Zach Mack on Trying to Rescue His Father from ‘Alternate Realities’
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From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Leslie McClurg in for me to Kim coming up on forum conspiracy theories aren't fringe anymore and they're not just crazy notions. They're influencing real relationships.

Zach Mack knows what that's like. His own father became consumed by apocalyptic predictions, so much so he made Zach a $10,000 bet that 10 of his most extreme political predictions would come true within the year. Zach joins us and we'll hear from you. Has a loved one been enmeshed in online conspiracy theories? Join us. That's next after this news. This is Forum. I'm Leslie McClurg. I'm in today for Mina Kim-Hoon.

And I think most of us have someone in our lives, maybe a friend, maybe a parent, who is lost in the land of conspiracy theories. For me, that was my dad, unfortunately. And I tried for years to talk to him and try to share a reality with him.

And unfortunately, I eventually gave up and our relationship withered. But Zach Mack made a very different choice when his father became consumed by these fringe theories and very apocalyptic predictions. Zach agreed to a $10,000 bet, wagering that none of what his father thought would come true would. And he traces that story in his podcast, Alternate Realities. Welcome, Zach.

Hi, thanks for having me. Zach is a producer also at Vox Media. And again, his new podcast is Alternate Realities. And Zach, I want to start with a voicemail from your dad. This is how you start the show. So we'll go ahead and play it now. This all started about a year ago when my father called and left me this message.

Hey, Zach. Dad again. Good conversation last night. Hey, I didn't remember to tell you this because I was kind of tired, but they're going to shut us down again. And it's going to be a worse shutdown than 2020 because of this EMP. All the supply lines are going to be disrupted. So you really want to store up two months worth of food and water.

because they probably won't be able to pump water throughout the city because that's all controlled by computers and electronics. And the EMP is going to shut down everything electronic. I know it sounds like conspiracy theory, but they're going to do this. This is what they're planning, and I just want to have you be prepared, okay? Zach, what is your father talking about there? What is an EMP, and what is his fear?

Yeah, he's talking about what's called an electromagnetic pulse device, which if you've ever seen the movie Ocean's Eleven, it's what they use to sort of wipe out the power in the casino to pull off their heist. So that's like a good way to visualize it. But yeah, he just believed that all these...

sort of politically apocalyptic events were going to take place last year and that being one of them that some some device would wipe out digital communication and we wouldn't be able to use our phones or the internet or have power so you know everyone needed to save up like food and water that was just one of the many things he believed was was going to take place within the year this is so uh

Troubling because my father was building like this 12 foot wall around his house because he thought we were going to have a massive attack from the Maoris who lived in New Zealand. So I really relate. What were some of the other conspiracies that your dad believed in?

Yeah, it was sort of a number of like right wing greatest hits conspiracies. I would sort of categorize them as it's like sort of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, the Clintons would all sort of be rounded up and convicted of treason, that Trump would be reinstated without an election, that there would be some other politicians in New York, which is where I live, that would be removed as well, and that our country would come under martial law.

And so he said all of these things would happen in 2024. And he challenged me to a bet about it. And so we made that bet a year ago in January that all these things would have to happen within the year. I want to play another cut. This is of you and your dad talking about that bet. Do you have the list in front of you? Yeah, yeah.

Can you walk me through the one through 10? I just want to add each one. I'll probably have a couple clarifying questions. Yeah, absolutely. Keep in mind, this call took place back in January 2024. Number one, Obama will be found guilty of treason in 2024. So like by a court? Yes. Okay. Not the court of public opinion. Correct. Okay. Okay.

And then number two? Oh, yeah. Biden will be found guilty of treason in 2024. Just treason for something specific? For selling all those secrets that he had in the back of his Corvette. I don't know if that's a joke. I'm not sure. It's partially a joke, but it's also real.

So this is what he thought was going to happen. Let's talk about how he got to this place where he thought this was the reality that was going to unfold. I mean, you're a local or you grew up here. You're not local now, but you grew up here in the Bay Area. And it sounds like your mom was pretty open minded. I think she was Jewish, liberal, progressive. Tell me a little bit about your dad and how he fit into your life growing up and, you know, kind of the arc of where he landed. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. So my parents are both from the Midwest. And at some point in their 20s, they moved here and eventually got married and had me. So my sister and I grew up in a very sort of like liberal, the liberal Bay Area kind of thing. But yeah, my dad, he grew up in a household where his father was a was a chiropractor and really embittered towards the medical institution at some point was held out of kindergarten because of vaccine mandates at the time in the 60s.

And so he grew up in a household that was very distrusting of vaccines and medical institutions. So for forever, he's quite distrusting of larger institutions. And that's kind of been a constant. But growing up, he wasn't particularly interested in politics.

early on in my life when I was probably somewhere between like two and five, he started getting back into religion. And then it's sort of been a steady climb of him becoming sort of the lone Christian conservative in our household. And he's deeply religious. And I think in 2019, around the time he got an iPad, my dad's, he's not very tech savvy. He doesn't navigate the internet very well. He's not on social media. And so, yeah,

he started getting more access to the internet and I think people were sending him weird links. And so that was sort of around the time he started to say like, he's, you know, started to kind of little conspiratorial things would kind of creep in. And then,

I think like so many people when the pandemic hit, that was just such a radicalizing moment for so many people across the country because it was hard to... There was so much misinformation flying around. It's hard to really understand what was going on. There was so many vaccine conspiracies and my father was already very skeptical of vaccines and institutions. And so that was like a real radicalization point. And at some point he came to...

believe in these online prophets who are all very sort of like MAGA Trumpy and they're making like these bold predictions and they're claiming to commune directly with God. And that's where he's getting a lot of his predictions. It was really coming straight out of the mouths of these online prophets who were just making all of these bold predictions. And so I imagine you might have had some trouble connecting with him along the arc of this journey in his beliefs. What was your relationship like?

Yeah, I mean, we have not been close. And growing up, he was sort of the odd man out in the family. You know, our mother was just sort of always around, knew our friends, was, you know, schlepping us back and forth to school and different events. And he was just always a little bit more removed from those pictures and from our life, even though, you know, he was around, he was in our house.

but our belief system is just very different and and the one thing we have always connected on is uh because he grew up in ohio uh he raised me to love ohio state football so that like sports has always been sort of like our our deep connection and and our one place to bond but we were not particularly close and before we started this show

you know, we were just having these circular arguments over and over. And that's really been going on a lot, I think, since 2019, 2020, when the conspiracy stuff was starting to kind of like present itself. We've just been having, yeah, just these circular arguments. And once we started the podcast, once he challenged me to this bet and I said, hey, do you mind if I record this? We were sort of able to have conversations in ways that we had never had conversations before. Yeah.

And what did you hope the bet, I mean, did you think that there would be some sort of resolve so he would sort of see the light after, you know, potentially these things did not unfold? Yeah, the moment he challenged me to the bet, I mean...

The bet, it's just such a guy thing to do, right? I feel like when two guys are arguing, it usually comes down to like a bet or boxing, right? And he challenged me to this big bet for $10,000. And neither of us are much of gamblers. We've never made bets before. So it was pretty surprising. And the moment he did that,

I saw that as an opportunity to sort of hold him accountable and hold his beliefs accountable. And I took a look at the list and I said, you know, I don't think any of these things are going to happen.

And so I'll take you up on that bet. And then hopefully at the end of the year, we can have an honest talk about what you believe. And maybe I can pull you away from some of these conspiracies and sort of bring you back to reality. That was my hope. And it wasn't just you that had that hope. Your mom was also sort of pinning all of her hopes and her marriage on that as well. Yeah, yeah. I think everyone in the family was sort of out of ideas and thoughts

ways to feel like they could reach him. So this felt like a little bit of a Hail Mary pass late in the game, you know? And so I also just want to cover your sister and her story. We're about to go into a break in two minutes, but quickly sort of walk me through the relationship your sister had with your dad and also her role in this year-long journey.

Yeah. So two years ago, my sister, my sister is queer and she came out to my father two years ago and that just didn't go particularly well. You know, he, he said he would always love her and he,

He so welcomes her in the house, but that he just didn't doesn't agree with sort of the lifestyle and the label of being queer and so that that has really driven a Like a riff between them and within the family So that was like another thing that was sort of happening on top of the conspiracy stuff. So they're just there was just this really crucial moment in our family where

It just seemed like we were kind of falling apart. And a lot of it had to do with, it's all just sort of circled around my father's beliefs. Yeah.

And your dad didn't just have the beliefs. He was also dragging your family into this situation with some financial spending that your mom was a little upset about. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, he was buying like survivalist supplies and generators and stuff like that. And he did move money without consulting her from like a joint account. And yeah, there was just...

my mom was sort of feeling like she couldn't trust his judgment and couldn't trust him to, you know, make, make smart decisions and also just communicate those decisions with her. Yeah. I think he invested in precious metals. And unfortunately, like I mentioned, I had this similar journey, but my dad ended up passing and I inherited, uh, you know, a small amount of money, but in gold bars, because he was so worried that the world was going to end that, uh, he put all his money in gold bars at the end and kept it in a Swiss bank with

locked key. We are talking about how a loved one's belief in conspiracy theories can affect all of their relationships. We're joined by Zach Mack. He's a producer at Vox Media. We will hear how his bet played out after this break. Stay with us. We will be right back.

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Leslie McClurg. I'm in today for Mina Kim. And we are talking about the new podcast, Alternate Realities, which chronicles a one-year journey that host Zach Mack takes with his father. His father challenges him to a $10,000 bet.

that 10 of his conspiracy theories or beliefs will come true by the year's end. Zach Mack is a producer at Vox Media. We're also joined now by Dr. Joe Pierre. He's a health sciences clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. He's also the author of a new book, False, How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Makes Us Believe Things That Aren't True.

Dr. Pierre, you were nodding several times listening to Zach's story that we just heard. How does someone come to, like the journey that you just heard that his dad went on, how does someone come to those ideas, to such alternate realities? Yeah, such a great story to hear, but also in some ways heartbreaking when we hear these stories of fractured relationships. But

I think what I'm hearing is sort of the classic account of what happened during the pandemic. There were people who, in part because we were socially isolated, sort of retreated into the internet and in front of their computer screens or cell phones and latched onto these narratives. You know, I often say that I don't really like the term conspiracy theorist because it suggests that someone is coming up with these ideas.

That's usually not what's happening. What's usually happening is people are finding this information often online. And it sounds like that's exactly what happened here. If you have some familiarity with these conspiracy theories that are out there in the world and then you hear somebody talk about them, oftentimes you can say, aha, see, I know where they're getting that information. And so that would be my guess as to what happened here.

We'd love to invite listeners into the conversation. Maybe you know someone, a close friend, a family member who has gone down one of these rabbit holes, maybe had that experience during the pandemic. We'd love to hear from you. You can email your comments, your questions to forum at kqed.org. You can also find us on all the various social channels, Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

Threads on Discord. We're at KQED Forum. Or you can just give us a call right now at 866-733-6786. Again, that's 866-733-6786.

Who in your life has gone down a conspiracy rabbit hole? A listener on Blue Sky writes, I just finished the podcast. That's Zach's podcast. It was heartbreaking. Nice work. And it's admirable your dad was willing to put himself out there. I thought that was really admirable, too. I know my dad would not have signed up for a podcast. Talk about that, Zach. How did you convince your dad? And did he enjoy the process? And did he enjoy hearing it at the end?

Yeah, you know, it was not hard to convince him. He was really excited about the idea. Of course, he was also of the belief that he was going to win the bet that he proposed. So there was a little bit of that. But I think he was excited to converse with me in this new way. And once we hit record and started doing this podcast together...

The dynamics really changed and I was able to listen to him in this new way. And I think we really were trying our best to understand each other and be empathetic and be curious. So it did really change the way that we spoke to each other and our relationship along the way. We certainly got closer. But yeah, he was pretty excited about it. And then I think towards the end when he realized he was going to lose the bet, he was like,

He got a little bit

you know, I think he was a little bit concerned, but ultimately he did listen. He doesn't have a big issue with the finished product. I don't think it's cruel or harsh, the depiction of him. I think it is very fair, very empathetic, very loving. And, you know, I think at times it was hard for him to listen to, but he did describe it as very well made, fair, and had very few nitpicks. Amazing.

I think it's important to talk about the prophet. You mentioned that your dad turned to a prophet. Who was she and what was her take? What was she sort of dispelling to the world?

Yeah, so her name is Julie Green. She was just this woman. She's sort of from Iowa, just kind of like a just a regular looking woman in a regular looking house. And but she's spouting off like really intense prophecies. And she sort of claims that God is speaking directly through her. If you watch her videos, there's there's times where it's almost like you're watching her speak as if God is speaking through her and then she later will speak.

her own, the things that she just said, but she's saying that God said them. I will say that she, I don't think she's particularly important in the, in the sense that at some point my father lost a different bet to my mom that,

made it so he wasn't allowed to watch Julie Green anymore. That was their agreement. And the moment she was out of his life, he just filled it with another prophet. There's so many of these sort of like Trumpy MAGA prophets who spout off these conspiracy theories and bold predictions. So I don't think she was that important because there just are a lot of these types of people on the internet. And if you look at his list...

This isn't a particularly original list of predictions. This is sort of like the right wing fantasy greatest hits. These are all things I've sort of heard and seen before over the years. Well, let's go to the phones. Frank in San Francisco, you're on the air.

Hello. I want to report a story of myself, which is that during COVID, there was a lot of talk about the problems of the MNRA vaccination on podcasts and people like Brett Weinstein and the Dark Horse podcast that seemed to allow in the idea that these MNRA vaccines were dangerous

dangerous to us because of the spike proteins and so many things. And so what I found myself personally, I got pulled into that story, the narrative. It seemed as though there was a lot of very compelling information coming out of these podcasts to the point where I became so confused about what was and wasn't real. And this idea that

we may be not hearing the truth directly and that there's a lot of intentional obfuscation around propaganda related to encouraging people to get the vaccines. And so as time went on, it appears that science stepped in and said, you know, this is not really a big deal. But during that period, there was so much skepticism and so much criticism

communication about these different treatments and the damage that might be coming. And it's still in place today to the point where we have a health and human services director that is absolutely not supporting the science around vaccines. So I just wanted to say I personally fell into this trap myself and I'm still kind of

unclear about the future, about how misinformation affects me personally. Frank, thank you so much for sharing vulnerably on the air about your experience. Dr. Pierre, I'd love for you to comment out of that. What was going on during the pandemic that created such a ripe environment that we are still, unfortunately, dealing with the aftermath of?

Yeah, well, we know that conspiracy theories tend to arise and people start to embrace them during times of cultural crisis. And so certainly, both with what was happening politically leading up to the pandemic and then the pandemic itself, a lot of people were just feeling very uncertain about the future and unsafe, as the caller mentioned.

So in my book, I talk about how a lot of false beliefs can be understood with three sort of components. And the first is mistrust of official narratives or sort of mainstream belief. And once you have that mistrust, you then become vulnerable to the amount of misinformation that's really ubiquitous in the world. And I think during the pandemic, that was really what was happening because some of that mistrust was that

At the beginning of the pandemic, even quote unquote science didn't really know from the get go what we were dealing with. And so that created this uncertainty. And then when people feel uncertain, they're looking for answers. And it's very easy to then fill the gaps when people have questions with misinformation that's out there.

There's a comment here from Allison on Blue Sky. I started dating someone on Tinder and it turned out they were a conspiracy theorist. It was not long before they started parroting things that they were hearing online, including things I found racist and misogynistic. I found it difficult to connect and remain in the relationship. It was really painful. I'd like to go to the phones. Mark in San Jose, you are on the air.

Hello. This is the second time I heard you guest. I just had to call this time. I'm I raised my steps on since he was one and a half. He's 36 now. And I've essentially lost him.

due to, uh, well, he's a flat earth, a believer in vaccines among many other things. But, you know, at this point, I think it's, I just recently gave him a YouTube, uh, on trying to debunk the flat earth. And we had a big blowout and, uh, that was the last time we spoke. And at this point, I just really feel like it's more my problem. Uh, uh,

Because I just get so damn angry and I don't want to yell. So it's so hard. Yeah, Mark, it's so hard. Dr. Pierre is sort of going, well, I don't know. That's totally your fault there. What would you say to someone in Mark's situation here where you just you're, you know, kind of hitting your head against a wall in a relationship?

Well, let me go back to Zach's story. I mean, I wish I had listened to his podcast. I'm certainly going to circle back and do that now. But what I really liked about his story with his dad was that even though maybe they didn't have the closest relationship, there was this sort of bond about sports.

And then what I kind of heard is this bet almost became a sort of sporting event or competition that they could then still, you know, have a communication that didn't really descend into heated debates and arguments. I mean, maybe it did. He talked about circular discussions.

But I think that's really the key. If there's some way that you can engage with somebody that doesn't turn into a heated argument where we're pulling our hair out and that sort of thing, that's really the key. And I think for some people that's not possible, in which case maybe you shouldn't be talking about that thing. Maybe if your bond is over sports, talk about the Warriors or something like that and have an agreement not to go down the rabbit hole and talk about the more sensitive events. LESLIE KENDRICK

Zach, I do wonder, how did you maintain that level of curiosity? Because I lost my... I lost it so many times with my own father. Yeah, I...

It helped that I was making a show, but that part helped a lot. But I just was curious about how he got there. And I think I very quickly realized when we started production is that I always thought that my father just had the wrong information. And if I just presented him with the right information, he would be fine. He would be on his way. And the more I learned about how conspiracies work and why they're attractive to people, you just have to understand like what –

through curiosity trying to get to like what what are these beliefs really doing for them i think for a lot of people you know dr pierre touched on it they sort of make you feel safe you know during the pandemic everybody's like worried nobody really knows what's going on that you know people there's so much fear and confusion and people just want to be told that they're going to be okay or at least given an answer and sometimes the answer is really scary but at least they know uh so i

Yeah, I think just really trying to get under the hood to understand why are these ideas appealing to them and what are they doing for them. And just doing your best to, yeah, just be curious and ask questions. And I don't know, maybe trying to have a conversation with your friend without fighting. Yeah, I was really, really impressed. Let's hear another cut from the podcast. When you say all this kind of stuff, to me it sounds...

Not so. Right. It sounds nuts. Yeah, I totally get it. I guess what we probably can agree on is that this is not the publicly held belief. This is not the sort of agreed upon truth amongst most people, right? Would you agree on that? Yeah, correct. So in that, it seems like the people that are in your life just don't

buy into this, I'm wondering, how do you know that you're right? Why are we all wrong? I don't like to look at it in those terms. That's, I think that's overly judgmental to come from the position I'm right and you're wrong. Although a lot of people would view it that way. I prefer to look at it from the perspective of I have access to more information so I can see the bigger picture more clearly than other people can.

Dr. Pierre, why do people think that they suddenly have the right information and are often pretty unwilling to question where their information is coming from?

Well, some of the research on conspiracy theory belief also has revealed that certain psychological needs are overrepresented among people who believe conspiracy theories. So one would be needs for closure, certainty, control. So we've kind of talked about that aspect. This is the idea that you might feel safe with a tidy narrative, even if that narrative is conspiratorial in nature.

But another psychological need is need for uniqueness. And so I think we can understand that with conspiracy theory belief, because when people go down that rabbit hole, they often do feel like they're privy to this sort of secret information that they've uncovered. And with QAnon in particular, you know, there was a sort of interactive component with it, right? You were deciphering the crumbs that were dropped by Q. And so you had kind of an active role.

And that's what I'm hearing Zach's dad talk about is that he was privy to this special information. And there's something very empowering about that. And I think Zach hit the nail on the head when he said that you kind of have to understand those psychological needs if you're expecting people to modify them. You can't just expect people to give those beliefs up because then that psychological need will go unfulfilled. Let's go back to the phones. Monique in Pescadero, you're on the air.

Hi. I wanted to mention I had a friend who got into conspiracy theories, 9-11 and chemtrails. And one time she mentioned to me years later, she was a little bit calmer, that she realized she got addicted to the anger of it.

And also, I got a sense when I would talk to her that she kind of pitied everybody else in the community that didn't believe what she believed. And I'd love to hear your comments about those two issues. Yeah, go ahead, Dr. Pierre. Hi.

Yeah, you know, there's this idea of the echo chamber, right? This idea that we're encapsulated in these bubbles where we only hear the ideas that we believe or that our ideological affiliates believe. But that has been shown not to really be true. In fact, we are routinely exposed to counter-narratives.

But what does happen is that we often dismiss those counter narratives because within these sort of bubbles, that's what happens. So you can hear information that contradicts what you say. And this is part of motivated reasoning. It's just so easy to denounce that or discount that. And so that's the phenomena that often happens. It's not as if

you know, people haven't heard the argument against what they believe. They have heard them and they just think, well, you know, I don't trust that or I don't trust that informational source. And that's often why when you try to get into an argument or a debate with somebody about it, it often goes nowhere.

Zach, I want to give you a quick sec. We're about to go to a break. But did you want to say something there? Oh, yeah, it can just be like, when you're sort of the odd man out, I think, as my father often is in the Bay Area, as like Christian conservative, you you sort of it is your way to kind of elevate you in status, like I know something you don't know, you know, I think that that is also just very enticing. We're talking with Zach Mack about his new podcast alternate realities, where his

where he or his father, I should say, puts him to a bet that his 10 predictions will unfold. We will hear again what happened in that bet right after this break. We'd love to hear from you. Is someone else living in an alternate reality that you care about? Or maybe those conspiracy theories are affecting a close relationship that you're in. Maybe have you ever tried to

Talk someone out of their theories. How has that gone? We would love to hear your stories, your comments, your questions. You can go to forum at kqed.org and leave us an email or find us on any of our social channels, Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram. Again, we're at KQED Forum. Or jump on the phone right now, 866-733-6786. Again, that's 866-733-6786.

733-6786. We'll be right back with Zach Mack, again, producer for Vox Media, and Dr. Joe Pierre. He is the author of a new book, False, How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Makes Us Believe Things That Aren't True. We'll be right back.

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Leslie McClurg. I'm in today for Mina Kim, and we are talking about conspiracy theories and those loved ones that go down the rabbit hole. We are joined by Zach Mack. He's a producer at Vox Media and the host of a new podcast, Alternate Realities, where

where he and his dad bet $10,000 that his dad's conspiracy theories will unfold within the year. We're also joined by Dr. Joe Pierre. He is a health sciences clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. He's also the author of a new book, False, How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Makes Us Believe Things That Aren't True. Again, we'd love to hear from you. You can give us a call right now at 866-

733-6786. Again, that's 866-733-6786. Do you have a loved one that maybe has gone down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole? How is it going navigating that relationship?

Eliza writes, How do you start to talk to a family member if you're worried they're beginning to fall into one of these alternate realities? Until recently, I've been operating from a place of trying to keep my head down and not outright confront this trend in my family. But more and more, I can't ignore it. I struggle with understanding how to open this can of worms. How do you start, Dr. Pierre?

Well, I almost think that Zach's answer might be better than what I say, because what I always tell people is that the starting place can't be a debate or an argument. And what you have to think about is what is my goal when I'm trying to engage with this person? If your goal is to change their minds, well, okay, but you can't start with trying to do things to change somebody's mind.

What you have to start with, like Zach said, is a place of compassionate understanding, really trying to listen to understand why someone believes what they believe. And when we talk about conspiracy theories, oftentimes the so-called conspiracy theorist is desperate to have their loved one come down the rabbit hole with them, right? They want to say, ooh, look, see, I found this information and I want you to become a believer as well.

And so to some extent, it is necessary to understand what the beliefs are, why the person believes that, what their source of information is. And once you do that in a non-confrontational way, maybe then there's some room to engage in more challenging what the beliefs are. I want to play another cut from the podcast here. Let's go ahead and hear it, and then we can talk about it.

I feel like the closest friends in your life, your family, you know, the people around you are telling you, hey, you're going the wrong way. You're not listening. Actually, none of them are saying that to me. None of them? None of them. Okay. Yeah, nobody, none of the people you've mentioned have told me that I'm going in the wrong direction. The only people who've said that are you and mom. So if all those people told you, would you hear them?

I would listen to him. I probably wouldn't change, but I take it into consideration. You don't think that sounds like your dad? That aspect of it, yeah. But my dad had trouble living in reality. I don't have trouble living in reality. I would argue that you do. Oh my God, I got chills like five times in that quote. It was so just like... How, Zach, did you...

Yeah, tell me how it felt to sort of be in that conversation. Yeah, so that was taking place during what was our final interview. And really the most confrontational interview I did with him. Throughout the year, we had really sort of upbeat and friendly, joking conversations. You know, at times they would get serious, but that was the only time I really pressed him. And I sort of had to press him on everything, what was happening with our family, the fact that his parents

His predictions did not come to pass and really just trying to understand why he would not come away from these beliefs. So, yeah, that was a really challenging interview. You know, I cried during it and it's it's tough for me to listen back to.

But I think what is ultimately clear with this is that I think for a lot of people, beliefs don't feel like choices, right? If you just think about yourself and the things that you believe, it's hard if someone just comes along and goes, I believe something different. You know, they just don't feel like choices. And I think they've just been really hard for him to come away from. Well, let's go back to the phones. Katie in San Francisco, you're on the air.

Hi. Thank you for discussing this. I recently had a friend die and she was in her early 30s. She was in the yoga, same yoga community as me. And she was diagnosed with cancer when she was pregnant in her first trimester with her son. I think she got really scared and she decided to be like radically healed from cancer instead of

getting medical treatment and so she did alternative treatments for whatever that is for cancer and she tried this treatment for about a year and then she the cancer got worse and she decided to get actual medical treatment and then she did that for about a year and then she passed away and her son is one years old and it just really yeah this is

She's really young and healthy, but besides me having cancer. God. Yeah. Katie, I'm so sorry. Sometimes these theories can cost lives, so I'm terribly sorry to hear about your loss. Thank you for calling in. Dr. Pierre, you've talked about this, that in this current environment, there's almost like

I don't remember the language you used. I was trying to remember this morning, but it's like suicide by information, but that there will be more lives lost in this current environment than necessary. Right. I do sometimes use the phrase suicide by false belief. Um, and what I mean is that, um,

Belief in misinformation, I think, always has a potential danger. But I think the caller just brings up a great example about how when misinformation is related to health care, that can be especially deadly. So I think we did see evidence of that with the pandemic.

and with vaccine hesitancy. And as the caller mentioned, this is a huge problem in the area of cancer within medicine. Studies have shown pretty clearly that people who embrace so-called alternative treatments who have cancer diagnoses are anywhere from two to five times more likely to die than those who didn't. And it's because they often steer away from conventional medical treatment.

And so somebody mentioned RFK Jr. earlier in the show. You know, I definitely have very serious concerns going forward about what's going to happen in health care here in the United States related to false beliefs that are now actually becoming mainstream. Right. The so-called institutions of authority are the ones who are putting out misinformation. Let's go back to the phones. Roberta, excuse me, in San Diego, you're on the air.

Good morning. I want to point out kind of the challenge for some of these families and their loved ones. And I think about Zach's father's list. And I think if in November we told someone that we were going to have a car builder going in and firing half of our civil servants, that we would have a skeptic canceling out vaccines and stopping all cancer research, that

that we would be tariffing the whole world and have abandoned all of our alliances, I think they would think that I was crazy. But here we are. Thank you, Roberta. Let's just stay with the phones. Megan in San Francisco, you're on the air.

Thanks for having me. What a fantastic conversation. I have a wonderful auntie who I absolutely love her. She's giving and loving, and she does believe in every conspiracy theory. Latin is a secret government. Yeah, language and flatters and all of these, the 5G chip thing. And I was really curious, you know, I was curious.

Speaking with her and I asked, you know, is there a way that we can communicate about these? I want to understand you and why you believe these things. So we tried to sit down at the table with some tea and establish, like, can we come up with the same belief in like what is a fact? Can we have the same belief?

you know, baseline of what a fact is and how to do research. And so we did, and we continued on with the conversation. And it was funny because anytime I would find information to sort of counteract something that she would bring up, she would be able to change the narrative in such a very smooth way to just something else, to these things that I wouldn't even be able to

even look up because I don't think they were actually facts. They were more like feelings and beliefs, which is very difficult, but

We had to walk away from the conversation. Agreeing on those facts is such a complicated. I've done that, obviously, with my dad and then several friends. We were like, OK, let's just agree on how we're going to determine what the facts are. Zach, let's come back to your bet because you had that experience right at the end. Tell us how things unfolded and what your dad used to reshape his orientation to those facts.

Yeah, well, I think what was happening with each of the last two callers is they're trying to bring logic to illogical conversation or belief. And that's just a challenge. But in terms of where my father and I landed was, you know, he chose to stick to his beliefs. And now I think he's

enduring the consequences of what that means for the family and like our family structure and those dynamics. But, you know, throughout the process, we have gotten closer and I'm doing my best to still maintain a relationship with him despite these beliefs. When I won the bet to sort of

cap, cap the, the end of what was a very long year. I, you know, I took him to go see Ohio state at the Rose bowl on January 1st, which was the day he officially lost the bet. And, you know, I'm just doing my best to continue to connect with him and, and be empathetic and curious, curious. I don't think sending him off into isolation is necessarily going to help him. So I, I am trying to kind of hold on to as much of the humanity as I can. But,

But I thought, but I thought it was so fascinating is, you know, he, yes, he agreed that he, those things did not unfold. Right. But what was his excuse that they, they will, they will still unfold, right? He just reshifted the timeline. Yeah.

Yeah, and you see that over and over again with, you know, people who like doomsday cults and, you know, people who believe in these big like proclamations and all these things that they believe are going to come to pass. Inevitably, when it doesn't, they all give the same excuse, which is I got the timeline wrong. That's just what happens over and over and over. And you hear that. I read a book called When Prophecy Fails, which is, you know, this great,

You're listening to Forum. I'm Leslie McClurg. I'm in today for Mina Kim, and we are talking about conspiracy theories and losing loved ones to those conspiracy theories. Cassidy on Discord writes...

My mom never met a conspiracy theory she didn't believe in. Starting back in 2000, she went in deep on the Y2K apocalypse theory. I was 10 years old and absolutely terrified. Then she moved on to believe really anything she could get her hands on. My mom eventually skipped the birth of her first and only grandchild when I requested that she get a flu shot first. What could be causing her to be a lifelong conspiracy lover? Dr. Pierre?

Well, I talked about mistrust and misinformation, but let me say a little bit more about the third component, motivated reasoning. So motivated reasoning tells us that based on our ideological beliefs, that is the beliefs that we have that often have a shared belief system within an ideological group, whether it's political or religious or what have you, there's a sense of like, we know what we're supposed to believe as a member of that group.

And both the caller and Zach bring up this idea that it's not just the misinformation that you're exposed to, but you often then, it's almost like you've joined a second family. And that family gives you a new identity. And there are some people who are so into conspiracy theories that they probably, they might not like that word, but they still embrace the idea that they're these people who have stumbled on these counter narratives and know the real truth.

And so that's sort of a new family, a new ideological group. And you know within that group that you should just believe all of these conspiracy theories because that's what you do. And that's sort of the currency when you interact with people in those groups is to talk about those various things.

Is it worth it to maintain friendships where you're fighting constantly, where you're sort of like hitting your head against the wall about a different reality? Or do you think, you know, like Zach did, you can still go to Buckeye games, you can still watch football. I think with my dad, maybe I could have kept playing golf. He loves playing golf. Should you find those shared realities? Or, you know, like, how do you balance sort of how challenging a relationship can be?

Well, I think everyone has to make their own decision with, you know, based on the loved one that we're talking about, whether or not continuing that relationship is healthy. You know, we could be talking about someone who has embraced racist beliefs or white supremacy, and I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should continue playing golf with that person.

But what I am suggesting is that I think it can't – assuming you do want to preserve that relationship, there are healthy ways to do that where you avoid getting into debates, getting into fights. And yeah, maybe playing golf or going to the football game is a good way to do that or having tea like people are mentioning. And I think –

Oftentimes, the other person does want to discuss the topic. And sometimes a good healthy boundary is just to say, well, you know what, this time, why don't we go have tea and not talk about that? Let's talk about something else. And so sometimes that can be a healthy way to preserve the relationship without getting into argumentation.

Trillium on Discord writes, my parents' anti-vax rhetoric almost killed my father during the pandemic. And I think they're both continuing to deal with long COVID, but they have stubbornly stuck to their guns. While I appreciate your guests' advice to try to have conversations that aren't about hot button issues, it isn't always possible where those issues are just a fact of life. I'm transgender and some of their conspiratorial thinking unsurprisingly overlaps with that part of my life. For my mental health, I've had to cut them off.

Zach, I'm sure you've heard from a ton of listeners over the last month. How do you advise them? You know, I think, Dr. Pierre, I think everyone has their own threshold and their own needs for safety. You know, just as like my mom and my sister each have separate relationships with my father and decisions that they have to make. And I just think everybody has their own thresholds and what's going on. But yeah, I have heard from probably upwards of 500, 600 people, many of which are

are going through something very similar with a partner or usually a parent. And so it just really shows me how sort of ununique my story is, just how much this is happening throughout the country. It's really unfortunate. Do you have hope, Dr. Pierre? I mean, given our current environment is getting so, so polarized, and this is only becoming a worse problem.

Well, I have to admit, I wouldn't consider myself an optimist by nature. And I think, you know, what I will say, and it relates back to what Zach was talking about,

You know, prophecy is that one of the things that human beings are particularly poor at, even people who are so-called experts, is predicting the future. So I don't really like to predict the future and say, well, I think it's going to all go to hell in a handbasket or no, maybe this is going to turn around. I'm going to remain sort of agnostic about that.

What I will say that's a little bit more hopeful and optimistic is that I think there potentially are ways that we can reverse things, whether it's one on one or even larger as a society. Now, if you're asking me, do I see things moving in a positive direction, then sadly, I would have to say no. Recently, I did a show with Paul Hawken, who's an environmentalist, and he said, I don't believe in hope, but I think we've got to have courage right now.

Thank you so much for this conversation. This has been excellent. We've been talking with Zach Mack. Again, he's a producer at Vox Media about his new podcast, Alternate Realities, which I highly recommend. Thank you so much for joining us, Zach. It's on the embedded feed on NPR. And Dr. Joe Pierre, again, health sciences clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF and the author of False, How Mistrust, Disinformation, and Motivated Reasoning Makes Us Believe Things That Aren't True. You can get that book where, Dr. Pierre?

I think pretty much anywhere right now. Just do a Google search and there'll be plenty of options. Awesome. And thank you to all our listeners. Have a wonderful day. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

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