[Closed] The human cost of the conspiracy theory promotors.

Well that was grim reading. Can't imagine what the fella who's child was murdered at Sandy Hook has gone through. Shocking.

Read that earlier - fascinating & disturbing. We really do live in a post truth world.

******* hell.

Makes you think.

The Sandy Hook Conspirators really do make you despair.

Cant help thinking the Guardian is running this as damage limitation on its current Covington Catholic High School campaign though.

It really is a shame that The Internet is available to everyone. But there's no going back now.

Cant help thinking the Guardian is running this as damage limitation on its current Covington Catholic High School campaign though.

Holy chemtrails batman!

This struck a chord:

Source: Twitter

Plus there are measles outbreaks all over due to antivaxxers, not to mention some cases of polio popping up where they shouldn't!

Cant help thinking the Guardian is running this as damage limitation on its current Covington Catholic High School campaign though.

...and so a conspiracy theory begins....

I've just sent the link to my brother in Michigan who is an intelligent UK-educated bloke, a former British Army officer and usually very rational but who seems to be sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of wacky conspiracy theories.

That article was quite grim, but interesting, my dad watched a youtube video about ‘freemen of the land’ which mentions Dennis Larry Meads, who stormed out of court when the judge confronted him about his arguments.
But on the video, some random guy claims that it was the judge who walked out.
I showed my dad the wiki page which names the man and states it was him who walked out, My dads answer? ‘it’s a lie’
You can’t argue against someone who has decided they don’t believe anything contrary to their beliefs.
I will just add, my dad is not normally the type of guy who would be taken in by this type of horseshit, my mum is genuinely amazed that he would even entertain it.

…and so a conspiracy theory begins…

Indeed, though its more a poor choice of words by myself, I just thought that the Guardian in their current coverage on that particular news topic, were maybe taking a more extreme stance that almost reflected that covered in the article.
Theres a whole different conversation on the difference between news and opinion.

Will social media eventually implode into a mass of complete fantasy?

“The most uninteresting thing in the world is watching narcissists **** each other.”

― Jarett Kobek (Author of 'I Hate The Internet')

"If that's true, then why do the most popular youtube debates resemble an orgy of narcissists?"

- Malvern Rider (Author of his own demise)

Isn't all of our presence on the internet narcissism?

Not read the article yet, but on the subject of conspiracy theories, they are all wacko and complete nonsense until they become real. Who would of believed that the US govnt were stealing children's dead bodies to test the effects of radiation poisoning (project sunshine)? Or that they would test hallucinogenic drugs on civilians (MK-Ultra).

There are some scary stories in that article.

Anti-vaxers are the worst of the lot. Their conspiracy theory has global reach and causes genuine harm to thousands and for what?

But the utter depravity of hounding a guy who has lost his six year old son in a shooting is difficult to comprehend

Isn’t all of our presence on the internet narcissism?

Is a good question - far too many of us wandering round in a "read me, like me, comment, reply" loop

A conspiracy theorist dies and goes to heaven. At the pearly gates god says to him “welcome, as a reward for getting here I’ll answer any question you have”.

The conspiracy theorist asks “JFK, who really killed him?”. God answers “it was Lee Harvey Oswald, he acted alone”.

“Oh shit, this goes higher than I thought”

(Stolen from LFGSS)

Isn’t all of our presence on the internet narcissism?

Good question.

One minute a ****less youngish human is registering on an MTB forum in order to ask 'what tyre is best to use in mud'?

It's all debate from there. And debates are where it all begins to go,er, downhill. You can trace the timeline

How about a Maxxis tyre? - Maxxis tyres? - podium girls - political correctness gone mad?* - soyboyfemitardcuckgeddon awaits as our transexual marxist ((((((globalist)))))) overlords flooded us with low-quality immigrants who rape both our culture and the last few remaining semi-decent white women as genocide happens under our feet, paving the way for cucked vegans to steal the precious bodily fluids of emergent generations in the service of ((((((multiculturalism)))))

*STW political 'debates' (at present) mostly/mercifully circle wagons before fizzling out around this mark. Sparing us all the other territory. For how long?

Worse it is mass debating, and we know what that leads to.

Plus there are measles outbreaks all over due to antivaxxers, not to mention some cases of polio popping up where they shouldn’t!

@5plusn8 absolutely. Vaccine hesitancy has been cited by WHO as a threat to health in 2019.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/ten-threats-to-global-health-in-2019

As long as there's been vaccines there's been hesitancy/denial but social media and "populist" politicians are amplifying the misinformation. I've subscribed to the Vaccine Confidence Project at LSHTM. Scary stuff some of it. Prof. Heidi Larson & the team have an important job to do.

I have a personal interest in this topic as my ex is easily misled into this stuff and is refusing to vaccinate our daughter. I can see it going to court. The human cost of that type of thinking could have a direct and very personal impact to me and my daughter.

Not read the article yet, but on the subject of conspiracy theories, they are all wacko and complete nonsense until they become real. Who would of believed that the US govnt were stealing children’s dead bodies to test the effects of radiation poisoning (project sunshine)? Or that they would test hallucinogenic drugs on civilians (MK-Ultra).

They overlap but there's a difference between these conspiracy theory and a coverup or confidential information. In some cases there may not be smoke without fire, but in a lot of recent cases there really was. You can't look at Pizzagate and say "well why would someone start that story if it wasn't true?" and it ends with someone busting into a restaurant with a gun and opening fire.

but on the subject of conspiracy theories, they are all wacko and complete nonsense until they become real

Most of them dont though.
Do I think governments have done some dodgy crap. Definitely especially in the cold war period.
However as that saying goes "Keep an open mind but not so open your brain falls out".
Most of those examples are clearly the wrong side of that. The rest dont even count since seem to have just been straight made up without even a mild factual claim serving as the jumping ground to nuttery.

Not read the article yet, but on the subject of conspiracy theories, they are all wacko and complete nonsense until they become real. Who would of believed that the US govnt were stealing children’s dead bodies to test the effects of radiation poisoning (project sunshine)? Or that they would test hallucinogenic drugs on civilians (MK-Ultra).

No, they remain wacko and complete nonsense unless they become real.

There's a world of difference between serious investigation that uncovers hard corroborative evidence and what these idiots are doing. They are just recording YouTube videos about fanciful stories based on other YouTube videos about fanciful stories.

There's not a shred of evidence that Sandy Hook was faked. That story is a lie from start to finish. There is no evidence that vaccines do not provide a huge net benefit to the health of our society.

No, they remain wacko and complete nonsense unless they become real.
There’s a world of difference between serious investigation that uncovers hard corroborative evidence and what these idiots are doing. They are just recording YouTube videos about fanciful stories based on other YouTube videos about fanciful stories.
There’s not a shred of evidence that Sandy Hook was faked. That story is a lie from start to finish. There is no evidence that vaccines do not provide a huge net benefit to the health of our society.

good point well made.

cucked vegans

could be worse: vegan cooks...

Wow. Reading that makes me sad on so many levels: for the individuals affected directly, for those that are suckered into these beliefs without questioning, and for the rest of the world where this disregard of facts is now normal.

A very scary read. I think that the transition from questioning governments to attacking individuals is a huge problem.

The vaccine thing is amazing. There was a case in Britain where a mother was on social media looking for support after her baby got Hooping cough. She thought medical staff were unfair to point out that the baby probably caught the disease from an unvaccinated sibling

Trailwagger read the article

Not read the article yet, but on the subject of conspiracy theories, they are all wacko and complete nonsense until they become real. Who would of believed that the US govnt were stealing children’s dead bodies to test the effects of radiation poisoning (project sunshine)? Or that they would test hallucinogenic drugs on civilians (MK-Ultra).

But those stories are based on collecting evidence to support a story that is true. The people who broke those stories didn't issue death threats when people disagreed. If a proper journalist is investigating Sandy Hook and they might meet the father of a victim. If they are shown a birth certificate to show that the child is real they might look for other sources. Check where it was issued, ask to see photos, interview other friends and relatives. They wouldn’t threaten to kill the farther. That is not about finding the truth

Will social media eventually implode into a mass of complete fantasy?

Are we sure it hasn't already?

The antivaxxer debate should probably be separated out as the result of a different problem - junk "science" and predatory journals.

Topical...

The antivaxxer debate should probably be separated out as the result of a different problem – junk “science” and predatory journals.

Lets not forget that the Wakefield findings were published in the Lancet, not some dodgy pay-to-play rag.

From there, what the story brings into focus as with "junk science" generally is the widespread scientific illiteracy within journalism (cos the mainstream "serious" news media went big on the story without really understanding it). Personally I think this is a consequence of the way our education system forces specialisation very early - unlike many other developed countries where people get a "general" education up to the age of 18, in this country it's at 13 that you pick your GCSE options and leave whole areas of learning behind, so many who went down the "arts" stream and eventually became journalists haven't studied any science to even GCSE level (and correspondingly perhaps, many scientists are relatively crap communicators cos they dropped the "arts" subjects at the same age).

So we've got journalists who don't understand science very well, and scientists who aren't so well equipped to communicate to the rest of us, and into that gap appear the charlatans and chancers who make a good living by scaring people with woo.

So we’ve got journalists who don’t understand science very well, and scientists who aren’t so well equipped to communicate to the rest of us, and into that gap appear the charlatans and chancers who make a good living by scaring people with woo.

Indeed. And Ben Goldacre trying to call it out. His Bad Science book was an interesting read. I've yet to read his Bad Pharma book but I bet there's plenty of examples of the pharmaceutical industry burying bad data which plays into the hands of the conspiracy theorists & anti-vaxxers.

Another shout out for "Bad Science"

My 2 picks would be MRSA super bug story for journalists not getting it. More so than MMR thing

1,300 stories in the main stream media about MRSA in hospitals. Despite no actual scientists finding it or thinking it could live on hard surfaces. But a broke man in a shed with no Biology knowledge would say you had found it for a small fee...

That and crystal Homeopathy.....

True, it was the lancet that published it and failed to retract for 13 years but the 12 or 13 doctors involved in the study never disclosed that they were partly funded by persons trying to sue the vaccine makers.
Also Wakefields primary position was not don't vaccinate, it was uncombine the vaccines.

Journos suck at writing, period these days. As you say, scientists, or more generally, experts in their field are absolutely lousy at explaining their field to people who aren't expert in their field.
The media also bears some responsibility for their tendency to preserve editorial content as news content.

Wow. Reading that makes me sad on so many levels: for the individuals affected directly, for those that are suckered into these beliefs without questioning, and for the rest of the world where this disregard of facts is now normal.

A very scary read. I think that the transition from questioning governments to attacking individuals is a huge problem.

Exactly, my reaction wasn’t just sadness, on behalf of the families of the victims, but also impotent rage against those indulging in the attacks against them.
It’s bad enough that there are those who believe that nobody died, that the whole thing was a hoax designed to discredit the antifa and anti-gun lobbyists, and ‘liberals and left-wingers’ but to actually threaten violence against grieving families of the dead is beyond despicable, I can barely express my contempt for them, certainly not in terms that the forum Mods would allow me to post on the forum.

Also Wakefields primary position was not don’t vaccinate, it was uncombine the vaccines.

Which is a dangerous suggestion, because when you start using separate vaccinations, some people won't complete the programme and your overall vaccination rates fall.

Wakefield is an utterly fraudulent crook, who was prepared to lie and risk kids' lives for his own financical gain, and he's still at it.

Although borne out of bad science the anti-vaxxer movement morphed into a conspiracy theory. Alex Jones provides Andrew Wakefield with a platform (although Infowars is banned on mainstream platforms he’s given an outlet by people linking his videos, Twitter n’ that are all in on it anyway) where they now believe that Big Pharma are working to discredit another scientist named Dr Zimmerman, who says there’s a link between a reaction to vaccines such as a fever or immune stimulation causing a “regressive brain disease with features of autism spectrum disorder” which Jones describes as a brain injury, disease, pain, inability to communicate and a terrifying disorder dysfunction for any neurotypical to deal with. Would you say that someone who was left brain damaged after having swine flu had developed or caught autism?
The problem is that even if you don’t believe that vaccines cause autism you are likely to believe some of the myths surrounding autism, such as the extreme male brain theory or that we lack empathy, don’t like loud noises or touch, are violent, can’t communicate… All of which can be extremely detrimental to the individual. These ideas not only permeate through the gullible but through education, employment, friendships and healthcare by the seemingly educated and clean living set.
It’s scary how extremists will single out innocent individuals to target but it’s mental how rarely we question our own biases which negatively affect others