this applies on such a fundamental, unconscious level, like where it's not hyperbolic to say, your eye as will naturally hone in on the stuff you agree with. You might not be thinking about it, it's just what your brain does now in uh these there was a study where these researchers had undergrad college students from a couple of different demographics listened to prerecorded speeches. And this was clever because the speeches were purposely not good audio. They had a bunch of static writing through them. And if you were in the study while you're listening to the speech, you could push a button that would just for a few seconds, it would lower the static and you could hear better. Uh. So these speeches were about two things. I think they were oppositional views about smoking tobacco and sometimes there were speeches attacking uh, the concept of Christianity overall. If you're a student who was smoking as N seven, so you know there are a lot of chimneys walking around, uh, then you would turn. You would be much more likely to reduce the static, so you could hear a speech that said cigarettes might not cause cancer. And if you were a non smoker, then you would listen during the you would lower the static and the anti smoking speech. If you went to church, you would just let the static ride on that anti Christianity thing and you would sit there and say, you know, give me my honorarium or whatever. And then if you you know, if you're less religious, then you would listen more often. That's interesting. I really wish I could have heard the original you know, like the original recordings they're like, just to know how much static there was and how well you could actually pick things out. Man, that's really good. Also the fact that they were they were using big tobacco propaganda and probably the only useful way that stuff could ever bear out research. But look, just with this information, there's a high level thing, uh, we can already sere as an uphill battle. Now that is the most important part. Knowing all this, is it possible to talk a loved one back from one of those legends of thought to help widen their information bubble, give them access to stuff they may not have been able to access before. Is there an effective empathetic way to help people back from the brink? It's a question we're going to attempt to answer after a word from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. We don't get to say this often. There is kind of good news kind of yeah, yeah, kind of. I kind of just point out it's not just about your loved ones. It's also about those who you don't know, and about yourself. So this is a universal message we're sending out into the ether them the ethosphere. I just made that one up. Okay, trademark no Brown January. The first thing you have to do is, uh question everything, even your assumptions about information itself. Oh yeah, that's the tricky one. Uh. This is one I've I've been guilty of often for a long time. Information is treated increasingly as identity. Uh this has always been the case, but it's it's much more apparent now. There's a lot of research. You bear it out. It's information, the information that you prize or trust has become in many ways like a tribal marker. Like you go to a football game you support, you know, Atlanta United or Manchester or whatever. Uh, and you were wearing the colors of your team because you identify with it what people like sports. It might you Sorry, it's that Kyle Moony sketch that like a jacket on with his different sports balls all over it, and he's talking to his roommate about how much he loves sports, but he can't be specific about which sport. He's just pointing randomly at all these That's kind of, you know, that's sort of what this is. Some ways we can't quite decide which sport we're supporting. Yeah, And so this doesn't mean that people who believe stuff might think is whackadoo are unintelligent. Really, what it means is that they have probably been worn down by a bunch of feedback loops, by a cavalcade of honestly algorithmically targeted information that just solidifies and reinforces their beliefs and likely tries to push them towards other beliefs. And this happened, This is insidious. This happens very subtly over time, and a lot of very intelligent people have gone over to the to the dark side of manipulating belief, and they're very very good at it. Like it's kind of evil, but just objectively, you know, you gotta admire it. You gotta admire the hustle. Uh, and everyone is a target, so it's it's nuts to me. I was doing some more reading on this and camera where this point out. But you might run into someone who says, I don't believe in evolution, but if you ask them what the theory of evolution is, they can probably explain it pretty well. They can explain the high level basics. They're like, yeah, I know what it is, dude, I did some research. I don't believe in it because it contradicts another belief that I held, and that information is identity to me. So I'm gonna stay with what feels comfortable and known and stable. And oftentimes that belief in this type of situation is something that relies more on faith than it does on provable bits, you know, are things that you can actually cross reference, And that's sort of the difficulty with religion is that it's not provable and it does rely on faith and different Folks from different backgrounds that have grown up with different belief systems are going to have different faith based systems in place that are very hard to shake. A faith based argument cannot be proven or discriminable, right, yeah, yeah, right, And and you know we always say on this show that your faith is your own right. It's definitely. It's a personal choice. It's a choice about identity. So it's not really in our remit to try to convince you otherwise. We we want to be very respectful of that. Uh. It's the only time that changes is if there is an ideology that advocates harm to self or ears. And you know, our brains don't like the question beliefs, right, especially if you are raised in a rigorous set of beliefs. Any almost anyone who has left a strict religious movement, by the way, they start with a common pattern. There's like one aspect, one thing that doesn't make sense. Right. Sometimes it's the leader says do that, don't do this, but the leader does this all the time. Right. Uh. Sometimes it's like, well we said this and this about the dangers of money, but look what you know, Kraflo Dollar is out here buying another jet right, what does that mean to us? What does that mean about my faith? And then that becomes a sparker, the first domino. Something doesn't feel right, and soon enough there's a feedback loop, a good one of further objective thought. But this can go in other directions too, because those same feedback loops can be weaponized to make someone go from saying you know, I don't know, like, uh, I don't like insert politician here, all the way to it's time to attack the pizza spot. It really can happen. Well, yeah, and I think it's an as above, so below situation where it works the exact opposite. With a strict religious group, if someone can get you to believe that first pillar, right, that first innocuous pillar of whatever the belief system is, it's way more likely that you'll be into getting the next two that are immediately below it, right. And then if you get those two, it's just it's kind of increasing that you're going to go down that rabbit hole or the inverted pyramid. Uh. Then if you don't take up that first pillar, yeah, well put man, Because like I think this is where we see sunk post fallacy come in too, because what's worse than your brain learning it's wrong learning it's been wrong for a while, you know. That's why one thing that a lot of cultic organizations do is level out the information you are access you have access to, right, you have to be initiated, You have to progress, usually through the expenditure of time and money. Uh. You have to earn the knowledge, pay for the knowledge, and some sort of transaction. And by the time you get to the really wild stuff, you have spent thousands of hours and thousands of dollars on This is mission critical to your brain for this stuff to be legit. It's also like you know, boiling of a lobster, right, you do it kind of low and slow while the lobster still alive, and you know, I'm sure it's horribly painful, but it's also not as horribly painful as if they were dropping it into the fully boiling pot right at once. So by the time you get to the part where you're in danger, um, it's a too late, and be you've kind of been acclimated a little by little by little to get to that and points so it seems less crazy because up to that point you've had little bits of things preparing you for that that big reveal. Right, and so we're going to talk about how you can use those same phenomena and those same tactics to maybe do a little bit of good. And this is we are not professional psychologists, nor psychiatrists psychiatrists. Excuse me, that's how not professional, uh we are when it comes to psychiatry. We're also not therapists, were not doctors. But these are just some basic tactics that we hope you find helpful. Um, big important note disclaimer, whatever you talk about this sort of stuff, if someone you know is being radicalized into violence, self harm, or crime, then it's your responsibility to do your best to ensure their safety and the safety of others. So all of the stuff we're about to talk about assumes that you have reached out to a loft wind or a person you know, to Matt's point, before they hit that threshold, before there are gunshots at the pizza place. Yeah, and before they ordered four crates of essential oil. Right, sorry, right, sorry, anybody, I'm just joking. I mean, I love the name because it implies the existence of just you know, worthless oil like none. You don't need it oil. There's optional oil. Well, I think it's more referring to the SMS. But I just you know, I will say too, I love essential oils. They go in my little atomizer thing, you know, that makes my house smell likelyptus. Do I necessarily believe that it's curing me of of potential cancer, you know, you know, cleansing my chakras? No, but I do think it's nice. And I think they're nice to have, and I think they have a place and a lot of people's lives outside of the more maybe woo woo aspects of them. Yeah, and you know, maybe maybe we just don't have our quantum vibrations calibrated correctly. Vibes, vibes before you dump your life savings into thieves oil. You know, there's I like that that sounds like it sounds like a scy Skyrim level accusation or crime, you know, like the Guard and White Run says, Wait, I know you You've been accused of selling thieves oil. Yeah. So, with with this idea of kind of stopping possibly out of control train of thought and re routing it, right, it's a tall milkshake, how do we inspire the change? Well, first, we know the truth about how information is processed. Information is not information to the human brain. Information is identity. So with that, you have to realize that we shouldn't confront people immediately off the jump. No one I feel like I think I feel like we can say this confidently. No one throughout history has had has heard somebody say what you believe is stupid and bullshit and immediately gone, oh yeah, good point. Yeah, I mean tell me more, but you got me, you're happy like that doesn't work. You gotta do the way of the open hands. We gotta shout out every body, Socrates. It might work if it falls in line with some of those preconceived ideas that our brains are already kind of glommed onto. We certainly might be much more willing to see somebody speaking our language. Uh, and something that's sort of recognizable and recognizably a canvas, and then we already believe and then without doing that extra homework, be like, yo, yes, definitely that And that's its own problem. I thought of one situation, ben where it might work. The thing we're saying won't ever happen, and I don't want to contradict, but I think there's one, And I think it's during a um an interrogation after someone has been caught doing something terribly wrong, where where the person interrogating is just like you just got it all wrong, pal, and like breaking that person down after they're already incredibly I don't know, I think it might work there. No, that's a really good point, and we hope that you don't run into that situation, folks, because those are never fun rooms. Uh they're they're never really fun rooms. But uh but yeah, no, that's that's a perfect example. And what you see us doing here cooking live is we're we're throwing these ideas back and forth with each other, and we're playing with them to see what sticks and what what breaks off. This is why when you when you talk with people, people love talking about themselves. People also love be listened to, because it's kind of a rare thing. Right, So I'm sorry, wet right, So ask questions right, and and know that you can't um I know that you shouldn't be ideally communicating via devices because the majority of any conversation you have in person uses nonverbal communication like six, So you want to talk to him in person, don't get best. We can to add some of those back into non verbal communication, like with m O G S or a little little signpost to let you know kind of what tone you should be reading this thing in by you know, adding a little extra sarcasm or little extra words that that that that communicate your intention, or even like putting something in bold or all caps. You know, it kind of lets people know how you might have spoken it out loud. But still it is miles away from the micro signals that we can tune into, and we're actually talking to someone looking them in the eye, hearing the timbre of their voice. Not to mention the ability to be able to tell whether someone is lying to you or not. Just to be ultra clear, because I didn't get it at first. I thought you made like language devices at first. Been but like we're talking phones and computers and technology. Yeah, yeah, read it, you know what I mean? Uh? And everybody, you know, you probably have someone in your life who is kind of a late adopter of some common communication technology. So just like maybe it's someone older in your life. Remember how bad they are senday text? Right? You probably remember the moment they discovered amoji or bitmoji. That's a game changer. Now you're like, oh you are laughing. Okay, all right, I get it. So you can avoid a lot of that by being in person, because what we're gonna talk about is all about building repport, because that's what people are reacting to. If information is I then ay, then information is also there for community, and that's that's what we're hacking. Just a little bit, uh socratic method. Ask questions, right, Ask open ended questions. Stay away from the yes no answers like, well, you know, we can go with politics, but frankly, it doesn't matter what the subject is. Uh, we're at a we're at a family event. What is it? Give me Thanksgiving? It's our annual arbor Daid dance arts tournament, Shaman under the Sea. Wait, did you say a sharks tournament? Annual charts tournament? Is that like darts art tournament? All right, don't have been outlawed, my good man. So this is gonna have to be a fight club kind of underground even better, Yeah, because now we're on the fringe of mainstream arts. Underd are literally underground charts competition. A family member or a friend who has you know, Jarton with us and says yeah, it says the uh like hey myself, Yeah, but I really didn't think Matt said Shark caused. Uh, someone who has convinced the election any election again, it really doesn't matter. They say, hey, you know what, the election was stolen. You do not immediately say that's bill, look at the facts. What you're telling that person is that you are not part of their community and they have chosen violence, and they will react as if you have done something violent instead. I remember their person to you're talking to someone's very intelligent. People always like to say they're they like to think they're basing their opinion on facts. Very few people are going to have a strongly held belief and tell you they have no reason for that belief or they never researched it. Right, They're gonna say I believe in this because X y Z. So like if you take the specifics out of it, especially if you're very emotionally invested in oppositional viewpoint, think of it like someone went on a road trip. You're asking about the road trip. So just be very baseline, say okay, election, I mean I know, let's say I knew nothing about this, or someone over there on the other side of the charts field knows nothing about it. How would you describe this idea of a stolen election, like in a few sentences, Like if you just had to tell someone who is completely new to this concept, what would you say. This is the equivalent of asking someone, oh, okay, tell me about your road trip and getting an answer. I decided to drive to Vegas or you know, banker main or something that's non confrontational and people want to communicate what they believe. So you got that information, what's the next step. So then once you have that information, Uh, then it's time still still not ready to rest on your your laurels, then it's time to start asking more questions and getting a little more specific and remember to pepper in some of your own reference points that you may have. I mean, this is not an interrogation, you know, as you said, this is a conversation. This is an attempt not even to like educate. We're not we're not even like here to try to, you know, force views down people's throats. But it's about exposing people to views and not making it come off as a lecture or as trying to you know, um talk down to somebody, you know, because ultimately we're never trying to do that if our heart's in the right place. Nobody likes to be talked down to. And if you're the kind of person that's constantly talking down to people, then you're probably kind of a jerk. Um. So remember to phrase what you're hearing back from your friend in your own words. And again, don't think of this as a rhetorical device. It's just honestly an effort to let them know that you've heard them and that you understand them, and that you are processing what they said and not just waiting for your turn to talk. So, okay, so what I'm hearing is you believe the election was stolen because X, Y, Z, and And it doesn't have to be formal, it doesn't have to be any kind of exact form. It's literally just listen to what they're saying and then ask them questions about it. Yeah, and the idea of rephrasing what someone is saying in your own words does, like to your point, know, it shows that you are getting the information right. And if you include when you're peppering facts that might contradict a belief or an aspect of it, you can also avoid conflict by referring to these in a non confrontational way. Third person kind of stuff is very easy here. Like our sorry third party introduced a third party, you wouldn't say, well, screw you, buddy, I think the election was legit. Instead you could say, well, you know, it's interesting. Fox News and CNN aren't usually on the same side of stuff, and they seem to on on this one narrative about the election. So what do I mean, what do you think about that? It's not wholly different from the way couples therapists try to teach us to talk to our partners in order to find common ground. Rather than coming at somebody saying you suck because you do this and therefore you're dumb and wrong and I hate you. Instead you say when you do this, it makes me feel this way. Um, how can we, you know, talk about that and talk about maybe what's actually functionally going on here? This is a little bit more of a personal version between you know, partners, people that are very very close. But it's not entirely dissimilar. What do you think, Matt, I think it's very similar. Actually, Um, did you say couples therapy couples therapy? Yeah? Or even just like you know, if you have a therapist. They can teach you how to get what you want. Um, you know, out of relationships by not being confrontational. But it's not like you're tricking somebody. You're you're genuinely just trying to get to a commonplace where you understand. When you do this, it makes me feel bad, Um, but it's not just necessarily mean. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you're saying. Maybe there's something that I can do to help you know better the situation. So it's not putting it all on the other person and saying, you big dumb idiot, you've got it all wrong, and I'm gonna tell you why and why you're wrong, because that's never gonna work for anybody. Know, you're right, and it should be known that you could take this example and you know, flip it over a little bit. Maybe you've got a friend that thinks, you know, the other party has never done anything wrong, right, and you are like, I always vote for this party because they're just better for X reasons. This whole thing around, right, and you know, you just do the same exact things we're talking about. Yeah, Like if we go back to that that thing we're saying, well, you are two sources. It's interesting that they seem to agree. You've got to be ready for those sources to be called into question. And this example is interesting because it touches on media, right, So don't escalate. Your move now is to find points of agreement. So literally use phrases with respectful intonation, like we can agree that blank and say we agree. Use that inclusive language because when someone is a little tricky. But here's the scoop, folks, When someone here's you saying we agree in a casual manner repeatedly, don't overuse it, but repeatedly, then on an unconscious level, their brain begins to accept that agreement as a base reality. You're building that rapport. I know, I know. It's all manipulative unless you're a really smart person and you see it. So it's like if this is where you gotta be careful with because some of these techniques we're talking about can become transparent very quickly. I think that's what why I keep popping in saying like, it doesn't have to be a technique, you know what I mean, Yes, these are you can understand them as what they are. But also if you're truly coming at it from an empathetic place, which I always try to do. Then you're actually not bullshitting somebody or trying to trick them. You're genuinely having a conversation um and and asking, and you're I'm interested. I don't think you're an idiot. Obviously, maybe I do, but usually in these situations, you're not coming at a at a person where you think they're complete fool. You think there must be a reason that you think this, and I'm interested in finding out what that is, right, So that's like we're all in agreement there. What I'm saying is like the end of what I'm saying here is that because this runs the danger of being manipulative, and I'm not doing a bit there, but because it runs, because it runs the danger of being that way, you should only say this stuff if you sincerely do agree people. Is disrespectful because it is assuming that or it contains within it the assumption that they are somehow intellectually inferior to you, which is almost never the case. People are very intelligent and should be spoken to as such. It's just a matter of respect. So, like you, we can also agree with a statement without accepting it. You know, you can say, okay, well, yeah, I'm with you there. Mass media has a lot of problems. Just a few companies own a ton of outlets. A lot of those companies depend on advertisers. That's just that's messed up, and they'll probably agree with you because that it is true. Well, it's also interesting to where you, like, let's say someone is in support of a movement that has very vocal supporters that are maybe members of pretty universally panned uh subculture, like white supremacists. So you might say, how can you support something that is supported by white supremacists, to which they might say, well, they're not really white supremacists, to which they might say, they're not what you're saying they are. But that also does identify a common ground in that like we we do agree that white supremacy is bad, Nazis are bad. So then at this point the conversation becomes around, well what are these people if not that? And how are they misunderstood? The whole good people on both sides argument Again, it's the idea of like, now we are in a space where we are learning together, right, this is where we move to, This is where we moved to advice. People don't just like feeling correct. People also like teaching. People like to be credible authority figures. Right, there's something to the myth of Prometheus that made it stick around so much. Folks like to bring the fire to others and or the fire of knowledge. Excuse me. So, you know, if you ask someone in a respectful and please sincere way, just be curious, you know, like Ted Lasso says, just be curious. Uh, ask these folks what sources they might recommend, Like hey, when, okay, so if CNN and Fox and insert whomever here, if they're not a good source, like where, what would you recommend? Like what sources do you follow? You know, who do you in whom do you put your trust? Because I I want to learn more? Right, and only say it if you meet it and be ready to look into it. I mean they'll tell you. Don't worry again. People have reasons and for believing what they do, and you can narrow the scope to you can say, can you recommend some specific things? Right? What is that? Like what's an episode of that thing? What's an article from this thing? What should I read? Watch or whatever? Don't say whatever? But like you know what stood out to you in particular about this, or maybe what do you wish more people knew about this? Right? Uh, this is where if you are not being condescending, you're still being very human. This is where you're getting to a really cool place just in any conversation. It doesn't matter what the conversation is. Maybe we take a break for a word from our sponsors, and then we'll talk a little bit about just the nature of rapport and our interactions. All right, we're back. Uh, let's assume it's going to plan. Right, what have we done. We've engaged, we're talking. We're practicing empathy. Yes, yeah, we took that on right, and we're doing it sincerely. Uh. And we're also being the most beautiful part of a conversation everybody dreams of this dancing partner, the active listener. You're referencing yourself in a supportive, honest way. You're giving your conversation partner the ability to feel like a source of information to be listened to and not judged. And now you can start sussing out some spece sifics. Right, you've earned that. Now, if there is a conspiracy off, what who's responsible? Like and why what do they want? Ultimately? What's their end game? Uh? And then you could maybe do some thought experiments like, Okay, I'm learning a lot. Let's look at it on the other side. For people who don't believe this, what what is there version of the thing right for? For people who believe For people who believe there was absolutely nothing weird about the JFK assassination. Why not? That's a that's a very popular one. What what leads them to that conclusion? Let's try to put ourselves in their heads, you know, see what they think about it. That part might get dismissed, that might get totally just swatted away. That's fine, and just nod and leave it there. You know. The key is that you are showing you remain open and objectively interested in learning more. Yeah, And I would say it's also place to just continue asking questions. I mean, you can there can be some really interesting conversation right there if you talk about the opposing viewpoint. I feel like there's some great avenues you could take that conversation down to. But yeah, I agreed. I mean, here's what you're doing at this point is only partially effect finding mission. The bigger goal isn't to present your version of events yet, you know, not in a declarative statement. It's it's to build that sense of rapport, that sense of communion. People are more receptive to ideas when they feel like they have a personal and positive connection to the source of those ideas. That's a huge piece of this. That's why you hear people complaining and saying, well, you know, this person in my life only watches this one channel, right, that's where they get everything, and they'll dismiss stuff if it comes from another source. It's because humans often base their conclusions not on the content the message, but on how they feel about that their relationship to the source of the information. Kimmer the poet who said, Um, people will forget what you said to them, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. Oh that's good, my angelo, I want to say. Yeah, certainly sounds like something she might say. It's very thoughtful observation. People will remember how they felt about you saying that, Ben, but they won't remember what you said. That's so weird to think about. It's kind of true, right, Um, Well, because if they make you feel bad, then you're probably going to immediately dismiss what they're saying and put it out of your head. Um, which means about what they're saying here, it is I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. It's powerful. I think it might be a bit of a broad right because we do remember things that other other living things do. Um. But yeah, so you're finding this sense of rapport. So now we've established ourselves, hopefully as a genuine, friendly and curious sounding board. No one's yelled, no one has committed to anything they don't believe right to try to manipulate a conversation not being condescending. If anything, the main risk you have here is being like one of those annoying kids playing the Y game. You guys know the Y game, right. It's like when when a kid figures out the word why, and every answer leads to another why, until eventually you find yourself in a ridiculous, surreal situation trying to explain stuff that you never really thought about. Yeah, or like a Homer and Bart Simpson choking scenario, and then all of a sudden you're doing a bud Dry commercial. Why ask why just get drunk the race that race at all from your memory? But dry lee but dry uh so. Uh so now you've kind of now we've earned the right to pose questions that might touch on, you know, the contradictions right the orwelly and double think of something. It's really cool to not start replies with negative or oppositional phrases. Someone tells you something, they're trusting you to tell them, hopping in and saying but what about that? Ha got you that that's gonna ruin this um, this interaction you've been building, and you can say, okay, well, what what do we think about this blah blah blah thing? Right? Like, okay Earth, Uh, you're right, most people are not astronauts. I've never seen the planet from space in person? So what what will we say about this following thing? Because that kind of what about is I'm you're talking about is is a very transparent tactic. It's often used by politicians when they're asked straight questions they don't want to answer. They'll just kind of deflect it by talking about this other thing you know that like either is is antithetical to what they're being asked or is an example of something else that is related to the question, but it allows them to avoid actually having to give an answer. Um, and it is is very transparent and very frustrating. Well, I hear you, but I'm just to clarify an apologies if I wasn't coming off correct there. I'm not talking about what about is um as the rhetorical tactic. I'm talking about bringing in, like, now that we have a base understanding this belief, what do we think about the other the the other side really like the you know, the earth flat The flat earth thing is probably not the best example, but we could say, well, what about the folks who maintain it is round? What do we know about them? How do we react? I see, but this at some point, you know, the person you're talking to may shut down. It might not even be a big deal. You're just having a conversation. The conversations go to other topics all the time, you know what I mean? Someone belches loudly at the Thanksgiving table. Uh, there's a new round of charts. You know, there's other stuff. Uh. You don't want to be the person who like is coming off as some weird investigative reporter on a mission to prove Bigfoot exists or doesn't whatever. Um, you just it sounds simple, but I mean you're really we're right, there is a sort of uh it's sort of the best practice to keep it cash, you know what I mean, Like keep it in the realm of like a conversation rather than a debate, you know, rather than getting really heated, because then it starts to feel adversarial, and then a lot of these kind of kinder, gentler methods of of of getting the stuff sussed out sort of go out the window, especially again when alcohol is involved. Have you had conspiracy conspiratorial like arguments? Maybe not arguments, but I mean, you know, if you're talking with someone that just really has a completely you know, opposing view to something that I believe, and I already think that it's kind of just absolutely disproven and really hard to have a conversation with that person about it, it can very quickly become a a pping contest where you're literally just you know, trying to shut that person down as they're trying to shut you down, and it's just like beating your head against the wall or banging two bricks together. You know, it's it's only going to result in negativity that's going to outflow outward, you know, to everyone else. And then it's it's basically like a like a weird boxing match. You know, it's not a conversation at all at that point. Um. But that again requires both sides to to approach the stuff gently, and you can't always depend on that happening. A lot of times, your Uncle Steve is gonna come hard at you right from the start. So it's your job to sort of mellow it out and diffuse it a little bit, you know, and not meet that energy, you know, instead dial it back a little bit. And then maybe Uncle Steve will dial it back a little bit too. I hope he does. With the citation of alcohol, and there a couple of times I'm now for being a picture in my head of of some Uncle Steve who was like totally reasonable. But then you know, the guy's had six beers and he's like and another thing, and he's arts in his hand. He's got jarts. God forbid, charts are involved. First of all, those should be outdoor activities only. Do not even bring those hand to the to the to the dinner table room. Oh man, guys, I just quickly I had a conversation not long ago with someone who was adamant that there was, in fact a firmament above where we were standing when we were having the conversation that there was, you know, a biblical concept like a dome above us. But I found that it was a fascinating conversation because I knew so very little about specific belief structures within UM. I guess that system when you you know, and and this person as an individual, they have their own beliefs, but what they believed was there and how it functioned. And I found that I was learning a ton just by having this conversation. And there was no reason for me to try and change this person's beliefs. It was just it was this kind of exact situation that we're describing here. But it can also be an enriching thing that you can do for yourself. I just want to put that out there. I love that man, and you know, uh, We've always pointed out you especially met the need to recognize the humanity and others. That's the key thing. UM thinking a lot about this. Really, one of the big takeaways is leave the door open. Don't don't force people to do stuff you're you may be entering in a situation where information is bubbled, and you have to be aware that you probably live in an information bubble yourself. This is like the key thing that keeps sticking with me. We have to remember that this person, if you're talking to them, they're probably important to you. And you may not vibe on things like ghost or elections or the shape of the planet or whatever. But the truth is, when you think about it, you probably do agree on the majority of all the other stuff you've experienced. You agree so much that you never talk about it because you're that on the same page. So this one to two percent difference in overall opinion about life, it is far outweighed by the sheer amount of stuff that you and and probably the rest of humanity connect on. You know, and it's easy to forget that, but it's important to remember it. You could also just not everything has to be like some Frost Nixon conversation. You could just say, hey, do you want to go bowling? Right? Do you want to go, like, I don't know, go tubing. If you're lucky enough to live near a water source, just go hang somewhere. You have to talk about this because every time you're hanging. You're becoming an established alternative viewpoint, and you are you are helping expand I don't want to say break expand that information horizon just a bit tubings for lips man. Man, I'm just kidding. Yeah, I'm joking. But it's also, like you know it, you'd be surprised at how many people could turn the most innocuous topics back around to these adversarial, you know, kind of two bricks pounding together situations. I am speaking from experience, like specifically with with my mom, Like it was just I had to do everything in my power to not have those conversations because it was just never gonna be good. But she's such a stubborn person that she always find a way to reel it back to those uncomfortable topics to which point, at which point I would have to just kind of walk away, which is also an option that is also an option for for all those out there you don't have to engage if things get a little too heated, Uh, sometimes it is best to walk away. Yeah, and and give everybody some time and remember the big important thing again is that this person probably has your back. The vast majority of stuff you agree on and so much so again you don't talk about it, but this the cool thing is, and maybe we hit this to the cool thing is that along the way, if you're sincere and you're spending extended amounts of time, not just one conversation, uh with someone that disagrees with youth, and you're going to learn new information yourself along the way, and that's that's invaluable. Uh. And with that, I don't know. I mean, this stuff is tough. It's one of those things that it's very easy to say or suggest some ideas about how to approach these things, but actually doing it it can be really challenging. It can be uphill. So I don't know about you guys, but I think would be great to hear some stories from our fellow conspiracy realist who might have had similar experiences. I'm on the other side sometimes I'm like, I think the JFK assassination was a cover up, you know, oh a million. But that's where I'm coming from. You know, let me hear me out. We all have our own our own, our own stories, our own you know, everything that led us to where we are now. And I think a lot of this truly is about kind of being more connected to people and figuring out what it is about them that led them to have that opinion, not necessarily to shut down set opinion, to let us know. What are some methods that you employ? You know, in these kind of uncomfortable exchanges, you can get to us in the usual Internet spots of note, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube where we're conspiracy stuff, conspiracy stuff show on TikTok and Instagram. Hey, speaking of those last two, why don't we do something a little different with this one. If you've had a situation like this that you want to tell us about, why don't you make a video on Instagram or TikTok and let us know about it. I do it? Do they add us? Guys? I don't know how it works. Yeah, I think you can. You can tag us in the video and then we can do a video response. We started toying with that recently with some of the Instagram stories and and reels and stuff we've been doing, so I think that's really fun. We have been figuring trying to figure out more interactive ways to do these kinds of to have these kinds of conversation, So give it a try. Part of this experiment are we gonna do that live thing in Atlanta. We're gonna try to hang out at our at our local chickens. Definitely set it on the books. And also we've been toying with the idea of doing some more maybe Instagram lives as well, So let us know that's something you'd be interested in, um, because we have a good time doing and we'd we'd love to hear from you. Another way you can get in touch with us is with a telephone call. Yes, our number is one eight three three st d w y t K. When you call in, you've got three minutes to leave a voicemail. The clock is ticking. Give yourself a cool nickname and say whatever you want. Stories are great, really like seriously, stories are probably the best, especially if we can just listen to it together on the air. Send us your stories. We also love episodes, suggestions, or just your thoughts, whatever you're feeling about this episode or another one. Please do include if we can use your name and voice on one of our listener mail episodes or elsewhere on the show. And that's it. 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