Transcription
Have you ever interacted with someone who has a very paranoid, conspiratorial way of thinking about the world, and it's just so frustrating because nothing will get through to them? You may have come into contact with a conspiracy theorist out in the wild. In this video, I will explain why it's very unlikely that you will actually convince a conspiracy theorist to change their mind with evidence, and why it's honestly really difficult to be in any sort of relationship with them, whether it's romantic, family, friends, work, school, whatever.
Now, a while back, I made an entire video on the psychology of conspiracy theorists, which covers like, what the research has to say on this topic. But today, I want to go a little bit deeper into the specific ways of thinking and reasoning that people like this tend to engage in, because it shows up in everyday micro-interactions when you're dealing with someone who just has this like, undercurrent of paranoia, who chronically believes that powerful people are out to get them, including sometimes, maybe you. And I'm going to be using Candace Owens' content as a case study for a lot of the things that I'm talking about.
Without further ado, why is it so hard to argue with conspiracy theorists? What are their ways of thinking and reasoning? Question before we get started: Have you actually interacted with a conspiracy theorist, and how did that go for you? Let me know down in the comments.
So, the first thing I want to mention about the way conspiracy theorists think and reason is they use circumstantial evidence for their allegations. Circumstantial evidence are things that could raise red flags about something, but it's not proof. It requires you to reason in order to reach that conclusion. Circumstantial evidence is considered less strong in court, for instance, than direct evidence. For example, let's say that Jon accuses Jane of cheating on him. He says, "You've been working late and you started taking more care in how you look." But he has no direct evidence. He hasn't seen her, you know, make flirty faces at her coworker. He hasn't found compromising text messages. He hasn't caught her in the act. He hasn't heard from someone else that she's having an affair. Is it understandable that Jon might wonder if Jane is cheating on him? Maybe, but it's not sufficient proof to be convinced of his conclusion, because there are other possible explanations, too. Maybe she's decided to take work more seriously, or maybe she's trying to do self-improvement in the new year.
Circumstantial evidence means that sometimes people are just going to be at the wrong place, wrong time. And motive is often a big one that conspiracy theorists use as circumstantial evidence. They'll say, "Just because someone is motivated to do something, that's evidence that they actually did what they're being accused of." For example, let's say that Glenda accuses you of sleeping with your boss to get a promotion. But just because you're motivated to get a promotion doesn't mean you actually slept with your boss. So, her being convinced of it based on only circumstantial evidence is a little bit shaky.
So, regarding Candace, to my knowledge, at no point has Candace presented any concrete evidence for any of her theories. For example, regarding her conspiracies about the Charlie Kirk assassination, it's all circumstantial. Like, people in the crowd wearing maroon.
"Here we go. We have this this young man. This is after the shot. He's wearing maroon. Show you another person here sitting there under the tree after the shot and he's wearing maroon. Show you another person here. We're going to come back to this person who is wearing maroon because his dad is going to uh say something publicly. Three people, one shot, all of them alone wearing maroon. We're going to come back to the guy uh at the top there who has the hat, the darker hat on who was wearing maroon. Just like like these like strapping young men all wearing maroon. We've got this guy in the bush wearing maroon. I could go on and on. This person wear of how many people wearing maroon. I even have a video of someone holding a maroon shirt."
Similarly, she's provided no direct evidence that Bridget Mcronone is a man, only indirect proof like the fact that she looks like her brother or doesn't have childhood photos.
Now, people like Candace use circumstantial evidence to prove their accusations, despite the fact that the burden of proof is on them to provide tangible, concrete evidence. Take, for example, Jon and Jane. Jon can't suddenly demand that Jane prove she's not cheating on him without any evidence that she is. If he's going to make such a serious accusation, it's on him to have evidence to back up his claim. But paranoid, conspiratorial thinking flips this dynamic. It makes an accusation where the person being accused needs to prove their innocence. Instead of innocent until proven guilty, it becomes guilty until you prove yourself innocent. Suddenly, it's, "I'm 100% sure that you're guilty." And any attempt at you proving your innocence is actually going to be rejected. More on that in a second.
So, with Candace, the burden of proof is on her to provide evidence for the outlandish theories that she's perpetuating. But instead, she demands the people she's accusing to defend themselves against accusations she doesn't have direct proof of. Why should Bridget Mcronone have to prove that she's not a man? Candace doesn't have any direct evidence that she does. And honestly, even if she did, who [ __ ] cares? Candace's evidence is either circumstantial, like she looks like her brother, or hearsay from unverified sources.
Let's find an example of this in the family sphere. Let's say that there's a dad who feels easily slighted by his son disrespecting him. His son left the dinner table without saying thank you. He disagreed with him during a discussion. And he made direct eye contact during conflict. But all these are negative interpretations of ambiguous behaviors. Just because his son didn't agree with him or made direct eye contact doesn't mean he was disrespecting him. That's just how the dad interpreted his behavior. But the dad still presents that as proof of wrongdoing. So then the son gets put in a position where he needs to prove his innocence and explain and justify every little thing that he does.
However, the son will always fail at this, because another component of conspiratorial thinking is they make unfalsifiable claims. An unfalsifiable claim is something that cannot be proven wrong. Like, if I were to say to you, "You watch anime in secret." I can prove it if I guess I catch you watching anime or admitting to someone that you watch anime, but you can't actually prove that you don't watch anime in secret, because, ah, maybe you do it when no one's watching. Another unfalsifiable claim is the claim that God exists. He's just invisible. So, we can't actually prove that he does or doesn't exist. Or, "The elites are controlling us, but they hide all the evidence." If they hide all the evidence and they're so powerful, then we can't actually prove that they do or don't.
So, with Candace, how can we prove that it wasn't Israel or Egypt or the United States government that assassinated Charlie Kirk? We can't, because she says there's this like, mono government that controls everything and hides all the evidence. So, it's an unfalsifiable claim. What's an example in everyday life of an unfalsifiable claim? Someone might say to you, "You're using me for social status, and you can't actually prove your intentions, so it's unfalsifiable."
In general, people who tend to have conspiratorial thinking will use something called the mind-reading cognitive distortion and use their beliefs about what you think as evidence to their theory. And it can sometimes even turn into a delusion. It's like, "I literally know what you think. I'm convinced I know what you think, even though I have no evidence of it, and you can't prove me wrong."
I am so sorry that I look like Rudolph intermittently throughout this video. I keep having to blow my nose. And this is where the next piece comes in, which is that any response or non-response is perceived as evidence of wrongdoing.
"And that thing happened where there was an overreaction for no reason online. So, I knew that I was on the right track and I should probably keep going."
If the accused person actually responds, that's interpreted as wrongdoing. So, if the McRons sue Candace for defamation, like they're doing, oh, she must have gotten under their skin. She must be on to something. They're trying to silence her. But if the accused doesn't respond, that's also evidence of wrongdoing. Like, how the US government didn't make a statement with regards to her accusation that the McRons put a hit on her. Oh, that's cuz they're in on it. They're covering it up.
"I did hear back from the White House confirming that that message had been delivered on Trump's desk, me saying that I had the information. I guess they he didn't want to inquire further, which is interesting. Uh, but the FBI left me on red. And I will say, I didn't go through an official channel and send an email, and I should do that, but I did send a text message to somebody very high up who received the text message. No response."
"Now, I thought that the claim of the French Foreign Legion being involved in Charlie's assassination, I thought the FBI might be interested. No. No phone calls even from Utah's FBI branch have come into me either. Wouldn't you want to see? Aren't we supposed to be investigating the Charlie Kirk assassination? It It was totally not a state operation, and they really want to get to the truth, which explains why nobody called. No. Utah. Not interested. I'm actually surprised Tyler Robinson's lawyer hasn't reached out to me. What's going on here? Well, we've got to protect the psy, right? We've got to protect the psy in this situation."
So, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. In everyday interactions, let's say your mom accuses you of hiding something from her. And she says, "You're hiding something. I know it. I have a feeling." Which is emotional reasoning. When you say you know something simply because you have a feeling about it. This is another key component of conspiratorial thinking.
"By the way, >> he makes my skin crawl. I can't explain it. This is a I look at him and he's a bad person and nobody can make me feel one way or the other about that."
If you reply, "I'm not hiding anything," then she can say, "See, look how defensive you are. This is proof that I'm right." But if you just disengage and say, "I'm not going to get into a fight with you right now," then she can say, "See, you won't even defend yourself because you know I'm right." And I see this all the time with online figures who are forced to defend themselves for whatever reason. People demand that they defend themselves, and then they use their response as proof of wrongdoing. But if they stay silent, they also use that as proof of wrongdoing. But regardless, when you're dealing with such a person, not defending yourself is usually the much better move, because anything you say can and will be twisted against you. And yeah, even if you don't say anything, it's going to get twisted against you. But at least then they'll have less to latch on to.
Another component of conspiratorial thinking is their pattern recognition is simultaneously overactive and underactive. Meaning they read into certain things and see a pattern where there is none, like maroon shirts. Yet also, they don't notice more blatant patterns at play, like say, all the evidence we have against the man who's currently on trial for assassinating Charlie Kirk. People with conspiratorial thinking both see patterns where there are none and don't see patterns where they truly exist. This is called pattern overdetection and pattern blindness, because they're motivated to see patterns only when it involves this core feeling of paranoia, only when they want to confirm the belief that someone powerful is out to get them.
Let's say both you and a mutual friend can't go out to lunch with your friend Vanessa. Let's say both of you have to cancel. She interprets this as evidence that the two of you have been talking behind her back. She sees a pattern where there is none. But on the other hand, she fails to see the larger pattern that both you and the mutual friend are sick. For instance, maybe it's flu season. Maybe you had to cancel a family event last night. So, it's not like you're only bailing on her. But Vanessa is simultaneously not seeing the pattern that exists and seeing a pattern that doesn't exist.
Conspiratorial people also move the goalpost. Moving the goalpost is a logical fallacy where someone asks for evidence, but once you provide evidence, they demand for even more evidence. No amount of evidence is ever enough. So, for example, at the beginning of her conspiracy theories regarding the Charlie Kirk assassination, Candace said, "I'm only going to stop if Erica Kirk asks me to stop." And then when Erica Kirk flat out told her stop, she refused to stop.
"Going to stop unless Erica Kirk asks me to stop." Erica said, "Stop." No. She was saying, "No, no, no. I'm only going to stop if you tell me where I've lied." Again, like, "I'm only going to stop if you prove to me an unfalsifiable claim." Right?
How does this look in relationships? Well, I once had a professor who would move the goalpost on exams. For example, he would ask us, "What does the prefrontal cortex do?" And it was a paragraph answer worth three points. And so, we would give three things, three examples of what the prefrontal cortex does. And he would mark us all down because, well, you didn't also cite that it does this and it does this. Nothing was ever enough. The goalpost was always moving, and the entire class was worried that we were going to fail.
Now, if you actually disprove the conspiracy theory, that is also seen as proof of the theory's veracity. This is called a self-sealing belief, which is where you interpret any outcome, including the disconfirmation by evidence, as confirmation of the theory. For example, I don't know by the time I post this what else will have happened with Candace. It changes day by day. But as of today, when I'm filming this, Candace Owens posted that she had a really long talk with Erica Kirk. She feels it alleviated tensions or something like that. And I thought this was a really interesting comment under that post: "If her direction changes tomorrow, we will know that everything that was said before is indeed 100% accurate."
There is no circumstance under which such people will ever believe that their theory is disproven. Even evidence to the contrary, even somebody saying like, "Hey, actually, I was wrong. Actually, new information came to light," is interpreted as evidence to their theory. This is related to confirmation bias. How we tend to dismiss evidence that disconfirms our beliefs, and we tend to prioritize evidence of our beliefs. And it happens a lot when people refuse to admit that they were ever wrong, likely because their belief is somehow tied to their identity, such as the identity of being a victim of the universe's elites. That is why there is no convincing these people. Even if literally the person spearheading these theories says, "I changed my mind," they will never believe it.
Also, dissidents are framed as enemies who are in on a big conspiracy. So, Candace initially steered clear of accusing Erica Kirk of anything. But then, once Erica said stop and condemned the conspiracy theories, Candace also started criticizing her. So, the way that this looks in day-to-day interactions is let's say your friend Katie is telling you that she thinks your mutual friend Consuela has been turning everyone against her, and you politely disagree and you say, "Hey, I really don't think that Consuela did that." And you provide your evidence for why you think that. You then also become persona non grata, somebody who's in on it, who's in on Consuela's mastermind scheme. Anyone presenting evidence to the contrary of the conspiracy theory automatically gets shut down by an ad hominem attack. "Oh, you're in on it. You're one of them."
In conclusion, I wanted this video not only to go into the reasoning and thinking errors involved in conspiracy thinking, but also the way that it shows up in relationships. What happens when those conspiracy theorists go out into the world and interact with everyday people? Because at one point or another, we're probably all going to come into contact with them. Some conspiracy theories turn out to be true. Yeah, absolutely. But someone who chronically uses these errors in thinking and reasoning is likely seeing conspiracy theories where there are none.
So, as a reminder, those are using circumstantial evidence for their claims, flipping the burden of proof, making unfalsifiable claims, perceiving either response or non-response as evidence of wrongdoing, simultaneous pattern overdetection and pattern blindness, moving the goalpost, self-sealing beliefs, and ad hominem attacks against dissidents.
If you're dealing with such a person and you keep feeling frustrated because no amount of reasoning with them works, stop. It's not you, it's them. There's no winning when it comes to such a person, so you might as well stop trying. I hope you have a nice rest of your week. See you soon.
Tell me what you want. What you need? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me what you want. What you need?