4 ms·

An important part of the problem, I think, is that there are plenty of examples of large corporations putting people at risk or harming them, either knowingly o

by krylon 5y ago

An important part of the problem, I think, is that there are plenty of examples of large corporations putting people at risk or harming them, either knowingly or out of negligence, and then lying like a rug about it or trying to cover it up. Think of the tobacco industry denying or downplaying the risks of smoking, knowing full well about the harm it causes. Or the pharma industry pushing opioids on physicians and patients, claiming with a straight face they were not addictive. I'm too lazy right now to go looking, but I'm certain there are plenty more cases like this. Suspecting large corporations or even entire industries of putting profits above the health or lives of lots and lots of people is not really crazy. Suspecting that Covid vaccines are a vector of implanting microchips in people so they can be mind-controlled via 5g is crazy, IMHO. But the line between these is somewhat blurry. And neither corporations nor governments seem to be doing a very good job of dealing with this other than paint people who are hovering in that blurry area in the crazy corner. One may feel morally righteous in doing so, but it is very counterproductive. If we want people to come back to the "sane side", we need to convince them, not pressure or insult them.

throwaway22032 5y ago
Is it blurry? It seems to me like the difference comes about when you move from something which is reasonably plausible or justifiable but can be shown evidentially to be incorrect, versus something that's just well, random. "I don't trust vaccines because pharmaceutical companies have a financial incentive for me to take them/my government is forcing me/etc" are reasonable viewpoints to hold. The reasoning is based on correct information and true premises, it's sensible to be skeptical of something that suddenly comes out of nowhere and is being pushed from all angles. You can even hold that viewpoint and take the vaccine anyway because you figure, sure, they want to push them, but that doesn't mean they're not also actually useful and beneficial for the recipients. I'm struggling to explain here, but basically, the right side of the equation "X is happening" is correct, but the left side "therefore Y" is problematic. "I don't trust vaccines because they have 5g microchips in" is wrong on both sides. They don't have 5g microchips in, we can show that. Even if they had an incentive to do so, they can't. That's the line in my view, whether something is even possible.
- krylon 5y ago
  A lot of people that go full-on cuckoo bananas conspiracy theorist start out with a realization like "big pharma is pushing opioids on the people, killing thousands, just to line their pockets", and then gradually slide towards things like "Bill Gates wants to microchip people so he can control their brains". It's not like they go from 0 to 100 in a single step. The best metaphor I can come up with is the event horizon of a black hole. To an outside observer, it's a very sharp line indeed. But to somebody falling into a black hole, Wikipedia tells me, it is impossible to tell when they cross the event horizon. If you only observe specific points, there is a clear line between sane and crazy; but if you move between these points, you probably don't perceive that line as you approach and cross it. And human beings have a strong tendency, once they accept some kind of belief, to interpret all evidence/observations so as to support that belief, even if it seems to prove the exact opposite to someone who doesn't share that belief.
  - throwaway22032 5y ago
    Yeah, I suppose. I wonder if it's more that they're teetering on the edge and then some traumatic experience just bounces them in. Based on personal experience I've had times when I've felt like I've veered towards cuckoo land and it's usually been from trauma. Like, at some point last year I started to lose the plot. All of the stuff I wanted to do with my life just disappeared - universities gone, work gone, study groups gone, travel very restricted or gone. And the supermarkets started putting up barriers and everyone put stuff on their face, the pubs were closed, people started walking in weird directions around shops and talking about "social distancing" and making stuff illegal and blah blah blah. And it just fucked with me, it made me feel schizophrenic, because I just don't get this as a response to coronavirus. It felt like, well, you have a 1% chance of dying, maybe 10% if you're in an at-risk group, so just kill yourself now (remove everything that makes life worth living) to avoid the risk. And all I could do is just think about all of the downstream long term permanent effects. It made me think - is there something underlying this? Like, are the government pushing this because they know something worse is coming down the line (is this a trial run to protect against sars-cov-3 that wipes out 20% of us?). But why are other people just going along with it? And all the time what seemed like _everyone_ was wandering around acting as if this thing was super bad, and here's me just like, trying to get on with it. I remember walking around empty streets, closed up stores, and just thinking like, what? why? am I in a dream? And it went on for months and months, a year. Then I'd just be wandering around in a haze, and the cause and effect was disconnected, and meh. It's hard to even word it. I just had some sort of episode. I've snapped out of it now, but I mean really I've only managed to do that because I'm quite disconnected (I don't work a 9-5, my country has quite lax restrictions, etc). If I were one of the truckers or whatever and someone was telling me "do this or I'll turn your life upside down" I'd probably be into batshit theories too. If I were in Australia or NZ I don't even think I'd be alive, lol. I mean, we're still doing some of this shit. I now know that my countrymen would lock me in a box for months on end to add 1% to their life expectancy. It seems totally horrific when I write that down, but yet people still openly discuss this as if it's some totally normal thing like buying a big mac or whatever. Just odd. Sorry for the monologue.

by krylon 5y ago

throwaway22032 5y ago

Is it blurry? It seems to me like the difference comes about when you move from something which is reasonably plausible or justifiable but can be shown evidentially to be incorrect, versus something that's just well, random. "I don't trust vaccines because pharmaceutical companies have a financial incentive for me to take them/my government is forcing me/etc" are reasonable viewpoints to hold. The reasoning is based on correct information and true premises, it's sensible to be skeptical of something that suddenly comes out of nowhere and is being pushed from all angles. You can even hold that viewpoint and take the vaccine anyway because you figure, sure, they want to push them, but that doesn't mean they're not also actually useful and beneficial for the recipients. I'm struggling to explain here, but basically, the right side of the equation "X is happening" is correct, but the left side "therefore Y" is problematic. "I don't trust vaccines because they have 5g microchips in" is wrong on both sides. They don't have 5g microchips in, we can show that. Even if they had an incentive to do so, they can't. That's the line in my view, whether something is even possible.

krylon 5y ago
A lot of people that go full-on cuckoo bananas conspiracy theorist start out with a realization like "big pharma is pushing opioids on the people, killing thousands, just to line their pockets", and then gradually slide towards things like "Bill Gates wants to microchip people so he can control their brains". It's not like they go from 0 to 100 in a single step. The best metaphor I can come up with is the event horizon of a black hole. To an outside observer, it's a very sharp line indeed. But to somebody falling into a black hole, Wikipedia tells me, it is impossible to tell when they cross the event horizon. If you only observe specific points, there is a clear line between sane and crazy; but if you move between these points, you probably don't perceive that line as you approach and cross it. And human beings have a strong tendency, once they accept some kind of belief, to interpret all evidence/observations so as to support that belief, even if it seems to prove the exact opposite to someone who doesn't share that belief.
- throwaway22032 5y ago
  Yeah, I suppose. I wonder if it's more that they're teetering on the edge and then some traumatic experience just bounces them in. Based on personal experience I've had times when I've felt like I've veered towards cuckoo land and it's usually been from trauma. Like, at some point last year I started to lose the plot. All of the stuff I wanted to do with my life just disappeared - universities gone, work gone, study groups gone, travel very restricted or gone. And the supermarkets started putting up barriers and everyone put stuff on their face, the pubs were closed, people started walking in weird directions around shops and talking about "social distancing" and making stuff illegal and blah blah blah. And it just fucked with me, it made me feel schizophrenic, because I just don't get this as a response to coronavirus. It felt like, well, you have a 1% chance of dying, maybe 10% if you're in an at-risk group, so just kill yourself now (remove everything that makes life worth living) to avoid the risk. And all I could do is just think about all of the downstream long term permanent effects. It made me think - is there something underlying this? Like, are the government pushing this because they know something worse is coming down the line (is this a trial run to protect against sars-cov-3 that wipes out 20% of us?). But why are other people just going along with it? And all the time what seemed like _everyone_ was wandering around acting as if this thing was super bad, and here's me just like, trying to get on with it. I remember walking around empty streets, closed up stores, and just thinking like, what? why? am I in a dream? And it went on for months and months, a year. Then I'd just be wandering around in a haze, and the cause and effect was disconnected, and meh. It's hard to even word it. I just had some sort of episode. I've snapped out of it now, but I mean really I've only managed to do that because I'm quite disconnected (I don't work a 9-5, my country has quite lax restrictions, etc). If I were one of the truckers or whatever and someone was telling me "do this or I'll turn your life upside down" I'd probably be into batshit theories too. If I were in Australia or NZ I don't even think I'd be alive, lol. I mean, we're still doing some of this shit. I now know that my countrymen would lock me in a box for months on end to add 1% to their life expectancy. It seems totally horrific when I write that down, but yet people still openly discuss this as if it's some totally normal thing like buying a big mac or whatever. Just odd. Sorry for the monologue.