DocWatts

@r0ckyreed Very well written and thoughtful exporation of some of the strengths and weakness of deontology. I don't really have a dog in the race here, as I see utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics as being valuable while also having their own limitations. One point against deontology though, that I've yet to see adequately refuted, is a point I'll borrow from Sam Harris : the only reason that deontology works is that following a categorical imperative is only useful because it leads to positive consequences, and wouldn't make sense as an ethical system if following it led to bad and/or harmful results. If someone had an adequate refutation of this point though, I'd be very interested to hear it.

I have a friend of mine who's fallen down a right wing conspiracy theory rabbit hole: everything from Plandemic, to Black Lives Matter being a conspiracy funded by George Soros to install a Bolshevik style government in America. This is someone who wasn't really overtly political a few years ago, and who I consider to be a decent guy overall. I guess my question is has anyone found a healthy way of engaging with someone who's fallen into a Conspiracy Theory rabbit hole, in a way where they won't get immediately defensive when the subject is broached? I realize there are healthy and unhealthy manifestations of different political views, and I see what my friend has fallen into as very toxic (and not to mention really off putting to other people). I'm very well aware of Spiral Dynamics, but there's a difference between understanding a model on an intellectual level, and actualizing it in a way where you can employ it successfully in day to day interactions. I know the answer here is probably that he needs to move from an unhealthy and toxic version of Red to stage Blue, but what would that look like on a practical level? Has anyone found successful examples of what that would look like in their own lives?

That's absolutely a fair point (although in fairness one of the civilization collapses he does cover is that book is the classic Maya collapse). I guess there's not as many examples to look to for large industrial society collapsing, much less a globalized civilization like the one we live in today. Since the sort of world we're living in is unprecedented in human history, there's not really anything comparable we can look to to say what will happen if it does collapse someday. One through line I did get from the book is that societies are at a risk of collapse when there is a conflict between the short term interest of the elites and the long term survival of the society, especially when the elites are able to isolate themselves from the problems of the society... and doesn't exactly inspire optimism for our own society, I'm sorry to say. Though I will say that he does go out of his way to emphasize that societies can and have pulled back from the precipice, and we do have a choice in the matter. If you're interested in Jared Diamond's work, I'd also highly recommend his newest book, Upheaval, which deals more directly with modern industrialized societies. The book is basically a case study of how various modern nation states have either successfully or unsuccessfully dealt with periods of crisis, and like Collapse, attempts to draw out commonalities. One incredibly interesting case study in particular was that of Finland, and of the delicate tightrope they needed to walk to avoid being swallowed up by their more powerful neighbor, the Soviet Union, during the Cold War.

I'll second the 'How Ideology Works' video as incredibly insightful, but I don't see it being as useful for people who don't already possess a certain degree of self-awareness; as in I can see that video being misinterpreted and used to solidify one's own confirmation bias by people at lower stages on the spiral (ie applying it to your ideological opponents, but not being self aware enough to see that you yourself are in an ideology). But I'm glad that you were able to use it to actually help someone in your life, and perhaps it goes to show that my previous statement might not be entirely true. And it sounds like you put in some serious work to research her point of view, before introducing her to the 'How Ideology Works 'video.

It does, and I think you make a number of very good points. I guess what I'm wondering is if this is something that at least some people will mature out of on their own (perhaps once they meet their own deficiency needs). I can confirm, at least anecdotally, that the people in my own life that I've seen this happen to are generally not very happy, and were experiencing problems in other aspects of their life. Again, because I do generally care about one or two of these people despite the crazy things that have worked their way into their belief structure, does anyone have any first hand experience of someone they've known eventually coming out of the Conspiracy rabbit hole? Is there anything I can do to actually help? Can nudging someone to examine their own belief be helpful, or is it counter productive more often than not?

Awesome; this was exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

If you're interested in the subject matter, Jared Diamond (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel) has written extensively on this topic. His book 'Collapse' is a systems level examination of a number of different cultures which have collapsed, and attempts to draw out some commonalities between them. He focuses in particular on societies whose collapse was due at least in part on environmental and sustainability factors.

@Parththakkar12 Thanks for clearing up this misconception then. Would characterizing this viewpoint as the "compatibilist" (akin to the how that terms is used in free will discussion) , or perhaps the "integrated" view of reality be a fair way to put it?

@Parththakkar12 So I suppose my resistance to this would be seeing this as a bit reductionist, as it seems to me that both internal subjective experiences and an external objective world are both important facets of reality. Or to to put it another way, if something like logical positivism is reductionist by discounting the subjective world in favor of what can be objectively measured, this perhaps to seem to me reductionist in favoring subjective experience and discounting the possibility of an external reality. I'll admit upfront that it's possible I may be misunderstanding this perspective, and alot of my thinking in this area is influenced by philosophers such as Thomas Nagel, who talks about ways of integrating subjective experience into an external reality.

I guess then I would ask, on an epistemological level, what makes intuition a better arbiter of truth than other modes of being, since intuition has its own limitations and can be misleading at times. I would think that you what you would want is some sort of integration between intuition, emotional awareness, and study of the external world, informing each other in some sort of feedback loop. ...wow, guess we've strayed a bit from the topic at hand, eh? In an interesting way of course.

Not disagreeing with you, but as far as setting aside models and whatnot, isn't having some sort of context for the subject matter you're studying quite important? Aren't fields of study such as systems thinking and epistemology models in a sense as well? Of course I do realize that I am viewing it from my own particular lens that I need to take into account, but if you're interested enough in a subject to spend time and energy researching it, I imagine that you're going to have some sort of emotional attachment going in, that you can try to account for as best as you can.

Awesome, thanks for the suggestion.

@Parththakkar12 You're right, I didn't like that answer . I don't look at people who buy into conspiracy theories as bad people, but I do see the obvious harm that comes from believing in baseless conspiracy theories; I've also seen how toxic and isolating they can be for the person who stitches a worldview together out of them (again, this post was born out of concern for a friend of mine who's manifesting his conspiracy theory beliefs in an unhealthy and isolating way). As far as your suggestion, are there any resources in particular you would recommend to understand this subject matter on a deeper level, and perhaps help me to empathize more fully with people who hold these beliefs?