Part 6

In Contra's final chapter, she admits conspiracists will complain that she didn't actually prove anything they claim is wrong, i.e. she didn't spend any time debunking conspiracy theories.

She introduces Brand's law: the energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than the energy required to produce bullshit. Essentially debunking is not efficient, and even when something is debunked, a conspiracist will just propose a new conspiracy about why the evidence did not support their conspiracy theory.

Contra concludes that conspiracists cannot be reasoned with. This unfortunately does not bode well, since she says communication is necessary to avoid political violence.

Not only does conspiracism seem bad for democracy, it can be devastating to families, similar to the way families can lose people to addictions, people lose their family members to QAnon conspiracy theories. Contra recommends The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook on this topic. People get sucked into conspiracism, and it takes over their whole lives. Contra is at a loss about how to "blue pill" people once they go down the conspiracism rabbit hole, just like you can't force an addict to not be an addict, it's not clear you can cure a conspiracist of their thinking.

So Contra wonders why people get addicted to conspiracy thinking in the first place, and suggests it fulfills emotional needs:

1. relief from fear: conspiracism promises that everything in the world has meaning (a bit like how religion says God has some secret plan for everything and it is reassuring to some when bad things happen)
2. inflated self-esteem: feeling like you are one of the special few who knows about the conspiracy can be a way to feel good about yourself, and even promotes a kind of persecution / martyrdom complex - conspiracists believe they are heroically fighting on the side of good against evil
3. revenged humiliation: public humiliation seems to come before a lot of conversion experiences into conspiracism, and conspiracism shows a mindset of longing for vindication
4. denial of privilege: conspiracism provides a simple narrative that we are all at the bottom of the social hierarchy, which not only validates victimhood, but conveniently obviates shame or guilt about your role in oppressive social power dynamics, such as racism, patriarchy, hegemony, etc.

In the end, Contra insists that elites are no different than anyone else - they don't have a special or different psychology, they are just like everyone else. Dehumanizing the elites conceals our own capacities to become oppressors. She says we should pay more attention to normal moral failings in ourselves and others, and notice how they interact with power, as well.

Rather than secret conspiracies and epic battles between good and evil, Contra thinks there are just people and power.

She ends with this:

Who really controls the world? No one. There are no adults, it's just us. There is no plan, unless we make one.