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I wonder what happens to all the conspiracy theorists who a couple of years ago said "this [the enforcement of mask wearing] is just the beginning", and that th

I wonder what happens to all the conspiracy theorists who a couple of years ago said "this [the enforcement of mask wearing] is just the beginning", and that this is "exactly what Orwell predicted"? Do they admit they were wrong? Or do they conveniently forget they ever said anything like that and move onto the next conspiracy (which currently is likely to resemble toeing the Kremlin line)?

bigDinosaur 5y ago
Where I live one is still required to present what amounts to an internal passport to do pretty much anything, despite not having any medical justification. Certainly some things have been normalised which never should have been normalised.
- ImaCake 5y ago
  Don’t these kind of things happen whenever a war or pandemic happens? Showing your papers was important during WWI and WWII and I am aware of plenty of quarantines and mask mandates associated with previous cholera/TB/flu pandemics. Sure, I agree it sets a dangerous precedent, but we have been setting those kind of precedents for like 150 years. In that time we’ve had totalitarian states and liberal democracies.
  - bigDinosaur 5y ago
    Yes, humanity has normalised many problematic things before. We've set many poor precedents. I don't disagree! The issue here is that vaccine passports currently have no medical justification but are persisting purely as a punishment (I'd say incentive, but anyone here who hasn't yet been vaccinated will never be swayed by vaccine passports at this point). I of course do expect these to go even in my fairly strict jurisdiction, but now the precedent of punishing people in this way has been set. Was quarantine, mask mandates, vaccine mandates used to punish people in this way previously?
    - ImaCake 5y ago
      My close family circle is against the vaccine mandates now, as am I. Although we all supported them initially. So it is hard for me to gauge the general opinion on the mandates. I suspect support is waning fast with high vax rates and the reduced threat of COVID. I don’t think mask mandates punish in the same way as a vaccine mandate. You can change your mind and wear a mask instantly. A vaccine takes time and has greater consequences. Mask wearing is also an altruistic act; you put yourself through mild discomfort mostly to benefit those around you. It’s polite because it makes others feel more comfortable. A vaccine, especially when it comes to Omicron, protects you without really effecting risk of infection. So it’s more of a personal choice. Except at the population level where collective vaccine uptake have helped protect hospitals.
      - bigDinosaur 5y ago
        I think we're mostly in agreement. I mean, I did go and get vaccinated so the coercive measures did work on me, and I also wore a mask when I had to. But I really chafe at the notion that we haven't set a profound precedent in terms of governmental control over daily life, and a lot of people seem completely fine with all these mandates and vaccine passports. I find it kind of shocking, even though I'm pretty heavily pro-vaccine.
- traceroute66 5y ago
  > Where I live one is still required to present what amounts to an internal passport to do pretty much anything, despite not having any medical justification. Except the UK is an a joke in relation to vaccine passports. The politicians spout "authoritarian" "libertarian" bullshit as an excuse for not using vaccine passports. But then THE VERY SAME GOVERNMENT is very happy indeed to introduce a requirement for people to produce ID when voting (Elections Bill). And yet somehow none of the same politicians make any mention of "authoritarian" or "libertarian" when it comes to mandating ID for voting. Or indeed we are talking about THE VERY SAME GOVERNMENT that is busy trying very hard indeed to introduce laws to limit protests (Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill). And THE VERY SAME GOVERNMENT that is trying very hard indeed to bring in laws (Nationality and Borders Bill) enabling them to remove British citizenship from someone even if it renders them stateless. Its an absolute farce.
  - brigandish 5y ago
    There are situations when it is appropriate to confirm one's identity. Going to the supermarket isn't one, and comparing it to voting - or any of the other situations vaccine passports were to be required - is a nonsense. I can agree with some of the other concerns you've listed, but if you're going to mix them in with reasonable actions by the government like protecting the integrity of elections, I wouldn't be surprised if those other concerns are undermined.
    - skinnymuch 5y ago
      Protecting the integrity of elections that have all been shown to have very little fraud? Mass fraud without IDs being something of a pipe dream. That doesn’t make much sense.
      - brigandish 5y ago
        Aside from that being a different concern, even if we were to assume that is true, I don't see why it follows that election security shouldn't be improved. Regardless, election fraud has happened many times in the UK, most often from the politicians[1][2][3] (the links would be endless, I'll stop at three), and the idea that the Electoral Commission is going to produce investigations of any worth is sheer fantasy given some of their previous missteps[4]. However, an audit[5] was undertaken by Democratic Audit, who are funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (both are non-partisan), and here is what they found: > The emergence of evidence of electoral malpractice in English elections during the 2000s ranks among the most concerning emerging developments identified by this Audit. Evidence of malpractice began to mount from 2005 onwards, after an election court convened in Birmingham found five men guilty of large-scale electoral fraud, involving thousands of postal ballots, at local elections in June 2004. In his written judgement, the election commissioner, Richard Mawrey QC, referred to ‘evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic.’ > While the Birmingham case represented the most systematic proven case of attempted ballot rigging, there have been numerous other convictions for electoral fraud in the UK since 2000. Court cases relating to large-scale fraud in local elections in Slough in 2007 and Peterborough in 2004 resulted in six convictions each. Following a lengthy police investigation and two re-trials, five men were eventually convicted in September 2010 for electoral fraud offences in the Bradford West constituency during the 2005 general election (the first relating to fraud in a UK general election for almost one hundred years). In total, more than 100 people have been found guilty of electoral malpractice in the UK since 1994. The vast majority of convictions have involved postal or proxy ballots, often in conjunction with attempts to manipulate the electoral registers by registering bogus electors or adding electors to the register at empty properties. > The emergence of electoral fraud as an issue in UK politics cannot be divorced, therefore, from changes in electoral law since the 1990s, which introduced provisions for proxy voting and the widespread availability of postal voting. In particular, the introduction of ‘postal voting on demand’ via the Representation of the People Act 2000 created obvious opportunities for malpractice, especially when combined with a ‘rather arcane’ system of electoral registration. They go into more detail but I would suggest alleviating yourself of the notion that the current system isn't being tested by those looking for unfair advantage. If you read the Election Commission's views on these incidents you might come away thinking they were small things, yet it's also become easy to see they are not entirely fair nor are they fit for purpose. Bring on the improvements. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39289195 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39289195 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutfur_Rahman_(British_politician)#Channel_4_Dispatches_documentary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutfur_Rahman_(British_politic... [3] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/rahman-gets-the-gang-back-together https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/rahman-gets-the-gang-bac... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/19/pro-brexit-activist-darren-grimes-wins-appeal-against-fine-electoral-spending https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/19/pro-brexit-... [5] https://www.democraticaudit.com/2013/11/26/what-is-the-extent-of-electoral-fraud-at-english-elections/ https://www.democraticaudit.com/2013/11/26/what-is-the-exten...
tuwtuwtuwtuw 5y ago
According to my coworker, US is now planning a false flag nuclear strike in Ukraine. I asked for a source and he linked some random youtuber who claimed this without any source except "common sense". So I'm guessing option 2.
hughrr 5y ago
I know one of those guys. I don't even pretend to know exactly what thoughts are occurring in his head but form the outside he appears to hold several logically inconsistent ideas at the same time and is desperately trying to find a causal relationship between them. As for forgetting, they never forget. More noise and ideas are added to the same pool of thought and consistency is never resolved. I suspect you either grow out of it in some way or go insane.
PaulKeeble 5y ago
There were quite a few protests in the UK last year against the lockdowns, despite the fact there was no lockdown at the time or planned (nor did it happen) in the future. Quite a few cults seem to go past their doomsday date and simply choose another into the future. They just carry on as if the lack of the event never happened.
- hughrr 5y ago
  My aunt is one of that lot. She basically lives a completely normal, boring and uninteresting life (lucky woman!). The old idiom "The devil finds work for idle hands" may apply.
- dustinmoris 5y ago
  Those protests happened because new lockdowns were introduced in the EU at that time and the Labour party was calling for harsher restrictions again despite all evidence from South Africa suggesting that Omicron is nothing but a super mild cold and people already being double jabbed anyway. People were terrified of another lockdown and that is why they went protesting to offer a counter voice to opposition party MPs who tried to instil another wave of fear. I never went to any protest, not just this but in general, but I was very pleased that there were huge protests in the UK and elsewhere at that time, because I had enough of restricting my own life for the sake of others.
  - kennyadam 5y ago
    As long as you realise just how selfish your last sentence is. Presumably you never expect anyone to even help you out at any cost to themselves, no matter how small?
    - dustinmoris 5y ago
      I expect my family and friends to help me out. I don't expect the entire world around me to dance to my tune because of a fear I hold. When I was 10 years old nobody stopped smoking around me in indoor places, so now the same people who smoked all their life and ate themselves obese are afraid of my fresh super healthy fit breath? Sorry, not my problem and I honestly couldn't care less. On my list of priorities that is as far down as it could possibly be. And I don't think I'm selfish, I'm human. Everyone is selfish. It's selfish of those people to demand huge sacrifices on healthy young folks because of their own shortcomings. I'm happy to take a vaccines, which I did 3x against COVID, because it has no impact on my life, if anything it helps me, but I am not going to restrict my freedoms and lock myself at home, stop working, stop seeing family and friends and stop living life because of others.
tinybrotosaurus 5y ago
Conspiracy? Their point is compliance. Do what you are told without questioning it, be it government policy or corporate wish. People did nothing after 2008, they did nothing after proof of government mass surveillance, and they choose not to care what software runs in their devices on a daily basis. 50 years ago no one would even consider installing a microphone in their houses, now those that refuse it are seen as the paranoid. Current generation will not even bat an eye if their cars required them to watch an ad before turning on.
- antihero 5y ago
  I did question it, and I also remember when the police and government were trying to ban masks as they hindered surveillance. Seems like people seemed to forget that. It was a small inconvenience that probably helped things. Now it’s kind of irritating - currently on holiday in Lisboa and the obsessiveness is frustrating.
kryogen1c 5y ago
This is entirely the wrong take. Its like saying everyone was panicking for no reason in the Cold War because Earth wasn't destroyed in nuclear hellfire. Its feasible that vocal protests helped push back against further tyranny. i dont want to go down the who was right and who was wrong rabbit hole of covid policies. just dont use hindsight to try and retroactively prove your point.
- wasmitnetzen 5y ago
  Doesn't that mean you can warn of anything, and if it doesn't happen, you can say "See, it didn't happen because I yelled about it on the internet"?
  - brigandish 5y ago
    If they managed to see one post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy then they've probably managed to see the corresponding one.
  - kryogen1c 5y ago
    > Doesn't that mean No. > "See, it didn't happen because I yelled about it on the internet" this is a gross misrepresentation of the anticovid policy sentiment. it wasnt misanthropes on 4chan and twitter warriors with no skin in the game - there were, and still are, millions of people down through grass roots and local politics up to sitting major political party members. the chess pieces we're playing with are very serious on both sides and the original comment i replied to - "i bet those conspiracy theorists feel stupid now" - is disingenious and a badly formed argument.
- WA 5y ago
  The conspiracy theorists always claimed that there is some kind of master plan to enslave the human race by the elite and that masks and whatnot are just the beginning. How does a minority protest stop the evil masterplan? This makes no sense at all. Either there is a master plan and you have to have 90% of the people on the street opposing this, or there was no master plan from the get go. The conspiracy theory crumbles under its own weight.
s9w 5y ago
jacamera 5y ago
Speaking only for myself, the fear of creeping authoritarianism is not about some grand conspiracy by "the elites" but rather about our collective tolerance of such a "new normal." I just responded to another commenter here who was lamenting the fact that the mask mandates are not permanent. That person's vote counts just as much as mine. I don't think it's ever unreasonable to think that any policy that restricts one's freedom has the potential to either a) become permanent or b) lead to additional restrictions.
djbebs 5y ago
The ones that have consistently been proven right about government overreach?
djohnston 5y ago
If you don't have a vaccine passport you need to go pay a private company for a test to ensure you don't have a virus the vaccine doesn't even prevent you from contracting. How is that not a dangerous and persistent normalisation of government overreach?

bigDinosaur 5y ago

Where I live one is still required to present what amounts to an internal passport to do pretty much anything, despite not having any medical justification. Certainly some things have been normalised which never should have been normalised.

ImaCake 5y ago
Don’t these kind of things happen whenever a war or pandemic happens? Showing your papers was important during WWI and WWII and I am aware of plenty of quarantines and mask mandates associated with previous cholera/TB/flu pandemics. Sure, I agree it sets a dangerous precedent, but we have been setting those kind of precedents for like 150 years. In that time we’ve had totalitarian states and liberal democracies.
- bigDinosaur 5y ago
  Yes, humanity has normalised many problematic things before. We've set many poor precedents. I don't disagree! The issue here is that vaccine passports currently have no medical justification but are persisting purely as a punishment (I'd say incentive, but anyone here who hasn't yet been vaccinated will never be swayed by vaccine passports at this point). I of course do expect these to go even in my fairly strict jurisdiction, but now the precedent of punishing people in this way has been set. Was quarantine, mask mandates, vaccine mandates used to punish people in this way previously?
  - ImaCake 5y ago
    My close family circle is against the vaccine mandates now, as am I. Although we all supported them initially. So it is hard for me to gauge the general opinion on the mandates. I suspect support is waning fast with high vax rates and the reduced threat of COVID. I don’t think mask mandates punish in the same way as a vaccine mandate. You can change your mind and wear a mask instantly. A vaccine takes time and has greater consequences. Mask wearing is also an altruistic act; you put yourself through mild discomfort mostly to benefit those around you. It’s polite because it makes others feel more comfortable. A vaccine, especially when it comes to Omicron, protects you without really effecting risk of infection. So it’s more of a personal choice. Except at the population level where collective vaccine uptake have helped protect hospitals.
    - bigDinosaur 5y ago
      I think we're mostly in agreement. I mean, I did go and get vaccinated so the coercive measures did work on me, and I also wore a mask when I had to. But I really chafe at the notion that we haven't set a profound precedent in terms of governmental control over daily life, and a lot of people seem completely fine with all these mandates and vaccine passports. I find it kind of shocking, even though I'm pretty heavily pro-vaccine.
traceroute66 5y ago
> Where I live one is still required to present what amounts to an internal passport to do pretty much anything, despite not having any medical justification. Except the UK is an a joke in relation to vaccine passports. The politicians spout "authoritarian" "libertarian" bullshit as an excuse for not using vaccine passports. But then THE VERY SAME GOVERNMENT is very happy indeed to introduce a requirement for people to produce ID when voting (Elections Bill). And yet somehow none of the same politicians make any mention of "authoritarian" or "libertarian" when it comes to mandating ID for voting. Or indeed we are talking about THE VERY SAME GOVERNMENT that is busy trying very hard indeed to introduce laws to limit protests (Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill). And THE VERY SAME GOVERNMENT that is trying very hard indeed to bring in laws (Nationality and Borders Bill) enabling them to remove British citizenship from someone even if it renders them stateless. Its an absolute farce.
- brigandish 5y ago
  There are situations when it is appropriate to confirm one's identity. Going to the supermarket isn't one, and comparing it to voting - or any of the other situations vaccine passports were to be required - is a nonsense. I can agree with some of the other concerns you've listed, but if you're going to mix them in with reasonable actions by the government like protecting the integrity of elections, I wouldn't be surprised if those other concerns are undermined.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    Protecting the integrity of elections that have all been shown to have very little fraud? Mass fraud without IDs being something of a pipe dream. That doesn’t make much sense.
    - brigandish 5y ago
      Aside from that being a different concern, even if we were to assume that is true, I don't see why it follows that election security shouldn't be improved. Regardless, election fraud has happened many times in the UK, most often from the politicians[1][2][3] (the links would be endless, I'll stop at three), and the idea that the Electoral Commission is going to produce investigations of any worth is sheer fantasy given some of their previous missteps[4]. However, an audit[5] was undertaken by Democratic Audit, who are funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (both are non-partisan), and here is what they found: > The emergence of evidence of electoral malpractice in English elections during the 2000s ranks among the most concerning emerging developments identified by this Audit. Evidence of malpractice began to mount from 2005 onwards, after an election court convened in Birmingham found five men guilty of large-scale electoral fraud, involving thousands of postal ballots, at local elections in June 2004. In his written judgement, the election commissioner, Richard Mawrey QC, referred to ‘evidence of electoral fraud that would disgrace a banana republic.’ > While the Birmingham case represented the most systematic proven case of attempted ballot rigging, there have been numerous other convictions for electoral fraud in the UK since 2000. Court cases relating to large-scale fraud in local elections in Slough in 2007 and Peterborough in 2004 resulted in six convictions each. Following a lengthy police investigation and two re-trials, five men were eventually convicted in September 2010 for electoral fraud offences in the Bradford West constituency during the 2005 general election (the first relating to fraud in a UK general election for almost one hundred years). In total, more than 100 people have been found guilty of electoral malpractice in the UK since 1994. The vast majority of convictions have involved postal or proxy ballots, often in conjunction with attempts to manipulate the electoral registers by registering bogus electors or adding electors to the register at empty properties. > The emergence of electoral fraud as an issue in UK politics cannot be divorced, therefore, from changes in electoral law since the 1990s, which introduced provisions for proxy voting and the widespread availability of postal voting. In particular, the introduction of ‘postal voting on demand’ via the Representation of the People Act 2000 created obvious opportunities for malpractice, especially when combined with a ‘rather arcane’ system of electoral registration. They go into more detail but I would suggest alleviating yourself of the notion that the current system isn't being tested by those looking for unfair advantage. If you read the Election Commission's views on these incidents you might come away thinking they were small things, yet it's also become easy to see they are not entirely fair nor are they fit for purpose. Bring on the improvements. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39289195 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39289195 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutfur_Rahman_(British_politician)#Channel_4_Dispatches_documentary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutfur_Rahman_(British_politic... [3] https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/rahman-gets-the-gang-back-together https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/rahman-gets-the-gang-bac... [4] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/19/pro-brexit-activist-darren-grimes-wins-appeal-against-fine-electoral-spending https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/19/pro-brexit-... [5] https://www.democraticaudit.com/2013/11/26/what-is-the-extent-of-electoral-fraud-at-english-elections/ https://www.democraticaudit.com/2013/11/26/what-is-the-exten...

tuwtuwtuwtuw 5y ago

According to my coworker, US is now planning a false flag nuclear strike in Ukraine. I asked for a source and he linked some random youtuber who claimed this without any source except "common sense". So I'm guessing option 2.

hughrr 5y ago

I know one of those guys. I don't even pretend to know exactly what thoughts are occurring in his head but form the outside he appears to hold several logically inconsistent ideas at the same time and is desperately trying to find a causal relationship between them. As for forgetting, they never forget. More noise and ideas are added to the same pool of thought and consistency is never resolved. I suspect you either grow out of it in some way or go insane.

PaulKeeble 5y ago

There were quite a few protests in the UK last year against the lockdowns, despite the fact there was no lockdown at the time or planned (nor did it happen) in the future. Quite a few cults seem to go past their doomsday date and simply choose another into the future. They just carry on as if the lack of the event never happened.

hughrr 5y ago
My aunt is one of that lot. She basically lives a completely normal, boring and uninteresting life (lucky woman!). The old idiom "The devil finds work for idle hands" may apply.
dustinmoris 5y ago
Those protests happened because new lockdowns were introduced in the EU at that time and the Labour party was calling for harsher restrictions again despite all evidence from South Africa suggesting that Omicron is nothing but a super mild cold and people already being double jabbed anyway. People were terrified of another lockdown and that is why they went protesting to offer a counter voice to opposition party MPs who tried to instil another wave of fear. I never went to any protest, not just this but in general, but I was very pleased that there were huge protests in the UK and elsewhere at that time, because I had enough of restricting my own life for the sake of others.
- kennyadam 5y ago
  As long as you realise just how selfish your last sentence is. Presumably you never expect anyone to even help you out at any cost to themselves, no matter how small?
  - dustinmoris 5y ago
    I expect my family and friends to help me out. I don't expect the entire world around me to dance to my tune because of a fear I hold. When I was 10 years old nobody stopped smoking around me in indoor places, so now the same people who smoked all their life and ate themselves obese are afraid of my fresh super healthy fit breath? Sorry, not my problem and I honestly couldn't care less. On my list of priorities that is as far down as it could possibly be. And I don't think I'm selfish, I'm human. Everyone is selfish. It's selfish of those people to demand huge sacrifices on healthy young folks because of their own shortcomings. I'm happy to take a vaccines, which I did 3x against COVID, because it has no impact on my life, if anything it helps me, but I am not going to restrict my freedoms and lock myself at home, stop working, stop seeing family and friends and stop living life because of others.

tinybrotosaurus 5y ago

Conspiracy? Their point is compliance. Do what you are told without questioning it, be it government policy or corporate wish. People did nothing after 2008, they did nothing after proof of government mass surveillance, and they choose not to care what software runs in their devices on a daily basis. 50 years ago no one would even consider installing a microphone in their houses, now those that refuse it are seen as the paranoid. Current generation will not even bat an eye if their cars required them to watch an ad before turning on.

antihero 5y ago
I did question it, and I also remember when the police and government were trying to ban masks as they hindered surveillance. Seems like people seemed to forget that. It was a small inconvenience that probably helped things. Now it’s kind of irritating - currently on holiday in Lisboa and the obsessiveness is frustrating.

kryogen1c 5y ago

This is entirely the wrong take. Its like saying everyone was panicking for no reason in the Cold War because Earth wasn't destroyed in nuclear hellfire. Its feasible that vocal protests helped push back against further tyranny. i dont want to go down the who was right and who was wrong rabbit hole of covid policies. just dont use hindsight to try and retroactively prove your point.

wasmitnetzen 5y ago
Doesn't that mean you can warn of anything, and if it doesn't happen, you can say "See, it didn't happen because I yelled about it on the internet"?
- brigandish 5y ago
  If they managed to see one post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy then they've probably managed to see the corresponding one.
- kryogen1c 5y ago
  > Doesn't that mean No. > "See, it didn't happen because I yelled about it on the internet" this is a gross misrepresentation of the anticovid policy sentiment. it wasnt misanthropes on 4chan and twitter warriors with no skin in the game - there were, and still are, millions of people down through grass roots and local politics up to sitting major political party members. the chess pieces we're playing with are very serious on both sides and the original comment i replied to - "i bet those conspiracy theorists feel stupid now" - is disingenious and a badly formed argument.
WA 5y ago
The conspiracy theorists always claimed that there is some kind of master plan to enslave the human race by the elite and that masks and whatnot are just the beginning. How does a minority protest stop the evil masterplan? This makes no sense at all. Either there is a master plan and you have to have 90% of the people on the street opposing this, or there was no master plan from the get go. The conspiracy theory crumbles under its own weight.

s9w 5y ago

jacamera 5y ago

Speaking only for myself, the fear of creeping authoritarianism is not about some grand conspiracy by "the elites" but rather about our collective tolerance of such a "new normal." I just responded to another commenter here who was lamenting the fact that the mask mandates are not permanent. That person's vote counts just as much as mine. I don't think it's ever unreasonable to think that any policy that restricts one's freedom has the potential to either a) become permanent or b) lead to additional restrictions.

djbebs 5y ago

The ones that have consistently been proven right about government overreach?

djohnston 5y ago

If you don't have a vaccine passport you need to go pay a private company for a test to ensure you don't have a virus the vaccine doesn't even prevent you from contracting. How is that not a dangerous and persistent normalisation of government overreach?