6 ms·

Conspiracy theorists are always going to weave conspiracy theories, though. That doesn't absolve the media or the rest of us from being the adults in the room.

andrewflnr 6y ago
Absolve, no. Explain... maybe.
p1necone 6y ago
Yes but when when people consistently bring up the mostly unfalsifiable theory that is most associated with conspiracy theories it's basically impossible to separate the conspiracy theorists from everyone else, and sadly much more productive to just not engage.
- Mat342 6y ago
  Wait people can't debunk dumdum conspiracy theories? sad
  - InitialLastName 6y ago
    There's an evolutionary theory of conspiracy theories (that I just made up) that they self-select for plausible unfalsifiability. If a theory has a weakness can be proven incorrect, people will eventually patch it with an ephemeral insinuation that "you know what happened here" and move on.
twelve40 6y ago
But some things make no sense at all. The most populated country on the planet - a vast, vast population across the area almost as big as the US - has been inexplicably reporting almost zero infections since like March 10, 2020 (way before any vaccines) while the rest of the world (except small and isolated regions), the richest and presumably the most advanced societies still can't get their shit together, are still FUDdding over the upcoming Nth wave and locking down again (see EU today). How???
- TimJRobinson 6y ago
  Australia, NZ and many countries in Asia did just fine. You just need a government that has its shit together and a populace that complies with the government. When you're missing one or both of those elements of course you're going to have problems with a pandemic.
  - twelve40 6y ago
    So both China's government and 1.4B populace have their shit together, fully solved at ~0 infections pre-vaccine for one full year now, but the US, the EU, the newly non-EU UK, and (to a lesser extent) Japan all failed miserably?
    - mathw 6y ago
      It's not so much about having their shit together as having a terrifying autocratic government of the kind the UK government are still pretending (unconvincingly) they don't dream of emulating. Also there may well be areas of China where the virus never reached. I gather internal travel isn't massively widespread, and the severity of the lockdowns they imposed exceeded anything seen in the US or UK.
      - twelve40 6y ago
        I haven't compared the severity of lockdowns or intensity of travel in China and other countries. I've never been to China. But, I've read that it's a very complex society with tons of different ethnic groups, massive inequality, massive migration waves back to the cities and forth, massive problems like tuberculosis rate 20x the TB rate in the States, so saying how they just lock every single human down seems like a bit of an oversimplification to me. But what do i know.
    - Pyramus 6y ago
      There is no silver bullet here - China is not exactly your friendly democracy. Also beware that there are reports of China having started vaccinations long before safety and efficacy results. The flipside of exponential growth is exponential fall: In the best case if you can eliminate all social contact for 5-14 days the virus is essentially gone. But very few Western democracies are able to agree on super strict lockdowns, and if they do, they need their neighbouring countries to follow.

andrewflnr 6y ago

Absolve, no. Explain... maybe.

p1necone 6y ago

Yes but when when people consistently bring up the mostly unfalsifiable theory that is most associated with conspiracy theories it's basically impossible to separate the conspiracy theorists from everyone else, and sadly much more productive to just not engage.

Mat342 6y ago
Wait people can't debunk dumdum conspiracy theories? sad
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  There's an evolutionary theory of conspiracy theories (that I just made up) that they self-select for plausible unfalsifiability. If a theory has a weakness can be proven incorrect, people will eventually patch it with an ephemeral insinuation that "you know what happened here" and move on.

twelve40 6y ago

But some things make no sense at all. The most populated country on the planet - a vast, vast population across the area almost as big as the US - has been inexplicably reporting almost zero infections since like March 10, 2020 (way before any vaccines) while the rest of the world (except small and isolated regions), the richest and presumably the most advanced societies still can't get their shit together, are still FUDdding over the upcoming Nth wave and locking down again (see EU today). How???

TimJRobinson 6y ago
Australia, NZ and many countries in Asia did just fine. You just need a government that has its shit together and a populace that complies with the government. When you're missing one or both of those elements of course you're going to have problems with a pandemic.
- twelve40 6y ago
  So both China's government and 1.4B populace have their shit together, fully solved at ~0 infections pre-vaccine for one full year now, but the US, the EU, the newly non-EU UK, and (to a lesser extent) Japan all failed miserably?
  - mathw 6y ago
    It's not so much about having their shit together as having a terrifying autocratic government of the kind the UK government are still pretending (unconvincingly) they don't dream of emulating. Also there may well be areas of China where the virus never reached. I gather internal travel isn't massively widespread, and the severity of the lockdowns they imposed exceeded anything seen in the US or UK.
    - twelve40 6y ago
      I haven't compared the severity of lockdowns or intensity of travel in China and other countries. I've never been to China. But, I've read that it's a very complex society with tons of different ethnic groups, massive inequality, massive migration waves back to the cities and forth, massive problems like tuberculosis rate 20x the TB rate in the States, so saying how they just lock every single human down seems like a bit of an oversimplification to me. But what do i know.
  - Pyramus 6y ago
    There is no silver bullet here - China is not exactly your friendly democracy. Also beware that there are reports of China having started vaccinations long before safety and efficacy results. The flipside of exponential growth is exponential fall: In the best case if you can eliminate all social contact for 5-14 days the virus is essentially gone. But very few Western democracies are able to agree on super strict lockdowns, and if they do, they need their neighbouring countries to follow.