Alternate Realities: Double or Nothing

Summary

Podcast Summary: Embedded – Alternate Realities: Double or Nothing

Host: Kelly McEvers
Reporter: Zach Mack
Guest contributor: Pat Ryan
Original Air Date: December 23, 2025

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Episode Overview

This follow-up episode revisits Zach Mack's deeply personal journey exploring his father's immersion in conspiracy theories. Picking up after the original "Alternate Realities" series, Zach updates listeners on the impact the project had on his family and recounts a new round of bets with his dad about which conspiracy predictions would bear out. Facing stubborn ground, Zach pursues a different approach — inspired by experts on cult deprogramming — that focuses less on being right and more on connection, understanding, and indirect change. Through candid conversations, movie nights, and new interventions, Zach and his father strive to move past old patterns toward a fragile hope for mutual understanding and family healing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recapping the Stakes: The Family Fallout

• The Original Bet: Zach accepted a bet from his father to see if ten conspiracy predictions would come true. His father lost, but refused to admit fault.
• Listener Curiosity: The series' release triggered many questions: "How's your family doing and what did they think when they listened?" (01:22)
• Family Reflections:
  • Zach’s mother found affirmation in her decisions.
  • His sister felt seen in her pain ("It was like condensing down a couple of years of pain and situation into those three hours." — Zach's sister, 01:57)
  • Zach’s father expressed mixed emotions — impressed with himself at times but ultimately acknowledging the real and emotional nature of the podcast.

2. Groundhog Day: The Second Bet

• Dad’s Proposal: Zach’s father wants another round: "Hey, I gotta win my money back, right?" — Dad (03:21)
• Zach’s Fatigue: "I feel like I'm having a stroke right now, and this is like some crazy deja vu. Like, we've done this. We know how this ends." — Zach (03:51)
• New Conditions: If dad lost again, Zach would choose his media sources for a year; if dad won, he’d pick Zach’s.

3. When Being Right Doesn’t Help: Re-examining Approach

• Listener Outreach: Zach received hundreds of emails from others struggling with similar family divides, but struggled to offer solutions: "I failed to pull my dad out, so I didn't exactly have the answers they were looking for." (05:03)
• Expert Consult — Pat Ryan:
  • Pat, an expert in cult exit counseling, explains that breakthroughs almost never result from confrontation or direct debunking.
  • He advocates “third party processing”: indirect, nonjudgmental conversations that allow someone to reflect on their beliefs without direct challenge.
  • "You want to leave the person with that information and not try to make a sale. ... The idea is to create a safe place for someone to come out to where there’s no judgment, no arguments. No, I was right, you were wrong. Where someone’s dignity could be preserved." — Pat Ryan (12:12)

4. The Cost of Intervention

• Reconsidering Motivation: Pat questions whether Zach is helping or hurting:
  • "He’s not asking for you to change him... Intervention, by its nature, is interfering with someone’s life without their permission." — Pat Ryan (15:29)
• Family Costs:
  • Divorce is under way. Zach ponders, “Am I being helpful?” or risking more harm.
  • Pat stresses: "We want to make sure that intervening in his life is not going to make the situation worse." (16:48)

5. Testing New Strategies: Movie Night & Third-Party Reflection

• Movie as Mediator: Zach invites his dad to watch "Begonia," a film echoing conspiracy-driven thinking, to open indirect dialogue.
• Finding Common Ground:
  • They discuss echoes of their own disagreements through the film, allowing for less defensive exchanges.
  • Zach prompts shared reflection: "Do you believe we're destroying the planet?" (22:11)
  • Dad agrees, showing overlap in values despite wildly different worldviews.

6. Humanizing Uncertainty: Sharing Irrational Beliefs

• Mutual Vulnerability: Zach shares a sports conspiracy theory he half-believes, inviting his father (and himself) to reflect on the comfort of certainty.
• Spiritual Stakes Discussed:
  • Dad: "I think it has eternal consequences." (25:16)
  • Zach: "For you there's larger stakes, but ... you're not going to get stopped at the gates of heaven for that one." (25:53)
  • Dad admits some beliefs are “low stakes,” showing new openness.

7. A Shift in Tone and Relationship

• From Combat to Curiosity: By avoiding head-to-head debates and focusing on curiosity, rapport returns.
• Moving Past the Need to Convince:
  • "I think I also gave up the idea of trying to convince you of anything. Just trying to expose you to a different school of thought." — Dad (31:14)

8. Resolution: The Result of the Second Bet

• Outcome: Dad gets 1 of 10 predictions right (by technicality); Zach wins again, but they're both ready to move on from betting.
• A New Understanding: They agree sharing movies and conversations may be more productive than controlling media diets.
• Hope for the Future: "For the first time in a long time I can see a path." — Zach (31:57)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "I felt like we were stuck in the movie Groundhog Day, where every year I wake up to the same nonsense." — Zach Mack (03:14)
• "You want the person to be able to see themselves in it. The idea is to create a safe place for someone to come out to where there's no judgment, no arguments. No, I was right, you were wrong. Where someone's dignity could be preserved." — Pat Ryan (12:25)
• "Swallowing my ego, setting aside my own beliefs, that's hard." — Zach Mack (15:15)
• "I sort of think at this point to bring my father into reality might be incredibly destabilizing for him." — Zach Mack (16:22)
• "I love the fact that we're even having this conversation ... I'm going to get emotional. ... Just brings tears to my eyes. In a good way? In a very good way." — Zach's Dad (27:51–28:09)
• "It felt like dad and I were flowing again, building rapport." — Zach Mack (22:44)
• "We have literally fought about these exact ideas for years, and now suddenly he wasn't clinging to them as tightly anymore. And I actually felt hopeful." — Zach Mack (26:40)
• "I think we figured out how to talk to each other a little bit more. A little better, a little more productively." — Zach Mack (30:40)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:18–01:22 | Series recap and Zach’s family’s initial reactions | | 02:14–05:23 | The proposal for a second conspiracy theory bet | | 08:14–13:58 | Consultation with cult and intervention expert Pat Ryan | | 15:29–17:05 | Reconsidering motivation and consequences of trying to intervene | | 19:35–21:45 | Using movies as an indirect way to discuss difficult beliefs | | 22:11–24:50 | Conversations about irrational beliefs and spiritual stakes | | 27:31–28:35 | Father growing emotional as boundaries fall and dialogue deepens | | 29:37–31:30 | Bet outcome, resolution, and new direction for their relationship |

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Conclusion

While Zach’s quest to extricate his father from conspiracy theories didn’t produce a miraculous conversion, the journey reshaped their relationship. By surrendering the need to “win” and using indirect dialogue, Zach and his father were finally able to meet on common ground. The episode closes with hope: though there’s no universal remedy for ideological divides, persistent curiosity, shared experiences, and respect for each other's humanity can open a fragile but real path forward.

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For listeners: Even if you haven’t heard the previous series or lived through Zach's struggle yourself, this episode is a powerful reflection on empathy, family, and the slow work of bridging divides.

Transcript

[NPR Announcer]

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[Kelly McEvers]

And this is embedded from NPR. Earlier this year we put out a series called Alternate Realities. And if you haven't listened, you will want to go back and do that before listening to this, this episode. Just to remind you what happened in the series. Reporter Zach Mack was struggling with his father, who had gone deep into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Zach's family was kind of falling apart because of his dad's beliefs. And then one day his father gives him a list of 10 conspiracy theories that he said would come true by the end of 2024. And Zach took the bet, hoping it would be a way of understanding his father better and maybe getting him to change the way he thinks. But when his dad lost the bet, he refused to believe he was wrong in any way. Still, Zach has not given up on changing his father's mind. And today Zach is here to update us with a one episode follow up. Zach will take the story from here.

[Zach Mack]

After Alternate Realities was out for the world to hear, pretty much everyone I've ever met and a lot of people I've never met reached out to me to ask about the series. The question I got over and over, how's your family doing and what did they think when they listened?

[Kelly McEvers]

It helped me make the break that I needed to make.

[Zach Mack]

I called my mom right away. Hearing it really confirmed that I was making the right decision for me. My sister was in town visiting me in Brooklyn and she went on a long walk to listen.

[NPR Announcer]

I remember feeling like, wow, this feels so New York to be just like crying in the street. It was like condensing down a couple of years of pain and situation into those three hours.

[Zach Mack]

But the person I was really nervous about hearing it, of course, was my dad.

[Zach's Dad]

I waited and listened to the other one yesterday.

[Zach Mack]

How was that? What did you think?

[Zach's Dad]

I mean, I'm impressed with some of my responses.

[Zach Mack]

I'm glad that was your takeaway.

[Zach's Dad]

But yeah, I, I mean, it was hard. It was hard, it was sad, it was challenging, it was very emotional at times, but also it was very real.

[Zach Mack]

Hearing this was such a relief. But that feeling didn't last very long because dad didn't just want to discuss the series. Somehow in the midst of our family coming apart, going 0 for 10 on the bet and making zero progress on he and I convincing each other of anything. Dad thought it'd be a good idea to run it back. He wanted to make another bet for this year. I felt like we were stuck in the movie Groundhog Day, where every year I wake up to the same nonsense. I can't believe you want to do this again.

[Zach's Dad]

Hey, I gotta win my money back, right?

[Zach Mack]

If you go over 10 again. Like, what. What does that say? What does that mean?

[Zach's Dad]

That's a great question. I feel very confident that will not happen, so I'll have to think about that. I'll have to think about that.

[Zach Mack]

Hold on. That is the exact, verbatim. The exact thing you said to me last year.

[Zach's Dad]

That's why I have to think about it. I have to come up with a new line, right?

[Zach Mack]

You do have to come up with a new line, because we've already been here. I feel like I'm having a stroke right now, and this is like some crazy deja vu. Like, we've done this. We know how this ends. I won't bother getting into all the details of Dad's predictions, but they were a smattering of conspiracy theory greatest hits. From stolen elections by the Democrats to some stuff about COVID and Fauci. Even the truth behind the RFK and JFK assassinations. Just like last time, it looked like a very winnable bet. Last season. I saw one listener in the comments say, this was the easiest 10 grand I'll ever make. And I just gotta say, no. No documenting my family falling apart in real time. Hardest 10 grand I've ever made. I was exhausted just thinking about the prospect of another bet. At the same time, there was a part of me that just kept wondering. I already knew that dad being wrong or losing money and family wouldn't be enough to get him to reconsider his beliefs. But something would. Right? I told him if we were going to do this again, I had one major stipulation. If you go 0 for 10 again, I get to pick your media diet for the year. I get to unsubscribe you from all the weird blogs. You say goodbye to these profits, I vet the information that you take in, and I'll give you a wide range to choose from.

[Zach's Dad]

Okay. If I go O for 10, I will agree to that. Okay. By the same token, if I.

[Zach Mack]

If you go 10 and oh, I'll let you run wild.

[Zach's Dad]

If I go 10 and oh, on this one, I get to choose your media sources.

[Zach Mack]

Deal?

[Zach's Dad]

Okay. All right.

[Zach Mack]

All right, I'll do it. I'll do it. But I'm not going to make a whole podcast about it. I cannot. I cannot do what I just did because there's a part of me that I will never get back. Well, I clearly caved on that one because here we are making another podcast. So why do this? Because this is bigger than my dad. After I put out the show, hundreds of people started emailing me. People struggling in the same situation with family members wrapped up in conspiracy theories, many of them reaching out to ask, who? What do I do? How do I pull someone out of the rabbit hole? And honestly, I didn't really know what to say to them. I mean, I failed to pull my dad out, so I didn't exactly have the answers they were looking for. I wasn't convinced this new bet was going to change Dad's mind either, but I decided I wanted to find something that would. And then late into this year's bet, I stumbled upon an approach that actually worked. Just not in the way I was expecting. That's after the break.

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[Zach Mack]

All right, we're back. In the months that followed, I started looking for new ways to try to reach my dad. I tried to see if any listeners had had success. I talked to people who used to be conspiracy theorists themselves, and I kept getting the same answers over and over again. It felt like the only people freeing themselves of conspiracy theories had done so on their own because they Wanted to. That didn't seem like the most likely path for my dad. And then there were other people saying, just put up some boundaries with your father. Call him on his birthday. Don't talk about anything seriously. Basically, give up and create some distance. Save yourself the trouble. Now I understand why this position works for a lot of people, but it's not what I wanted. I pressed on when exploring conspiracy theorists and religious extremists. It's only a matter of time until you find yourself in another world altogether, one that also has a rich history of dealing with people lost in a delusional world that is the world of cults. And that's where I may have found my answer. There are these experts who help people leave cults. And after talking to many of them, one name kept coming up. A mediator who spent over 40 years working with people on this. His name is Pat Ryan. He told me that in the last couple years, he started to get tons of messages from people just like me, looking for answers.

[Pat Ryan]

When QAnon took place, we were inundated by families calling because their loved ones had gotten down these QAnon rabbit holes and in extreme ways. One family I was talking to, the mother was in her 50s, and she was out at night with burner phones, and anybody with red shoes was connected to the Vatican into an alien planet she had spun out.

[Zach Mack]

Pat's gone on to help a lot of people like that with a specific method, a method he first used on himself.

[Pat Ryan]

So I'm 68. When I was 17, I was writing for my high school newspaper. I'm from Florida. And the Phillies were spring training in Clearwater, and they were learning tm Transcendental.

[Zach Mack]

Meditation, something many people have a positive relationship with. But Pat went down a different path. He got really involved with a very culty part of the movement. Some members even believed they had supernatural powers, like being able to levitate. Pat was in deep with these super yogis, and he remained there until one day he got a call from his dad about his sister getting caught up in a completely separate cult and in need of Pat's help.

[Pat Ryan]

And he asked me to talk to my sister, and I'm like, dad, she's a crazy Christian nut, and your son is an outstanding Hindu. So it is a little conflict, but I created an intervention for my sister in my home.

[Zach Mack]

During the intervention, Pat found himself listening to a former member of his sister's cult. And while they're explaining all the methods of coercion and manipulation, it suddenly clicks.

[Pat Ryan]

I was going in my head Going, oh, my God, that's what they did to me. And so as I went through these three days with my sister, I started questioning what had happened to me. Had this been focused on me, I wouldn't have budged. What it did was it allowed me to ask questions within myself.

[Zach Mack]

Because Pat wasn't the focus of the intervention, he had his guard down, and that's what allowed him to start seeing himself. In the former cult member's story, Pat eventually leaves his meditation community behind and starts helping other people and cults. And this intervention with his sister becomes the basis for a lot of his practice, taking people's belief systems on slowly and indirectly. It's what he calls third party processing. It's all about not challenging people's beliefs head on. Actually, when we spoke, he had just finished an intervention.

[Pat Ryan]

And so this intervention I just came from, I didn't talk to this person about anything about their group that they were involved in. We talked about all kinds of other things, but in those other stories, they could see themselves in them. So you want to leave the person with that information and not try to make a sale? It's very hard not to make us try to make a sale. You're not trying to convince. See, see, see? You want the person to be able to see themselves in it. The idea is to create a safe place for someone to come out to where there's no judgment, no arguments. No, I was right, you were wrong. Where someone's dignity could be preserved.

[Zach Mack]

The entire setup with my father is based around a bet which is literally boils down to who's right and who's wrong. And whoever wins that bet not only gets a bunch of money, but you get the pride, the ego of being right. Clearly, I'd been going about this all wrong, but dad and I were already in so deep with two years of betting and countless arguments. We'd left safe spaces behind a long time ago. But Pat said there was a way to move forward.

[Pat Ryan]

I think that we have to acknowledge that we all hold beliefs that are not rational. And then the question is, how do you communicate that? So I would want, in terms of technique, is to get you to appreciate what your father appreciates, find the common ground, what is the common elements, And I can come up with stuff. Your father wants to solve the world's problems. He doesn't want people to be taken advantage of. He's concerned about people not having food. He's concerned about the economic condition. These are motivators.

[Zach Mack]

Yeah, if you can. I'm struggling to think of what, what are ways to join him in a way that doesn't feel insincere on my part, or, you know, going too deep down the rabbit hole myself? I started to tell Pat, look, this is what he believes. He thinks that behind the Elon Musk's of the world, there's a shadowy cabal of even more powerful people pulling the strings. And he's like, oh, those guys are just pawns. And I'm like, they're the most powerful and richest people in the world. You think they're low level? Come on, man. Pat was just sitting there smiling like, yeah, I get it. But if you want to change his mind, not only do you need to understand his worldview, you have to try to inhabit it. Then you can maybe help him find a way out within the logic of his own beliefs. That's the sacrifice you have to make.

[Pat Ryan]

When you're trying to get someone to change. You have to make effort. Now, do you want to put up with that? I don't know. But if you're trying to facilitate someone else to make a change, there's a cost for that. And sometimes there's a cost for swallowing your own ego.

[Zach Mack]

You're talking about my ego?

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pat Ryan]

And it may take a lot of effort on your side.

[Zach Mack]

Swallowing my ego, setting aside my own beliefs, that's hard. Pat was questioning why I was still doing this. He said if I wanted to keep going, I was going to have to change.

[Pat Ryan]

Because he's not asking for you to change him. He's not asking for this. Intervention, by its nature, is interfering with someone's life without their permission. He's not asking for you to interfere with his life.

[Zach Mack]

Right.

[Pat Ryan]

People are interfering with it. So when you interfere with someone's life, you need to have good reasons for doing it. It's not like he's a drug addict living on in the streets of Philadelphia on fentanyl. You know, the cost of this may be he loses money, he loses assets.

[Zach Mack]

The cost of this, he's lost a lot of his family.

[Pat Ryan]

He's lost his family. That's the cost for him.

[Zach Mack]

Right. Pat was questioning the very premise of what I was doing in the first place. Why was I still trying to change my father's mind at all? This brought me back to something I've kind of worried about for a while. You know, it's funny, I sort of think at this point to bring my father into reality might be incredibly destabilizing for him. Because, yes, he might start to realize all that he's lost because of his beliefs. And I don't know, I could see it causing a chain reaction of existential crisis.

[Pat Ryan]

Yeah, we want to make sure that the intervening in his life is not going to make the situation worse. And we want to. We have to be careful when you step into that.

[Zach Mack]

When dad and I originally started this strange little experiment, I did it because I thought it could help the family heal. But that didn't happen. And now mom and dad are not getting back together. In fact, they're well into divorce proceedings. So I wonder, am I being helpful? But then I kept thinking about all the people who wrote me going through similar heartache with their own family members and how detrimental it's been for our country when people can't come to any consensus on what the truth is. I understand that trying to take on my dad's entire worldview was not in the cards for me anymore, but I would like to be able to have a conversation with him over dinner that doesn't end in the same circular argument. After that conversation with Pat, I tried a new approach.

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[Kelly McEvers]

I think you're in.

[Zach Mack]

A kind of echo chamber, echo chamber right now. In the fall I saw this movie and it reminded me a lot of the conversations I've had with dad over.

[Kelly McEvers]

The years you're consuming content on the Internet that is reinforcing this sort of warped, subjective idea of reality.

[Zach Mack]

This is your best shot at me. Some rabbit holes bullshit you read in the Times. Come on, come on. The movie's called Begonia and it's about this conspiracy theorist who kidnaps a big time corporate CEO because he's convinced that she's an alien trying to destroy the planet and is also killing all the bees. In the movie, the two lead characters, played by Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, just cannot seem to agree on a shared reality, forcing them to continuously argue and talk past each other.

[Kelly McEvers]

Can we have a dialogue, please?

[Zach Mack]

Don't call it a dialogue.

[Zach's Dad]

This isn't Death of a Salesman.

[Zach Mack]

I thought maybe it would be cool to have dad go see this movie and talk about it. Maybe per Pat's advice about third party processing, we could just have a conversation about these views without dad feeling attacked. We could just discuss a movie. Truthfully, I had no idea how this was going to go and was a little nervous he'd hate the movie. Our taste in film is very different. And I'm not going to lie, this one's pretty out there.

[Zach's Dad]

Where is my hair?

[Pat Ryan]

Your hair has been destroyed.

[Zach's Dad]

You shaved off my hair to prevent.

[Pat Ryan]

You from contacting your ship, your mothership.

[NPR Announcer]

Yeah.

[Zach's Dad]

I thought the whole hair thing was hilarious and ridiculous.

[Zach Mack]

Totally. It's definitely a movie that's not taking itself too seriously. It's trying to have fun, it's trying to make jokes.

[Zach's Dad]

I mean, but it also really speaks to the two mindsets that are very prevalent today.

[Zach Mack]

I agree. Luckily, dad liked the movie. Do you feel like you understood, like, why I was, like, excited for you to see that movie?

[Zach's Dad]

I mean, clearly, you know, I'm on the side of, you know, the two guys, and I believe a lot of the same things that they believed. I just don't believe aliens are behind it and all the rest of that.

[Zach Mack]

It quickly launched us into a larger conversation.

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah, I mean, the majority of what they said and what they believed is going on in the world. I, I would agree with, like, is there.

[Zach Mack]

Was there anything specific? Like, what do you. What do you mean?

[Zach's Dad]

The globalists, they are trying to control the planet and they're poisoning the environment. And I certainly believe they're killing the bees, too.

[Zach Mack]

Instead of picking at all the disagreements, I tried to find the common ground. Do you believe we're destroying the planet?

[Zach's Dad]

I think human beings have done a lousy job of taking care of the planet.

[Zach Mack]

Of course, at other points, he'd say something I couldn't get on board with, but I mostly just let that stuff slide.

[Zach's Dad]

I believe Obama had an illegitimate third term.

[Zach Mack]

I'm not going to take the bait on that one. That's not something I agree with you on, but.

[Zach's Dad]

No, I know. No bait. I'm not throwing out bait. I'm just.

[Zach Mack]

It felt like dad and I were flowing again, building rapport. Pat said it also might be helpful if I shared a conspiracy that I believe in. Maybe showing dad that I can also have irrational beliefs would make it easier to talk about his. And luckily, there is a conspiracy theory I like to dabble in. We've all got one, right? The one I like is about how a certain professional sports league is maybe pulling the strings to maintain a balance throughout its league, especially when it comes to the draft.

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that. In fact, you know, this is a great example, Zach, and I'm glad we can talk about this.

[Zach Mack]

Of course, dad immediately took it even further.

[Zach's Dad]

So for me, see, I would say that stronger. I think all of professional sports is rigged in some way, shape or form. Okay, I. In my heart, I believe that a hundred percent.

[Zach Mack]

But then, okay, so in that. How. How do you know that's true? Because, you know, I. I follow this stuff.

[Pat Ryan]

I'm.

[Zach Mack]

I'm invested in this stuff, and. But I don't know for sure.

[Zach's Dad]

Okay, Exactly. That's why I said this is a great example. I know, because I believe in my spirit, that it's confirmed by the Holy Spirit. And you're gonna, you're gonna look at that and go, oh, you know, that's a. Just a spiritual cop out. But that's my best answer.

[Zach Mack]

Yeah, I guess. Do you never worry about misreading or misinterpreting that, that spirit of God?

[Zach's Dad]

Oh, absolutely. I do misinterpret it at times. I do misread it. I don't always hear accurately. I am not infallible at misreading, misinterpreting God's voice and ascertaining truth from fiction.

[Zach Mack]

This felt like we were entering new territory. I was doing my best to poke at my dad's worldview, but from within his own belief system. Because dad believes he's tapped into God and prophecy and that there's a battle between good and evil playing out. It can make everything feel very high stakes. Personally, I've always struggled to wrap my head around this, that a conspiracy theory could somehow impact his relationship with God.

[Zach's Dad]

I think it has eternal consequences.

[Zach Mack]

Eternal consequences? You mean you mean like what happens to you after you die?

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, do you think there's life after death?

[Zach Mack]

I guess the best metaphor for what I believe is like, lights on, lights off.

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah, I mean, if I had your world view, then, yeah, none of it really matters.

[Zach Mack]

Yeah, I bet that doesn't make me a nihilist. Yeah, I still believe, like, you know, we should all be kind to each other. I don't think it's all for nothing.

[Zach's Dad]

Good, I'm glad to hear that.

[Zach Mack]

But yeah, I guess, yeah, for you there's larger stakes, but I would say whether or not you believe in the globalists, I don't think that impacts your, you know, you're not going to get stopped at the gates of heaven for that one. You know, you're not going to get.

[Zach's Dad]

Tossed out for that. Yeah, exactly.

[Zach Mack]

So then maybe the stakes aren't that high for that, for that particular belief or for you believing that like that Joe Biden has a bunch of body doubles. That's a relatively.

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah, I, I, that's low stakes.

[Zach Mack]

Right? Like it, does it matter if he does it?

[Zach's Dad]

No. No. I wouldn't lose any sleep over being wrong about that.

[Zach Mack]

He wouldn't lose any sleep over being wrong about that. We have literally fought about these exact ideas for years, and now suddenly he wasn't clinging to them as tightly anymore. And I actually felt hopeful. Dad was leaving room for the possibility of being wrong, which I know is tough for him. Do you think part of your interest in, in religion and also, I mean in, I don't, I don't mean this in a demeaning way. It like interest in some of the conspiracy theories and stuff. Do you, do you feel like it might be because you don't like to deal with, in ambiguity? I find that a lot of times what's, what can be comforting is, is having an answer.

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah, well, so, yeah, I understand where you're going with this question. And. Wow. I just, I love the fact that we're even having this conversation and.

[Zach Mack]

I'm.

[Zach's Dad]

Going to get emotional.

[Zach Mack]

Wow.

[Zach's Dad]

Just brings tears to my eyes. In a good way? In a very good way.

[Zach Mack]

Oh, yeah. Can you, yeah. Can you articulate why?

[Zach's Dad]

I don't know. I don't know. Yeah.

[Zach Mack]

You know, I mean, I understand sometimes you just get hit with a wave of emotion.

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah, exactly.

[Zach Mack]

I get it.

[Zach's Dad]

Oh, man.

[Zach Mack]

Given how hard things have been and how much has changed, I think dad was just relieved that I was asking him questions instead of arguing. Over the next few weeks, dad and I kept talking. It Felt like things were changing. The other day, we had this conversation about what's causing the division in our country, and we actually agreed it was pretty wild. I think shifting the focus off of his beliefs to discuss a movie or something that happened in the news and approaching each other with genuine curiosity was helping rather than trying to score points. We were looking for common ground, ground and beyond, dad and I. I could see the family trying to regroup, figure out where to go from here. I watched my parents both start to rebuild their lives separately in ways that made sense for them. And thankfully, Kira and Dad started talking again. It's slow, but there's progress. And then, before I knew it, it was December, and it was finally time to settle the bet we'd made at the beginning of the year.

[Zach's Dad]

I think it was on Groundhog Day, so. And I had my fingers crossed. So that actually translates into all bets are off.

[NPR Announcer]

Ah.

[Zach Mack]

Gotcha. I'd won the bet again. Dad missed on nine of his predictions. So on those nine things. Are we. We're in agreement.

[Zach's Dad]

Yes, we're in agreement.

[Zach Mack]

But there was one that he and I couldn't quite agree on because of a weird technicality. So we both just decided to let it go. I'd call that progress. It feels like maybe we are getting out of the. The circular arguments. The Groundhog Day of it all.

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah. Which I think is a good thing because, yeah, we think about it. We were stuck there for years.

[Zach Mack]

Yeah.

[Zach's Dad]

And it wasn't fun for me. It wasn't fun for you. It wasn't fun for Kira or Mom. When we did it around them, it just created a lot of tension, confusion, and anxiety.

[Zach Mack]

It felt like over the course of our conversations, the tenor changed a little bit. Obviously. I think we figured out how to talk to each other a little bit more. A little better, a little more productively. But it also felt like you became. You have to squint to see it, but a little more, like. A little more open.

[Zach's Dad]

Yeah. Well, good. Good. I'm. I'm glad to hear that. I.

[Zach Mack]

Do you see it that way, or am I just pushing this onto you?

[Zach's Dad]

I think I also gave up the idea of trying to convince you of anything. Just trying to expose you to a different school of thought. So. So there I. Yeah, I think there was a shift. I think it was a good shift.

[Zach Mack]

While we still haven't discovered the universal cure to falling down rabbit holes, dad and I are finding what works for us going forward. We decided it was finally time to wind down the big bets, because I only won on nine of the predictions. Dad said I couldn't take control of his media diet, which I'm a little disappointed about. But we both agreed to keep sharing movies and media with each other as a way to continue discussing ideas in politics. Truthfully, that's probably a lot more constructive than policing his media diet anyway, as fun as that would have been for me. So I guess I am getting what I really wanted, which is to share ideas with him that may challenge his current ones. Will we find a shared reality? I'm not sure, but for the first time in a long time I can see a path. This has been a one time follow up episode for the alternate reality series from Embedded. Thanks again to my family who all have been so gracious and supportive throughout this process. This episode was edited and produced by Damiano Marchetti with help from Sarah Wyman. Music includes original scoring by Peter Leonard. Jimmy Keeley mastered this episode. Fact Checking by Greta Pittenger Liana Simstrom is our supervising Senior Producer. Katie Simon is our supervising Senior Editor. Irene Noguchi is our Executive Producer. BETH DONOVAN is NPR's interim vice president for Podcasting. The Embedded team also includes Adelina Lancianniz, Luis Tras, Abby Windle, Dan Girma and Raina Cohen. Thanks to Managing Editor of Sanders and Practices, Tony Cavan and to Johannes Durge for legal support. And shout out to Ariana Lee and Colin Campbell who we missed a lot this season. And a big thanks to our Embedded plus supporters. Embedded is where we do ambitious long form journalism at NPR and Embedded plus helps us keep that work going. Supporters can also go listen to every episode of Embedded Sponsor Free. They can get early episodes as well. Find out [e-mail] embedded or find the Embedded channel in Apple. And thank you to everyone who DM'd me who wrote me an email. We got so much listener feedback and it was really great to hear from people. So thank you so much. I'm Zach Mack and this is Embedded from N.

[NPR Announcer]

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