alt Hacker NewsThat's a bit too much to ask of these folks, I'm afraid, but I did boil it down for him by saying that the real question is understanding why he is inclined to believe its a hoax, rather than trying to pile up evidence in front of him. I suppose that's what "street epistemology" is, though. Nice to have shorthand terms for these ideas.
I also included a thought experiment for him:
Imagine you take a conspiracy influencer and actually put them in the spacecraft with the astronauts so they could see the whole thing with their own eyes and wouldn't be able to deny it. They return to earth to tell their followers that it's all real. Do you think everyone will be convinced, or would they say he's now in on the conspiracy and find a new person to lead the conspiracy theory?
(I wonder if there is a sociological shorthand term for this?)
Replies
> the real question is understanding why he is inclined to believe its a hoax, rather than trying to pile up evidence in front of him
This is one of the primary techniques of SE. People are open to answering questions and with some skill with Socratic questioning, you can get results. Dumping data just causes cult/hoax members to feel threatened because you're attacking some core beliefs and they will try very hard to avoid losing a sense of self value[0].
Notes:
0 - "What I believe is wrong" -> "I am wrong" -> "I am a bad person".
> Imagine you take a conspiracy influencer and actually put them in the spacecraft with the astronauts so they could see the whole thing with their own eyes and wouldn't be able to deny it. They return to earth to tell their followers that it's all real. Do you think everyone will be convinced, or would they say he's now in on the conspiracy and find a new person to lead the conspiracy theory?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Experiment_(expediti...
"The participating flat Earthers all admitted that the midnight sun was a real phenomenon. The larger flat Earth community has largely rejected the results and accused the participants, including the flat Earthers, of having faked the expedition and of being part of a larger conspiracy to promote the spherical Earth model."