[HN Gopher] Zen and the Art of Talking to Conspiracy Theorists
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Zen and the Art of Talking to Conspiracy Theorists
Author : markandrewj
Score : 17 points
Date : 2022-02-01 18:59 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mcgill.ca)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mcgill.ca)
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Does anyone actually know a real "5g causes corona" person? I've
| seen them at marches, that's about it.
|
| They didn't strike me as being normal people taken in by
| misinformation - instead I figured they had some sort of mental
| issue like schizophrenia or whatever.
|
| I think that most people massively overstate the amount of
| genuine crackpottery that exists and instead just resort to
| calling people they disagree with or are uncomfortable with
| conspiracy theorists.
|
| As an example, the article lumps in "masks are a control
| mechanism" with "5g towers cause coronavirus".
|
| The UK government explicitly states that their nudge unit
| believes in the use of masking as a way to remind people that
| coronavirus is about. It is being used as a control mechanism,
| that's incontrovertible fact - it's probably also useful for
| reducing the spread of coronavirus (but perhaps not for total
| happiness).
|
| It's not even a conspiracy because it's out in the open.
|
| By contrast the 5g stuff is obviously mental and makes no sense
| at all.
| Hokusai wrote:
| > Does anyone actually know a real "5g causes corona" person?
| I've seen them at marches, that's about it.
|
| The people that I know about will not express such a strong
| opinion. But they are not sure about what to believe, and
| people in their circle may share many conspiracies. So, they
| are not strong believers but may decide to not vaccinate as
| they "hear things about the vaccine".
|
| > It is being used as a control mechanism
|
| I think that you are missing the degree. One thing is to create
| a reminder that we are in a pandemic, another it's to think
| that a government in the shadow is using control mechanisms to
| brainwash the population so they can take over the country.
|
| Both are "control mechanisms" if you want that interpretation.
| But, only the second one is referred in the news because it's a
| conspiracy theory. So, it fits with the 5G desease thinking.
| The_rationalist wrote:
| dTal wrote:
| >Does anyone actually know a real "5g causes corona" person?
| I've seen them at marches, that's about it.
|
| Social bubbles, man. Go to any place where "new age" people
| hang out. You'll find them by the dozen. They also -
| collectively - believe in a veritable smorgasborg of quasi-
| religious beliefs a la crystal healing. It's important to
| understand that "belief" doesn't mean the same thing for them
| as it does for you and I, for their in-group is determined by a
| staunch refusal to police any notion of objective truth. Maybe
| they don't all believe 5g causes covid, maybe only 5% of them
| do, but if someone pipes up with that at a gathering not a
| single person will challenge them. Instead what will happen is
| that someone will chime in with their own different, related
| conspiracy theory / piece of nonsense. Everyone gets to pick
| and choose which myths resonant best with themselves, and yet
| collectively they reinforce each other.
|
| There are literally millions of these people. In my opinion
| they're also one charismatic leader away from being a fascist
| voting bloc.
| markandrewj wrote:
| Part of me has difficulties understanding why wearing a mask
| has had so much backlash. It is a trivial thing to do, and
| something people in many countries were already doing pre
| pandemic.
|
| My experience has been that many people who are not in favour
| of masks think that they are being enforced for reasons other
| than public safety.
| erhserhdfd wrote:
| "The UK government explicitly states that their nudge unit
| believes in the use of masking as a way to remind people that
| coronavirus is about." --> I tried searching for this, but I
| couldn't find where this was stated. Can you share a link?
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