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This morning I saw yet another internet pal complain that her dad has become an Alex Jones raveaholic who believes in crisis actors and Bohemian blood rituals. What's especially depressing about this is that the story always ends there, with dad stuck on the other side of the looking glass and the people who care about him just having to deal with it. This thread is for anygoon to tell how their friend or relative (or self) got hooked on Alex Jones and then quit. What was the turning point? Did they completely put aside conspiracy theories? Did they get into harder drugs like Pepe and neo-Nazism before they turned around?
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Apr 26, 2018 03:06
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i was never hooked exactly but there was a solid year or two around 2011 where i listened to the show regularly, along with other conspiracy theory/paranormal stuff like Coast to Coast AM. can't say exactly what turned me off in the end, probably a combination of fatigue (the show going back to the same topics and guests again and again, general exhausting nature of Alex's deal) and the commercialization. his supplement and water filter grift wasn't where it is now back then but it was already a big part of the infowars operation and it was obviously very greasy. of course i was only ever listening out of morbid fascination, i never took the mental step into actually believing and agreeing with jones
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Apr 26, 2018 03:12
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is there a cure to stupidity and/or mental illness?
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Apr 26, 2018 05:02
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social alienation isn't a biological disorder hth
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Apr 26, 2018 05:50
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Lead poisoning isn't something you recover from
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Apr 26, 2018 05:52
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well a cousin of mine has a schizotypal disorder and once they got his medication right he stopped listening to infowars so... give powerful antipsychotics a try
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Apr 26, 2018 05:53
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I used to be an unironic 9/11 truther but I got over that, so I think it's possible
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Apr 26, 2018 06:04
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whomupclicklike posted:I used to be an unironic 9/11 truther but I got over that, so I think it's possible So did I, and I also believed that Bush and Kerry were Illuminati. But I also was 14.....
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Apr 26, 2018 06:08
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Teenagers might be able to get over it but I think once an older person falls down that rabbit hole they are generally too stubborn to admit they were wrong. Same thing if they get into Amway or whatever
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Apr 26, 2018 06:13
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Gazpacho posted:This morning I saw yet another internet pal complain that her dad has become an Alex Jones raveaholic who believes in crisis actors and Bohemian blood rituals. My stepdad listens to Alex Jones and it's a major reason why I don't talk to that fat gently caress at all. He's living on social security, too; I don't have a problem with that in the least, but he's a fan of right-wing pundits who talk about gutting or getting rid of the very programs that he keeps his rear end alive or off the street. It's the hypocrisy that drives me insane, and especially the vigorous denial he gives whenever that inconvenient fact is pointed out to him.
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Apr 26, 2018 06:47
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Percelus posted:is there a cure to stupidity and/or mental illness? there’s stuff you can do to mitigate mental illness and restore quality of life but there ain’t no cure for stupid
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Apr 26, 2018 06:55
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I did, but this was years ago, before Alex developed a slick, professional media presentation. And during the Bush years, it was easy to believe more of this poo poo, since W and Kerry really were in the same Skull and Bones fraternity, W's father really was CIA, and Cheney really doesn't have a pulse, like a vampire.
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Apr 26, 2018 07:02
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viral spiral posted:My stepdad listens to Alex Jones and it's a major reason why I don't talk to that fat gently caress at all. He's living on social security, too; I don't have a problem with that in the least, but he's a fan of right-wing pundits who talk about gutting or getting rid of the very programs that he keeps his rear end alive or off the street. It's the hypocrisy that drives me insane, and especially the vigorous denial he gives whenever that inconvenient fact is pointed out to him. Yeah but he deserves it though.
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Apr 26, 2018 08:16
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Jose posted:Lead poisoning isn't something you recover from actually the cure is more lead injected via projectile to the skull
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Apr 26, 2018 08:19
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Gazpacho posted:This morning I saw yet another internet pal complain that her dad has become an Alex Jones raveaholic who believes in crisis actors and Bohemian blood rituals. I think it's the gateway drug to bowls of chili that make you forget things. So get this relative person to take up cooking Alex Jones chili and let nature take it's course.
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Apr 26, 2018 09:21
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yeah I used to watch some of it after 9/11 but then stopped basically around the time of Obama becoming president because the conspiracy community went from people interested in the weird poo poo the hyper rich did to full throated racists. Nowadays he has like Tommy Robinson on who is an English fascist which is an instant nope.
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Apr 26, 2018 09:24
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p sure Robbie Williams went yoofo spotting with some people from AboveTopSecret back in the day presumably during a bad divorce + coke addiction phase. Remember that.
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Apr 26, 2018 09:25
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The fact that Jones “broke up” with Trump over loving Syria of all things is very strange imo signing a $670,000,000 arms deal with the sauidis after touching their evil glowing orb = doesn’t look like anything to me throwing yet another barrage of missles at Syria = GLOBALIST CUCK!!!??
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Apr 26, 2018 10:05
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Trumps Baby Hands posted:The fact that Jones “broke up” with Trump over loving Syria of all things is very strange imo The cruise missile strike was a conflict between accepted alt-right narratives that couldn't be ignored. Last year when Trump did the same thing it was obviously ineffectual and performative so they could ignore it, but this year they made a big show of force which was just as ineffectual but intentionally designed to give the impression to the interventionists that they did actually accomplish a thing. So, "Trump will MAGA by keeping radical Muslims out of the country," and "Based Assad will defeat radical Islam in Syria," directly butted heads because Trump gave in to the natsec blob. One or the other had to give way.
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Apr 26, 2018 10:21
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Trumps Baby Hands posted:The fact that Jones “broke up” with Trump over loving Syria of all things is very strange imo Also he really wants you to know that he isn't a russophile.
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Apr 26, 2018 11:21
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yes i have a friend who fell into the hole a couple of years ago and deleted me off of facebook because i kept calling out the bullshit he was sharing. last month he messaged me and said "Alright, i get it now. I'd like to be friends again if you'll have me." he still leans libertarian and is a bit of a survivalist but we're all works in progress
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Apr 26, 2018 11:29
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Trumps Baby Hands posted:The fact that Jones “broke up” with Trump over loving Syria of all things is very strange imo Dale Gribble is the most true to life character on koth
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Apr 26, 2018 12:18
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Animal-Mother posted:I did, but this was years ago, before Alex developed a slick, professional media presentation. And during the Bush years, it was easy to believe more of this poo poo, since W and Kerry really were in the same Skull and Bones fraternity, W's father really was CIA, and Cheney really doesn't have a pulse, like a vampire. 
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Apr 26, 2018 12:53
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Yes op Zeitgiest blew my mind and flipped my world upside down for about a week when i was 16. But then i went back to playing video games.
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Apr 26, 2018 15:45
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coffee enema should fix it
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Apr 26, 2018 18:08
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Scent of Worf posted:Yes op Zeitgiest blew my mind and flipped my world upside down for about a week when i was 16. But then i went back to playing video games. same, but it was loose change
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Apr 26, 2018 19:02
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i went down the rabbit hole of loose change and zeitgeist for a while which started branching into alex jones territory i remember exactly what snapped me out of it i was responding to an ex-girlfriend and somehow i brought up some bullshit thing about an upcoming training that would serves a front for a terror attack or some poo poo. just something really stupid. fema coffins? god knows what. musta been around 2007. anyway, the second i hit send i was like "holy poo poo, what the gently caress did i just do? none of that poo poo is real, god drat it." that ended that. in more ways than one. man, loneliness and depression can lead you down some really weird paths
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Apr 26, 2018 19:15
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I was never into infowars or even conspiracy theories and their various websites but I'll admit I thought 9/11 was conspiracy at first. It mainly has to do with being young, having little information, and your minds need to see patterns even when they arn't there. Like for example I'd only seen one building demo in my life, and thought the 9/11 collapse looked similar. Then after the super patriotic flag waving surge happened, I was convinced The Patriots winning the superbowl was all part of Bush's plan to turn America into a super nationalist state hell bent on owning the entire world. I tried looking at conspiracy theories to support my claims but umm I guess they veered off into too weird territory for me? I also got to looking at actual history and discovered most leaders are generally incomptenet in one regard or another, Tom Brady was actually good, and america was always super nationalist and had foreign ties that would eventually come back to bite us. I dunno how you get over being an infowarrior but with me I found it really has to do with actually getting somewhat educated. Edit: Also I heard from somewhere that the sheer number of people it would take to pull off blowing up skyscrapers in a controlled fashion and then not have somebody spill the beans like pretty much every other US secret in history would be a near impossible feat and my mind accepts that cuz personally Ive never met another human who can keep their mouth shut about poo poo, self included. Tr33 has issued a correction as of 19:32 on Apr 26, 2018 |
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Apr 26, 2018 19:26
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:The cruise missile strike was a conflict between accepted alt-right narratives that couldn't be ignored. Last year when Trump did the same thing it was obviously ineffectual and performative so they could ignore it, but this year they made a big show of force which was just as ineffectual but intentionally designed to give the impression to the interventionists that they did actually accomplish a thing. So, "Trump will MAGA by keeping radical Muslims out of the country," and "Based Assad will defeat radical Islam in Syria," directly butted heads because Trump gave in to the natsec blob. One or the other had to give way. in the end they just decided that trump knew what he was doing and had reasons for it because he could not do wrong, which unified the two dissonant concepts. MAGA
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Apr 26, 2018 19:28
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i'm still not sure about 9/11 tho... lol
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Apr 26, 2018 19:45
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Tr33 posted:I was never into infowars or even conspiracy theories and their various websites but I'll admit I thought 9/11 was conspiracy at first. It mainly has to do with being young, having little information, and your minds need to see patterns even when they arn't there. Presumably the Nixon win in '68 did the same for Gulf of Tonkin Truthers on the right
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Apr 26, 2018 20:09
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I got into conspiracy theory poo poo by way of being interested in the paranormal (ghosts, aliens, etc) because I liked ghostbusters and xfiles and in the early 00s if you were interested in one conspiracy you got drawn into every other conspiracy eventually because of how much crossover there was on the forums to discuss this stuff going to school the same time as obama won the election and spending less time on the internet because of college social life combined with seeing the sudden and severe political shift that happened in a lot of those places in response to obama winning kind of shook me out of it I think the only way people lose conspiracy addictions is if they have some outside influence that dislodges them from that world for a while, for me it was just being busy with school work, getting a science education, and having new friends I enjoyed spending time with that kept me distracted and eventually seeing how grossly racist a lot of the old places became made me realize it was a load of poo poo and toxic besides conspiracy theories evolve really fast these days and even just a few months of separation from the reinforcement can probably break the spell for a lot of people (but good luck doing that when they can get push notifications for alex jones tweets)
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Apr 26, 2018 20:48
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the upside to having a lifetime membership to Coast 2 Coast AM is access to all of Art Bell's shows the downside to having a lifetime membership to Coast 2 Coast AM is access to all of George Noory's shows
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Apr 26, 2018 21:01
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SpaceGoku posted:I got into conspiracy theory poo poo by way of being interested in the paranormal (ghosts, aliens, etc) because I liked ghostbusters and xfiles and in the early 00s if you were interested in one conspiracy you got drawn into every other conspiracy eventually because of how much crossover there was on the forums to discuss this stuff This also has the effect of ensuring that the vast majority of conspiracy content online is six degrees from dumb right wing poo poo or outright antisemitism.
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Apr 26, 2018 21:14
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viral spiral posted:My stepdad listens to Alex Jones and it's a major reason why I don't talk to that fat gently caress at all. He's living on social security, too; I don't have a problem with that in the least, but he's a fan of right-wing pundits who talk about gutting or getting rid of the very programs that he keeps his rear end alive or off the street. It's the hypocrisy that drives me insane, and especially the vigorous denial he gives whenever that inconvenient fact is pointed out to him. that's how my grampa was, right up to believing Obama was personally helping to brainwash children, and would tell me how angry it made him, and how he'd use his own rifles to protect the children if he had to. He was a sweet simple man until his late 60's and then went increasing soft in the head and mean. he's dead now tho, so that'll probably fix your stepdad
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Apr 26, 2018 22:19
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Dr. Killjoy posted:This also has the effect of ensuring that the vast majority of conspiracy content online is six degrees from dumb right wing poo poo or outright antisemitism. yeah, this is the other thing I meant by being too weird. Like everything always comes down to illuminati or jews or something occult. Like I feel like I'm actually pretty lucky to have non poo poo parents who have always encouraged me to not treat others like poo poo. And also not really being into going to Church or religious or anything. Like alot of these sites just don't add up without being extremely racist or totally into the supernatural.
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Apr 27, 2018 04:29
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Tr33 posted:yeah, this is the other thing I meant by being too weird. Like everything always comes down to illuminati or jews or something occult. Like I feel like I'm actually pretty lucky to have non poo poo parents who have always encouraged me to not treat others like poo poo. And also not really being into going to Church or religious or anything. Like alot of these sites just don't add up without being extremely racist or totally into the supernatural. Or cryptofascist (even outright fascist) since the language of conspiracy theory lends itself quite nicely to fascist rhetoric.
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Apr 27, 2018 10:32
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Get them to play Deus ex
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Apr 27, 2018 13:05
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old men a new age!
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Apr 27, 2018 14:36
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SpaceGoku posted:I got into conspiracy theory poo poo by way of being interested in the paranormal (ghosts, aliens, etc) because I liked ghostbusters and xfiles and in the early 00s if you were interested in one conspiracy you got drawn into every other conspiracy eventually because of how much crossover there was on the forums to discuss this stuff Same, I really miss the days when you could have a conversation about aliens and the weird poo poo Nazis were into and the person you're talking to not turn out to be a Nazi.
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Apr 27, 2018 19:45
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