4 ms·

I’ve tried to understand them, their rationale appears include: - 5G occurred at the same time as corona - This is therefore “too much of a coincidence” - 5G

by jpxw 7y ago

I’ve tried to understand them, their rationale appears include: - 5G occurred at the same time as corona - This is therefore “too much of a coincidence” - 5G kills off things that naturally kill coronavirus - 5G makes our immune systems weaker All of which are unfounded of course. But it’s important not to just reject people’s ideas out-of-hand, or to suppress them.

technion 7y ago
The argument all over my facebook feed is that Africa is both the only country with no Coronavirus and the only country with no 5G. But really, these are the same friends arguing for flat earth in a lot of cases.
- ldrndll 7y ago
  The number of things wrong with this makes me despair. 1. Africa is a continent, not a country. 2. Some countries in Africa DO have 5G deployments, including my home country of South Africa. In the news recently is a possible link between BCG vaccinations and reduced fatality rates from Covid-19. South Africa has fairly high BCG vaccination rates due to the prevalence of TB 3. Iran has a severe problem with Covid-19, but no 5G deployments. But as you say, this comes from the same type of crowd that believes in all the other bullshit (flat earth, vaccinations give you autism, etc.) so you can hardly expect an informed response to this.
Beltiras 7y ago
For every reasoned answer you give them an avalanche of utter bullshit flows forth. This might be one of those rare occasions where the solution to bad speech is not more speech. The mind of the conspiracy believers is just too darned efficient at justifying bad reasoning.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  Alternatively your reasoned answer wasn't as good as you think it was.
  - Beltiras 7y ago
    To the conspiracy minded no answer is good enough.
    - filoleg 7y ago
      Yes, but to those who are undecided and are on the edge, a good answer might pull them to the right side. I know for a fact that it happened to me multiple times, when I saw a heated argument between two people (mostly on technical topics though, not something like corona).
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    @Beltiras Or maybe that's just your excuse to not even try.
Kaiyou 7y ago
Maybe unfounded but it's no like I can't see where they are coming from. Neither do I have the ability to refute any of those points.
mindslight 7y ago
My aunt sent me a video asking my opinion (yay?), and I've been hearing ominous FUD about "5G" long enough that I wanted to see where it was actually coming from. So I watched it. The bit I gleaned was the claim that since 60GHz is absorbed by oxygen (haven't checked this, but I'd assume similar to 2.4GHz being absorbed by water), it therefore interferes with your lungs' ability to intake oxygen. (my low-effort analysis: the radio waves won't penetrate your skin by more than a few millimeters, and therefore could in no way act in your lungs) The whole narrative was much jumping around making connections that would seem plausible if you don't know or try to investigate technical details. For example - a defense contractor worked on 60GHz gear as well as communications for cruise ships -> smoking gun! I'm sure there was plenty of innuendo that rolled right off my back, but makes an emotional impression. My aunt had gotten the impression that 5G is 50-60 times the power of a microwave oven. I couldn't bring myself to watch the video again to find what could possibly be interpreted this way, but I'm guessing it was talking about the frequency while implying magnitude.

by jpxw 7y ago

technion 7y ago

The argument all over my facebook feed is that Africa is both the only country with no Coronavirus and the only country with no 5G. But really, these are the same friends arguing for flat earth in a lot of cases.

ldrndll 7y ago
The number of things wrong with this makes me despair. 1. Africa is a continent, not a country. 2. Some countries in Africa DO have 5G deployments, including my home country of South Africa. In the news recently is a possible link between BCG vaccinations and reduced fatality rates from Covid-19. South Africa has fairly high BCG vaccination rates due to the prevalence of TB 3. Iran has a severe problem with Covid-19, but no 5G deployments. But as you say, this comes from the same type of crowd that believes in all the other bullshit (flat earth, vaccinations give you autism, etc.) so you can hardly expect an informed response to this.

Beltiras 7y ago

For every reasoned answer you give them an avalanche of utter bullshit flows forth. This might be one of those rare occasions where the solution to bad speech is not more speech. The mind of the conspiracy believers is just too darned efficient at justifying bad reasoning.

Kaiyou 7y ago
Alternatively your reasoned answer wasn't as good as you think it was.
- Beltiras 7y ago
  To the conspiracy minded no answer is good enough.
  - filoleg 7y ago
    Yes, but to those who are undecided and are on the edge, a good answer might pull them to the right side. I know for a fact that it happened to me multiple times, when I saw a heated argument between two people (mostly on technical topics though, not something like corona).
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  @Beltiras Or maybe that's just your excuse to not even try.

Kaiyou 7y ago

Maybe unfounded but it's no like I can't see where they are coming from. Neither do I have the ability to refute any of those points.

mindslight 7y ago

My aunt sent me a video asking my opinion (yay?), and I've been hearing ominous FUD about "5G" long enough that I wanted to see where it was actually coming from. So I watched it. The bit I gleaned was the claim that since 60GHz is absorbed by oxygen (haven't checked this, but I'd assume similar to 2.4GHz being absorbed by water), it therefore interferes with your lungs' ability to intake oxygen. (my low-effort analysis: the radio waves won't penetrate your skin by more than a few millimeters, and therefore could in no way act in your lungs) The whole narrative was much jumping around making connections that would seem plausible if you don't know or try to investigate technical details. For example - a defense contractor worked on 60GHz gear as well as communications for cruise ships -> smoking gun! I'm sure there was plenty of innuendo that rolled right off my back, but makes an emotional impression. My aunt had gotten the impression that 5G is 50-60 times the power of a microwave oven. I couldn't bring myself to watch the video again to find what could possibly be interpreted this way, but I'm guessing it was talking about the frequency while implying magnitude.