A Skeptic Infiltrates a Cruise for Conspiracy Theorists

Say you’re not one to believe the mainstream media. Maybe you think climate change is an elaborate hoax or the medical community is trying to hide the myriad dangers of vaccinations. Perhaps you are utterly convinced the government is overrun by reptilian beings.

Where on Earth can you go to get away from it all, and mingle with those who share your views? Well, Conspira-Sea, of course. It's a seven-day cruise where fringe thinkers can discuss everything from crop circles to mind control on the open sea. Last month's cruise featured a caravan of stars from a surprisingly vast galaxy of skeptics and conspiracy theorists, including Andrew Wakefield, known for his questionable research and advocacy against vaccines. Also aboard was Sean David Morton, who faced federal charges of lying to investors about using psychic powers to predict the stock market.

But they had an outsider among them, and not one from another planet. Harvard-educated attorney Colin McRoberts is writing a book about people who believe in conspiracy theories, and used a crowdfunding campaign to book passage on the cruise. He blogged about his adventure and told us all about it---including the bit where the IRS arrested Morton when the ship returned to port.

__What were some of the conspiracies discussed on board?
__

We had about a dozen presenters of all different stripes. Some technical or scientific experts, but only one scientific speaker, Wakefield, had a legitimate education. The rest were into new-age or were conspiracy theorists in the traditional sense. Or aliens. They all had their various specialities.

__And what were the attendees like? __

The people on the cruise tended to be there with a primary focus on one or two big issues. They were there to learn about vaccines. Or they were there to find out more about astrology. But they were interested in everything else. I didn’t talk to anybody who wasn’t willing to kind of go outside their comfort zone.

Most people had advanced degrees, for the most part master’s. I talked to at least one woman who had a PhD, in counseling. There were also some people there who were blue collar. I talked to one person who was a metal worker, another who was a nurse. And I talked to a teacher and a couple who own a new-age bookstore. There was a pretty decent diversity in terms of backgrounds.

What was the relationship between the attendees and observers like you on board?

It was a very tense environment on the boat. There were a couple of instances in which the journalists on board had been treated poorly by a couple of the presenters. One of the journalists was ambushed in the Internet cafe by a couple who had accused her of being an agent of the CIA. She managed to persuade them that she was not an undercover agent.

Did anyone succeed in indoctrinating people?

The anti-GMO track was probably the most effective in terms of changing people’s behavior. The primary speaker worked very hard, not at convincing people that GMOs are evil, but in giving specific tools for convincing others that GMOs are evil. Which was, the ethics of it aside, a savvy way to activate some communicators and try and shift actual behavior in the real world.

__Wakefield was the most prominent personality on board. What was his presentation like? __

I think Wakefield is unhappy with the fact that his career has now taken him to a conspiracy conference in which he’s sharing billing with the third dimensional delegates of the galactic roundtable. He sees himself as someone who can champion his issues as an issue of public health, and instead he winds up in sort of a side show.

In his presentation, he launched into a very direct, very passionate, and I think a very heartfelt defense of his own words, explaining essentially that he was unjustly demonized. I got the impression that he was wanting a sort of redemption story. I think this is his second arc. He’s trying to redeem himself and start over, not as a medical expert, but as an issue activist.

What do you think motivates these fringe theory evangelists?

I thought that both of the pseudo-legal speakers were con-men. People left with specific, terrible, dangerous advice that could really ruin their lives. There’s definitely a streak of con-artistry in a man that gets up and tells you this is how you get rid of your debts, and doesn’t say, oh and by the way, I’m under indictment for doing this. Sean David Morton didn’t know that he was going to be arrested right after he got off the boat. But he knew the IRS had raided him, I found out later, and was fighting the raid in trial for using some of the legal tricks he talked about in his presentation.

At the same time I think those presenters believed what they were saying. It turns out that both pseudo-legal speakers were both doing it themselves. And that really surprised me because I didn’t think that anybody would really spend that kind of time and effort learning how to pull these tricks off and not realize at some point that it will never work.

__What do the attendees get out of the cruise? __

I think a lot of people who get stuck in an ideology that’s based on some irrational idea, like how Bigfoot exists or that vaccines cause autism or that GMOs are poisonous or the legal stuff, they kind of define the idea in opposition to the mainstream. So I think what a lot of them are looking for is a community and a culture that supports them and doesn’t judge them for having this unusual belief. They come together not just on a cruise ship, but in a community.

Is there anything we can learn from the attendees?

We tend to receive information filtered through our friends, and colleagues, and associates. When I say that vaccines are safe and effective, I'm not a scientist. I haven’t read the study. I believe it because I belong to a culture and a community that values science, but if somebody feels that they can’t be a part of that culture because they value the idea that crop circles are caused by aliens, they start to build a community around themselves of people who are also in opposition to science.

That happens to everybody, not just conspiracy theorists. We all do it. And that’s why I think it’s so important for us to kind of get outside of our little communities, step across the aisle, and have that conversation with someone who is different.