Caroline ’s Reviews > The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging > Status Update
Caroline
is finished
"Sometimes all you can do is try to get the conspiracist to focus on the real world and spend less time online. Researchers have shown that activities and goals that give conspiracists a real-world focus can help to break the spell. When conspiracists are focused on real-life objectives, outside their online circles, those groups and conspiracies begin to matter less to them. Most people prefer [BELOW]
— Jan 26, 2026 09:38AM
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Caroline ’s Previous Updates
Caroline
is on page 168 of 185
"Serendipity [...] is the bread and butter of conspiracism and conspirituality. In this world, nothing happens by accident. Everything in life is scripted and planned, both by the "black hat" forces of evil and the "white hat" good guys. Coincidences don't exist. Correlation is causation. It's not just that conspiracists assume a connection between two or three seemingly unrelated events. They [BELOW]
— Jan 24, 2026 02:27PM
Caroline
is on page 129 of 185
It's significant that both women the author profiled lived through repeated traumatic events in childhood and are socially isolated and adrift. The last two traits in particular create a trap: These attracted them to a toxic combination of New Age beliefs and conspiracy theories (a combo dubbed "conspirituality" here) in the first place. Then, conspirituality circles [BELOW]
— Jan 19, 2026 11:04AM
Caroline
is on page 61 of 185
I wanted to read this book to learn about the rise of conspiratorial thinking among women in general, but the “women” of the subtitle is deceptive. Instead this book profiles two deeply troubled (and frighteningly uneducated) women who enthusiastically assaulted police officers and trespassed inside the Capitol on Jan. 6. Their humanizing, heartrending backstories offer [BELOW]
— Jan 07, 2026 11:12AM
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Poor critical thinking, we always need more of it.
Morphing_kashi wrote: "Poor critical thinking, we always need more of it.":[ :[
It also just gives them less time.
A rise in conspiratorial thinking and the loneliness epidemic are most certainly linked, and that needs to be talked about more. The problem isn't just that online interaction prevents real-life interaction; it's also very much that when talking with others online, people seem to forget that these others can be any age and of any education level. Critical-thinking ability can vary drastically, as can the news sources others regularly read or watch (or don't). And too many don't remember, or even know to begin with, that the person they're interacting with can very well not even be a flesh-and-blood person but instead a bot that was created expressly to spread disinformation and create division. We have to bring back (and commit to actually showing up for) clubs, casual sports teams, block parties, pot-luck dinner parties, and anything else that allows people to gather in person, especially regularly. This revival would only be a good thing.