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I may or may not agree with this document or this website (never heard of them), but honestly, I am genuinely shocked at the number of people I run into both on

I may or may not agree with this document or this website (never heard of them), but honestly, I am genuinely shocked at the number of people I run into both on the street and at my workplace (a university of higher learning) that absolutely believe that COVID-19 is a conspiracy. They are hell bent on not wearing masks, think this is all a load, and that we should ignore everything anyone from CDC (or any medical doctor that does not agree with them for that matter) says about it. I'm still baffled every day at the depths of our own misguided thoughts and beliefs.

habanany 6y ago
I may or may not agree with this document or this website (never heard of them), but honestly, I am genuinely shocked at the number of people I run into both on the street and at my workplace (a university of higher learning) that does not believe that COVID-19 is conspiracy. They are hell bent on that everybody should wear masks, don’t think this is all a load, and that we should ignore everything anyone outside the CDC (or any medical doctor that does not agree with them for that matter) says about it. I'm still baffled every day at the depths of our own misguided thoughts and beliefs. ️
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wyldfire 6y ago
It's a direct result of membership in a cult of personality. :(
- gameswithgo 6y ago
  I think this trend started with the Internet becoming mainstream, not with Trump. Trump has certainly encouraged and leveraged it though. Not sure if on purpose or just because he happens to be one of them.
- adrianN 6y ago
  Which personality would that be? These people exist in every country.
  - wyldfire 6y ago
    President Trump is a public figure whose global visibility is positively unmatched by anyone. This is because he is POTUS but also particularly because he stakes outrageously false claims that draw in the media at every turn. He sows doubt regarding the credibility of scientists in his own administration in agencies like CDC, NOAA, EPA and more. But of particular relevance to this subject is his opposition to (1) wearing masks as a role model, (2) mandating masks as a nation's leader. His general suggestions to the public that the virus is not a threat give voice to those who would claim that "it's all a hoax."
tboyd47 6y ago
Can you provide one peer-reviewed study that shows that universal masking (i.e. mandating the general public wear masks made of any material) slows the spread of COVID-19 or a similar respiratory disease?
- ahelwer 6y ago
  I've been down this road with a few people, so I'll take a shortcut and get to the crux of it: do you believe that masks stop spread of coronavirus between individuals? If so, what factor would account for masks stopping spread between individuals but not stopping spread over the population?
  - tboyd47 6y ago
    I don't know if it does or doesn't, because I've never seen any scientific studies on universal mask mandates. That's why I'm asking.
    - garyrob 6y ago
      Somebody posted in response to your original post that it took them 30 seconds to find this: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2 Does it influence your position on whether or not masks are useful?
      - DanBC 6y ago
        That paper says "when you put a mask on, and we immediately ask you to exhale onto a plate, we don't detect virus on that plate". Parent poster isn't asking whether masks trap particles or not (clearly, they do), they're asking a much more interesting and useful question which is if we make everyone wear a mask does that prevent the spread of disease or not? So far, we really don't have much evidence. In this thread, where lots of people are posting links, there's only one decent link posted by gameswithgo here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24589569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24589569
      - 6y ago
kube-system 6y ago
What once was a culture of skepticism in the US seems to have devolved into a culture of mistrust. I wonder what has driven this apparent shift. Is it because of TV shows that introduce and entertain these ideas in people's minds? Is it because clickbait has driven media to resort to entertaining more fringe ideas in the quest for viewership? Is it because media literacy hasn't kept up with the flood of reputable-looking but agenda-driven media outlets?
- mc32 6y ago
  Personally I think it’s because journalism and media don’t so much seek to investigate what holds as much as they carry water for a certain narrative. If someone has a legitimate question it’s batted away with out weighing evidence or lack there of. From this POV they cannot be taken at face value. The Vitamin D thing or HCQ thing. Whether or not they prove useful, the media would not even consider whether they were useful or not. It was just “NO!” Likely this knee jerk reaction was due to a certain person floating them as options. If Bill G had floated them as he floats his own favorite solutions, the reaction would have been different.
  - 7thaccount 6y ago
    Both of those things were investigated and shown to not be a silver bullet and I think HCQ actually is harmful. The problem is Trump doubled down rather than simply informing us that the latest research had recently shown otherwise. Their need to calm people is influencing what they say.
    - mc32 6y ago
      I understand but also understand these are just some examples of the “narrative” carrying I believe undermine their trust. We know nothing is a silver bullet, but we also know HCQ is prescribed or was to people going to the tropics and in some of those countries it’s OTC, so then labeling it as dangerous as heroin is kind of disingenuous. Sure you don’t want to dose yourself... but it’s also not as dangerous as they made it out to be.
yanks215 6y ago
Institutional trust has eroded. The US surgeon general and Fauci told people to stop buying masks. Then they reversed themselves, and defended their position at the time. Media reports "fiery, but mostly peaceful protests". What intelligent person would trust institutions that are inconsistent and refuse accountability? What intelligent person can cope with the dissonance of arson = peace? Can you blame distrust given this environment?
- helen___keller 6y ago
  I agree with > Institutional trust has eroded. I think the biggest problem is social media. A reasonable person would make this same conclusion you have, for example: > What intelligent person can cope with the dissonance of arson = peace? And yet another person who gets their information from another source, would reach the opposite conclusion. The simple fact is that enough happened in enough locations that if you hone in on one protest here or one riot there you can paint a completely different picture. For full disclosure, most of the images I got of the protests personally were from a twitch stream called "Woke" which was a compilation stream of about usually 5-10 simultaneous protest streams from different cities. I don't think I ever once witnessed arson or another crime, despite having watched that stream ever night during the height of the protests. But I don't doubt there was arson and numerous other crimes. In other words, I am particularly pessimistic that it is possible to have institutional trust anymore, because the events in our world are so numerous and nuanced that it is frankly impossible to give a succinct, consistent, and accountable view of them. Same with the mask thing: Fauci and the surgeon general were absolutely correct telling people to stop buying masks when there was a shortage and hospitals were running out of them. And they are absolutely correct now telling people that, with no remaining shortage, we should all have masks and wear them to stop the spread (in particular now that most people aren't sheltering in place anymore). But that level of nuance doesn't come through, especially in a world where most "news" comes from headlines on reddit links and facebook posts.
  - mc32 6y ago
    >” The simple fact is that enough happened in enough location..” But why with the backdrop of that violence do they characterize that one “as mostly peaceful”. They could at least have been forthcoming and said while most are peaceful this one has devolved into violence you see behind me. But they are like Baghdad Bob ignoring the bombs falling as he broadcasts...
bpyne 6y ago
Scared people sometimes look for control over a situation to feel less scared. The hypothesis that COVID-19 is man-made makes it seem like we have some control over it, whereas, the thought that it developed outside of human control and might happen again terrifies them.
- krapp 6y ago
  >The hypothesis that COVID-19 is man-made makes it seem like we have some control over it, whereas, the thought that it developed outside of human control and might happen again terrifies them. The hypothesis that COVID is man-made is an inevitable result of already existing conspiracy theories about Chinese communist plots and "globalist/NWO" population control programs that go back decades. The only novel aspect of this is the degree to which it's been normalized and adopted as part of mainstream Republican identity politics.
  - bpyne 6y ago
    "The hypothesis that COVID is man-made is an inevitable result of already existing conspiracy theories about Chinese communist plots and "globalist/NWO" population control programs that go back decades. The only novel aspect of this is the degree to which it's been normalized and adopted as part of mainstream Republican identity politics." And people are willing to believe conspiracies due to fear. The US elected a president who has a trail of failed businesses and marriages, as well as, a moral system that would make hardened criminals squirm. But, like any good con artist, he projects confidence and makes complex topics simple by ignoring details. Scared people cling to those cults of personality like a life preserver. The fear started long before the 2016 election. The US is changing demographically and with it comes change culturally. Some people fear their place in a society in which they're no longer the majority.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
hnthrowway2020 6y ago
Meh. I personally believe this pandemic just exposes differences in people's value systems. There are those who are risk-averse and those who are risk-affine. There are those who value freedom of choice over safety restrictions and there are those who would rather save the weak than keep their freedom. It is an interesting moral dilemma and this entire affair has turned into religious debate for me. There is no real "right" or "wrong" here. Everyone can argue until they are blue in the face whether all these policy decisions are correct or necessary. It all depends on what you believe society should be like.
- jlokier 6y ago
  > those who would rather save the weak than keep their freedom You show a strong bias here. I would say "those who would rather save the unlucky". Dying of Covid-19 or getting Long Covid is not due to "weakness".
sleepysysadmin 6y ago
The entire system is political. That's the problem. Imagine you are emperor of whatever country and you're sitting there in February with a potentially very deadly mostly unknown highly contagious virus. You are forced to shutdown. The problem is that your bias will leak into that shutdown and make the entire situation appear like a conspiracy. Then people step back and look at the context. Hong Kong Protests, Yellow Vests + french martial law + banning public protests before covid, black lives matter, canadian oil blockade country wide, etc etc. Every place that had ongoing anti-government protests were quick to jump to lockdowns. Then came the squashing of free speech. You're not allowed to 'spread misinformation' on covid. Mass arrests of people for 'spreading misinformation'. Wait, there's a global recession, global protests against government and the government is restricting speech? We're not allowed to talk about it? What we need to do is similar to the military. Medical decisions are outside the chain of command. Remove the politicians from this equation. Fix the entire problem.
jokethrowaway 6y ago
I don't know anyone that believes it's a conspiracy, but they don't believe it's as serious as the media or the governments portrayed. Which is actually supported by studies that say infection rate is higher than we think (making the mortality rate lower) and by recent data saying that hospitals got 4 times better at not killing patients (mainly by using steroids and not using invasive ventilators). This last peak of infections didn't bring the amount of deaths we were expecting. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/06/why-is-it-that-while-covid-19-cases-are-rising-deaths-continue-to-fall https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/06/why-is-it-that...

habanany 6y ago

I may or may not agree with this document or this website (never heard of them), but honestly, I am genuinely shocked at the number of people I run into both on the street and at my workplace (a university of higher learning) that does not believe that COVID-19 is conspiracy. They are hell bent on that everybody should wear masks, don’t think this is all a load, and that we should ignore everything anyone outside the CDC (or any medical doctor that does not agree with them for that matter) says about it. I'm still baffled every day at the depths of our own misguided thoughts and beliefs. ️

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wyldfire 6y ago

It's a direct result of membership in a cult of personality. :(

gameswithgo 6y ago
I think this trend started with the Internet becoming mainstream, not with Trump. Trump has certainly encouraged and leveraged it though. Not sure if on purpose or just because he happens to be one of them.
adrianN 6y ago
Which personality would that be? These people exist in every country.
- wyldfire 6y ago
  President Trump is a public figure whose global visibility is positively unmatched by anyone. This is because he is POTUS but also particularly because he stakes outrageously false claims that draw in the media at every turn. He sows doubt regarding the credibility of scientists in his own administration in agencies like CDC, NOAA, EPA and more. But of particular relevance to this subject is his opposition to (1) wearing masks as a role model, (2) mandating masks as a nation's leader. His general suggestions to the public that the virus is not a threat give voice to those who would claim that "it's all a hoax."

tboyd47 6y ago

Can you provide one peer-reviewed study that shows that universal masking (i.e. mandating the general public wear masks made of any material) slows the spread of COVID-19 or a similar respiratory disease?

ahelwer 6y ago
I've been down this road with a few people, so I'll take a shortcut and get to the crux of it: do you believe that masks stop spread of coronavirus between individuals? If so, what factor would account for masks stopping spread between individuals but not stopping spread over the population?
- tboyd47 6y ago
  I don't know if it does or doesn't, because I've never seen any scientific studies on universal mask mandates. That's why I'm asking.
  - garyrob 6y ago
    Somebody posted in response to your original post that it took them 30 seconds to find this: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2 Does it influence your position on whether or not masks are useful?
    - DanBC 6y ago
      That paper says "when you put a mask on, and we immediately ask you to exhale onto a plate, we don't detect virus on that plate". Parent poster isn't asking whether masks trap particles or not (clearly, they do), they're asking a much more interesting and useful question which is if we make everyone wear a mask does that prevent the spread of disease or not? So far, we really don't have much evidence. In this thread, where lots of people are posting links, there's only one decent link posted by gameswithgo here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24589569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24589569
    - 6y ago

kube-system 6y ago

What once was a culture of skepticism in the US seems to have devolved into a culture of mistrust. I wonder what has driven this apparent shift. Is it because of TV shows that introduce and entertain these ideas in people's minds? Is it because clickbait has driven media to resort to entertaining more fringe ideas in the quest for viewership? Is it because media literacy hasn't kept up with the flood of reputable-looking but agenda-driven media outlets?

mc32 6y ago
Personally I think it’s because journalism and media don’t so much seek to investigate what holds as much as they carry water for a certain narrative. If someone has a legitimate question it’s batted away with out weighing evidence or lack there of. From this POV they cannot be taken at face value. The Vitamin D thing or HCQ thing. Whether or not they prove useful, the media would not even consider whether they were useful or not. It was just “NO!” Likely this knee jerk reaction was due to a certain person floating them as options. If Bill G had floated them as he floats his own favorite solutions, the reaction would have been different.
- 7thaccount 6y ago
  Both of those things were investigated and shown to not be a silver bullet and I think HCQ actually is harmful. The problem is Trump doubled down rather than simply informing us that the latest research had recently shown otherwise. Their need to calm people is influencing what they say.
  - mc32 6y ago
    I understand but also understand these are just some examples of the “narrative” carrying I believe undermine their trust. We know nothing is a silver bullet, but we also know HCQ is prescribed or was to people going to the tropics and in some of those countries it’s OTC, so then labeling it as dangerous as heroin is kind of disingenuous. Sure you don’t want to dose yourself... but it’s also not as dangerous as they made it out to be.

yanks215 6y ago

Institutional trust has eroded. The US surgeon general and Fauci told people to stop buying masks. Then they reversed themselves, and defended their position at the time. Media reports "fiery, but mostly peaceful protests". What intelligent person would trust institutions that are inconsistent and refuse accountability? What intelligent person can cope with the dissonance of arson = peace? Can you blame distrust given this environment?

helen___keller 6y ago
I agree with > Institutional trust has eroded. I think the biggest problem is social media. A reasonable person would make this same conclusion you have, for example: > What intelligent person can cope with the dissonance of arson = peace? And yet another person who gets their information from another source, would reach the opposite conclusion. The simple fact is that enough happened in enough locations that if you hone in on one protest here or one riot there you can paint a completely different picture. For full disclosure, most of the images I got of the protests personally were from a twitch stream called "Woke" which was a compilation stream of about usually 5-10 simultaneous protest streams from different cities. I don't think I ever once witnessed arson or another crime, despite having watched that stream ever night during the height of the protests. But I don't doubt there was arson and numerous other crimes. In other words, I am particularly pessimistic that it is possible to have institutional trust anymore, because the events in our world are so numerous and nuanced that it is frankly impossible to give a succinct, consistent, and accountable view of them. Same with the mask thing: Fauci and the surgeon general were absolutely correct telling people to stop buying masks when there was a shortage and hospitals were running out of them. And they are absolutely correct now telling people that, with no remaining shortage, we should all have masks and wear them to stop the spread (in particular now that most people aren't sheltering in place anymore). But that level of nuance doesn't come through, especially in a world where most "news" comes from headlines on reddit links and facebook posts.
- mc32 6y ago
  >” The simple fact is that enough happened in enough location..” But why with the backdrop of that violence do they characterize that one “as mostly peaceful”. They could at least have been forthcoming and said while most are peaceful this one has devolved into violence you see behind me. But they are like Baghdad Bob ignoring the bombs falling as he broadcasts...

bpyne 6y ago

Scared people sometimes look for control over a situation to feel less scared. The hypothesis that COVID-19 is man-made makes it seem like we have some control over it, whereas, the thought that it developed outside of human control and might happen again terrifies them.

krapp 6y ago
>The hypothesis that COVID-19 is man-made makes it seem like we have some control over it, whereas, the thought that it developed outside of human control and might happen again terrifies them. The hypothesis that COVID is man-made is an inevitable result of already existing conspiracy theories about Chinese communist plots and "globalist/NWO" population control programs that go back decades. The only novel aspect of this is the degree to which it's been normalized and adopted as part of mainstream Republican identity politics.
- bpyne 6y ago
  "The hypothesis that COVID is man-made is an inevitable result of already existing conspiracy theories about Chinese communist plots and "globalist/NWO" population control programs that go back decades. The only novel aspect of this is the degree to which it's been normalized and adopted as part of mainstream Republican identity politics." And people are willing to believe conspiracies due to fear. The US elected a president who has a trail of failed businesses and marriages, as well as, a moral system that would make hardened criminals squirm. But, like any good con artist, he projects confidence and makes complex topics simple by ignoring details. Scared people cling to those cults of personality like a life preserver. The fear started long before the 2016 election. The US is changing demographically and with it comes change culturally. Some people fear their place in a society in which they're no longer the majority.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

hnthrowway2020 6y ago

Meh. I personally believe this pandemic just exposes differences in people's value systems. There are those who are risk-averse and those who are risk-affine. There are those who value freedom of choice over safety restrictions and there are those who would rather save the weak than keep their freedom. It is an interesting moral dilemma and this entire affair has turned into religious debate for me. There is no real "right" or "wrong" here. Everyone can argue until they are blue in the face whether all these policy decisions are correct or necessary. It all depends on what you believe society should be like.

jlokier 6y ago
> those who would rather save the weak than keep their freedom You show a strong bias here. I would say "those who would rather save the unlucky". Dying of Covid-19 or getting Long Covid is not due to "weakness".

sleepysysadmin 6y ago

The entire system is political. That's the problem. Imagine you are emperor of whatever country and you're sitting there in February with a potentially very deadly mostly unknown highly contagious virus. You are forced to shutdown. The problem is that your bias will leak into that shutdown and make the entire situation appear like a conspiracy. Then people step back and look at the context. Hong Kong Protests, Yellow Vests + french martial law + banning public protests before covid, black lives matter, canadian oil blockade country wide, etc etc. Every place that had ongoing anti-government protests were quick to jump to lockdowns. Then came the squashing of free speech. You're not allowed to 'spread misinformation' on covid. Mass arrests of people for 'spreading misinformation'. Wait, there's a global recession, global protests against government and the government is restricting speech? We're not allowed to talk about it? What we need to do is similar to the military. Medical decisions are outside the chain of command. Remove the politicians from this equation. Fix the entire problem.

jokethrowaway 6y ago

I don't know anyone that believes it's a conspiracy, but they don't believe it's as serious as the media or the governments portrayed. Which is actually supported by studies that say infection rate is higher than we think (making the mortality rate lower) and by recent data saying that hospitals got 4 times better at not killing patients (mainly by using steroids and not using invasive ventilators). This last peak of infections didn't bring the amount of deaths we were expecting. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/06/why-is-it-that-while-covid-19-cases-are-rising-deaths-continue-to-fall https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/06/why-is-it-that...