I appreciate the methodology of this study, especially using science news posts as the comparison against conspiracy and troll posts. I make it a point to remain friends with people who post conspiracy theories online, but I've long ago given up trying to engage them in meaningful dialogue. I simply find myself spinning and spinning in their circular rationalizations.

Instead, I try to share posts from HN and science news sites. This means that I am setting the topic and the tone. It also makes my identity and culture as a nerd public. In my extremely diverse network of online friends, this means I am ever so gently prodding the overall culture in that direction.

I think in a war of ideas, we have to make sure our empirically-supported fact-based beliefs need to be put out there in order to compete. We are playing a long-game here to influence our culture, and I believe that the majority of people will see over the long term the benefits of empiricism and healthy skepticism compared to the chaos and emotionalism of the conspiracy theorists and dogmatists.