Could you be friends with a troother?

[TobiasTheViking]

I have one friend who is a troofer, but, as long as she doesn't bring it up i don't care, if she does, i'll show her how wrong she is..

BUT, she is extremely close minded(though, of course, claiming that i am) and won't accept that there weren't explosives in the tower. Because of "physics"... when i try to tell her the real physics she just shakes it off...

But, still good friends.

 

[Myriad]

The potential possibility exists. I am friends with one of the top promoters and teachers of Reiki in the U.S., someone who travels regularly to Japan to confer with the Japanese originators of the practice. (And we don't "avoid the subject.") I have other friends who are developmentally disabled and don't have the ability to learn to count to 20. I focus on the great deal we have in common and am respectful of what we do not.

My Reiki Master friend does not require me to believe in her practice, nor do I require her to share my doubt, as a condition of friendship. I don't require people to be able to count to 20, or to not genuinely believe in Santa Claus at the age of 45, as a condition of friendship.

But with truthers, it's not that easy. Critical thinking is above all a tool that facilitates trust. Those who lack it use other less effective trust models instead, such as trusting everyone (which, besides being unsafe, requires them to overlook contradictions), trusting the first thing they hear and then denying all subsequent contradictions, or trusting and distrusting based on arbitrary and unreliable criteria such as race, age, or religion. Truthers are among those whose flawed trust models preclude their trusting anything anyone says on any evidentiary basis at all. That's why they can confidently dismiss all expertise no matter how legitimate and well-demonstrated, treat ordinary people who disagree with them as willful liars and criminals, and turn on one another at the drop of a hat.

Only under very extraordinary circumstances would one be friends with someone whose behavior toward you you consider criminal -- such as someone who repeatedly steals from you or assaults you. When one doesn't believe in 9/11 trooth, you become such a criminal in truthers' eyes. Other than believing in their nonsense, there is simply no way to earn a truther's trust. Which I would say makes all but the most tenuous and unstable of friendships impossible, and explains why we often hear about even longstanding prior friendships being broken as a result of one of the friends becoming a truther.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Susan Gerbic]

Sorry I could only make it to 3:32 on the YouTube Video. It was really sad.

I don't understand why people are still forming into these groups, are they fading away? The guy who first spoke on the video said that this groups is bigger than the New York groups. Isn't that a bit pathetic?

And no, I don't see any way I would want to associate with those people.

Susan

 

[Jonnyclueless]

When I was little I used to go to church of my own will, and went to the church youth groups, and participated in all the church activities. At the time I thought I did it because I was religious and believed in God, yadda yadda yadda.

Now that I am grown up I realize that it had nothing to do with religion and was simply about trying to find a group of people to fit in with. For some it might be jocks, for others it might be street gangs, for some church, for some 9/11 twoof groups.

Most will eventually grow up and realize they just wanted to find a group of people that accepted them.

 

[Unsecured Coins]

i'm actually casual with a few truthers. How? We don't talk about 9/11.

 

[Susan Gerbic]

Most will eventually grow up and realize they just wanted to find a group of people that accepted them.

My boss is in his 50's....what hope is there for him?

BTW-thinking about the first part of your post, that probably fits my church experience as a youth as well. I wanted to belong to something established, and find people to hang out with. But there were almost no young people, it was an old people church. I still stuck it out for years, if it had been one of these trendy, fun youth churches I might still be pretending I was one of them.

Susan

 

[GlennB]

Always remember, when considering any group of cranks, that they should not be judged by their activists. Anyone who tries to debate for truthism at any length, and convinces himself that he's succeeded, will indeed have made a curious Moebius strip of his mind. But this is not necessarily true of the people who are just casually duped by it.

It's like creationism in this respect. And in so many others.

My bolding.

This is very true. A surprising number of people seem to be susceptible to stuff like 9/11 "truth" and the like. However, many recover so shouldn't be casually dismissed as hopeless cases. Which is, perhaps, why we're here debating the issue endlessly?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Er, um. Would a hiking partner/booty call relationship count?

I would overlook much if she had big enough [Rule 10]s and was into [Rule 10] and [Rule 10].

Yeah, she rules.

Seriously, though, I'm not sure I could be friends with a truther who couldn't be made to see reason after being presented with the evidence and having it discussed. I could overcome my revulsion to this person's beliefs, but the issue would be, "if you're this irrational on this subject, how rational are you in other areas of your life?"

Like Dr A said, she's one of the people who is casually duped by it. She knows there's a lot wrong on the web sites she's seen but also has some vague notion that "there's something to it". She's neither rational, nor irrational on the subject. Hasn't really examined it in depth. It's something she believes but it's not terribly important to her.