Dear lemmy, someone very close to my heart is starting to fall into conspiracy theories. It’s heartbreaking. Among other things, he has now told me that soy beans are not supposed to be consumed by human beings and is convinced that despite the literal centuries of human soy bean cultivation and consumption, we shouldn’t eat it or anything derived from it for this reason (ie tofu, soy sauce, etc…evidence that soy is present in other common foods doesn’t seem to register with him).
I don’t even know where he got this information from and can’t find a single source to back it up (even disingenuously). I’ve tried explaining to him that sure, in its original state it’s not edible, but undergoes processing (LIKE MANY OTHER FOODS) to become edible. And that this has gone on since at least the 11th century, so it’s not like Big Soy is trying to poison the little people.
He’s normally a very reasonable and intelligent person, and I don’t know how to reach him. I thought it might be helpful to show him where these myths have come from with hard data sources to prove it. He seems open to the possibility, so I don’t think he’s a lost cause yet!
Help?
“Soy boy” is commonly used by MAGAs as a derogatory term to mean a feminine man. There was some rumor about how soy could mimic estrogen in the body (not really true) and so they believe that eating soy products makes men feminine. This is obviously bullshit, but maybe it’s somehow spiraled from “real men shouldn’t eat soy” into “no one should eat soy”
Yup, it’s a conservative talking point. It was originally a rebellion against vegetarianism/veganism/etc and all of the meat alternatives. Lots of “they’re trying to take away our meat because they hate America and nothing is more American than eating steak and burgers” type of rhetoric. The soy-based alternatives were an easy target for conservatives to rile up their readers, because the vast majority of vegans are progressives.
Then conspiracy theorists took that and ran with it. There is a strong correlation between conspiracy theorists and conservatives. It’s not an “every conspiracy theorist is conservative” situation, but the correlation is very strong. So conspiracy theorists will tend to mirror conservative talking points, then take it a step further by injecting the conspiracy theorist side of things into it. The “they’re trying to take away our beef because they hate god” talking points quickly morphed into “they’re trying to force soy on us to make us more liberal.”
And in the conservative’s mind, when they think of liberals, they think of blue hair, crying about pronouns, and effeminate men. So naturally, that’s where the conspiracy theorists ran with it. The “they’re using soy to turn us liberal” suddenly turned into “they’re using soy to turn us effeminate.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest the commonality been conservatives and conspiracy theorists is poor critical thinking skills.
There are phytoestrogens in soy. Know what has even more than tofu? Beer. Remind them that when they use the term “soy boy” and ask if they’re feminine enough to drink beer
The best part is that phytoestrogen does next to nothing to humans, you need mammalian estrogen instead. You know where you find lots of that? Cows milk
I’d wager its also got something to do with how prevalent soy is used in various Asian cuisines, so like anything even remotely tangentially related to China is also a commie plot to take over The West™ in addition to the whole “soy mimics estrogen” thing.
Just tell them how many Good White Americans™ living in flyover country make a living farming soybeans and watch their head explode.
They dont care. As far as theyre concerned, these farmers arent farming good old murican crops and deserve to fail.
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Oh yes, I’m quite familiar, the first university I went to was surrounded by corn and soybean fields.
Nobody’s head is going to explode. Most conservatives are well aware that soybeans are an American croup and are even proud of the fact. They just think that the soybeans should be served to cows.
Vilifying people you don’t like is no way to establish understanding or communication.
This itself is a conspiracy theory. I’ve known a lot of right-wing people, and none of them made a connection between Soy and Asian cuisine. They don’t like tofu, in particular, because they didn’t grow up with it and see it as some weird, hippy thing.
Initially I thought this was his concern but he never mentioned anything gender specific, just that humans as a whole shouldn’t eat soy as it’s “not food”…as though it’s plastic or something. I agree that it’s probably a result of the social media telephone game, though. I just wish I could find the original source so I can prepare a good argument
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I’m a woman, but we’re not married. I don’t think he’s ever heard of Joe Rogan, but I personally have seen that name thrown around a lot (though I’ve never listened or watched him). He’s certainly somewhat paranoid, which covid has made worse, but it’s on the weirder side. Like, just today he came home and during a discussion about red velvet cake, he drops the “did you know red food coloring changes your DNA???” And I’m just like…wtf? He said a teacher (who used to be a surgical doctor) told him this, so it must be true. I asked him if the doctor could back it up, and he seemed bewildered that anyone would lie so straight-faced.
I think he takes a lot of things at face value without stopping to check if things are true because they match an internal bias. This is something I’ve been trying to work with him on because his overly trusting nature has gotten him into trouble a few times.
Plausible deniability and confirmation bias are kind of like a psychological speedball. Look into epistemology (for dialogue techniques) to help him discover any confirmation biases on his own. It can help, especially if he claims to be open to learning new things about stuff he thought he already knew.
Wait until MAGAs fund out what military burgers are made of…