from the longest-distance-between-two-points-is-a...shortcut dept.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-people-fall-for-conspiracy-theories/
Think of a conspiracy theorist. How do they see the world? What stands out to them? What fades into the background? Now think of yourself. How does the way you see things differ? What is it about the way you think that has stopped you from falling down a rabbit hole?
Conspiracy theories have long been part of American life, but they feel more urgent than ever. Innocuous notions like whether the moon landing was a hoax feel like child's play compared to more impactful beliefs like whether vaccines are safe (they are) or the 2020 election was stolen (it wasn't). It can be easy to write off our conspiracy theorist friends and relatives as crackpots, but science shows things are far more nuanced than that. There are traits that likely prime people to be more prone to holding these beliefs, and you may find that when you take stock of these traits, you aren't far removed from your cousin who is convinced the world is run by lizard people.
[...] "It's not like most beliefs are arrived at through some sort of pure logic. The world is not a bunch of Spocks running around deducing everything," said Joseph Uscinski, a professor of political science at the University of Miami who has studied conspiracy theories. "It's just not how people operate."
[...] Every one of us has a brain that takes shortcuts, makes assumptions and works in irrational ways. The sooner we recognize that, and stop treating loved ones who have adopted conspiratorial beliefs as lost causes, the better we may be at curbing the beliefs that threaten our democracy and public health. We're all human after all. Well, except for the lizard people.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:23PM (69 children)
...once they are proved correct.
Real conspiracy theorists believe:
Government cares about them,
The media doesn't lie to them,
Big pharma wants them healthy,
etc. ad nauseum.
The "official narrative" back in the bad old days was about how cannabis could make a person commit rape and murder.
I could go on... (shove this article back where it came from, SN)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:28PM
How does that work? Does it involve time travel?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:34PM (35 children)
Those are good points, but everything you listed as real have a lot of evidence to back up the claims. Reality of course is somewhere in the middle where some government cares, some media is accurate and most is mostly accurate, and big pharma makes good medicine but also cares more about money than people.
On the other hand you have conspracies like the moon landing, flat earth, vaccine issues, COVID isn't real no wait it is but it is no big deal oh wait lots of people dead but still the fascists are kicking us out of their stores for not wearing masks! There are plenty of nonsense conspiracy theories that are propely labeled, the trick is for each individual to do their homework and figure out which ideas actually have merit and to what degeree.
Confirmation bias is a real hurdle for just about everyone.
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:39PM (3 children)
The damage-control coming out of the mouths of these Goddamn フews is Pilpul to a ridiculous degree. Fortunately for the public interest, they are legitimizing conspiracy theory as conspiracy fact.
Hey, you inbred bready-eyed self-unaware violence pushing terrorist racist Anti-American フews who may be listening to this: Trump and White Supremacy are not to blame. You are, through being transparently stupid and then doubling down on suppression of free speech. You are the ones behind all the world's ills since at least 9/11 (and agruably for the past 2000 years). You're all the people still being maskholes and vaxxholes bothering people who want to get on with their lives, because フews will never admit they're wrong about anything while sending the world to hell.
Who the fuck do you think you're kidding? Go fuck yourselves.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:45PM
Waaah waaah muh racism and muh chin diaper! Stop o-press'in me!
Seriously dude, you're nuttier than a gay male squirrel! Are you perhaps the cryogenically preserved head of Walt Disney using new brain tech?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:17AM
Say hi to Vlad for me. I gather that this past day may have been a little rough for him.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @07:34AM
Aw, AC, admit it, you're nothing but a self-loathing 'The Nanny' slash-fanfiction writer.
Come on, step out of the closet and admit your undying pure and chaste devotion to the lovely and talented Jewish comedienne/goddess Fran Drescher. I promise you'll feel so much better when you do... Mazel tov.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:36AM (22 children)
When observed reality stops making sense, people grab for any explanation.
And when some explanation appears to have predictive power... then you can scream "conspiracy theory!!!11" until blue in the face. A sizable minority of people just are not conformist enough to be pressured to disregard the facts they observe.
For example, when a person does NOT observe people around them dropping like flies from COVID despite being told of it from every appliance for a second year straight, the theory that the talkers are hired by $DISLIKED_PARTY that is benefiting from the lockdowns, masks and stuff, does have a certain appeal.
When said theory is predicting "it won't stop till $THEY suck us dry", it gains in appeal with every month of same old same old, with every unkept governmental promise of it ending, with every new "wave" and "strain" announced from the appliances.
Because, see, predictive power.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:03AM (15 children)
What about when observed reality does make sense?
There have been people in hospitals literally dying of covid while denying the existence of covid.
People are anti vax even though vaccine adverse reactions are extremely rare and most have not observed any. Meanwhile I, for example, am not anti vax because I am not a dumbass, even though I have actually had that experience (well, my dog did).
Flat Earth doesn't make any sense at all. But people apparently actually believe it. At least nobody dies from flat Earth idiocy.
There are conspiracy theories that do make some sense. Kennedy assassination, for example. Sure, it's possible that he was killed by someone acting alone who was then killed by someone else who was also acting alone, but it's at least equally plausible that something more was going on. But if you believe he was killed by the lizard people, that's not plausible.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:30AM (3 children)
FTFY. Do not underestimate the power of creative reporting.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:13PM (2 children)
"What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening" - Donald J Trump
"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” - George Orwell, 1984
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:40PM
I pity you a whole lot if your eyes and ears are mistaking a TV screen for the real world.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 20 2021, @01:23AM
:-) What does your party say about altered "evidence"?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:33AM
> At least nobody dies from flat Earth idiocy.
Only the ones that fall off the edge...
...and are eaten by a grue.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:59AM (9 children)
The problem with things like the Kennedy assassination is that the official explanation isn't convincing. What people should really do is decide that there isn't enough evidence for any particular story to believe any of them, but for many (most?) people that's uncomfortable. Since people don't like being uncomfortable, they decide that one of the stories is correct...and the odds are that they're all wrong. I wouldn't be surprised is Kennedy really *was* shot by Harold Canvera. (I think I remembered that name right. It wasn't Harry Coin.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:10PM (7 children)
I find it entirely convincing that a deranged killer would act alone to murder a famous person. There've been many, many such attempts over the years. The target doesn't even need to be a person, anything famous and irreplaceable will do. In the 20th century, there were 3 attempts each to ruin the famous paintings, The Mona Lisa and The Night Watch.
As to the Kennedy assassination particularly, what explanation do you find more convincing than the official one? Or is it that you find none of them convincing, in which case, well, what do you think really happened? The trouble with all the ideas about it being a conspiracy is that many of the consequences are just not predictable. Whatever the goal of a conspiracy, it's unlikely that assassinating Kennedy would accomplish it. Bumping off Kennedy, coming on the heels of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, carried the extreme risk that it could trigger nuclear war. An apocalyptic death cult might want that, but a more likely goal is more money or power. One of the few assassination attempts that really was a conspiracy, involving hundreds of people, was the July 20, 1944 attempt on Hitler. There's all kinds of evidence, and the motive, peace, was clear. I find it extremely improbable that there could've been anything even remotely close to the same level of organization to get Kennedy, not least because, what could the motive be?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:13PM (1 child)
That dull reasoning makes too much sense.
A conspiracy theory is much more exciting.
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(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday June 20 2021, @01:28AM
Yes, exactly, so whose should we believe?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:25PM (2 children)
Much more likely blowback from the bay of pigs incident. The international rules for assassination of national leaders was a little more "wild west" back then. Shoot at Castro and miss, he's not going to miss when he returns fire.
Interesting supporting evidence: Look at how much the boomer and pre-boomer era US deep state hated/hates Cuba. I mean, there's dislike the leader of communist Hungary or dislike the various communist terror orgs in S.A. But the deep state bitterly hates Cuba. SOME of that is likely mafia casinos that got nationalized, but not all. Obviously Cuba did something they can't talk about. Because nobody wanted WW3 over some dead New England aristocrat, WW1 style, we'll just not talk about it. But the deep state will hate Cuba for more than half a century so far in retribution... Who would have guessed, for example, that Vietnam would be a valuable textile trading partner decades before we open up Cuba? Oh boy does the deep state hate Cuba something awful.
Now I'm not saying Fidel himself pulled the trigger. Or Cuban commando sniper team pulled the trigger. But I've always wondered who put the idea in the guy's head? Who paid for his rifle? Who helped him travel there? Who paid for his meals? My guess is there's classified evidence that whomever helped the trigger man out was smoking excellent illegal cigars and eating cubano sandwiches or similar.
And its impossible to discuss JFK's end without Jack Ruby and his fascinating background and friends. My gut level guess of what went down is something like the Hotel Habana Riviera cost about $8M and my guess is $10M or more was paid quietly to mafia guys to shut them up permanently AND to shut up JFK and RFK permanently as they were pushing a little too much anti-organized crime. Meanwhile JFK etc failed pretty miserably in the bay of pigs incident at returning their casinos to the mafia guys.
In summary I think the money and high end direction/support came from Cuba and there was significant help on the ground from mafia guys.
Hilariously, WRT conspiracy theories, if via magic time machine we could prove authoritatively that the guy who got JFK was indeed a lone mad crazy gunman and Ruby was just a nut in the right place at the right time, I suspect as per above he had a team after him working in parallel for the same goal, even if the lone nut got JFK before the cuban/mafia team got him days or months before the team would have gotten him.
Another interesting theory variation is the cuban/mafia team set up the nut to fail, to send a very scary message. We got a guy in position with a weapon at the right time whenever we want so you play ball or else ... Then the cuban/mafia team gave the info about the nut to the SS to catch him and send the message, and someone in charge said to himself "well, this is an interesting way to rid us of this troublesome president" and just shitcann'd the warning and let the attack go thru. Which is a variation on the common Pearl Harbor story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @10:22PM (1 child)
Always start with Motive and Means. In the case of JFK we have to apply that test to the killing of JFK, Oswald and to the coverup. Castro certainly had motive and probably the means to accomplish the killings. But not the coverup so he is out as the prime mover. LBJ had means for all three and plenty of motive. Doesn't mean he did it 100%, does make him the leading suspect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 18 2021, @12:41PM
Castro doesn't really need a coverup because Oswald was killed two days later. The only person who was likely to talk was dead, so all that remained was to just not screw anything up. Just make sure none of his agents defects or blabs, not too hard to do.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:06PM
I don't find any of them convincing, and I don't have any particular theory of my own.
There's nothing particularly implausible about a "deranged lone gunman", but the proof is difficult. That time they didn't prove it to my satisfaction. There are too many loose ends and unlikely coincidences. And it could well be right, it just isn't proven. (And I don't feel a need to consider any particular scenario as the "real answer".) There's lots of things where no "real answer" is known or knowable without more trustworthy evidence. Certainly many of those investigating the Kennedy assassination were driven by a need to find a scapegoat, to the extent that they invented evidence. How much that happened we can't know. And, truthfully, in what way would believing any particular hypothesis about what happened change your actions in life? For me it wouldn't have changed much of anything.
FWIW, a bit of the back story on "Illuminatus". Wilson and Shea worked at a magazine and part of their job was editing the "letters to the editor" column. They decided to write a book based around the idea that ALL of the conspiracies that people wrote in to them were true. (Even so, they couldn't include all of them.)
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:25PM
The thing is that deranged killers have bizarre motives. Like John Hinckley, for example. (Well, deranged attempted killer).
But it's awfully convenient that Kennedy was killed by a lone deranged killer who just happened to be a Communist who had lived in the Soviet Union and had contacts with Cuban agents, who was in turn killed by a lone deranged killer who just happened to be a Mafia associate, and all this happened soon after the Cuban Missile Crisis and the nationalization of a great deal of Mafia controlled assets in Cuba. On top of this is the Warren Commission doing things like not even bothering to interview Jack Ruby until it became politically impossible to avoid it, which seems to indicate that they didn't really want to get to the bottom of it because they (more likely) expected no possible good news and answers might lead to war or (less likely) already knew the truth, which could definitely lead to war.
There's enough hard evidence (ballistics and photographs) to convince me that Oswald and nobody else fired the bullets that killed Kennedy. But it's much less convincing that the motive was simply "crazypants!" Oswald was probably convinced to do it by the Cubans. (I find the notion that Lyndon Johnson was behind it all amusing but not as likely, there's not really any evidence except that the assassination happened in Texas). Meanwhile Jack Ruby killing Oswald... well it looks like the sort of hit the Mafia would do, right? You screwed us and we can't get you but we can get your guy. But Ruby wasn't an ideal hit man because he wasn't stable or trustworthy. On the other hand none of the mobsters would have wanted to use a real hitman because it was too high profile and would have probably come back on them because enough people knew who the high quality hitmen were.
So I'd rate Oswald as a Cuban agent, as probably more likely than not, and Ruby as a mob agent as maybe 50/50.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:03PM
I think it was Hagbard Celine.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Thursday June 17 2021, @08:25AM (3 children)
Correction: When observed reality doesn't match your prejudices
If observed reality doesn't make sense, you're probably on drugs. Or should see a psychiatrist.
I hereby declare that you are the source of all evil in the world. Proof: You still exist, and evil still exists. Every day you exist and evil exists is a confirmation of that theory. Because, see, predictive power.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:12PM (1 child)
Sorry, but that's overly simplistic. Lots of times things don't make sense because they are complex or you're missing crucial pieces of information. Things *can* be too complex to understand. Things can also be unknown.
And, realistically, even when it's possible to reason an answer, that can be counterproductive. It can take too long. There are lots of valid reasons why heuristics are used. It's just that one needs to accept that they have error conditions. So the mistake is not in using them, but in trusting them unreservedly. (If they're worthwhile heuristics, they have a high enough success rate to be worth moderate trust.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:51PM
Exactly. I can't explain it to you--because it's too complex, but we most definitely need to sacrifice a virgin by throwing her into a volcano. It's the price we have to pay to keep the sun rising every morning.
Oh, and pay your taxes too. It's the price we pay to live in a civilized society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @08:21PM
"In accordance with Chinese law which contains the concept of "political harm to society" and the similar phrase dangerous mentally ill behavior, police take "political maniacs into mental hospitals, those who are defined as persons who write reactionary letters, make anti-government speeches, or "express opinions on important domestic and international affairs"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry [wikipedia.org]
You chose yourself a good playbook to use.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:06PM (1 child)
1. When observed reality would be too inconvenient to be true, an alternate explanation must be constructed.
It would be just too unimaginably awful for there to really actually be a global pandemic. Imagine how unprofitable this would be for cruise ships, restaurants and some other businesses, when it would be more profitable to just let large numbers of people die needlessly.
It would be just to horrible (not to mention unprofitable!) for our major industries of fossil fuel and automobiles to be causing a global problem that might drive humans to extinction.
It is just inconceivable that insufficient regulation could cause a large state to lose power in both the winter and now in the summer and yet the energy companies to be very profitable due to inadequate spending on their infrastructure. Deregulation can't be the problem. Nosiree!
2. When it is politically convenient or comforting or makes us feel better
Democrats are Satan worshiping cannibal pedophile sex traffickers who drink the blood of babies for their rejuvenating powers.
Hugo Chavez manipulated and reprogrammed the Dominion voting machines from beyond the grave to give Biden the victory.
The Italian government used satellites to flip votes in voting machines in the recent US election.
Hillary may have disclosed the cheat codes for the voting machines in her email discussions with alien invaders.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:07PM
Like the flu pandemics we have had twice per year, every year? You know, those that magically disappeared to be replaced with COVID?
No need to imagine stuff when financial results are reported and I guess quite well known to you.
March 31, 2021 : "Billionaires got 54% richer during pandemic, sparking calls for "wealth tax""
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/billionaire-wealth-covid-pandemic-12-trillion-jeff-bezos-wealth-tax/ [cbsnews.com]
Feb. 8, 2021 : "Her COVID-19 treatment cost more than $1 million. Who’s going to pay for it?"
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-02-08/covid-treatment-hospital-bills-health-insurance-waivers [latimes.com]
It is stupid to base your presentation on the hope that all the readers are totally uninformed. Even if you have no moral limiters whatsoever, an inept lie is counterproductive.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:45AM (3 children)
You also have the FDA approving some a very questionable Alzheimer's treatment which makes people think that there might be some back door dealings going on.
So, yeah, good medicine ... I question some of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @10:28AM (2 children)
Let's also not forget the astronomical prices that we have to pay for medicine. Trump passed an executive order to allow us to buy drugs from Canada but Biden undid this. So the myth here is that the democrats actually care about the public interest any more than the republicans.
Not to mention conflicts of interest often exist between regulators/politicians and industry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @10:44AM
(ie: the revolving door).
Also in some other countries 'bribery' is normal and overt. While it's not overt in the U.S. it shouldn't simply be assumed to never happen. While the FDA is important we need to be careful to assume that their intent is good. They must earn our trust, they can't assert it.
"most is mostly accurate, and big pharma makes good medicine but also cares more about money than people."
The mainstream media is very often inaccurate and self serving. Yes, often pharma makes good medicine but, again, trust must be earned. We shouldn't assume accuracy and that the medicine is good until proven otherwise. It's the opposite. They have the burden to earn our trust, we don't have the burden to prove their distrust.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:26PM
> Let's also not forget the astronomical prices that we have to pay for medicine.
And CEO's. And shareholder value. And advertising. All these things cost money.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:33AM (2 children)
Haha, good one.
Think about times the media has covered something from whatever field you're an expert in, and how often they got it right vs. wrong.
Your default assumption shiuld be that they are just as frequently wrong when covering anything else; this conclusion can only be escaped if you can identify characteristics of your field that make it uniquely incomprehensible.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:19PM (1 child)
Actually, when the media covers things where I know the back story, they usually tell true facts. But they leave out things that would interfere with the story line they wish to cover. I've been present when they covered a very bad fire, and they edited it to make it appear that the entire city was totally burned down. They did this by removing images, not by adding fake images.
I presume that this is their normal approach, as it fits with what I've observed in other areas. Generally their goal is to make the story more exciting and eye catching. This means that you can usually rely on the facts explicitly stated, but have no idea what's been cut out. So saying it's "generally accurate" is actually true, but it doesn't imply that you should believe the story as presented.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:27PM
Yes. The best lies are lies of omission or misdirection. It makes it much harder to prove intent or malice.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Thursday June 17 2021, @07:44AM
They're not even good points, they're just a bunch of random strawmen. In some countries the government generally does have people's best interests at heart (hint: They're ones the US right labels "socialist" for some reason, places like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, etc). In others they don't. Many media outlets are pretty reliable and careful (The New Yorker springs to mind), others less so, often due to time pressure to get a story out, and others just make up whatever they feel like to generate outrage (no prizes for guessing who I've got in mind there). What's next, big pharma... yeah, does anyone actually believe that? etc etc. It's just a bunch of random strawmen.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Aegis on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:04PM (14 children)
Clinton is not in jail and Trump is not the president.
Your equivalence is false.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:21PM (13 children)
> Trump is not the president
That remains to be seen.
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:34PM (11 children)
Well, speaking of possible futures, we may see Trump in jail and Clinton president (large grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:17AM (10 children)
Agreed. She did not lose the election, it was stolen from her by Russian hackers. And now reparations are needed to right those wrongs committed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:31AM (9 children)
*sigh*
Why don't we just stop all this arguing and all the trading of sharp retorts and witty comebacks, and get on with the business of killing each other?
(Score: 5, Touché) by khallow on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:42AM (6 children)
Because that's the point of sharp retorts and witty comebacks. So we aren't killing each other.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:08PM (5 children)
Looking at how things are degenerating, it may only be a matter of time before we descend into a civil war. With real actual violence.
Even as it happens, people will deny that it is really happening.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:30PM
I'm not worried about kallow. He's probbly a fat fuck with bad knees.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 18 2021, @02:53AM (3 children)
Are you a looker or are you one of your own deniers? For example, in this journal, you spent two thirds of it ranting about the January 6 protest as an insurrection.
My take is that the far more serious problems are the continued growth of publicly held debt by the US government and the state and local governments, and the growth of law faster than a person can read that law. The alleged insurrection is a news story that's already over while these other two will harm the US's future for many decades.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by khallow on Friday June 18 2021, @07:51AM
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 18 2021, @03:40PM (1 child)
If you are concerned about the national debt, as I am, you should be screaming about Trump ballooning the debt.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 18 2021, @11:18PM
Like here [soylentnews.org]? But clearly I don't scream [soylentnews.org] about publicly held debt as much as you do and hence, am not concerned about it. /sarc
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:32AM (1 child)
Nobody is hungry yet... When the artificial glut caused US imperialism by raping the world comes to an end sooner or later, the violence that pervades our poorest areas will become universal.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:25PM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:34PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:09PM (10 children)
Over the past several years, I've observed that the difference between a number of issues being labled conspiracy theories or not is about 6 - 9 months.
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:05AM (9 children)
Why was that modded down? It's obvious to many folks that the narratives regarding COVID, as one example, have changed spectacularly in such a short amount of time and have vindicated those who were previously demonized.
So much for tolerance and acceptance. Even your own fellow フews in media are starting to backpedal on your own talking points.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:16AM
There has not been any vindication.
Now I see why you lot have so much trouble with tolerance and acceptance.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:05AM (6 children)
Either you have to be more specific, or that statement is either a lie or meaningless. There are, indeed, limited ways in which "the narrative" has changed, but in most cases that I'm aware of the change was quite reasonable and justifiable on the basis of increased information. Other times it only changed on the surface, but not in any significant way.
And in at least one case the statement of "we need more evidence to make up our minds" is taken as confirmation of a prior definite statement of fact. Which is either bias or foolishness.
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(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:16AM (1 child)
One major shift:
This time last year the statement "it is possible that the wuhan virus leaked from the wuhan institute of virology" was immediately stamped down by the media jack-boot association as a rabid conspiracy theory.
This time this year, those same jack-booted media thugs that labeled "it is possible the wuhan virus leaked from the wuhan lab" a conspiracy theory last year are also the very same jack-booted media thugs who this year are hawking, pushing, and reporting that it is very possible that the wuhan virus leaked from the wuhan lab.
So right there is one, 180 degree, turn on what the media labels "conspiracy theory". Exact same story, last year it was a conspiracy theory, no doubt about it. This year, exact same story, no longer a conspiracy theory.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:26AM
What are you ranting about? Everyone knows the Covid virus was created in Russia and planted in Whuan.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:48AM (2 children)
Many of those who are asking for "more evidence" today, were screaming at the top of their lungs yesterday, telling us that we are insane conspiracy theorists, refusing to hear the voice of reason.
Neither China nor Russia rehabilitates the insane overnight. It's going to take years, or decades, or even centuries for that shit to wash off.
Worse, when it is demonstrated that those who were screaming "CONSPIRACY THEORY" the loudest had financial, academic, and political ties to the Wuhan Institute of Viruses, the real conspiracies are all but proven as fact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:29AM (1 child)
All right Ruskie...give it up. You are obviously a Russian agent trolling here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:32PM
How exciting!
(Score: 2, Troll) by driverless on Thursday June 17 2021, @07:47AM
And that's the difference between science and conspiracy theories. Science changes as new evidence emerges. Conspiracy theories never change, it's always the Jews (why TF is it always the Jews?), the left, blacks, "socialists" (whatever that is, seems to be just a generic label for "anyone I don't like"), etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:16PM
Do you think it's a good idea to draw attention to yourself with those space lasers up there?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:13AM (4 children)
The primary weak point in most conspiracy theories: They require that large organizations are staffed only by competent people who can keep secrets. And that's just not plausible.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:49AM
Correct. And, that is exactly why the Wuhan coverup has slowly fallen apart. At this point, Fauci and his cohorts can only hope that the most damning evidence has been destroyed by the Chinese.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:36PM
Oh yeah? Well, Stop The Steal is opposed by all the federal and State courts, officials and law agencies. That's evidence of a massive cabal of competent conspiracists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:46PM (1 child)
No, it is the unthinking belief in that "weak point" existing that is not plausible, and easily disproven with real world facts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden [wikipedia.org]
He found out the conspiracy (which was called "conspiracy theory" before that) and published the proof. He was hounded to the ends of the Earth. The conspiracy, now in the open, went on as if nothing happened. The only person that got their life ruined, is Snowden himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange [wikipedia.org]
Tell us again, why any reasonable person who knows of their widely publicized fate, will go and ruin oneself by having a Don Quixote moment?
And if someone gets unreasonable, then things work like this:
https://www.collective-evolution.com/2021/06/14/censorship-facebook-has-removed-16-million-pieces-of-content-added-warnings-on-167-million/ [collective-evolution.com]
Welcome to the real world.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 18 2021, @07:52AM
Thus you prove the grandparent's assertion.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday June 17 2021, @09:00AM
1. JFK was killed by the lone assassin Oswald: there were NO other shooters
2. DAMN IT! If you believe anything else you are a nut job.
3. Correction (forced on us by those pesky kids and their dog): JFK was shot at by multiple shooters, but Oswald's shot was the kill shot
4. DAMN IT! If you believe anything else you are a nut job....
5. PROFIT ???
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday June 16 2021, @10:26PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:00PM (24 children)
Subject A is acting paranoid, but is it paranoia if shadowy people really are "out to get" subject A? It's not common, but it does happen.
"Vaccines are safe" - yes, well, with certain rare exceptions and provisions that only apply to a small percentage of the population. So, if you are one of the 80 million people alive today who those "rare" 1% exceptions apply to, are you a conspiracy theorist for being skeptical of the media campaigns telling everybody to vax up, it's for the common good?
"Elections are rigged" - well, other than the out in the open laws, rules and procedures that shape who it is convenient for to vote or not, such cheating as does exist does seem to be insignificant enough to not sway the results on national level races - except perhaps in the Florida Presidential results in 2000 - but, when you get to smaller elections in certain areas that gets less and less clear, so you can see how some might project this "truth" they know for a fact in their local elections (they might know because they might be the ones doing the cheating) and assume that all winners cheat to some degree or another.
"Moon landing was faked" and it's friend "the earth is flat" along with "jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel" and such... I think these people have always existed, but it's only since the internet that they've been able to get together in large enough numbers to gain the confidence to stand up as a group and defend their positions. Having a large "support group" of like-minded people does more to reinforce beliefs than any amount of "evidence" from people outside the group.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:59PM (5 children)
Elections are rigged -- they certainly are. Districts are created by some rules [lls.edu] that favor one party over the other, but the best argument I've heard against those ridiculous maps [fivethirtyeight.com] is to allow anyone to vote in their district -- or any adjacent one. Between map-coloring theory with two colors and creative adjustments like that, it should be able to get rid of the worst abuses.
The moon landing was faked [smbc-comics.com], obviously. I mean, how do you land on something that doesn't exist in the first place? Or are you also in the pocket of big moon? "You're crazy", "no you're crazy", etc.
As far as jet fuel [scientificamerican.com], someone once pointed out to me in our company stairwell that the steel I-beams were coated in insulation before being painted over. Steel is strong, but insulation (with zero support strength) exists that can keep anything below the temperature where steel *starts* to lose integrity, or at least slow down heat transfer. So if something scrapes off the insulation or the fire burns very hot or for a while (?), then the heat can get to the beam and weaken it. But if you somehow keep the heat from getting to the beam, the beam will retain its strength.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:07AM (2 children)
From GP
From your post
Something I've never seen addressed in any discussion of the Twin Towers collapsing, is the draft furnace effect. All "skyscrapers" are engineered to force and/or enhance the circulation of air. Without good ventilation, people are going to be gasping for air, and suffering from a lack of oxygen.
Punch a hole in a building, set fire to that building, sit back and watch the updraft turn a small fire into a conflagration. They've even made movies of the dangers of firefighting. But, all the conspiracy theorists have forgotten those movies, and they've certainly forgotten the premises behind the movies.
Without the oxygen turned on, an oxy-acetylene torch will only give you a cool, sooty fire, incapable of much more than setting a bonfire alight.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday June 18 2021, @05:35AM
I couldn't find any reference to updraft during the Grenfell skyscraper fire [bbc.com], but maybe the cladding that caught on fire was close enough to the external walls that it had access to outside air.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday June 18 2021, @05:36AM
I couldn't find any reference to updraft during the Grenfell skyscraper fire [bbc.com], but maybe the cladding that caught on fire was close enough to the external walls that it had access to outside air.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:36AM (1 child)
Elections are rigge"...only in your home country of Russia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @10:13PM
In Russia, elections rig YOU.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:20AM (14 children)
All the documented vaccine problems (anaphylaxis) or suspected ones (blood clots, myocarditis) are measured in per million, not percent. And that an N per million risk of getting something almost always treatable.
Activities with about one micromort (https://tuanvnguyen.medium.com/vaccine-associated-blood-clot-death-a-micromort-thinking-5f611684b924) are something we all do every day without thinking of them as risky. See the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort#Other. [wikipedia.org]
"Safe" by my definition then, though others might save the word for things with zero risk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:58AM
Point of order but I don't think "zero risk" exists in this world. Other than that, I agree wholeheartedly.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:49AM (11 children)
Is it? This is where the "conspiracy theory" gets rolling: how good are those statistics? Micromort - sure, death is hard to argue against and it is very rare, but this is where the vaccines cause autism conspiracy really got rolling (and apparently sucked in our 45th president, at least until his handlers yanked his chain hard enough to get him to shut up about it.) Kill me, ok fine, we all die sometime. Far far more scary is living for decades with a seriously debilitating condition, and a condition like autism, or epilepsy, or CP doesn't just take down the victim, it frequently takes the whole family down with them. Autism rates used to be reported below 1/10,000 - for a myriad of reasons they're now closer to 1/50. Epilepsy runs about 1/100. CP is lower at 3/1000, but oh so nasty when it hits. There are many many more debilitating conditions, and quite a few people who have debilitating conditions that remain un-classified - without a statistic to lump them under.
For every (obvious) reported vaccine correlated negative effect, there are (probably) several tens of unreported cases of the same. If the collectors of the statistics have an agenda to make vaccines look good, and how could they not?, they can probably throw out 95%+ of nasty correlated negative effects with various "protocol based" data massages that let in the trivial crap like nausea and vomiting but something like extreme fever spike? Well, that wasn't proven to not be something else, so it can't be attributed to the vaccine. On the "follow the money" angle, the vaccine injury compensation fund? it is notoriously difficult to collect from, frequently requiring the kind of proof that less than one in a million real people collect in their normal lives - there was a case of autism caused by vaccine that was awarded compensation, but only because so many millions have (maybe) had the experience that they finally tripped on a legal minded medical researcher who was meticulously documenting their child's experiences before there was any sign of trouble.
Fueling beliefs in the above are real life experiences like the recent COVID case reporting in our county schools. The school board publishes a "dashboard" wherein 3-5 students per day (from a population of 100,000) are reported to test positive for COVID, and yet the county hospitalizations - not just positive tests, but full blown hospitalizations - for pediatric COVID are running many multiples higher than the number of positive tests acknowledged by the school board. Couple that with teachers, bus drivers, and other school employees who have witnessed contact tracing in the schools to be a total farce - the county says they are doing it, but in reality it only happens for a very small percentage of confirmed COVID cases. After the massive 2nd wave started in November, the county published a "we're coming clean about how we report our cases, that's why the numbers are jumping up this week" message to parents, but the under-reporting continued at the previous pace, the higher reports more or less tracked the increase in cases reported through other channels. When this kind of data is so obviously cooked, are we really expected to take other disease / vaccine related data which clearly has a bearing on behavior of the population at face value?
On the whole, I believe COVID vaccination is a good thing for the population, by a fair margin. I do not believe that it is yet proven as safe or effective as it is claimed / widely believed to be. I do think anyone who wants it should be able to get it. And as they say in the Mockingjay: may the odds be ever in your favor.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:10AM (5 children)
You know what’s also scary? Random long-term side effects of COVID. Two friends of mine — a couple... young, very healthy, etc. — appear to have permanent organ damage after COVID. I just found out last week that a spouse of another friend has lost 20 pounds (not intentionally or for good reason) in the past six months largely due to the fact that after his sense of smell and taste returned after COVID, he found that most of his favorite foods taste disgusting. Maybe not epilepsy, but seriously affecting his quality of life, and docs have no idea if his senses will go back to normal... ever. I’ve seen stats that suggest something like 5% of COVID cases have experienced lingering long-term messed up smell or taste. That’s a lot more than a few in a million.
So... if you ask me if we can guarantee the COVID vaccine is “safe” for everyone? No, nothing is ever perfectly safe. But is it a safer gamble than contracting COVID with its myriad of much more common and weird side effects that may be permanent? I think the vast majority of people rationally should bet on the vaccine over the COVID gamble.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:07PM (4 children)
Absolutely - and I highly recommend social distancing, work from home (if your job won't let you, find one of the many that will now - post pandemic there are a lot more WFH opportunities), mask up in public - even if you are vaccinated, and generally just don't be an idiot about exposing yourself and others while we're still at high rates of new COVID cases, say more than 5 per million per day.
If you can't protect yourself without a vaccine, please please please do go ahead and get it - even with the rushed approval process and political storm influencing its acceptance by the community, the risk would seem to be lower than the risk from the disease itself. Maybe in 5-10 years after the data is in (and known to the public) I will join you and get vaccinated myself, if there is any reason for it by then.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:57PM (1 child)
From what I've read the vaccines were able to be approved quickly due to prioritization and running certain steps in parallel rather than sequential (like preparing manufacturing capacity and beginning production before the vaccines had passed Phase II and III trials).
Admittedly the FDA approval is an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) rather than a standard approval that can take years to do. Basically they ask "is the vaccine effective, with risks less than the disease?" With the damage being caused by the virus both medically and economically it was the right thing to do.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday June 17 2021, @06:26PM
And I agree with that, but even "normal" vaccine rollouts have been rushed, pushed into populations they shouldn't have before any data on the populations were collected, and most times - like HPV in young girls and boys - that turns out all right, some times it turns out like Thalidomide and friends, and unfortunately - since we are talking about conspiracy theories - sometimes when the tragedies associated with rushed approvals and botched rollouts are marginal enough they get suppressed - swept under the rug to fester like the opioid crisis, and others that may not have surfaced just yet.
So, seemingly paradoxically, I welcome out idiot Governor's campaign to protect the rights of people who don't want to vaccinate yet. Most of the stuff his staff has him supporting is truly moronic pandering to the wealthy, but that's one point that seems moronic to a lot of people but not to me. Keep it up DeSantis - I just might vote for you if your opposition is too obtuse.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 18 2021, @08:04AM (1 child)
Or you can protect, but you choose not to by engaging in risky behavior.
Joe, can you vouch for everyone in your household not catching covid in the next 5-10 years?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 18 2021, @12:09PM
Of course not, however: with just under 50% of the local population vaccinated, our hospitalization, death and percent positive test rates have trended strongly downward - even in face of aggressive reopening which sees 80%+ of the population returning to business as usual, 90% of them failing to even try to social distance, and 95% not wearing masks.
Even if the testing data is being skewed by procedural whitewash - which would have knock-on effects in the hospitalization and death by COVID stats - the fact of the matter is: our hospital beds are no longer fully occupied by people with respiratory distress. Something is working, and it makes sense: R rates were rarely if ever reported over 2.0, so a 50% effective vaccination rate should be driving us toward extinction - particularly if that 50% is focused in the people who have potential to be super spreaders.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:33PM
In other words, bad things happen in the world, and some people need comforting stories: to explain those bad things, to feel in control, and to find someone or something to blame.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:34PM (3 children)
The same people who promised over and over that a short shutdown would eliminate the virus, then that didn't work so we'll try fabric masks that will fix everything, now insist that vaccines are safe with equal religious fervor.
Isn't it a hate crime or nazi statistic to point out that there was a massive 2nd wave? That would imply the party lied to us in the past which obviously only haters and nazis would say.
Nope, that 2nd wave never existed. Never happened. Edit wikipedia to delete all evidence.
Now prove your allegiance to the party by taking that vaccine... or else...
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:18PM (1 child)
The short shutdown didn't work because there wasn't any shutdown, just a half-assed "lockdown" where half of the populace didn't follow it. See New Zealand and Australia for how to do an effective "shutdown".
Masks were meant to slow the virus down, even if only by a small percent. Hamstrung by antimasker stupidity.
The vaccines are safe, not due to faith but due to testing and evidence. It would be all over the news if there were the slightest hint of problems.
The rest of your idiotic post doesn't require comment.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:23PM
Your virtue signal is noted.
Your fantastic stupidity is noted as well. A type of information all the media openly take pride in strictly censoring, "would be all over the news", indeed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:42PM
Nobody ever promised to eliminate the virus. It wasn't that long ago, right? The slogan was "flatten the curve," not "eliminate the virus." Once it became clear that it wasn't going to be confined to a few hundred people who would all be identified, like SARS was, nobody sane ever claimed that the virus even could be eliminated, much less easily.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dwilson on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:28AM
Might make me a nitpicker, but the vaccine-triggered blood clots are not measured per million at this point, but rather per hundred thousand [theguardian.com].
That doesn't make you wrong, and it's still an acceptable risk by any reasonable standard. But if the tinfoil-hat crowd is wrong to be throwing bad data around, it stands to reason the rest of us would be wrong to do it to, no?
From: https://thrombosiscanada.ca/covid-19-vaccines-and-blood-clots-faqs/ [thrombosiscanada.ca]
Is there a risk for developing a blood clot (thrombosis) after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine?
There is no overall increased risk of developing a blood clot after receiving any of the approved COVID-19 vaccines, including the vaccine made by AstraZeneca. However, the AstraZeneca vaccine may be associated with extremely rare cases of blood clots that occur in the brain called Cerebral vein sinus thrombosis (CVST) and are associated with low blood platelets. These blood clots were found to occur in approximately 1 in 100,000 people who received the vaccine.
- D
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:53AM (2 children)
Yes.
What I find remarkable about the vaccine crap is that much of the research was done decades ago, well before anyone thought to turn vaccination or mask wearing into a political issue. For example, I recall reading a book about the 1918 influenza pandemic in the early 1980s. Much of the policies of covid were discovered the hard way back then. Yet now, it's considered a political issue rather than a matter of common sense.
So what if you're one of the 1%. One of the 1% for a vaccine against something like covid is a lot better than one of the 1% for covid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:31PM (1 child)
Common sense serves to discern things that happen from things that don't, and uses that to separate things that work from things that don't. You can bombard people with images and soundbites to cause them to suspend their disbelief, but are you real sure the tactics can work for multiple years straight?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 18 2021, @02:27AM
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:15PM
There is a high correlation between measured trait neuroticism, open-mindedness, and susceptibility to belief in conspiracy theories.
Obviously it is muiti-factor but these are the major ones.
That does not mean the other end of that spectrum is better.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:16PM (30 children)
The article is right about cognitive biases! But as it mentions, not all conclusions reached by shortcut are *wrong*. To copy someone else's comment from Reddit:
Four decades ago only a science denier questioned the imminent arrival of a man-made ice age.
Four years ago you were considered to be uninformed if you questioned the notion that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 presidential election.
Four months ago you were considered to be brainwashed if you even questioned the "completely debunked" notion that SARS-CoV-2 might have come from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:32PM (27 children)
"It snowed somewhere, global warming is a hoax!"
"I believe what Trump's buddy said and not that long report ass report by the witch-hunting meanie-head that said otherwise!"
"We wanna keep using the term 'China Virus'."
Heh. Yeah, you guys are really sittin' pretty... at your own table.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:49PM (20 children)
I don't get the drama over whether it was a lab virus or not. At least around here no one argued the point beyond "maybe it is maybe it isn't" and it was clear the people trying to push that idea only cared so they could blame China and take the focus off of Trump's intentional fucking up of the US pandemic response. I wonder if conservatives will ever regain their sensibilities or if we're doomed to 50+ years of domestic religious terrorism like the Middle East.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16 2021, @11:57PM (8 children)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:09AM (7 children)
Must be why CNN and MSNBC are constantly inviting Republicans on to their shows while working aganst progressive policies! Damn tricksie liberals are so good at being bad!
I guess I didn't expect much, but after Trump confessing that he lied about COVID-19 from the very beginning I did think there would be a little more blowback. No conservative Soylentil seemed to give a shit though, cause tribalism moar portant!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:12AM (6 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:45AM (5 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:56AM (4 children)
Heh. Nice argument. Next time you should try aiming for something equivalent, or better yet... worse. I mean, reporter vs. American President, really? How did you even type that without cringing?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimtee on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:26AM (2 children)
I know, right? People expect politicians to lie. Reporters lying is much worse.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:05AM
Lol. That was a very impressive display of mental gymnastics. Well done!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @07:24PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 18 2021, @03:02AM
Because I'm not an idiot pushing a talking point. Let's review:
Why is that supposed to be something that we should be speaking out about over all the other things we should be speaking out about? You apparently haven't noticed. But a lot of shit happens and we can't know about all of it, much less speak out about all of it.
Further, you weren't willing to actually speak out about this incident yourself. That informs me that it's not such a big deal that we haven't either!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hopdevil on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:20AM (1 child)
The responses, politically and scientifically, to a lab created virus would be much different than a naturally occurring one, for starters. Already being perfectly adapted to human hosts changes the game in ways no one had previously experienced.
It is now well documented that people in the scientific community were actively silenced and ridiculed for thinking that it might be lab created just because it was something Trump said.
You seem to carry some bias. I very much doubt you have the knowledge or leadership prowess to even understand how Trump might have failed. Try saying something real instead of piling on like the rest of the frothing media incited turds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:43AM
Heh. "This virus is a weapon wielded by the government to oppress us!" ... followed soon by .... "You don't need to wear masks, it's not even a cold!"
You mean like Rebekah Jones?
Lol.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:32AM (1 child)
I never understood this either. Let's say it did come from the Wuhan lab. Do you have an extra pointing finger sitting around unused that you want to direct eastward and dramatically shout, "J'accuse!"? Gasp, we're all clutching our pearls now ... deep breath, and ... at this point, shouldn't the entire focus being around preventing people from catching it?
If this were a movie, it's not like it would end after proof of the accusation unless, you know, China was marched by the bailiff in handcuffs to jail.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday June 17 2021, @02:39PM
This will probably be the same damage control strategy after its finally proven the vaccines were a bad idea.
Well, don't worry be happy, now we can finally trust the people who lied to us for so long because I'm sure thats the last lie they'll ever tell, nothings going to happen anyway, cause and effect don't matter, we have better things to worry about now, the public should absolutely not be informed or have opinions about genetic research, now get out there and go shopping, consumer.
(Score: 3, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:19AM (2 children)
You seem to have missed some liability and/or credibility issues. Those people who were most invested in the Wuhan Institute of Virology were the very people screaming loudest that the China Virus couldn't possibly have come from a lab.
Fauci is prime example. He argued repeatedly that gain of function and similar research was essential to understanding viruses. In effect, he argued that it was necessary to create killer viruses in order to understand how to defeat killer viruses.
Those initial papers that "debunked" the idea of lab origin were written by the same people who were invested in the research.
The foxes were writing essays to "prove" that there were no foxes in the henhouse.
Credibility and liability. There are a lot of guilty parties involved, if it can be proven that the virus came from the lab.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Thursday June 17 2021, @10:53AM (1 child)
Looking into the political substrate certainly isn't a bad idea. Krystal and Saagar agree [youtube.com] with your suspicion, and report on the gathering circumstantial evidence making the lab leak hypothesis more likely. They're well trusted across both the right and left of politics (though they're more pro citizen vs pro corporate... so support neither party). They're formally from media company The Hill, now with a new show (called "Breaking Points") independant of corporate media and already the #1 political podcast on spotify. I guess crossing the left/right divide is paying off.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 17 2021, @11:22AM
Krystal nailed it somewhere around the 9 minute mark: consensus. China, WHO, Fauci, and all the US people involved scrambled to get that letter signed by a small boatload of doctors. 20 doctors were sufficient to convince most of the world that "Oh, that's not possible". Consensus.
Science isn't a popularity contest. Science is all about investigating facts.
Every time I hear the word 'consensus' in relation to science, I want to scream at the fool using the word.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:23AM (3 children)
I think the reason for the drama is because 1) it is likely employees at the Wuhan lab were careless and leaked the virus, 2) China is (as usual) desperate to not look like a total incompetent 3rd world country in foreigners' eyes, 3) American media companies are desperate for the China market and eager to push the CCP message, while taking the domestic market for granted. You can take it further by associating American media companies with a certain political party, but I think the first three are a good indication of why there is a drama about the origin.
I'm looking out for a correlation between countries' response and their relationship with China. Sweden has had a difficult relationship with the Chinese recently with the arrest of ethnic Chinese Swedish citizens, decides to not do lockdown. Greece has a history of being hardly able or willing to run its country in normal times, Chinese take over the port of Piraeus investing tons of money, now Greece enforces a hard lockdown on its people. What's Belarus' posture vis-a-vis the Chinese?
How did Trump "fuck up" the US pandemic response? He started to take action while the democrats on the way home from Impeachment 1 called him racist again and told everybody to hug a Chinese.
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:47PM (2 children)
Like lying about the danger of covid and turning mask wearing into a political issue? Or provocative, selfish actions like threatening to defund WHO and temporarily grabbing the world's supply of resdemvir? Or deliberately stoking protests and riots, conditions not normally known for halting the spread of disease, to distract from his own failings? Or losing the 2020 election to Biden? You know, the actual fuck ups.
It's time to stop being an idiot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @10:56PM (1 child)
Forcing the wearing of ineffective cloth masks as pushed by Democrat operatives is a political issue. And Trump was supposedly in cahoots with the BLM riots? Talk about being a conspiracy nut.
True, that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 18 2021, @02:17AM
What makes the cloth masks ineffective? To the contrary, we have a good idea that those masks did work as advertised.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:41AM (4 children)
Thanks for sharing with us the finest quotes from your script.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:52AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:56AM (2 children)
Following the Law of Conservative Gaslighting we see that you are the one using a script. The rest of us? Actual brains, even if they are a bit pickled.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @03:21AM (1 child)
Hi there Azuma the racist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @05:09AM
I am not Azuma. You have not yet guessed my SN identity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 17 2021, @01:48PM
Woosh [urbandictionary.com], definition 3.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday June 17 2021, @12:26AM (1 child)
>Four decades ago only a science denier questioned the imminent arrival of a man-made ice age.
That is not true.
It's been said so often that one scientist who looked back into the literature was actually surprised when he found that there wasn't an expectation of a new ice age.
There was a popular book in my high school library called "The Cooling" and I think a Newsweek(?) cover but never a scientific consensus or anything close to it.
Science News had something about this particular claim years ago but I've misplaced my copy of that issue.
(Score: 5, Informative) by deimtee on Thursday June 17 2021, @04:39AM
You're right that the statement as made is not true, but what is true is that anyone who categorically denied the possibility of the "imminent arrival of an ice age" would have been labeled a science denier.
An imminent ice age, man-made or not, was considered to be quite possible or even probable. There were well-supported theories and considerable evidence in favor of it.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.