There are some people who probably should not read the following article. If anyone starts to feel affronted, it's probably a good time to stop reading. The article hammers just about every nail I've noticed recently.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/w...ped-conspiracy-theory-trap-ensnared-106830443
continued in next post...
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/w...ped-conspiracy-theory-trap-ensnared-106830443
Days of Darkness: How one woman escaped the conspiracy theory trap that has ensnared millions
Fueled by the internet, conspiracy theories are having a big moment in America
ByDAVID KLEPPER Associated Press
January 31, 2024, 9:27 AM
WASHINGTON -- At first his stories seemed harmless. Tales about secret organizations plotting to take over the world, about the good guys working to save it, and about the proof that, if you knew where to look, was hiding in plain sight.
To Ramona, her boyfriend Don's tales of conspiracy theories sounded like a movie. A lot of it didn’t make much sense, but Ramona would nod along anyway. Don enjoyed telling his stories and showing off what he’d read online. He always knew the answer.
The pair met while still in high school. They worked at the same fast-food place in Ramona's hometown in western Tennessee. They started dating a few years later. Don was a big guy, good with engines, somebody who could fix anything. Ramona had always wanted to be a teacher and was enrolled at a nearby college. Sometimes she struggled with anxiety, but with Don she felt safe.
The couple moved in together as COVID-19 swept the globe. To Don, the pandemic and the global response to it were filled with clues pointing to some kind of conspiracy, orchestrated by America's leaders and the media. Maybe the virus was accidentally leaked from a lab; maybe it was a bioweapon. Don also suspected the lockdowns had a nefarious purpose, and he believed the vaccines were unsafe, perhaps designed to kill.
Don’s wild stories had seemed innocent and even silly before, but in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic they suddenly seemed plausible. At a scary time, when questions about the virus outnumbered answers, the conspiracy theories filled in some of the blanks.
“I have a lot of fear about what I can’t control,” Ramona, now 23, said of her vulnerable mindset as COVID-19 spread. Ramona agreed to tell her story to The Associated Press after she detailed her experiences on a forum for recovering conspiracy theorists. The AP is not fully identifying Ramona or her ex-boyfriend to protect her privacy and safety. “The stuff he was telling me, it made me feel like at least we understood. He had an explanation for what was going on. I didn’t realize what I was getting into.”
This alternate reality nourished by these conspiracy theories would transform Ramona’s life, sending her down a dark path of paranoia and loneliness that upended her life and spun her dreams of the future into turmoil. Convinced that a “New World Order” was already underway, she fell into a trap that has ensnared millions of Americans and even, at times, hijacked the nation's politics.
Isolated from friends and family, distrustful of the explanations offered by officials and the media, Ramona and Don began to prepare. The military might try to put Americans like them in concentration camps run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. They had to be ready to flee.
The couple began stockpiling food and supplies. Don started a “go-bag” containing survival gear. He used their modest savings to buy a rifle, a handgun and ammunition.
One cold day in January 2021, Don read about a power outage in Vatican City on one of his conspiracy theory websites. The couple discussed what it might mean: Perhaps the Pope had been secretly arrested for his role in the conspiracy to control the world. Or maybe the bad guys had knocked out the power so they could smuggle child sex victims in or out of the Vatican.
Either way, the outage meant something big was happening. There are no coincidences. Just clues to be deciphered.
A few hours later, Ramona was in the bedroom when the lights in their Tennessee home flickered and then went out. Don started yelling. Ramona says he sounded almost exhilarated.
“He comes running into the bedroom,” Ramona recalled. “He says, 'Honey, we gotta go. This is it!’”
They loaded their guns and the dog into the car and drove into the darkness.
The AP spoke with more than a dozen people whose lives were disrupted by conspiracy theories — either because they believed them or because a close loved one did.
Many spoke of the social isolation that comes from spending more and more time on conspiracy theory websites and message boards.
They talked about money lost to investment scams or products that claimed to reverse aging or cure COVID-19. They talked about a mounting sense of paranoia and distrust as they began to lose faith in their community and their fellow Americans.
Former believers said conspiracy theories offered them meaning when they felt empty, even if those promises proved to be hollow themselves.
“I was suicidal before I got into conspiracy theories,” said Antonio Perez, 45, a Hawaii man who became obsessed with Sept. 11 conspiracy theories and QAnon until he decided they were interfering with his life two years ago. Back then, when he first found other online conspiracy theorists, he was ecstatic. “It’s like: My God, I’ve finally found my people!”
“I think I got a sense of self-importance” from conspiracy theories, Perez said. He believed that he alone “was figuring everything out. It all ties into wanting to be a hero.”
Belief in conspiracy theories is a common, and usually harmless, part of people's instinctive need to identify threats and explain the unknown. They can be an entertaining diversion for many, though for some, obsessive interest in these claims can lead to social isolation, paranoia and distrust.
Such beliefs also create their own community.
Websites, streaming podcasts, online forums and Facebook groups have created virtual refuges for conspiracy theorists. They are places to speculate and swap information without worrying about the mockery of outsiders, virtual clubs where, for a few hours at least, the unseen forces behind the headlines can be seen and understood.
Similar online communities have sprouted for the family members and loved ones left behind when someone is consumed by conspiracy theories such as QAnon.
On forums on Reddit and other sites, they mourn lost relationships and bemoan the fantasy worlds that consumed their loved ones.
“I’ve really been missing my mom lately,” reads a post from a woman whose mother fell into QAnon. Another post mourns a relationship with a brother, lost to the conspiracy theory: “I miss his goofy laugh most of all.”
People choose what to believe. They build a worldview day by day, using it to understand the past and present and to make decisions for the future. But if people pick the wrong stories, they risk lying to themselves, and to each other.
“We are the stories we tell ourselves,” said John Llewellyn, a professor at Wake Forest University who studies conspiracy theories and why people believe what they believe. “We’ve landed on the moon, and now we’ve got artificial intelligence — for better or worse — but no matter how advanced we get, we still have to deal with the human brain.”
But the stories people tell themselves aren’t always the same as the truth, and the difference, as Ramona found, can be the difference between freedom and a prison.
When Ramona was a little girl, her father worked as an auctioneer. One day he brought home an antique school desk that didn’t sell.
When Ramona’s friends came over, they played school, with Ramona always taking the role of teacher. When she was alone, she would line up her stuffed animals and “teach them whatever I had learned at school that day,” she recalls. She didn’t realize it at the time, but she was hooked.
Ramona was studying for her education degree and living in the dorms when the pandemic hit. Don was working at the local auto plant. When Ramona's classes went online, he urged her to drop out. He was making good money, enough for Ramona to quit her job and leave college. Ramona didn’t want to give up on her education, so as a compromise she transferred to a smaller, local college to be closer to Don during the pandemic. Soon, she had moved in with him.
continued in next post...