Coronavirus Conspiracy theories, do you believe???

Tools    


Do you believe in a Coronavirus conspiracy theory?
0%
0 votes
Yes
83.33%
10 votes
No
16.67%
2 votes
Undecided
12 votes. You may not vote on this poll




Depends on what qualifies as a conspiracy.

I'm pretty convinced the Chinese government downplayed a lot of the early numbers (and is still doing so today), and probably caused a lot of unnecessary death as a result, though that doesn't seem like a proper conspiracy, so much as a state-run media engaging in expected propaganda.



What Yoda said. I absolutely do not believe this was manufactured by China and deliberately spread to benefit themselves, I've seen some point out low death rates there and in North Korea and Russia but that can easily be explained by their authoritarian nature and often deployed misinformation tactics. I do not believe they're planning to vaccine us for a purpose other than protecting our health, I do not believe that this is caused by 5G.

It's embarrassing the amount of nonsense I have seen around social media, especially Facebook. Loads of people on my timeline sharing David Icke videos, and whenever they get taken down they say that as validation that he's right and the establishment are trying to suppress him, rather than trying to stop someone with some really dangerous (often anti-semitic) ideas profit from their platforms. They actually believe a man who thinks we're controlled by lizards, is a human bastion of superior knowledge.
__________________



A system of cells interlinked
Yeah, "never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence," as the saying goes.
Hanlon's razor...
__________________
“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I believe Coronavirus is a product of vile experiments conducted by Reptilians from the core of the Earth. The real source is not China (propaganda spread by anti-Communist subversive elements), but the US. In Area 51 in which the Reptilians - obviously by using chemtrails - activated deadly fluorine that was then injected in GMO eaten by thousands of Americans every day! The entire thing had been kept in secret as long as possible, thus the first known cases were announced in China. Obviously the virus was spread there by some Chinese business-men returning home from America. They must have contacted the people who were already sick in America!
__________________
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



What Yoda said. I absolutely do not believe this was manufactured by China and deliberately spread to benefit themselves, I've seen some point out low death rates there and in North Korea and Russia but that can easily be explained by their authoritarian nature and often deployed misinformation tactics. I do not believe they're planning to vaccine us for a purpose other than protecting our health, I do not believe that this is caused by 5G.

It's embarrassing the amount of nonsense I have seen around social media, especially Facebook. Loads of people on my timeline sharing David Icke videos, and whenever they get taken down they say that as validation that he's right and the establishment are trying to suppress him, rather than trying to stop someone with some really dangerous (often anti-semitic) ideas profit from their platforms. They actually believe a man who thinks we're controlled by lizards, is a human bastion of superior knowledge.
Censorship may not validate anything, but it certainly raises more questions about what it seeks to silence. I have no idea who David Icke is or what he says, but in general I believe ideas should stand or fall on their own - if they're ridiculous and exposed to the light of day, the majoirty will usually realize it and say so.



Account terminated on request
Well it's certainly a learn-as-you-go thing for the economic and political models.

One thing fueling conspiracies IMO, at least based upon the knuckleheads calling into talk radio, is this idea that "lower deaths" == "scientists don't know what they're doing" and that this means that scientists are somehow all "in on it".

Ugh. The initial estimates were clear about it being what happens if you don't do anything more than you're currently doing to mitigate the problem, and in the beginning.

I hate anything connected to a fraudulent notion that "scientists are often wrong" nonsense. In order to make that statement, you have to accept the humungous vast majority of things they get right. And you can start with the metallurgy in your spoons in the draw and the screws holding your car together to the plastic involved in your keyboard, to the ink on the keys, to air travel, to to to to to....., each of which is likely a mere chapter of a room full of specifications, measurements, calculations, fundamentals, etc., etc.
__________________
Rules:
When women have a poet, they want a cowboy.
When they have a cowboy, they want a poet.
They'll say "I don't care if he's a poet or cowboy, so long as he's a nice guy. But oh, I'm so attracted to that bad guy over there."
Understand this last part, and you'll get them all.



Account terminated on request
Here's what I think about the source of all of this.

Truth: Where are most rubber chickens manufactured? China.
Truth: Where did the virus start? China.
Truth: Even though the above are well known facts, have rubber chickens been banned even though they had every opportunity to do so? NO.

I think that's enough of a smoking gun.....



Censorship may not validate anything, but it certainly raises more questions about what it seeks to silence. I have no idea who David Icke is or what he says, but in general I believe ideas should stand or fall on their own - if they're ridiculous and exposed to the light of day, the majoirty will usually realize it and say so.
I agree to an extent, shutting down freedom of speech often emboldens who you're shutting down and their followers. But at the same time, individuals and firms should have the freedom to shutdown who they feel too. I think it's more of an issue when people are publically profiting from spreading dangerous ideas. If I ran a video sharing platform would I be happy with an anti-semitic Holocaust denier using it to share dangerous conspiracy theories about 5G and the coronavirus? Nope.



Yeah, let's be clear, "it" does not raise questions, people do. People can reflexively pretend that an organization not amplifying their claims (which is what's actually happening when people throw around words like "censorship") is ipso facto evidence they're onto something, but it isn't.

Reminds me of that old thing about how all geniuses are persecuted, so people pretend if you're being persecuted you must be a genius. Same thing here: just because the people who speak unpopular truth get "silenced" (see above parenthetical) doesn't mean that anyone who's "silenced" is speaking an unpopular truth. Almost never, in fact! The overwhelming majority of the time, they're just extremely foolish and/or taking advantage of people.

That's always going to happen, and not much can be done. The thing that can be prevented, however, is when more reasonable people end up carrying water for crazy people because they have some view of their own that's a little outside the mainstream, or something, so they feel an instinctive urge to defend the crazies because, there but for the grace of God go they, I suppose. It's a very myopic instinct, in my opinion.

Increasingly, it seems like people's reactions to insane claims is cited as the biggest evidence for them, which really shows you how confused people can get. And also note that this incentivizes the people making the claims to be as abusive or crazy as possible, since it's probably in their interest to get kicked off of platforms, since they can turn around and cite that as evidence of truth, too. But, of course, it only works if you let it.



Account terminated on request
Censorship may not validate anything, but it certainly raises more questions about what it seeks to silence. I have no idea who David Icke is or what he says, but in general I believe ideas should stand or fall on their own - if they're ridiculous and exposed to the light of day, the majoirty will usually realize it and say so.
No, I really don't think that a majority realize things and say so. It's a problem how logical fallacies can sway opinions so strongly. So yes, we have to stomp out anti-vaxxer and covid-falsehoods because it endangers others.

There are great discussions about Cum Hoc / Post Hoc arguments (the pitfall of confusing correlation with causation, and other non-causative effects), and some of them are really tricky at times.

One of my favorites for instance: There is a strong correlation between drowning deaths and eating ice cream. Looking at the charts throughout the year showed a spike when they were both happening together.
WARNING: "Reason it's faulty" spoilers below
The problem is that the time when they both happen is summer time. There was no causation between the two.

Another one is truly tricky (I have to be careful to relay this right...it's been a while): There was a claim that leaving the lights on at night when babies slept lead to near sightedness. And it seemed true. A large percentage of kids with the lights let on at night *did* develop nearsightedness. It came under strong fire when they found out
WARNING: "Reason it came under fire" spoilers below
...that parents who were severely near sighted were more likely to leave the lights on all night to more easily get to the child in a hurry. It was likely inherited.

Another one that cracks me up routinely is survivorship bias. This happened in WWII. Planes came back all shot up, but bullet holes were showing clusters in certain spots. They knew the planes could handle more armor, so they wanted to armor up those shot up areas. Big mistake if they did. Instead they properly decided to armor up all the places that had *no* bullet holes. Why?
WARNING: "Because..." spoilers below
The planes that didn't come back were the ones that were shot in sensitive areas. The only planes that DID come back were the ones shot in the areas they could see in the survivor planes. Bullet holes were indications of where you COULD shoot the plane and have it survive; they needed no armor.

Seems like the public could learn from this, right? And then you look around and see broken argument after broken argument after broken argument.......and it encourages behavior that puts people at risk.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
Everyone who has enough Facebook friends has probably seen some "5G is causing deaths blah blah blah not Covid-19".
__________________



I just voted "Undecided" in Rules' poll.
Neither believing nor disbelieving is pretty much my default position on most things that require "belief".

Probably the biggest conspiracy theory surrounding Covid19 is that it originated in a lab, as a bio-weapon, presumably made by China.
The most common story I've heard connected with this theory is it got out by accident as opposed to being purposefully released (it would make little sense for China to infect its own people with its own weapon, unless to use as a disclaimer or a "cover" - which gets into an even deeper conspiracy than the initial theory).

Another theory that seems to have a lot of following is that the virus is a simple result of cross-species contamination at Chinese "wet markets" - where the raw corpses of exotic animals are put on display and are sold for food. The exact animal or animals it was transmitted by is up for speculation, but some feel it came from bats (I don't know where the bats were supposed to be from).



I just got a few moments so playing ketchup.
One thing fueling conspiracies IMO, at least based upon the knuckleheads calling into talk radio, is this idea that "lower deaths" == "scientists don't know what they're doing" and that this means that scientists are somehow all "in on it"...
I believe the rise in conspiracy theories of all kinds and for all events can be traced to: talk radio, entertainment news/commentary shows and the internet were anyone with a whacked idea can have a voice. It use to be the Archie Bunker types only had their bar mates and family to listen to their angry rants, but now anyone can be heard worldwide...like me, in this post


Censorship may not validate anything, but it certainly raises more questions about what it seeks to silence. I have no idea who David Icke is or what he says, but in general I believe ideas should stand or fall on their own - if they're ridiculous and exposed to the light of day, the majority will usually realize it and say so.
I don't like censorship, but at what point do we keep allowing hate language/hate ideas to proliferate on public airwaves? It seems people are political/sociological more divided and angrier than ever before, I say the cause in large part is politicized entertainment news shows. For cable and radio that's being offered to the public there is a standard by which they have to abide by to keep their broadcast licenses. I think it's time to apply a higher standard to the more blatant abusers of that public broadcast privilege.



Account terminated on request
I don't like censorship, but at what point do we keep allowing hate language/hate ideas to proliferate on public airwaves? It seems people are political/sociological more divided and angrier than ever before, I say the cause in large part is politicized entertainment news shows. For cable and radio that's being offered to the public there is a standard by which they have to abide by to keep their broadcast licenses. I think it's time to apply a higher standard to the more blatant abusers of that public broadcast privilege.
Funny things happen when you insist on such things. I get railed at by liberals for being a conservative and screamed at by conservatives for being a liberal. You should see it. No one can get their intolerances straight. Kinda funny in retrospect.

But it's why I finally left Facebook. I couldn't stand the ignorance being thrown around and every explanation required 10 paragraphs to get the point across without being misinterpreted by either side.

So now we have a real crisis in information. Wikipedia is changing and inventing "facts" daily, and the far left and far right are in some kind of stupidness competition.

Where do we go from here?

Perhaps we start with getting rid of political parties (and just vote for the person). They're a horrendous idea, were never in the constitution in the first place, and were just a disaster waiting to happen that finally did. George Washington was right about this all along.



Funny things happen when you insist on such things. I get railed at by liberals for being a conservative and screamed at by conservatives for being a liberal. You should see it. No one can get their intolerances straight. Kinda funny in retrospect.
To this I can relate. As an independent who takes things issue by issue, I'm often mistaken by one group as belonging to another.



...I get railed at by liberals for being a conservative and screamed at by conservatives for being a liberal.
That use to happen to me on an old board that I posted on. The liberals would say, 'he's not a liberal, he's a conservative', while the conservatories on the board insisted 'I was a liberal.' I'm probably the most split in my views that you could find. I've done those online questionnaires that tell you what candidates you share the most views with...and I swear it's like 50% conservation and 50% liberal. And I'm proud of that!

Perhaps we start with getting rid of political parties (and just vote for the person)? They're a horrendous idea, were never in the constitution in the first place, and were just a disaster waiting to happen that finally did. George Washington was right about this all along.
Right on. I've said the same thing many times. The current political spew: 'my football team is holly than thou and your football team is the spawn of Satan' crap is the root of a lot of America's problems. End political parties, End the electoral college and one person one vote. That would go a long way to making the hate dissipate.



Account terminated on request
That use to happen to me on an old board that I posted on. The liberals would say, 'he's not a liberal, he's a conservative', while the conservatories on the board insisted 'I was a liberal.' I'm probably the most split in my views that you could find. I've done those online questionnaires that tell you what candidates you share the most views with...and I swear it's like 50% conservation and 50% liberal. And I'm proud of that!

Right on. I've said the same thing many times. The current political spew: 'my football team is holly than thou and your football team is the spawn of Satan' crap is the root of a lot of America's problems. End political parties, End the electoral college and one person one vote. That would go a long way to making the hate dissipate.
I agree with you right up to the electoral college. You don't want a country ruled by its cities. Farm land requires a disproportionate weighting. We can agree to disagree on that one.... It really doesn't lend itself to short discussions.

But if we do have to have a semi final, at least it won't be party based. If desired, any "primaries" wouldn't yield a Democrat and a republican to duke it out later. It would be two people.

The original thinking by the way was interesting. 2nd place was the vice president. Also, and even fewer know this, the senators were not to be elected, but rather appointed by each state.