“These days, it seems as though we’ve all gotten used to having people like that in our lives—friends, family members, or colleagues with whom we carefully restrict our conversations. Perhaps they’re just casual acquaintances on social media, but they may also be people we know intimately. I’d be willing to bet that almost everyone reading this knows someone who has undergone a dramatic shift in their deep beliefs about health, the media, the government, the pharmaceutical industry, and more over the last few years. They may not suddenly believe that the earth is flat (though a surprising number of people do). But they may well deny the existence of Covid-19 or think it’s a bioweapon. They may refuse to admit the legitimacy of the 2020 US presidential election or think that Antifa staged the storming of the Capitol. They may insist on telling the real story behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy, climate change, the events of 9/11, or the death of Princess Diana. Some may confidently declare that all vaccines are evil. Others think that antivaxxers are actually lizard people who came up with an ingenious plot to destroy humanity. (Okay, the last one was made up by the folks behind the ScienceSaves campaign to promote vaccines. But you get my point.)

It sometimes seems that the growing tide of misinformation and false beliefs has left no community or family unscathed. And jokes about lizard people aside, it’s no longer something we laugh about. When you hear the words conspiracy theory, what comes to mind probably isn’t tinfoil hats or little green men; it’s much more serious and more personal. Anytime I mention this topic, I see pained expressions. People shake their heads and tell me about their friend, their cousin, their parents, their in-laws, their kids. The ones they’re afraid to invite to parties or family events. The ones they can’t talk to at all. They just can’t wrap their minds around how that person ended up believing those things.”