>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in January of 2024, when a radio producer named Zach Mack accepted a $10,000 bet from his father.

Zach's dad had gone rather deep into a world of conspiratorial thinking and even political prophecy.

Zach had tried to call him out and steer him away.

But Zach's father had only strengthened his beliefs.

And then in early 2024, his dad offered a bet.

$1,000 for each of ten predictions.

Predictions that Zach's dad was certain would come true before the end of 2024.

Those predictions included Barack Obama being found guilty of treason.

The same for Joe Biden.

The Clintons guilty of murder, Donald Trump being reinstated as president without needing an election in 2024 because the courts would confirm that the 2020 election was stolen, Zach decided to accept the bet, hoping that if he could show his father that he was wrong, it would break the hold that these conspiracy theories had.

This was not a small amount of money for either of them.

Zach also convinced his father and his mother to be interviewed throughout 2024 for a podcast series, which was released in three parts earlier this year.

So how did it end?

Zach Mack is joining us this hour, and this is a conversation I've been looking forward to for a long time.

I listened to a lot of podcasts.

Zach's series for NPR embedded is called Alternate Realities, and it's maybe the most fascinating pod I've listened to all year.

The story itself is riveting, but it goes beyond one family.

I think that many of us know people who've not been able to pull themselves away from Q or other kinds of conspiracy rabbit holes, and there's a lot to learn here.

Zach Mack reporter, producer, host of Alternate Realities for NPR's embedded.

Are you there, Zach?

>> I'm here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Evan.

>> Great to have you.

First of all, congratulations on the series.

It's strange to say that because it's so personal.

And I know it was not easy.

And I just want to commend you for an unbelievable balance of professionalism and heart.

I want everybody listening to know we're going to talk about some of the details.

We're going to do a little spoiler alert, but I think everyone should be listening and sharing this and talking about this.

I mean, I think it is that important.

So congratulations for that.

>> Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

>> did the bet.

Let me start with this.

Did the bet surprise you?

Your dad comes to you and you have at various times tried to kind of head him off at the pass and not let him get down certain rabbit holes, and then he comes to you with this bet.

at first it comes off as kind of amusing, but it wasn't a joke.

Did it surprise you?

>> Yeah, it completely surprised me.

It sort of came out of nowhere.

you know, for years, he and I have kind of been having circular arguments about his beliefs, and they've really ramped up, especially after the pandemic.

they were they were sort of getting more and more extreme, more and more conspiratorial.

you know, these conversations were never going anywhere.

And I, I work in the media, so I would just get exasperated and you know, trying to show him all kinds of different reporting and yeah, things kind of came to a head with, with the family last January.

Yeah.

In January.

And yeah, he, he surprised me with this bet.

because we just couldn't seem to be able to convince each other or find any resolution, and.

Yeah, he he sprung this bet on me.

But, you know, my dad and I are not big gamblers or or bettors and $10,000.

Also a lot of money for for both of us.

That's, that's, you know, we're we're not wealthy or anything like that.

So yeah, it was quite a surprise.

>> And a little bit of background for our audience.

Your family has you know, I think different sort of views on a lot of things.

Your mom and your dad, it's not like you're a deeply, highly charged political family growing up.

Although growing up, I think in the Bay area, your father is a conservative Christian, was a little bit of an outlier in a community that was pretty left leaning.

Is that fair?

>> Yeah.

For sure.

Yeah, yeah.

I grew up in a very like, you know, liberal Bay area right next to Berkeley, you know, so things are things are fairly left.

And that that was my experience growing up.

And my mom her, her views reflect that.

And yeah, my dad's always been kind of the odd man out as a, as a Christian conservative, but it hasn't really big been a huge tension point for our social circles.

People just kind of he kind of kept his beliefs to himself.

So there wasn't a lot of like fighting about politics growing up.

I remember there being some, some tense moments because he voted for Bush and around around that time.

But we didn't spend a lot of time discussing politics growing up.

>> And then after the pandemic, during and after he gets more vocal, he goes, as a number of people did in this country, kind of down some of these rabbit holes.

And one part that I thought was really interesting was counter to what I would have expected, given what I knew about the series going in, I would have thought, well, it was Q that pulled him down.

Instead, he was finding you weren't exactly sure what the source was, but once you knew what Q was, you tried to kind of tell him, hey, you're going to you're going to encounter this thing called Q don't go there.

It's a bad idea.

And tell us what happens with that.

>> Yeah, yeah.

So again, because I work in media and I'm just younger and like much more online and my dad is not he's not like someone who he's not on social media.

He doesn't really understand how to use the internet.

Technology is this very foreign and difficult language for him to speak.

so I'm, I'm always up on things before he is usually.

Right.

And so I could just see him getting more and more into conspiracies, and I could see that down the line.

He was eventually going to encounter the QAnon conspiracy.

And so I tried to head it off way in advance.

I was like, hey, have you heard of this?

And he was like, no, I haven't heard of it.

And I was like, okay, well, here's what it is.

It's going to eventually come across your desk, and when it does, you'll know.

You know, that it's not not true.

And I, you know, I think it ended up backfiring because it sort of piqued his curiosity.

And it does play into a lot of the things that he believes or wants to believe about the world.

And so so it became like a somewhat appealing conspiracy for him.

And to be honest, so, so many of the things that he predicted were going to happen in 2024 are sort of derivative from QAnon conspiracies.

I think even if he doesn't know that he's trafficking in QAnon conspiracies, it's so much of it is coming from that.

And downwind and, and other people get a hold of it and kind of like change it or tweak it.

But it was there was nothing particularly surprising in his predictions.

It was all sort of the right wing conspiracy greatest hits, right?

>> Yeah.

And I had mentioned a few of them.

But can you run down some of the predictions that your dad made and that you ended up betting on for our audience?

>> Yeah.

you know, he he predicted that a lot of the top Democrats would be rounded up and convicted of treason.

So, yeah, Biden, the Clintons, Obama, Nancy Pelosi.

yeah.

Trump would be reinstated without without an election that our country would come under martial law, which, you know, if you're looking around lately not he.

>> Was closer than than you thought.

Maybe on that one.

Yeah.

>> Yeah.

So he said our country would come under martial law.

He thought that there would be a an electromagnetic pulse device that would wipe out all digital communication across the U.S.

for a bit.

So he was he was really trying to warn me to stock up on food and water because he didn't think we'd have access to electricity for several months.

At some point during the year.

yeah, a lot, a lot of stuff like that.

You know, he he believed we didn't bet on this, but he believed that Biden had a number of body doubles.

you know, that just a a global cabal that he calls the globalists, like, secretly run the world, you know, that that's that that's kind of the main part of of what he believes.

And, and a lot of things kind of trickle down from that.

>> Yeah.

And if you're good with it, we've got a brief bit of sound of your dad and you talking about.

So we're going to play a clip of Zach and his father talking about the 10th of the ten bets.

And I think what you'll hear here is it's a good chance to hear how I'm just going to say the word suite.

Zach's father clearly loves him, and Zach loves his dad.

This is there's so much humanity in the series.

Even as you hear these wild conspiracy ideas.

So this is Zach and his dad talking about prediction number ten.

>> Number ten.

I threw this in because I thought you'd be excited about it.

>> Yeah, it's an exciting one.

It's probably the most exciting one.

>> The U.S.

will come under martial law in 2024 because of mass rioting and chaos.

So the military will have to step in.

>> For the record, I was never actually excited about the possibility of this happening for this one.

Do you think this will be happening all over the country?

Only in certain parts.

>> The whole United States will come under martial law, and the biggest cities will be targeted.

You know, New York, unfortunately, Washington, D.C., the Bay area.

>> Okay.

>> Chicago, L.A., Houston, Dallas.

>> Using pretty confident about that.

>> I am 100% confident.

>> Dad's always been sure of himself, but he'd never said anything like this before.

And now he was predicting the future with certainty.

>> When all these things happen, then you will realize that I'm not as big a crackpot as you think I am, and that these are not conspiracy theories.

These are reality.

>> So that's from the series with Zach and his dad.

And again, listeners, it's it's three parts.

There are about half an hour a piece.

You can crush it in one sitting.

It's so riveting.

I when I first came across it, I could not stop listening.

And I suspect there's a lot of people listening right now who maybe you've had conversations with acquaintances, friends, family members similar to Zach and his father.

So before we kind of get into where the bet goes next here, Zach, just a little bit more of of the disposition that your father had.

I mean, he's worried about you.

He believes in these these ideas, these predictions.

He's worried about your safety.

He clearly loves you.

And while he thinks that you're the one who's wrong, he knows that you love him.

And I appreciated that understanding that that was came through very, very clearly.

And that never even really seemed to lag throughout the year as we got closer to the conclusion.

>> Yeah, the the surprising part about this is that my father and I actually got closer through the course of the year and the course of the bet and just interviewing him, you know, we were able to have these conversations that we had never had before.

And I think part of it was when we made the bet, it sort of suddenly we didn't have anything to argue about.

We it was kind of like a year long pause and an acknowledgment of, okay, right now neither of us are wrong.

And we'll see at the end of the year, you know, we'll know who's right and who's wrong, and we'll have our answers.

But for it was it was kind of like a truce for the course of the year.

And we were able to just have conversations.

And I really tried to understand him and how he came to these beliefs and what they were doing for him.

yeah.

So we we ended up getting closer and, and and that was that was surprising.

But it was nice.

>> Yeah.

And unfortunately, the rest of his relationships were deteriorating.

You talked to some of his friends, and he clearly.

I thought it was pretty clear that your dad was out of touch with what his friends thought of his own beliefs, but more importantly, your sister who is gay, felt rejected by your father for not accepting her sexuality, telling her it was a choice that he wouldn't respect, saying he still loved her, but wouldn't respect her.

you know, her life choices as he saw them that was deteriorating.

And then I want to listen to one more bit of sound.

And it comes from your mother.

And your mother had spent, you know, sort of years as your father's conspiracy theories grew stronger, your mom finds out that he was spending some of their money without consulting her on precious metals.

And survivalist goods, preparing for, like, the end times.

And she didn't know he was doing that.

And so at first she's like, I don't I don't want my son and my my husband betting on this stuff.

But it turns out she actually ended up thinking it was a good idea for the reasons you're going to hear in this clip.

>> I was on a date, and then when that date happens, the precious metals gets returned to cash.

The flats of water, go back to Costco, you do something else with the food generators.

We now have, and you move on.

I have been very clear that I'm not sure how much more I can take, and I've even said, you know, I'm considering leaving, ending the marriage.

>> You said that to him.

>> Yeah.

Which is very hard for me to say because I'm 69.

I'm about to retire.

Not necessarily the life I had planned for myself to be alone, but what kind of life do I have now >>?

>> Man, I gotta say, Zach, that is hard to hear.

And I know it had to be hard for you to go through, did you?

At any point throughout the year, think about pulling back and saying, like, this is getting too hard.

This is too much damage.

You know, I don't know if I should go through with this podcast series.

>> I, I didn't I had a really hard time making the show and it brought up a lot of emotions for me, and it was just a really emotionally grueling production to go through.

And hats off to my team at NPR.

and everybody at embedded who dealt with me going through a lot of those emotions that somehow, you know, that that would sometimes exhibit as like bad behavior or me being incredibly moody.

and difficult, but I didn't feel there was nothing that happened that that made me want to pull the series.

But, you know, to to NPR's credit, they asked a lot of times, like, are you sure you want to go through with this?

How are you feeling?

We can stop at any time.

but it there just didn't seem to be a clear reason to stop.

And also, no one in the family felt that way either.

Everybody was fine with it going through.

You know, I had I had the complete support and participation of my mom, sister and dad, like everyone was involved.

There was no one who chose who sat out or thought it was a bad idea.

So I think that support from the family really helped.

>> If there is one podcast series listeners that I would urge you to to consume this year that maybe you weren't aware of, this would be the one.

Alternate realities a three part series on NPR about Zachary Mack attempt to sort of pull his dad out of conspiratorial thinking, and the $10,000 bet between them, about ten different predictions his dad made about American politics and American society.

It is so well done, very, very human at times, very, very hard to hear.

But listeners, as we go throughout this conversation, we're going to talk in a moment about what happened.

but I want to hear from you.

I mean, Zack probably unfairly gets gets painted as well.

Now you now you're the expert on conspiracy thinking and what you do about that.

And there's not there's not one answer for that.

But listeners, if you've got questions, comments, it's 844295 talk.

It's toll free.

8442958255263 WXXI.

If you're in Rochester 2639994, email the program Connections at WXXI.

You can join the chat on YouTube if you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube channel.

If you've had experience with conspiratorial thinking yourself or someone you love, we'd love to hear from you on that.

Now, to your father's credit, Zach, he said from the start that while he was sure he was going to be proven right and you were going to be at 10-K, he said if he's wrong, he's going to pay and that he'll admit he was wrong.

And then the year progresses and I'm listening to this series and it's it's getting late in the year and it's pretty clear none of this stuff is going to happen.

And yet he did not seem to lose confidence at all.

That was remarkable.

And I was wondering if that was kind of like a red flag to you.

Like he is not.

We're getting late in the year here.

Nothing's happening.

And your dad is rock solid in these ten predictions.

>> Yeah, I mean, it was this is the first time we've sort of gone through something like that.

But as I was doing research throughout the year and this sort of thing happens with conspiracy theorists and people who are in, you know, doomsday cults and stuff like that.

There's a really seminal work called When Prophecy Fails.

That's all about a doomsday call in Chicago that believes that believed aliens were going to come.

I think this was in the 50s.

and most of the world would be destroyed, and just a few of them would be rescued.

and then, you know, when that didn't happen, when the date that they believed that was going to happen passed a lot of the followers doubled down and, and just thought, you know, hey, we got the date wrong.

So we've, we've seen plenty of instances throughout history of this sort of behavior and this sort of thinking.

It's really hard to let go of something you feel so certain is going to happen.

So it wasn't a huge shocker when when he continued to be confident in these beliefs.

>> And I don't think it's spoiling anything to then say that the bet about these ten predictions that would happen before the end of 2024, that none of them happened.

Barack Obama was.

>> He was over ten.

>> He was over ten.

He was not.

Barack Obama was not arrested for treason.

Joe Biden was not arrested for treason.

The Clintons did not get convicted of murder.

Trump was not reinstated before the election.

On and on it goes.

And he's over ten, right?

And he it turns out well, tell people what happened.

I mean, he paid you right?

>> Yeah.

I mean, we're still working out some of the finances because right.

When the bet finished, he and he lost, he he ended up.

And this is not part of the series.

I'll just reveal it here.

He challenged me to a second bet for $10,000 on ten different predictions.

So he had ten new predictions.

Yeah, and double or nothing wasn't a double or nothing.

Exactly.

So I wasn't exactly.

I wasn't really excited to just do this again because it had been so emotionally exhausting for me to make this show and go through this process.

But part of the reason I accepted the second bet that we are currently in, so we have two months left until that bet ends.

And you know, spoiler alert, he's over ten so far on his new set of predictions.

But the reason I accepted it, I said, okay, at the end of the year, if I, if I go ten and zero again, then I want us to look at your media diet and I want to be able to like make changes to your media diet.

And I can give you some some new resources.

And I'm going to eliminate current resources of yours.

because I basically said, hey, if you go over 20 in 2 years, like that seems like a pretty bad track record, right?

And he agreed, okay.

At the time that that like if he was zero for 20, that would indicate he had gotten a hold of some bad information.

So you know, we'll see what happens in two months.

>> Oh my goodness.

Are you allowed to reveal what any of the new ten predictions are?

>> You know, so I, I think the theme for the first line of predictions were was a lot of political upheaval in the wake of of Trump coming back and the theme in the second round of predictions is a lot of now that Trump is in office, all these things will be revealed that Barack Obama and Gavin Newsom and Joe Biden were all illegitimately elected, that the truth about the JFK and the RFK assassinations would come out, that basically, with Trump in office, all this truth would come pouring out and in a way that it would be indisputable that, you know so much that I would believe it.

And so I, I stipulated that one of I gave him 18 different news sources, all owned by different entities.

and I said, okay, well, one of these 18 different news sources would need to confirm these.

And he agreed to that because the thing is, he already believes in all this stuff.

And, you know, I could go to any of his corners of the dark web, and it would be technically confirmed, right, that that Barack Obama was illegitimately elected.

But I was like, okay, but I need like, The Atlantic or Vox Media or the New York Times.

I need, I need one of them to confirm this.

And I gave him 18 different choices.

>> Okay.

So he's going to be zero for ten again.

and before I I'm going to grab a phone call in a second here because.

Yeah, but I think people want to know if you have seen any crack that your father has shown to say to you.

All right, now I'm starting to see at over 20, over two years that I will be open to where you think I've gone astray.

>> Not really.

I've not really seen any crack.

And we'll see what happens in two months when, you know, when everything has been confirmed.

But I've.

I've not seen a crack.

I still see that same confidence and, and you know, some of it makes sense.

And to be honest, as I've continued speaking to experts and people and psychologists who work with you know, people who are who are in cults or very into conspiracy theories.

You know, one of the things I'm not going about this the right way, you're you're really not supposed to make a bet with with someone because it doesn't allow them to sort of be wrong with dignity.

You know, it it it's a little bit of like I'm right and you're wrong and and it it doesn't create the safest environment to be wrong.

now, you know, I wasn't the one who came up with the idea for the bet.

I simply just accepted the bet.

But I do think in terms of, like, psychology, a bet is not the best way to pull someone out of the rabbit hole.

>> Yeah.

That's fair, although I could really sympathize with what your mother said, which was just.

I want a deadline.

And as long as both people involved in this bet agree that if the deadline one of us is right and one of us is wrong, and then we move on.

Unfortunately, your father moved the goalposts.

So when your father said, I'll pay you the ten K and I was wrong, I was wrong about it happening this year.

It will be next year that Obama gets arrested or that the Clintons go to prison, or that all these things happen.

And when you can just keep moving the goalposts, then you're not really intellectually, honestly engaging.

Although I am curious to know what your father thought of this whole series, if he thought you represented him well.

>> You know, he he actually did not have a huge issue with it.

We talked about it afterwards about his thoughts, and he he felt like it was very fair.

It was very fair.

And it was very real.

You know, he thinks that part of the reason for the reception is that it felt very honest and real, and he was even impressed with some of his answers.

He said he said he he sounded pretty good at certain parts, and I think he, he did appreciate some of it.

And, you know, there were certainly some things where he felt like he would have framed it differently or he didn't quite agree on the framing.

but ultimately he didn't have any major issues with the series, which, you know, that feels great for me because I, I tried to be incredibly fair and incredibly honest in this portrayal.

>> Sure, I in some ways he comes across as a sympathetic character who you are feeling sorry for and frankly, rooting for a kind of intellectual redemption that might lead to saving his family relationships.

And unfortunately, as we learned in the the podcast series, that it didn't happen.

But you never know in the future.

Let me grab Antoine and Rochester first on the phone.

Hi, Antoine.

Go ahead.

>> Hey, how's it going?

How's it going?

>> Very good.

>> So, so so I've I've got, like, the same issues with a couple of the family members that go down these conspiracy rabbit holes.

I mean, it it does make for a lively debate.

And conversation, but but after a while, and you kind of continuously to hear that this is where like your, your sister, your brother or your mom, your your wife, you know, that they're continuously going down this road.

It's kind of worrisome.

And it's like, how do you try to tell them or how do you try to, you know, nudge them into maybe talking to somebody like a professional to, to get, you know, to, to to get these thoughts to actually analyze these thoughts.

You know, it's kind of kind of hard, kind of weird, but you know, but you know, you, you know, you love your family member.

It's just like you just have to continuously talk to them and, you know, let them know that you're doing the you know, that you, you know, you just want the best for them.

And if you would kind of, you know, talk to somebody about these things, you know, because I know they feel when I say, maybe you need to talk to somebody about these, you know, they they feel like I'm telling them that they're crazy.

>> Yeah.

So Anton, hang there for one second.

Antoine, I want to give you a chance to hear Zach's answer and follow up.

But I want to say Zach probably gets this a lot now.

Like, you're the guy who's supposed to be able to tell everybody how to pull their family members out.

And it's not easy, right?

>> I mean, I'm the guy, but also, I wasn't successful, right?

>> Yeah, right.

>> My dad still believes this stuff, so I, I don't know how much of an expert I can be, but I, I can tell you what I have learned and gathered is that before you know that arguing and debating and fact bombing someone isn't really going to work.

sometimes it's it's it's fun to spar with someone, but it's ultimately not going to change their mind.

And, and before you even engage with them that way, I would recommend, you know, trying to understand them.

a lot of times, some of these beliefs are bred out of like a trauma or negative event.

So, you know, looking, looking to their lives and trying to understand why they believe this and also asking, what are these beliefs doing for them?

Sometimes they're bringing them community.

Right.

We saw with QAnon, there was a lot of community on those message boards.

and that's that's very appealing for people.

there's other there's other reasons that, like, you ask, what what is it doing for them?

Sometimes it gives you an elevation of status.

Like, I know something you don't know.

You know, I have access to this privileged information, and that can be very intoxicating.

so, yeah, finding out what what are these beliefs doing for them?

And then I think you also just can't see these people as victims.

A lot of us just see them clearly as victims.

And I always thought my dad just got a hold of the wrong information.

And if I got him the right information, he would be all set.

And that that is just not how this stuff works.

I often think of the movie Jason Bourne about, you know, this super assassin who had his memory wiped.

He spends the whole movie trying to find who did this to him, and the reveal is he volunteered, he signed up, he did this to him.

To them or to him.

And and I see that with conspiracy theorists, like they went looking for this a lot of times.

So they are active participants and not just victims.

So yeah, part of that is understand them first and then there's some things that help.

Once you get to that point.

>> Antoine, do you feel like you do understand a little bit of what the community that that this the people you're describing, are they finding community elsewhere?

Are they finding some kind of value in this kind of intellectual pursuit or conspiratorial thinking?

>> Well, I mean, it seems like it just seems like that they're, you know, they're they're searching, searching, searching you know, different news, you know, because we're like, I'm in social media, you know, and I do a lot of research and stuff like that.

So it seems like they also do a lot of research and they just they come up with, you know, with there are certain things and, and they, they either they bring it up for conversation or they actually actually you know, this is what they kind of feel and believe or maybe, you know, it's kind of hard because you're like, are they just saying this stuff just to get a rise out of the family, you know, or do they actually you then you start trying to analyze them or trying to figure out, is this for real?

For real, you know, is the is it for real?

For real?

And I think that's like the stage that I'm in at this point because, you know, we're they talk about my you know, they talk about my, my actions on social media because I'm like posting on TikTok and Facebook and all that good stuff.

But they so they so then they go on, but they're going on social media and and different internet stuff for a whole different, a whole different perspective or a whole looking for these.

I don't know, it's just strange.

It's strange.

But I do love my family.

I love them all.

And you know, that's why I'm like, big concerns me.

And I'm like, are they for real?

For real?

Or are they just doing this to see what we're going to say?

You know, it just sometimes it makes for a lively debate.

Sometimes things get heated, you know, sometimes.

And then sometimes we just all kind of just, like, laugh about it.

So I don't know.

>> Well, Antoine, I appreciate that.

I know a lot of people can relate.

Anything you want to add there, Zach?

>> Yeah, I do think humor is is really helpful with these conversations.

I think creating, you know, you want to create a safe space for someone where even where if they are wrong, they can kind of come back to the other side.

Dignified.

That's why arguing and debating is like pretty tough.

But just inquiring like, how did they come to these beliefs?

Where did they get this information?

What about this?

Have they considered this, you know, sort of there's ways to like kind of poke at it without being antagonistic.

I think that's helpful.

There's another thing called third party processing.

So you're talking about someone that's not them or a situation that they're not involved in, and you're sort of talking about it.

And sometimes, you know, when you observe something else, you can then kind of see that same behavior or some similarities in yourself, so that that has been helpful.

There's also a lot of research groups who have been working with A.I.

chatbots.

because A.I.

chatbots basically, inevitably, when you're arguing with a conspiracy theorist, you're going to get to some point where you don't know enough about the thing that they're talking about, right?

There's there's just no amount of research you can do.

They'll eventually get to the get to something that you don't know that much about.

And you can also lose your patience.

Right.

But these some of these chatbots just have access to like infinite information.

And they have infinite patience.

and so that has been effective for some people.

And then also just, I think making sure the person is getting their needs met, you know, I, I taught one of the experts I knew his parents were really into QAnon, and then they moved into a retirement home.

And they have all these new friends and they're golfing and they and he's like, they're having a great life.

And they never talk about QAnon anymore.

And I think that's just a direct result of these people are getting their needs met.

>> Antoine, good luck to you.

and Canandaigua says this is so interesting and sad.

I have a friend who is very much in the rabbit hole, and it definitely strains our relationship.

I've tried guiding people toward a website called The Tangle, which is less partisan might be helpful for his father to try that site for a while.

Rachel, I got to tell you, Isaac, Saul and I both ended up Isaac.

Saul is the creator of the tangle.

If there is one person or one model for what I do that I don't talk about enough, it's Isaac.

I think what he does is awesome, and he just had a kid right around the time where my second son was born.

And so we were actually going to get together on on Connections.

We haven't made that happen yet.

He's going to be on soon.

He does a phenomenal job of really trying to understand and present to you different sources of news, perspectives on news, not just ideological, but I don't know that that breaks through, you know, Zach, I mean, I don't know if it if there would be one site like tangle or one article or one thing.

I mean, it's different for everybody, but in general, does does it help to try to find different sources?

What do you think.?

>> I do think it's helpful.

Media literacy is a is a huge problem.

I do think I love what Isaac's doing with the tangle.

I've spoken to him a number of times.

I've actually just.

I interviewed him that we might use that interview for, like, a new episode or.

And I just used it at a conference I spoke at.

So I think Isaac is doing, like, incredibly responsible work.

yeah.

I think sometimes showing people a variety of news coverage, especially if they're reviewing the same story and looking at the way different outlets are covering the same story and same set of facts, you can pretty quickly point out the bias there.

And I do think Isaac just parses that well.

So I think generally that stuff is helpful.

But again, you know, in cases like my father, he's going he has his mind made up and he's going in search of confirmation of what he already believes.

And that's that's tough.

>> When we come back from our only break of the hour, we're coming back with Zach Mack, Gerald and Geneva.

I'll take your phone call.

I've got a pile of other emails to get to a lot of interest in what Zach is doing.

If you're just encountering Zach for the first time, please find, listen to, and share his three part series through NPR embedded.

It's called Alternate Realities.

It's about the $10,000 bet that his father made him, and he took his dad up on the bet.

A thousand bucks for each prediction his dad made about conspiracy thinking in 2024.

And what that revealed about their relationship with that revealed about conspiratorial thinking.

It's really, really important stuff.

We'll come right back.

More of your feedback for Zach on the other side.

I'm Evan Dawson Friday on the next Connections coming to PBS this weekend.

The American Revolution, a film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmitt.

We'll be joined Friday on Connections by Sarah Botstein and David Schmitt.

We're going to talk about their passion project alongside Ken Burns, why they wanted to focus on the American Revolution.

Now, what we still can learn about it or what?

Maybe we get wrong about the American Revolution.

Talk with you Friday.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola Center.

Supporting residents to become active members of the community, from developing life skills to gaining independence.

Mary Cariola center Transforming lives of People with disabilities.

More online at Mary Cariola.

Org.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson and this is Gerald and Geneva.

Listen on Finger Lakes Public Radio.

Hey, Gerald.

Go ahead.

>> Hello?

Can you hear me?

>> We can hear you.

Go ahead.

>> Thank you.

Jonah Goldberg and his work on in in the dispatch.

a curated news site has made has claimed that one of the attractions or that or he suggests that Tucker Carlson is is targeting his messaging at the conspiratorial mind.

in a way, to make money or at least in, in a way that rewards Carlson.

Well, I was wondering if your guest uncovered any suggestion of mere money making off the off of peddling these conspiracy theories.

or, you know, to us, basically that if your guest is uncovered.

Any sense?

>> Yeah, sure.

>> Yeah.

These resources that his father's using are benefiting financially from from his father's.

>> Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

Go ahead.

Zach, people make money off conspiracy theorists all the time.

>> I think there's lots of money to be made.

And there's lots of snake oil to be sold, right?

I mean, we we live in a world on on social media where anybody can kind of say anything.

And, you know, it's you see a lot of wellness influencers, you know, don't take this vaccine, but you buy my essential oils from this store.

yeah.

With conspiracy theories just in general, like you're getting money from from ad revenue just by views.

I think the more extreme views and and predictions and ideologies tend to get more clicks, you know, things that spark more emotion.

yeah, there's, there's lots of money to be made in the sort of like influencer world, like through social media, especially with conspiracy theories.

Yeah.

And they're just they're very attractive.

They play on your fears, they provide a level of certainty.

I think a lot of people, like my father have a difficulty with uncertainty.

So sometimes a conspiracy theory will fill in the gap of knowledge.

Right?

If you're looking at, you know, 9/11 and there's something you don't quite understand or doesn't quite feel right or or there's an unanswered question a conspiracy can fill that gap really well and then, you know, gives you a little bit of a peace of mind.

So, yeah, there's there's lots of money being made on, on this stuff.

And I also just think people like wielding influence and power and, and being being like a voice for, for people.

And yeah, it's an attractive role.

And I think some of these people genuinely believe it.

And I think there's also a lot of bad faith actors.

I would I would place Tucker Carlson in the bad faith actors category.

I think he's he's pretty aware of what he's doing.

It would be my guess.

But you know, who knows?

>> Well, I mean, a good example.

And by the way, Gerald, thank you for listening on WEOS Finger Lakes Public Radio, 89 FM 89 five FM throughout the Finger Lakes.

Tucker Carlson this week had an episode on chemtrails, and I think Zach mentioned in his podcast series his dad was into chemtrails theory.

The chemtrails thing is so wild to me because it is the idea that there are both private pilots and then airline pilots for big companies in the United States and around the world, and they're working, apparently with members of government, and it involves thousands of people, but no one has ever revealed it.

And instead of just assuming that what you see in the sky when an airplane flies is condensation, frozen ice crystals, which is what it is.

It's actually a weather or geoengineering plot to poison us or poison the atmosphere or control the weather.

Some variation of those things.

And Tucker Carlson not only entertained this, but but his whole headline this week was we finally confirmed that it's true and it's worse than you think, and it is not true, and it is not worse than you think.

And that's what I think.

Zach is right where you go.

He has to know better now the people he's talking to maybe don't, but he does.

He's making a lot of money on that.

>> Yeah, I think he knows better.

And it's always funny to me when I feel I find a lot of these people who traffic in these conspiracies think very little of the government.

You know, my father thinks the government, you know, just has no ability to organize itself.

Can't get anything right.

Or, you know, they he wouldn't want them in charge of tying his shoe.

But then they're also pulling off the most elaborate, intricate, complicated, you know, conspiracies on the side.

It's just like, which is it?

You know, he thought that that COVID was a bioweapon released by the Chinese, but that it also wasn't a big deal and that he didn't need to wear a mask, you know, and and those those are conflicting, right?

It's like, well, which is it?

Is it a bioweapon or is it not a big deal?

>> Yeah.

but again, when you point that out to him, when you say if the government is totally incompetent, then it couldn't possibly execute hundreds or thousands of people in multiple countries pulling off this weather control or geoengineering thing.

>> Right.

>> does that that doesn't crack it at all for him, does it not?

>> I mean, nothing I've done yet has seemed to crack it, but we're going to keep working.

I'm I'm committed.

>> let me read an email from Charles who says, can we at least acknowledge that there are some conspiracy theories that end up being true?

I'm old enough to remember when it was a dangerous conspiracy theory that Joe Biden might not be fit for the presidency, or even making all the decisions of his presidency.

Now, no one doubts that, including even NPR.

And he says in furthermore, that when someone points out a true statement, something we can all see and gets told they are crazy or far right, maybe that angers them a bit.

People don't like being called stupid outright or implied.

>> People don't like being called conspiracy theorists.

And I get it.

There's something insulting and dismissive about that label.

And yeah, for sure there are conspiracies, right?

We've seen them for years and years.

We saw it with Nixon and you know, I think for a long time, people on the left thought there was nothing to the, quote, unquote Epstein files, and things just keep trickling out, right?

It keeps getting weirder and weirder and darker and darker.

So, yeah, of course, there's there are conspiracies.

I think, where you can get into trouble is where there doesn't seem to be a lot of supporting evidence.

And you believe it to a certainty.

I think it's fine to suspect things or to think things don't quite add up.

it's the believing to uncertainty.

And also you know, for example, a conspiracy theory that I believe in is that the NBA is kind of rigged, especially when it comes to the draft.

And like everything that went down last year with the Dallas Mavericks, if you follow the NBA, you know what I'm talking about.

>> Oh yeah.

>> But there's not a lot of evidence to support that.

There's a lot of circumstantial evidence.

And to be honest, I'm fine being wrong.

Right?

It's totally fine if I'm wrong.

It doesn't upend my worldview.

If I'm wrong about the NBA, it's not.

It's it's sort of harmless.

And I think where some conspiracy theorists like, sort of get into trouble is where this if this belief is wrong, it can up in their world.

>> It becomes their identity.

>> Right?

>> Yeah.

I. That's I kind of kind of with you on basketball.

I hate to say it.

I'm from, I'm from, I'm from Cleveland.

I feel like this is my Cavs year.

And then at the same time, I'm from Cleveland and I'm watching two pitchers maybe go to prison for years because they were in a betting scandal.

And I'm going, is nothing legit anymore.

You know, it's easy to start to doubt.

And that's another thing.

I mean, like we're we're kind of riffing on it.

But Zach brought up earlier that uncertainty is is a gateway to conspiracy thinking.

So it's easy to look at the arrests of these Cleveland Guardians pitchers or Terry Rozier in the NBA.

And go, well, everything is rigged or nobody is on the up and up.

All players must be.

And we don't have evidence that it's worse.

It's easy to think that.

It's not that it's worse than we know, but that kind of is the crack.

Now, the NBA isn't all that serious.

Baseball's not all that serious.

But when you've convinced yourself that there's going to be martial law or that the government is trying to control the weather or poison you, then you can form an identity around that.

And that uncertainty is where the door opens.

But it takes some humility, like you say, Zach, to say, If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll own it.

>> Yeah, yeah.

And those, you know, those are really scary beliefs.

so you you want to be right about those?

You want to do your research and, and uphold like, you know, make sure there are real facts.

But I just think, like stuff with like the 2020 election and yeah, the weather controlling events, there are really incredible journalists on the case like that.

That is a that that would make your career if you if you got a hold of that story, it would make your career.

People are trying to find that stuff out.

And I think the fact that we haven't says something in itself.

>> can I ask you a little bit about Epstein?

You mentioned Epstein, and.

>> Oh, yeah, sure.

>> You know, so the interesting thing to I mean, there's a lot of interesting stuff about Epstein thing to me.

But really, what's interesting to me in this moment is that for years it was JD Vance and Donald Trump and others who were saying, like, what is the media hiding from you?

And, you know, the file should be released.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and get the files out, and it's going to show that, you know, the Clintons and everybody else were in on it, and they were trafficking all these girls.

And and then Epstein dies in prison.

And what happened there?

And there's some legitimately weird stuff there that would make you wonder.

But now that the Republican administration gets in, you got a lot of like, Mike Johnson suddenly not interested.

And JD Vance is suddenly not interested.

And Trump is like, I thought this was asked and answered.

It's like I wonder how someone like your father, who viewed Trump as kind of a white knight in this story, or I would think, I don't know, how does he see the way that story has kind of flipped a little.

>> You know, I don't know what he thinks so much about Epstein.

We haven't we haven't discussed the Epstein stuff specifically, but I do think he had he still has faith that the full truth will come out.

And when it comes out, it will, like Trump will ultimately come away looking good.

And and the Clintons will come away looking, looking poorly.

There's usually some there's always some faith that Trump is like hiding something for the right reasons, kind of, you know, behind the scenes, like really working, you know, there there was all that belief around QAnon that Trump was secretly freeing all these children from, right, you know, sexual slavery.

And I, you know, it's like, I don't know where that came from.

That wasn't the case.

But people really believed in him anyway, despite despite what was happening in front of our faces.

but yeah, you know, and I have I have another friend, I have a very pro MAGA person who I went to college with.

And we text a lot, and she traffics in conspiracy theories sometimes as well.

And she's a huge Trumper, and I can even see her getting pretty disheartened about the Epstein stuff.

It just doesn't seem like it's adding up for her.

And it does keep looking worse and worse for Trump.

So I do think there are there are cracks starting to show when it comes to that one.

Specifically.

>> Yeah, I, I would also caution though, your work, Zach, helps remind us that maybe we're not all prone to the same sort of conspiracy rabbit holes, but we're prone to confirmation bias.

We're prone to poor thinking.

So if you are not a Trump fan, I think the tendency right now or the poll like the, the the desire is to see him go down with this and to say, oh, this is going to reveal that he was one of the top abusers.

When I think it's clear Trump was hanging with Epstein, he was with him a lot.

There's video, there's young women or girls sitting on his lap.

You know, he's got the white man's overbite going and he's got the dance moves and he's you know, I mean, all the weird stuff that doesn't look comfortable.

But I still think you have to wait for as much evidence as you can get.

And not just let your confirmation bias tell you.

Well, we know that he did all of these things.

>> Totally.

Yeah.

It's clear they were friends.

It's it.

It looks likely that he knew what was going on to some degree.

but yeah, there hasn't there's no smoking gun that.

Yeah, he was on the island and involved in all these same activities.

Right.

it just looks bad.

And and I think what what also looks worse is that Trump has continued to lie about it, right?

About the birthday card, about how close they were, about their level of involvement, his knowledge.

So every at every turn, Trump has sort of lied about it, which always makes it look worse.

And then the stuff that we do know continues to look worse and sort of implicate that he knew what was going on.

I don't think I've seen anything that implicates that he was he is participating.

But the fact that he's lying and, and is hanging around the guys, it looks bad enough, right?

>> back to emails.

M says hearing the description of someone sucked into these predictions sounds similar to someone sucked into always playing the lottery.

The odds are pretty slim, but the hope of that big win or in this case, the big I was right is so appealing that they can't separate from it.

Is there any psychology or addictive behavior that can be applied to conspiracy behaviors?

Believers behavior?

That's from M Zach Mack.

>> you know, I don't feel super qualified to answer this one, but I that sounds right.

That that seems I do think there is a there's like a thrill to it.

And there's also with, with conspiracy theories there there is a sometimes a need to be contrarian or to feel special.

And I do think, you know, having access to this, this privileged information makes you feel special.

Obviously, winning the lottery makes you feel special.

yeah.

I do think there's there are some parallels and Connections for sure.

>> And I would say m the, the biggest difference I would see is when you're playing the lottery, you have to admit when you don't win because you don't have a pile of cash and you're not necessarily doing it with community.

And as Zach has pointed out in his reporting, a lot of conspiracy rabbit holes are big communities, and people feel they build identities around the Connections they make in these communities.

And that can be really, really powerful.

So maybe we'll close with this.

Jack writes in to ask, where did your father get his news from?

You covered this a little bit in the series.

Zach, do you want to just describe a little of where your dad gets his news from?

>> Yeah, I think everybody naturally assumes that he's like a big Fox News guy, and that's he's not he he watches very little news on on TV.

He's not a Fox News guy.

I think he's just I don't know exactly where he's getting it.

I mean, he he watches a lot of like, prophets online.

He found himself into the rumble sphere, you know, which if you know anything about Rumble, it's sort of like YouTube, but with with zero censorship and a lot of conspiracy theories.

Once you make it into Rumble, it's it's really like you're you're in you're in deep.

and I think just a lot of it are, are beliefs.

He's kind of created on and he goes, he goes in looking to have them confirmed further.

but yeah, it's a lot of religious figures who sort of traffic in prophecy and beliefs about like, Trump being this, like sort of holy white knight figure.

And.

Yeah, so a lot of it is tied up in religion specifically.

>> And a lot on YouTube, a lot online.

So let's close with this here.

there's a lot of talk that people have, and I'm sure you've heard people say, well, if you voted this way, unfriend me on Facebook or I'm going to cut you off out of my life.

And people might feel the same way about conspiratorial thinking.

If you believe this, I can't.

And now, granted, your sister really kind of cut off her relationship with her dad for a very different reason.

He was not accepting her sexuality and who she is as a person.

I understand that, and your mother?

My heart broke for her.

She felt like the marriage and the person that she had was gone.

And I totally get that.

But your efforts to maintain a relationship with your dad continue.

So 45 seconds, what would you say to people who say, well, I'm just not going to talk to my cousin anymore.

I'm not going to talk to my dad anymore.

Like I'm going to cut them out of my life over this.

>> Yeah, I think it's everybody's individual choice.

I don't think there's a blanket answer of, you should keep someone or you should cut them off.

it how much is it impacting your guys's relationship?

Is what relationship is left once you get around these views?

Can you guys coexist without talking about this stuff?

Or is just this all it is?

you know.

Yeah, it's it's everyone's own math problem to do and to work out.

But I think for my father and I, we're still able to enjoy each other's company and have a relationship.

And so, you know, we we can we are continuing our relationship and, and luckily, my father and my sister have spoken several times since the show and, and there's some repair happening.

but yeah, I think that's, that's really it's everyone's own decision to make and, but but I do think to the extent that you can it, it does really benefit the more humanity you can see, see in someone, the more love you can bring.

Bring someone, usually the better off it is.

Even even in in having these difficult conversations around their beliefs.

And if you're likely not going to change their mind.

so I wouldn't stake it on if you can change their mind or not, it it's going to have to work if you don't change their mind.

>> Hey, what's your website for people to follow your work in the future?

>> yeah.

Zach Mack.

Org Zach I'm on Instagram.

you know.

>> It's such.

>> Good work at Vox Media.

>> Alternate realities, the series and NPR.

Thank you so much Zach.

Congratulations on such important work and thanks for sharing the hour with us.

>> Yeah, thank you so much I appreciate you.

>> That is the great Zach Mack such a good series from all of us.

Thanks for listening.

We'll be back with you tomorrow.

>> This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the link at wxxinews.org.