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What is the pragmatic and non-conspiracy answer you are imagining? As I understand it, a group of people coordinating in secret to take actions that the public
by 4bpp 4y ago
What is the pragmatic and non-conspiracy answer you are imagining? As I understand it, a group of people coordinating in secret to take actions that the public would not let them take if the secrecy were broken is pretty much the definition of a conspiracy.
- freejazz 4y agoThis abuses the word conspiracy theory, which implies a malevolent plan (at least in the common use of the word) as opposed to a benevolent plan. Your argument is incredibly disingenuous.
- 4bpp 4y agoA conspiracy whose conspirators believe they are doing a morally good thing is still a conspiracy. In fact, in one or another way this is probably the case for most conspiracies - as they say, nobody is the villain of their own story. Does it make a difference if some people outside of the conspiring circle agree with the conspirators that their cause is righteous? I don't see why, and it's not like everyone or even an overwhelming majority agrees - otherwise there would be no need to conspire.
- freejazz 4y agoI didn't speak to their individualized or group subjective motivation, but an objective measure of what was done, so your whole response is completely off.
- iamacyborg 4y agoThe pragmatic answer is that the government wanted to secure supplies for social services first.
- ThunderSizzle 4y agoWord choice. Government officials, primarily unelected, conspired to secure supplies for their agencies first, and we're willing to knowingly lie and politicize to do it. Was it pragmatic? Sure. Morally right? Probably no, if ends don't justify means. Doesn't mean the pragmatic answer also wasn't a conspriacy.
- throwaway29812 4y agoApparently the ends don't ever justify the means according to some.
- 4bpp 4y agoIt's not necessarily about the ends never justifying the means; some of us just have arrived at the impression that the same means of deception and authoritarianism are being justified so often by a variety of ends that perhaps their proponents don't actually believe there is a terrible lot of justification needed for them.
- throwaway29812 4y agoI feel like you are straying from the actual topic at hand. Rationing n-95 masks = "deception and authoritarianism"? I see the deception. The rest of your sentence I don't understand at all.
- shaky-carrousel 4y agoThat multiple government wanted to secure supplies is logical. That multiple governments decided to do so by lying about the effectiveness of the face masks is suspicious. It reminds me of a time where multiple governments were really sure that Irak had WMDs.
- 4bpp 4y agoThat's not incompatible with it being a conspiracy, though. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.