11 ms·

Meteorologists get death threats as hurricane conspiracy theories thrive

79 points by geox 2y ago

taylodl 2y ago
These kinds of articles reinforce my idea that we're witnessing our society collapse before our very eyes. I tend to blame it on Republican idiocracy and Russian trolling, but I suspect the problem is larger than that. It's just depressing. Is the US the only country suffering from this lunacy, or is this a more global phenomenon?
- Vampiero 2y ago
  It's a global phenomenon but it's only crazy in the US, like most things
  - kjkjadksj 2y ago
    Its crazy elsewhere too like in the UK, Hungary, Russia, most of eastern and southern europe, India, Brasil, etc. same MO just nationalist/racist/anti intellectual/conspiracy junk shared on social media.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - red-iron-pine 2y ago
      because it's the same Russian / Chinese / NK efforts, and all heavily automated. how is this a surprise?
  - fma 2y ago
    We've always had conspiracy theories and fringe believes, but it's now mainstream in the US.
    - Nasrudith 2y ago
      When hasn't it been mainstream? It sure qualified as mainstream for JFK assassinations and arguably Roswell as well. And that is before going to the Know-Nothings and their anti-catholic conspiracy theories.
      - arp242 2y ago
        Conspiracy theories about JFK, Roswell, moon-landings, and things like that are basically harmless. Well, mostly harmless anyway. Usually spread by someone trying to flog some nonsense book, or a confused "true believer". But this is different: it's just a plain ordinary self-serving lie. Completely invented by a sad narcissistic liar and his merry band of sycophantic enablers to win ("win") an election. There's also a type of maliciousness to it that's lacking in more traditional conspiracy theories. We probably shouldn't even call it "conspiracy theory".
  - scruple 2y ago
    I don't know. I thought the news out of Turkey today was... interesting, at least from a historical perspective. I don't think it's just us in the US.
- ysofunny 2y ago
  we are mostly unable to process the fact that science lied to us what's worse, it became an authoritative tool of (often foreign) powers; at least in most of America (as science came from Europe, ...they brought us "culture" when they colonized us in the south; the north did not get colonized but replaced) but of course science lied, but it's not that it lied, it is that it changes. newer truth comes along and fights the old truth until it dies ("the pace of scientific funerals") turns out, breaking people's trust is much easier than gaining it. but my hill to die on, is the old truth of material scarcity and media (or licensing) content versus the new truth of digital abundance and freely sharing things without the license to do so. why do I need permission from some faceless corporate owner to copy cultural assets that I love and wish to share?
  - croes 2y ago
    Science doesn't lie, people do. And people are stubborn that's why new discoveries need time to get accepted. But this is different, this is not science but simply BS that is spread.
  - ysofunny 2y ago
    just keep repeating "earth is not flat and there's no way that could be" those people get no voice around these parts. also, nevermind the existence of higher order constructs like manifolds. that cannot be what "earth is flat" idiots could be referring to. send me down another negative four, the invisibility threshold.
- hindsightbias 2y ago
  I think many other cultures are crippled by pervasive conspiracies that re-enforce views of having no agency. And their rulers like it that way. In street drug circles today there are widespread complaints about the quality of fentanyl, withdrawal effects and treatment. OD's are apparently dropping. For those that live in some semblance of reality, I think many there's withdrawal going on. For those that don't get out and call in threats like this, they don't really believe anything persistently, they just believe whatever is the rage of the day. They'll OD someday, you just won't see it in the obits.
- WorkerBee28474 2y ago
  This is what happens when you coopt science as cover for political decisions - people stop trusting all "science" including real science. From what I've seen I more associate the issue with Democrats than Republicans, especially in the COVID lockdown days.
  - ChumpGPT 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - kaibee 2y ago
    > From what I've seen I more associate the issue with Democrats than Republicans, especially in the COVID lockdown days. Can you explain the chain of logic here? During the pandemic I "did my own research" which amounted to basically masking when other people did and getting the vaccines as they came out. At the time my SO was a nurse working on a hospital covid floor, so it seemed prudent. So, I'm not really sure how you see Democrats as being less science based? No snark intended, I'm truly curious.
    - Jarwain 2y ago
      My interpretation of their comment is that it's the other way around. Democrats tend to use "science" to justify political decisions. Because people don't like those political decisions, and/or because pop science is allegedly used vs "real science", it devalues "real science" and causes people not to trust it as much
      - autoexec 2y ago
        > Democrats tend to use "science" to justify political decisions. I'd much rather politicians use science to justify political decisions instead of just doing whatever is popular, or would make them and their friends the most money.
      - consteval 2y ago
        The left also tends to use higher education in their political positions. Which is why the right now seems to really have a bone to pick with higher education. What people should be asking is, why does science have a supposedly left-leaning bias? Why does education have a left-leaning bias? It feels like there's some obvious conclusions the republican can draw there, but they see those conclusions and draw something else instead.
- xattt 2y ago
  I can’t imagine this kind of stuff happens in the PRC. The upside to a tightly-controlled “infosphere” is that people who are at the controls and have rational thought can jump right in and quench the idiocy fires right away.
  - smt88 2y ago
    It is significantly worse in the PRC, where they don't believe that the Uyghur genocide is happening. At least (for now) the West has no similar level of denial about something within their own borders.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    And the downside of that upside is that they jump right in and quench things, not always on the basis of idiocy, but also on the basis of opposing the government's narrative. That doesn't actually lead to rationality.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Category:Conspiracy theories in China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_i... (From Category:Conspiracy theories by country) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_b...
    - 0xdde 2y ago
      Funny enough, the fact that your link lists 9 pages compared to 112 for the US[1], it could be taken as stronger evidence for the parent's point. Not that I think this is a particularly reliable way to gauge the phenomenon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_i...
- empath75 2y ago
  It turns out that "The remedy for bad speech is more speech" doesn't actually scale globally. You can blame this on Russian and/or Chinese disinformation ops and tik-tok, etc, but the problem is more general than that. One of the assumptions around free speech ideals is that the people who are speaking or publishing are citizens of the community in which they are speaking or publishing, and now a large part of the content on the internet is produced by people who are crossing national boundaries, or not even produced by people at all. You used to be able to assume that the vast majority of the content you're exposed to is produced by people who live in your community or country and would not like to see it destroyed, and now, in fact, you should probably assume the opposite. You should assume that most content on the internet is produced by bad actors trying to rip the fabric of your society apart, particularly if you're reading something that enrages you. The especially insidious part of this is that most of the rage bait stuff plays on widespread personal biases so it's self sustaining after a while. People start to hate each other, so then they do stuff to each other to make each other hate each other more and so on and so on until you've got Rwanda.
  - mistrial9 2y ago
    not really -- rather consider the ability of a very small minority of voices to amplify tremendously without sufficient dampening.. stability in public communication is never simple. A psychologist might say that social rage itself, or anger with blame itself, is the root of the behavior. Every language group on Earth has rational, constructive people in it.
    - red-iron-pine 2y ago
      > rather consider the ability of a very small minority of voices to amplify tremendously without sufficient dampening Strongly recommend reading about Wayne Wheeler -- the guy who made Prohibition happen. Prohibition was not especially popular in the US, even before it passed. But Wheeler was able to make a small minority sound very, very loud, and lever politicians accordingly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler
- codingwagie 2y ago
  Russian disinformation is itself a conspiracy theory. Trump was investigated for the last decade, they essentially found nothing.
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
    This is just a flat lie.
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    Just because no one acted doesn't mean that "they essentially found nothing". The Muller report described Russian interference in the 2016 election as “sweeping and systemic.” The report spent a bunch of pages saying that there were “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.”
    - codingwagie 2y ago
      They would have thrown him in jail if they found anything. it was political theater, and essentially a coup
      - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        Which are you saying - that the Muller report didn't find things, despite it clearly finding things, or that it was a coup, even though it was under the Trump admin, by DAs placed by Trump?
        codingwagie 2y ago
        Go watch the interview with Mueller at the end of the investigation. He was completely senile and knew nothing about the case. Mueller himself was a puppet for other people.
        SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        The "other people" being Trump's DAs? Why would that be the case? Do you believe that Muller did the entire report alone? Who was behind the coup? Why did it fail? If you look through your last few messages you'll see that your argument is constantly changing. First that they investigated and found nothing, but then presented with evidence you try to discredit that source of evidence, first by saying they didn't find anything, and changing tactics to accuse Muller of senility. It as if the truth doesn't so much matter as maintaining your worldview does.
- vixen99 2y ago
  A few people say or do something completely nutty and the 'country is suffering this lunacy'. At what golden period in history were there no nutcases pitching some irrational extremes into the public sphere? On the other hand maybe I'm quite wrong about all this. Someone has estimated (an open calculation) the payback time for the US debt burden at 90,000 years if it was paid back at the rate of $1,000,000 per day. Some might argue there's lunacy at work over many decades to achieve this result. (from a comment on this blog) - -https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2024/10/08/the-smartest-person-in-the-world-says-that-ai-will-end-civilization-within-20-years/ https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2024/10/08/the-smartest-pe...
  - creato 2y ago
    $1m per day divided by ~400m population is essentially zero. Why even mention this? It's just using numbers with a lot of zeros to sound scary, but means nothing.
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    1. It's different because the internet feeds us every bit of lunacy that happens anywhere in the country, so it looks like everyone has gone insane. (Especially in politics, where the Ds will tell you about every single stupid thing an R says anywhere in the country, and the Rs will tell you about every single stupid thing a D says.) 2. The national debt is probably a result of long-term lack of wisdom, yes. But with an economy the size of the US, there is absolutely no reason to pay it back at only $1,000,000/day. A serious attempt would be more like $1,000,000,000/day.
- avgDev 2y ago
  It is global. I was just in Poland. Literally same thing as in the US just a bit different flavor. Mainstream media bad, covid fake just a little flu and used to control society, proud for not wearing masks, did not vaccinate because some crazy reasons. Not everyone obviously, but I was visiting smaller cities where I grew up. I always thought I could go back one day but I don't think I would be able to deal with people there. The customer service is non existent and when you are shopping/getting services you are an inconvenience. Crazy.
- _1tem 2y ago
  The lunacy is definitely worse in the Anglosphere. I moved to Eastern Europe a few years ago and it's way more sane (and yes, I speak the local languages here). See this article about Emmanuel Todd forecasting the collapse of the West using the same methodology he used to successfully predict the collapse of the Soviet Union: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/opinion/emmanuel-todd-decline-west.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/opinion/emmanuel-todd-dec...
- ffujdefvjg 2y ago
  I read an Atlantic article the other day where a lit professor from Columbia University said that he has students nowadays who admit to having never read a book cover to cover. Ones that have tend to say their favorite book is something like Percy Jackson. They also can't focus on a small poem. This confirms what a teacher I know has been saying for a long time: highschool kids since around the class of 2010 are getting very noticably stupider. I'm beginning to wonder if social media really has caused kids to miss key developmental stages. Parents being on their phones has led to kids hearing a substantially reduced vocabulary, these kids also receive less interaction from their parents and interact less with their environments and other kids. This stuff is really important for brain development, and we've replaced it with an iPhone. I don't think social media started this, just accelerated the trend. I do think commercialized media for decades now has really been a driver of insipid banality.
  - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
    Why are we blaming kids when elected representatives are parroting these conspiracy theories? MTG isn't seeking Gen Z approval.
    - taylodl 2y ago
      And MTG is 50 and she has to know what she's spouting is nonsense, so why does she spout it? Is her audience really that dimwitted, or is there something else at play? For example, is this part of some mass brainwashing ploy? Are they Jim Jonesing millions of Americans? If so, then to what end?
      - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        That's where I'm at a loss. Are all the people parroting this stuff actually believers? My instinct is that the majority tried to grab the bull by the horns by jumping on the Trump schtick when he took power and are now left riding this increasingly deranged and unpredictable animal. At this point they can do nothing but try to keep holding on lest they be trampled by the beast they created. But there's also gotta be true believers in there, and yeah, I don't know what those people actually want, and it's pretty scary.
- stanski 2y ago
  There's always been nutcases (apologies to people with actual mental illness). The problem is that politicians (worldwide) have figured out how to utilize them for their own benefit. I agree that at times it does seem like a very bad premonition.
- MildlySerious 2y ago
  > I suspect the problem is larger than that. My take is that this is a symptom of something else. Populism has existed for a long time, but it feels to me that the environment we created also created the perfect target audience for it on a scale that never existed before. Observing the alt-right and conspiracy bubbles collapse into one over the last five years, it feels like it's the result of a sort of mental defense mechanism for a group of people that is growing every day. As I see it, we have built a world around us that is very complex and abstract, and hostile to the mind in a way that enables this sort of ideology immensely. In it, it is very hard to feel a sort of purpose, and it is very easy to be overwhelmed. On average, the work people do has little to no effect on themselves or their direct peers. All day, every day is spent shuffling around numbers on a spreadsheet, or doing work to aid someone who shuffles around numbers on a spreadsheet. Then you clock out having a net zero benefit on your life, or that of people that matter. Other than, of course, a number that goes up in a different spreadsheet. And while you do your shuffling about to scrape by another month, you get bombarded with a flood of information about this war or that catastrophe or those disasters. It leaves people numb, overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, helpless, purposeless, etc. Keep that up long enough, and what happens is something like a narcissistic collapse, except that it's not narcissists it happens to, but normal, healthy but vulnerable minds whose mental health can no longer be reconciled with a toxic reality. In comes an ideology that does three things: It simplifies. It gives purpose. It provides an outlet. Once you subscribe to it, everything returns from countless shades of gray to black and white. If you're not one of the good guys, you're one of the bad guys. If a bad guy says a thing, it's a bad thing. If you say a bad thing, you're a bad guy. The simple prescriptive labels of what counts as good and bad are delivered to you, on the house. Takes away all the nuance, all the complexity and all the mental burden that came with it. Then, it gives purpose. If you fall into this hole, you end up seeing yourself as two things: A victim, and a savior. You see what others don't, and you suffer for it. "They" - the bad guys - are out to get you, to destroy everything. Every confrontation is thus someone attacking you, the victim, or defying you, the savior. It provides a narrative in a chaotic world where bad things happen for no reason and without explanation. Last, it creates a target for all your bottled up frustration and anger. The bad guys are responsible for all the bad things, and it is made clear how very okay it is to channel all your negative emotions into hate towards some group. Be it Jewish people, immigrants, scientists, democrats or some imaginary lizard people. Hate is fine. The end result is a full abdication of responsibility, and a return of control at the low, low price of a divorce from reality. To the mind that slips into this rabbit hole it is not so much a choice as it is a lifeline. That is why it is so incredibly hard to get people out of it, as well.
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  > trolling this implies that its just a few folks talking shit on a lark, when it is actually a concerted, aggressive, multi-billion dollar effort across all-channels, with the goal of degrading civil institutions and hopefully causing a civil war. that the average American rube can't figure that out is also part of the problem
ChumpGPT 2y ago
MGT accused Democrats of colluding with other worldly forces and creating Milton. She said "ask your government if the weather is being manipulated or controlled. Did you give them permission to do this? Are you paying for it? Of course you are paying for it." She said the same thing about Helene. She is feeding the mental illness that grips MAGA. This is a sitting Representative and has the full support and admiration of the Republican Candidate for President. Even Republicans are now coming out to try to explain that humans can't create or control Hurricanes all while their own and their Candidate for President is suggesting otherwise.
- throwup238 2y ago
  Marjorie Taylor Greene is a Representative, not Senator. Even for the Republican party she’s a weirdo and she’s only able to win due to the “unique” demographics of her district. She’s unlikely to be able to win a statewide race anywhere, and Senators in general tend to be less radical. Not that it makes her insanity any less insane…
  - ChumpGPT 2y ago
    Yes you're correct, will edit my post.
  - sundaeofshock 2y ago
    I have to disagree with you here. Most of the Senators from the GOP have been happy to share the same drivel. Indeed, Senator JD Vance and Donald Trump — arguably the most powerful men in the GOP are as unhinged as MTG.
    - consteval 2y ago
      I predict that if Trump does not get elected, the GOP will completely drop his name and they will act as though he never existed. He is truly insane. It is unbelievable to me that the mainstream GOP - who I have always perceived as reasonable people - would back him with such loyalty. But, then again, due to his previous presidency he probably has the best odds.
Animats 2y ago
Maybe people are getting dumber because of COVID.[1] Even after recovery, having mild COVID seems to cost 3 IQ points.[1] Reinfection, 2 more IQ points.[2] This is for people who have recovered, and does not include "long COVID". [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-iq-brain-age-cognitive-health/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-iq-brain-age-cognitive... [2] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2400189 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2400189
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  This was going full force well before COVID. Before 2016, though that was when it became a lot more overt.
- autoexec 2y ago
  Between covid brain, ipad kids, heavy metal poisoning, and decades of attacks on the education system the US is dropping IQ points while mental illness is on the rise.
  - know-how 2y ago
    [dead]
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Did you leave out the /s? Or are you seriously implying the crazy conspiracy garbage we're seeing recently is a result of COVID? Because that sounds just as deranged as <waves hands at all the other dumb shit on the internet>.
  - Animats 2y ago
    It's not a joke. "A three-point downward shift in IQ would increase the number of U.S. adults with an IQ less than 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million – an increase of 2.8 million adults with a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support." Then there's long COVID. A detailed overview of that.[1] As of late 2023, about 5% of US adults report having long COVID. It appears that, if it lasts a year, there's usually no further recovery. Some new results indicate that at least some long COVID sufferers still have a reservoir of the active virus.[2] That's encouraging, because antivirals may help them. It indicates where to look. This is very real. Most people are tired of hearing about COVID, but the virus isn't tired. [1] https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27756/chapter/8 https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27756/chapter/8 [2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/10/getting-to-the-bottom-of-long-covid/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/10/getting-to-th...
ako 2y ago
That is what you get when you stop funding general education because you think people should pay for it themselves. People lose the ability to separate fact from fiction, lack the ability for critical thinking. I benefit when others around me get better education, that's why I'm happy when my taxes are used to fund schools and universities and other ways of educating people. And it also benefits the economy, so every tax dollar/euro spend on education has a huge ROI.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  I actually disagree. This is what you get when scandal after scandal happens to public institutions. People go flat earth most often, not because of the "science," but because they do not trust the government for honesty. This also happens whenever there is an apparent "win" even if it isn't quite so. For example, when a judge last week ordered federal Fluoride standards to be re-examined. It doesn't need to be a total vindication of the conspiracy theorists, for trust to be substantially damaged. Same for the Iraq war, with "weapons of mass destruction" - imagine if your child died from that lie. Repeat this every year, in multiple institutions, for 20+ years straight; and yes, observant people might well think that everything the government has ever said is a hoax. It's not about the science, or their ability to track truth from falsehood, but their reactionary hate of anything the institutions say.
  - zpeti 2y ago
    I don’t know why you are getting downvoted. This is just as valid as saying education has gotten worse. It’s likely both are causes, and some other things too.
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    > People go flat earth Isn't the joke here that for most of modern history the flat earth discussions were a debate contest by people who didn't actually believe the earth was flat but enjoyed trying to prove it was? And then it leaked out and found a welcome home amongst people gullible enough to believe all of the "evidence" that had been concocted.
rootusrootus 2y ago
As always, the media softens the truth to try and keep their subscriber numbers up. Or their inboxes from overflowing with death threats. They sugarcoat the problem as "political polarization" but this is bullshit. These conspiracy theories are almost entirely a right wing phenomenon. If you put a Trump sign in your yard, will you get death threats? Nope. Laughed at? Maybe, but not to your face. People are afraid of Trump supporters. Now try putting a Harris sign in your yard. Your local sheriff will tell the world to make sure they keep track of you for future recriminations. You'll get anonymous death threats in your mailbox. There is sickness in politics today, but the solution is not "fix both sides."
- croes 2y ago
  There is also left wing violence, more often from the right but not zero from the left.
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    Agreed, I won't absolve the left from having some loonies. But they are recognized as the loonies they are. On the right it has become mainstream. The things I hear from friends and family are just mind blowing, and they think what they're saying is normal. So much anger, so much venom.
- SHAadder 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    It is only 1 to 2 at best. You forgot the weird Indian Nazi and (badly) attempted assassin from Missouri, Sai Varshith Kandula. And that is excluding everyone else who got arrested for death threats.
    - SHAadder 2y ago
      Who? The non-US resident that got bad google map directions with his U-Haul? /s
codingwagie 2y ago
A lot of storms are blown out of proportion to get clicks. There is a large gap between the predicted damage and the actual damage.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  To get clicks, or to keep people alive after a few storms in the not-that-distant past were not recognized for the monsters they were until it was too late for people to evacuate? There is certainly a risk that people will take the next warnings less seriously. And then an unexpectedly large number of people will die, and we will cycle again.
mykowebhn 2y ago
The paradox seen in many today is that the stupider people in fact really are the smarter they believe themselves to be.
bell-cot 2y ago
> Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes But even before the Speed: Horseback tech upgrade was discovered, "kill the messenger" was an all-too-common human reaction.
SHAadder 2y ago
Is this what hackers do all day? Watch mainstream media articles talk sh* about politicians they don't like? https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqC.html https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqC.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_... https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ee/53/36/ac05709c93ba8f/US20030085296A1.pdf https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ee/53/36/ac05709... It's an interesting theory, at best this is virtue signalling taken as GOSPEL by the other side.. so BAU.
switch007 2y ago
> “Nowadays, there’s so much bad information out there that if we spent our time getting rid of it, we’d have no more time.” Are they referring to the Mayor of Tampa warning "you will die"?
ladzoppelin 2y ago
Guys I am not disagreeing with anyone here but the patents for weather technologies are very real and gag orders are also very real so could someone please explain or link to info on why these things exist instead of saying covid made people stupid, which I assume means you also think yourself and all government leaders are now dumber? That does not mean anyone is causing hurricanes but maybe if more information on technologies that has been for decades was explained it would not be so confusing and these things would not get so out of hand.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  > the patents for weather technologies are very real Would you cite some of them, then? Especially ones that are not just "weather technologies" but are capable of creating, amplifying, and/or steering hurricanes?
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  One doesn't need to be able to build the thing they patent. I've seen conspiracy theorist link to weather technology patents but they are things like "create a fog", which I think we'll both agree is SLIGHTLY less energetic than the current extreme weather, so if you know of a patent for and evidence of a working hurricane machine I'd like to see it. We can't just say "well they seed rain, therefore they have a hurricane machine".
joshdavham 2y ago
It's not hard to accept that stupid people fall for these kinds of conspiracy theories, but I'll never forget that one professor I had in uni who was teaching us chaos theory and dynamical systems and was convinced that the government was controlling the weather. I'm kinda skeptical how much education can do to fix conspiratorial thinking. If even a professor teaching chaos theory is convinced that the government is controlling the weather then frankly anyone could probably be convinced.
- autoexec 2y ago
  yeah, idiots fall for more misinformation, but lots of very well educated people still fall for conspiracy theories. I feel like it's more of a lack of trust than a lack of education.
- tempestn 2y ago
  You've got to look at rates. I'd place a substantial bet that the percentage of professors, or even just college grads, who believe that is lower than in the general population. (Though you have to be specific about the question. We can control the weather in some very limited ways, but we can't, for example, trigger a hurricane. Or prevent one.)
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I want to shout out a specific man quoted in the article. > “I’ve been doing this for 46 years and it’s never been like this,” says Alabama meteorologist James Spann. I grew up in Alabama, and I am positive James Spann has saved my life more than once with his tornado outbreak coverage. I can still hear him saying, "get to shelter now". He was a comforting voice at 2am when you and your family are huddled in the most central room of your house because mother nature is actively trying to kill you.
- robmccoll 2y ago
  Yes! James Spann was and is an excellent source of meteorological information. I remember him coming to our school and talking to kids about his job and encouraging us to take an interest in science and the world around us. Alabama needs more people like him and fewer people who are likely to encourage conspiratorial thinking for political points at the potential cost of human life. Also, appreciate the username - great game.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  James Spann has also claimed that climate change isn't happening and it's just scientists chasing funding that explains their findings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Spann#Global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Spann#Global_warming So a bit of a "first they came for the climate scientists and I did nothing" vibe.
  - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
    That is unfortunate, but the man still does good work every time weather is putting lives at stake in Alabama.
  - gitaarik 2y ago
    On his wiki page it says: "He asserts that climate change is naturally caused, as part of the climate's cyclical nature." So you are, like many people, misunderstand him, and many other people like him, that they don't deny climate change, but just aren't convinced that it is primarily caused by humans. There is actually no scientific data that proofs the idea that humans are the primary cause of climate change, so it is still an open question, and therefore different beliefs about it should be respected. But it's such a controversial and sensitive topic, that many people don't even want to be open to another perspective, which is sad.
cheeseomlit 2y ago
Is this really indicative of a broad societal trend, or is it just one guy with an LLM and some burner emails?
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I have only anecdata for this, but I have a strong suspicion that people just don't think about things on social media the same way they do physical interactions. If someone standing outside the grocery store hands you a flyer that claims the government can control the weather and they're sending you hurricanes on purpose, you'd dismiss them as insane and continue on your way. When your high school buddy Denise posts it on Facebook, though, you're more likely to believe it. Even if you'd think Denise would be crazy if she went out and handed out flyers at the grocery store. It's like most of us have a built-in crazy filter that works fine for in-person interactions, but it breaks down when that exact same interactions happens online.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  This is why I never believe a tweet that I can’t confirm myself. I only pay attention to sciencey/CS people on twitter. Talking heads and political sources there are always nearly extremely biased and most are flat out untruthful.
- arp242 2y ago
  I'm not so sure about this explanation; people believed in conspiracy theories in the past. Witch-hunts for example are fundamentally not that different from Q-Anon and all of that bollocks: "mysterious dark forces do evil stuff when we're not looking". The whole "they're abusing our children" is also a trope that goes back a long time, most recently during the 80s with the whole "Satanic Ritual Abuse" stuff. That was much worse, because innocent people's lives were complete wrecked over what was complete bollocks. Pizzagate is near-identical, with s/daycare/pizzahut/. More examples can be found throughout history – they're typically not called "conspiracy theories", but often they're not that different at its core. I think what social media has done is allowing people to reach a wider audience. That person outside the grocery store reaches what, maybe a few hundred people with several hours of work? On the internet you can reach about 1.5 billion English speaking people with a minute of work. And that person outside the grocery store has no real way to organise a meaningful community, even if they do manage to gain 2 or 3 acolytes. On the internet you just create a Facebook group, or reddit sub, or whatever. And all of that is including only the "crazy people". Add bad faith actors to the mix spreading misinformation simply to cause chaos and things quickly become well fucked.
mindcrime 2y ago
It's mind boggling. And I can't even begin to explain it. We live in an age when something pretty close to the sum total of human scientific knowledge is available online, and mostly for free (especially if you count shadow libraries like Anna's Archive, LibGen, Sci-Hub, Zlib, etc). There's millions or billions of pages of high-quality scientific content, millions or billions of hours of lectures on everything from Geology to Abstract Algebra to High Energy Physics. Anybody can use Khan Academy to get a reasonably decent education on critical aspects of math and science. Sites like Stack Exchange, (some) sub-reddits, physicsforums.com, etc. make it possible for anybody to solicit feedback and corrections on almost any technical topic. In short, it's possible to be as educated as you want to be, and it's mostly free except for the time and effort involved. And instead a large portion of the population seem to be not only not pursuing real knowledge, but actively rejecting it and embracing obvious bullshit. WTH people? OK yes.. I know. Somebody is going to say it. The critical phrase above is time and effort involved. And maybe that's right. Maybe it's just laziness. But somehow that doesn't feel right. And I understand the notion that the widespread interconnectedness of the Internet allows small numbers of people with fringe beliefs to "find each other" and reinforce each other's nuttery, and that has some amplification effect on the prevalence of flat-earth thinking, etc. And yet, I still don't think that explains what's going on with people. And the frank truth is, I don't have an explanation. Or a solution. And I wish I did. I hope sombody does. Because as @taylodl says in another thread: These kinds of articles reinforce my idea that we're witnessing our society collapse before our very eyes. I concur, and this troubles me deeply.
- mppm 2y ago
  I can't explain it either, but maybe prophesies of impending collapse are a bit premature. The world has never been particularly rational, even in places that have near 100% literacy. Just look at the number of people who believe in astrology or homeopathy, not to mention that one guy who created the Earth and its inhabitants some 4000 years ago, in six days no less.
  - mindcrime 2y ago
    Fair enough. But I'll just say that I feel like I've seen a pronounced change in my lifetime, and more pointedly in the last 5-10 years, that I find acutely disturbing, even compared against that "background rate". And maybe the answer really is as simple as "social media". Which I find to be a sad idea, as the potential of social media act as a force for good still exists and is something I've always been particularly appreciative of.
richardw 2y ago
Why are there no class actions to take politicians to task for spreading life risking lies? It seems like a slam dunk in such a litigious society.
time0ut 2y ago
I've always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. The weather weapon conspiracy isn't even new. I remember hearing "they" were controlling the weather to create storms using HAARP [0] like 20 years go. Back then you had to seek this stuff out though. It was on obscure internet forums, fringe websites, and late night talk radio. I am not sure what to make of the current situation. Its concerning. I think there are a lot of factors at play though with a big one being we gave everyone a megaphone and then monetized the result regardless of any negative consequences. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program#Conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_...
EasyMark 2y ago
It’s time that the government forms a department for this to prosecute these crimes, including working with interpol to track down foreign criminals. Then throw them in jail for a very long time. Death threats shouldn’t count as pranks but precursors to murder and be charged harshly (5-10 years in prison). I don’t care if you’re a radicalized suburban mom or MS13, no mercy for this buffoonery
tech_ken 2y ago
This is not an education issue, conspiracy theory prevalence is driven entirely by social dynamics and motivated reasoning. Watch that 2018 documentary about flat-earthers; one of the main 'characters' is like an aeronautics engineer capable of setting up a $12K laser gyroscope, but unwilling to believe it when it tells him the Earth is not flat. MGT is not spouting this stuff because she's stupid, she's spouting it because she can use the narrative to further her political agenda. All this conspiracy stuff over the last 10 years starts from what people want to be true about the world (ex. "the current political regime is evil and it is ethical to overthrow it"), and works backwards to decide what facts will justify that ("they are using the weather to hurt their political enemies"). That rank-and-file voters parrot this stuff is because it's a shibboleth for their social circle, and because it gives their chosen political proxies clout and attention; its truth is irrelevant to all but the most gullible.
rysertio 2y ago
The problem is we taught people to trust science, instead of teaching them science. People should learn to be able to critically analyze data and statistics.
_1tem 2y ago
I’m beginning to understand the worldview of these people. For those who don’t understand science and technology, it is simply magic. And the government and scientists are magicians. So it’s not surprising when they blame the magicians for what is happening to them. From their point of view, their entire experience is dictated by powerful figures who create magical things such as “click a button to make stuff appear at my home with same day shipping” and “bring Napoleon alive on the screen”. I’m beginning to understand why they start to attribute everything to these entities who create such seemingly impossible things. It is a type of pagan idolatry.
smrtinsert 2y ago
Is the real crisis here Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/TikTok? The lies just fly through all of them in an instant. Why bother sending a military against the United States when we can be divided defeated by some guy "just asking questions" after "doing his own research" and sharing to his millions of followers.
tim333 2y ago
This has some signs of deliberate Russian misinformation for example the most prominent backer of saying the government is controlling the weather is Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene who has a record of parroting Kremlin propaganda. You've got to remember the US is sending many billions in military aid to Ukraine to kill Russian troops and Russia which can't attack the US back physically, probably is retaliating through information warfare.

79 points by geox 2y ago

These kinds of articles reinforce my idea that we're witnessing our society collapse before our very eyes. I tend to blame it on Republican idiocracy and Russian trolling, but I suspect the problem is larger than that. It's just depressing. Is the US the only country suffering from this lunacy, or is this a more global phenomenon?

Vampiero 2y ago
It's a global phenomenon but it's only crazy in the US, like most things
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  Its crazy elsewhere too like in the UK, Hungary, Russia, most of eastern and southern europe, India, Brasil, etc. same MO just nationalist/racist/anti intellectual/conspiracy junk shared on social media.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    because it's the same Russian / Chinese / NK efforts, and all heavily automated. how is this a surprise?
- fma 2y ago
  We've always had conspiracy theories and fringe believes, but it's now mainstream in the US.
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    When hasn't it been mainstream? It sure qualified as mainstream for JFK assassinations and arguably Roswell as well. And that is before going to the Know-Nothings and their anti-catholic conspiracy theories.
    - arp242 2y ago
      Conspiracy theories about JFK, Roswell, moon-landings, and things like that are basically harmless. Well, mostly harmless anyway. Usually spread by someone trying to flog some nonsense book, or a confused "true believer". But this is different: it's just a plain ordinary self-serving lie. Completely invented by a sad narcissistic liar and his merry band of sycophantic enablers to win ("win") an election. There's also a type of maliciousness to it that's lacking in more traditional conspiracy theories. We probably shouldn't even call it "conspiracy theory".
- scruple 2y ago
  I don't know. I thought the news out of Turkey today was... interesting, at least from a historical perspective. I don't think it's just us in the US.
ysofunny 2y ago
we are mostly unable to process the fact that science lied to us what's worse, it became an authoritative tool of (often foreign) powers; at least in most of America (as science came from Europe, ...they brought us "culture" when they colonized us in the south; the north did not get colonized but replaced) but of course science lied, but it's not that it lied, it is that it changes. newer truth comes along and fights the old truth until it dies ("the pace of scientific funerals") turns out, breaking people's trust is much easier than gaining it. but my hill to die on, is the old truth of material scarcity and media (or licensing) content versus the new truth of digital abundance and freely sharing things without the license to do so. why do I need permission from some faceless corporate owner to copy cultural assets that I love and wish to share?
- croes 2y ago
  Science doesn't lie, people do. And people are stubborn that's why new discoveries need time to get accepted. But this is different, this is not science but simply BS that is spread.
- ysofunny 2y ago
  just keep repeating "earth is not flat and there's no way that could be" those people get no voice around these parts. also, nevermind the existence of higher order constructs like manifolds. that cannot be what "earth is flat" idiots could be referring to. send me down another negative four, the invisibility threshold.
hindsightbias 2y ago
I think many other cultures are crippled by pervasive conspiracies that re-enforce views of having no agency. And their rulers like it that way. In street drug circles today there are widespread complaints about the quality of fentanyl, withdrawal effects and treatment. OD's are apparently dropping. For those that live in some semblance of reality, I think many there's withdrawal going on. For those that don't get out and call in threats like this, they don't really believe anything persistently, they just believe whatever is the rage of the day. They'll OD someday, you just won't see it in the obits.
WorkerBee28474 2y ago
This is what happens when you coopt science as cover for political decisions - people stop trusting all "science" including real science. From what I've seen I more associate the issue with Democrats than Republicans, especially in the COVID lockdown days.
- ChumpGPT 2y ago
  [flagged]
- kaibee 2y ago
  > From what I've seen I more associate the issue with Democrats than Republicans, especially in the COVID lockdown days. Can you explain the chain of logic here? During the pandemic I "did my own research" which amounted to basically masking when other people did and getting the vaccines as they came out. At the time my SO was a nurse working on a hospital covid floor, so it seemed prudent. So, I'm not really sure how you see Democrats as being less science based? No snark intended, I'm truly curious.
  - Jarwain 2y ago
    My interpretation of their comment is that it's the other way around. Democrats tend to use "science" to justify political decisions. Because people don't like those political decisions, and/or because pop science is allegedly used vs "real science", it devalues "real science" and causes people not to trust it as much
    - autoexec 2y ago
      > Democrats tend to use "science" to justify political decisions. I'd much rather politicians use science to justify political decisions instead of just doing whatever is popular, or would make them and their friends the most money.
    - consteval 2y ago
      The left also tends to use higher education in their political positions. Which is why the right now seems to really have a bone to pick with higher education. What people should be asking is, why does science have a supposedly left-leaning bias? Why does education have a left-leaning bias? It feels like there's some obvious conclusions the republican can draw there, but they see those conclusions and draw something else instead.
xattt 2y ago
I can’t imagine this kind of stuff happens in the PRC. The upside to a tightly-controlled “infosphere” is that people who are at the controls and have rational thought can jump right in and quench the idiocy fires right away.
- smt88 2y ago
  It is significantly worse in the PRC, where they don't believe that the Uyghur genocide is happening. At least (for now) the West has no similar level of denial about something within their own borders.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  And the downside of that upside is that they jump right in and quench things, not always on the basis of idiocy, but also on the basis of opposing the government's narrative. That doesn't actually lead to rationality.
- card_zero 2y ago
  Category:Conspiracy theories in China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_i... (From Category:Conspiracy theories by country) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_b...
  - 0xdde 2y ago
    Funny enough, the fact that your link lists 9 pages compared to 112 for the US[1], it could be taken as stronger evidence for the parent's point. Not that I think this is a particularly reliable way to gauge the phenomenon. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Conspiracy_theories_i...
empath75 2y ago
It turns out that "The remedy for bad speech is more speech" doesn't actually scale globally. You can blame this on Russian and/or Chinese disinformation ops and tik-tok, etc, but the problem is more general than that. One of the assumptions around free speech ideals is that the people who are speaking or publishing are citizens of the community in which they are speaking or publishing, and now a large part of the content on the internet is produced by people who are crossing national boundaries, or not even produced by people at all. You used to be able to assume that the vast majority of the content you're exposed to is produced by people who live in your community or country and would not like to see it destroyed, and now, in fact, you should probably assume the opposite. You should assume that most content on the internet is produced by bad actors trying to rip the fabric of your society apart, particularly if you're reading something that enrages you. The especially insidious part of this is that most of the rage bait stuff plays on widespread personal biases so it's self sustaining after a while. People start to hate each other, so then they do stuff to each other to make each other hate each other more and so on and so on until you've got Rwanda.
- mistrial9 2y ago
  not really -- rather consider the ability of a very small minority of voices to amplify tremendously without sufficient dampening.. stability in public communication is never simple. A psychologist might say that social rage itself, or anger with blame itself, is the root of the behavior. Every language group on Earth has rational, constructive people in it.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    > rather consider the ability of a very small minority of voices to amplify tremendously without sufficient dampening Strongly recommend reading about Wayne Wheeler -- the guy who made Prohibition happen. Prohibition was not especially popular in the US, even before it passed. But Wheeler was able to make a small minority sound very, very loud, and lever politicians accordingly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler
codingwagie 2y ago
Russian disinformation is itself a conspiracy theory. Trump was investigated for the last decade, they essentially found nothing.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
  This is just a flat lie.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  Just because no one acted doesn't mean that "they essentially found nothing". The Muller report described Russian interference in the 2016 election as “sweeping and systemic.” The report spent a bunch of pages saying that there were “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.”
  - codingwagie 2y ago
    They would have thrown him in jail if they found anything. it was political theater, and essentially a coup
    - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
      Which are you saying - that the Muller report didn't find things, despite it clearly finding things, or that it was a coup, even though it was under the Trump admin, by DAs placed by Trump?
      - codingwagie 2y ago
        Go watch the interview with Mueller at the end of the investigation. He was completely senile and knew nothing about the case. Mueller himself was a puppet for other people.
        SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
        The "other people" being Trump's DAs? Why would that be the case? Do you believe that Muller did the entire report alone? Who was behind the coup? Why did it fail? If you look through your last few messages you'll see that your argument is constantly changing. First that they investigated and found nothing, but then presented with evidence you try to discredit that source of evidence, first by saying they didn't find anything, and changing tactics to accuse Muller of senility. It as if the truth doesn't so much matter as maintaining your worldview does.
vixen99 2y ago
A few people say or do something completely nutty and the 'country is suffering this lunacy'. At what golden period in history were there no nutcases pitching some irrational extremes into the public sphere? On the other hand maybe I'm quite wrong about all this. Someone has estimated (an open calculation) the payback time for the US debt burden at 90,000 years if it was paid back at the rate of $1,000,000 per day. Some might argue there's lunacy at work over many decades to achieve this result. (from a comment on this blog) - -https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2024/10/08/the-smartest-person-in-the-world-says-that-ai-will-end-civilization-within-20-years/ https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2024/10/08/the-smartest-pe...
- creato 2y ago
  $1m per day divided by ~400m population is essentially zero. Why even mention this? It's just using numbers with a lot of zeros to sound scary, but means nothing.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  1. It's different because the internet feeds us every bit of lunacy that happens anywhere in the country, so it looks like everyone has gone insane. (Especially in politics, where the Ds will tell you about every single stupid thing an R says anywhere in the country, and the Rs will tell you about every single stupid thing a D says.) 2. The national debt is probably a result of long-term lack of wisdom, yes. But with an economy the size of the US, there is absolutely no reason to pay it back at only $1,000,000/day. A serious attempt would be more like $1,000,000,000/day.
avgDev 2y ago
It is global. I was just in Poland. Literally same thing as in the US just a bit different flavor. Mainstream media bad, covid fake just a little flu and used to control society, proud for not wearing masks, did not vaccinate because some crazy reasons. Not everyone obviously, but I was visiting smaller cities where I grew up. I always thought I could go back one day but I don't think I would be able to deal with people there. The customer service is non existent and when you are shopping/getting services you are an inconvenience. Crazy.
_1tem 2y ago
The lunacy is definitely worse in the Anglosphere. I moved to Eastern Europe a few years ago and it's way more sane (and yes, I speak the local languages here). See this article about Emmanuel Todd forecasting the collapse of the West using the same methodology he used to successfully predict the collapse of the Soviet Union: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/opinion/emmanuel-todd-decline-west.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/opinion/emmanuel-todd-dec...
ffujdefvjg 2y ago
I read an Atlantic article the other day where a lit professor from Columbia University said that he has students nowadays who admit to having never read a book cover to cover. Ones that have tend to say their favorite book is something like Percy Jackson. They also can't focus on a small poem. This confirms what a teacher I know has been saying for a long time: highschool kids since around the class of 2010 are getting very noticably stupider. I'm beginning to wonder if social media really has caused kids to miss key developmental stages. Parents being on their phones has led to kids hearing a substantially reduced vocabulary, these kids also receive less interaction from their parents and interact less with their environments and other kids. This stuff is really important for brain development, and we've replaced it with an iPhone. I don't think social media started this, just accelerated the trend. I do think commercialized media for decades now has really been a driver of insipid banality.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
  Why are we blaming kids when elected representatives are parroting these conspiracy theories? MTG isn't seeking Gen Z approval.
  - taylodl 2y ago
    And MTG is 50 and she has to know what she's spouting is nonsense, so why does she spout it? Is her audience really that dimwitted, or is there something else at play? For example, is this part of some mass brainwashing ploy? Are they Jim Jonesing millions of Americans? If so, then to what end?
    - SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
      That's where I'm at a loss. Are all the people parroting this stuff actually believers? My instinct is that the majority tried to grab the bull by the horns by jumping on the Trump schtick when he took power and are now left riding this increasingly deranged and unpredictable animal. At this point they can do nothing but try to keep holding on lest they be trampled by the beast they created. But there's also gotta be true believers in there, and yeah, I don't know what those people actually want, and it's pretty scary.
stanski 2y ago
There's always been nutcases (apologies to people with actual mental illness). The problem is that politicians (worldwide) have figured out how to utilize them for their own benefit. I agree that at times it does seem like a very bad premonition.
MildlySerious 2y ago
> I suspect the problem is larger than that. My take is that this is a symptom of something else. Populism has existed for a long time, but it feels to me that the environment we created also created the perfect target audience for it on a scale that never existed before. Observing the alt-right and conspiracy bubbles collapse into one over the last five years, it feels like it's the result of a sort of mental defense mechanism for a group of people that is growing every day. As I see it, we have built a world around us that is very complex and abstract, and hostile to the mind in a way that enables this sort of ideology immensely. In it, it is very hard to feel a sort of purpose, and it is very easy to be overwhelmed. On average, the work people do has little to no effect on themselves or their direct peers. All day, every day is spent shuffling around numbers on a spreadsheet, or doing work to aid someone who shuffles around numbers on a spreadsheet. Then you clock out having a net zero benefit on your life, or that of people that matter. Other than, of course, a number that goes up in a different spreadsheet. And while you do your shuffling about to scrape by another month, you get bombarded with a flood of information about this war or that catastrophe or those disasters. It leaves people numb, overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, helpless, purposeless, etc. Keep that up long enough, and what happens is something like a narcissistic collapse, except that it's not narcissists it happens to, but normal, healthy but vulnerable minds whose mental health can no longer be reconciled with a toxic reality. In comes an ideology that does three things: It simplifies. It gives purpose. It provides an outlet. Once you subscribe to it, everything returns from countless shades of gray to black and white. If you're not one of the good guys, you're one of the bad guys. If a bad guy says a thing, it's a bad thing. If you say a bad thing, you're a bad guy. The simple prescriptive labels of what counts as good and bad are delivered to you, on the house. Takes away all the nuance, all the complexity and all the mental burden that came with it. Then, it gives purpose. If you fall into this hole, you end up seeing yourself as two things: A victim, and a savior. You see what others don't, and you suffer for it. "They" - the bad guys - are out to get you, to destroy everything. Every confrontation is thus someone attacking you, the victim, or defying you, the savior. It provides a narrative in a chaotic world where bad things happen for no reason and without explanation. Last, it creates a target for all your bottled up frustration and anger. The bad guys are responsible for all the bad things, and it is made clear how very okay it is to channel all your negative emotions into hate towards some group. Be it Jewish people, immigrants, scientists, democrats or some imaginary lizard people. Hate is fine. The end result is a full abdication of responsibility, and a return of control at the low, low price of a divorce from reality. To the mind that slips into this rabbit hole it is not so much a choice as it is a lifeline. That is why it is so incredibly hard to get people out of it, as well.
red-iron-pine 2y ago
> trolling this implies that its just a few folks talking shit on a lark, when it is actually a concerted, aggressive, multi-billion dollar effort across all-channels, with the goal of degrading civil institutions and hopefully causing a civil war. that the average American rube can't figure that out is also part of the problem

ChumpGPT 2y ago

MGT accused Democrats of colluding with other worldly forces and creating Milton. She said "ask your government if the weather is being manipulated or controlled. Did you give them permission to do this? Are you paying for it? Of course you are paying for it." She said the same thing about Helene. She is feeding the mental illness that grips MAGA. This is a sitting Representative and has the full support and admiration of the Republican Candidate for President. Even Republicans are now coming out to try to explain that humans can't create or control Hurricanes all while their own and their Candidate for President is suggesting otherwise.

throwup238 2y ago
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a Representative, not Senator. Even for the Republican party she’s a weirdo and she’s only able to win due to the “unique” demographics of her district. She’s unlikely to be able to win a statewide race anywhere, and Senators in general tend to be less radical. Not that it makes her insanity any less insane…
- ChumpGPT 2y ago
  Yes you're correct, will edit my post.
- sundaeofshock 2y ago
  I have to disagree with you here. Most of the Senators from the GOP have been happy to share the same drivel. Indeed, Senator JD Vance and Donald Trump — arguably the most powerful men in the GOP are as unhinged as MTG.
  - consteval 2y ago
    I predict that if Trump does not get elected, the GOP will completely drop his name and they will act as though he never existed. He is truly insane. It is unbelievable to me that the mainstream GOP - who I have always perceived as reasonable people - would back him with such loyalty. But, then again, due to his previous presidency he probably has the best odds.

Animats 2y ago

Maybe people are getting dumber because of COVID.[1] Even after recovery, having mild COVID seems to cost 3 IQ points.[1] Reinfection, 2 more IQ points.[2] This is for people who have recovered, and does not include "long COVID". [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-iq-brain-age-cognitive-health/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-iq-brain-age-cognitive... [2] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2400189 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2400189

rootusrootus 2y ago
This was going full force well before COVID. Before 2016, though that was when it became a lot more overt.
autoexec 2y ago
Between covid brain, ipad kids, heavy metal poisoning, and decades of attacks on the education system the US is dropping IQ points while mental illness is on the rise.
- know-how 2y ago
  [dead]
alistairSH 2y ago
Did you leave out the /s? Or are you seriously implying the crazy conspiracy garbage we're seeing recently is a result of COVID? Because that sounds just as deranged as <waves hands at all the other dumb shit on the internet>.
- Animats 2y ago
  It's not a joke. "A three-point downward shift in IQ would increase the number of U.S. adults with an IQ less than 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million – an increase of 2.8 million adults with a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support." Then there's long COVID. A detailed overview of that.[1] As of late 2023, about 5% of US adults report having long COVID. It appears that, if it lasts a year, there's usually no further recovery. Some new results indicate that at least some long COVID sufferers still have a reservoir of the active virus.[2] That's encouraging, because antivirals may help them. It indicates where to look. This is very real. Most people are tired of hearing about COVID, but the virus isn't tired. [1] https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27756/chapter/8 https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27756/chapter/8 [2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/10/getting-to-the-bottom-of-long-covid/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/10/getting-to-th...

ako 2y ago

That is what you get when you stop funding general education because you think people should pay for it themselves. People lose the ability to separate fact from fiction, lack the ability for critical thinking. I benefit when others around me get better education, that's why I'm happy when my taxes are used to fund schools and universities and other ways of educating people. And it also benefits the economy, so every tax dollar/euro spend on education has a huge ROI.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
I actually disagree. This is what you get when scandal after scandal happens to public institutions. People go flat earth most often, not because of the "science," but because they do not trust the government for honesty. This also happens whenever there is an apparent "win" even if it isn't quite so. For example, when a judge last week ordered federal Fluoride standards to be re-examined. It doesn't need to be a total vindication of the conspiracy theorists, for trust to be substantially damaged. Same for the Iraq war, with "weapons of mass destruction" - imagine if your child died from that lie. Repeat this every year, in multiple institutions, for 20+ years straight; and yes, observant people might well think that everything the government has ever said is a hoax. It's not about the science, or their ability to track truth from falsehood, but their reactionary hate of anything the institutions say.
- zpeti 2y ago
  I don’t know why you are getting downvoted. This is just as valid as saying education has gotten worse. It’s likely both are causes, and some other things too.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  > People go flat earth Isn't the joke here that for most of modern history the flat earth discussions were a debate contest by people who didn't actually believe the earth was flat but enjoyed trying to prove it was? And then it leaked out and found a welcome home amongst people gullible enough to believe all of the "evidence" that had been concocted.

rootusrootus 2y ago

As always, the media softens the truth to try and keep their subscriber numbers up. Or their inboxes from overflowing with death threats. They sugarcoat the problem as "political polarization" but this is bullshit. These conspiracy theories are almost entirely a right wing phenomenon. If you put a Trump sign in your yard, will you get death threats? Nope. Laughed at? Maybe, but not to your face. People are afraid of Trump supporters. Now try putting a Harris sign in your yard. Your local sheriff will tell the world to make sure they keep track of you for future recriminations. You'll get anonymous death threats in your mailbox. There is sickness in politics today, but the solution is not "fix both sides."

croes 2y ago
There is also left wing violence, more often from the right but not zero from the left.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Agreed, I won't absolve the left from having some loonies. But they are recognized as the loonies they are. On the right it has become mainstream. The things I hear from friends and family are just mind blowing, and they think what they're saying is normal. So much anger, so much venom.
SHAadder 2y ago
[flagged]
- Nasrudith 2y ago
  It is only 1 to 2 at best. You forgot the weird Indian Nazi and (badly) attempted assassin from Missouri, Sai Varshith Kandula. And that is excluding everyone else who got arrested for death threats.
  - SHAadder 2y ago
    Who? The non-US resident that got bad google map directions with his U-Haul? /s

codingwagie 2y ago

A lot of storms are blown out of proportion to get clicks. There is a large gap between the predicted damage and the actual damage.

rootusrootus 2y ago
To get clicks, or to keep people alive after a few storms in the not-that-distant past were not recognized for the monsters they were until it was too late for people to evacuate? There is certainly a risk that people will take the next warnings less seriously. And then an unexpectedly large number of people will die, and we will cycle again.

mykowebhn 2y ago

The paradox seen in many today is that the stupider people in fact really are the smarter they believe themselves to be.

bell-cot 2y ago

> Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes But even before the Speed: Horseback tech upgrade was discovered, "kill the messenger" was an all-too-common human reaction.

SHAadder 2y ago

Is this what hackers do all day? Watch mainstream media articles talk sh* about politicians they don't like? https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqC.html https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqC.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_... https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ee/53/36/ac05709c93ba8f/US20030085296A1.pdf https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/ee/53/36/ac05709... It's an interesting theory, at best this is virtue signalling taken as GOSPEL by the other side.. so BAU.

switch007 2y ago

> “Nowadays, there’s so much bad information out there that if we spent our time getting rid of it, we’d have no more time.” Are they referring to the Mayor of Tampa warning "you will die"?

ladzoppelin 2y ago

Guys I am not disagreeing with anyone here but the patents for weather technologies are very real and gag orders are also very real so could someone please explain or link to info on why these things exist instead of saying covid made people stupid, which I assume means you also think yourself and all government leaders are now dumber? That does not mean anyone is causing hurricanes but maybe if more information on technologies that has been for decades was explained it would not be so confusing and these things would not get so out of hand.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
> the patents for weather technologies are very real Would you cite some of them, then? Especially ones that are not just "weather technologies" but are capable of creating, amplifying, and/or steering hurricanes?
SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
One doesn't need to be able to build the thing they patent. I've seen conspiracy theorist link to weather technology patents but they are things like "create a fog", which I think we'll both agree is SLIGHTLY less energetic than the current extreme weather, so if you know of a patent for and evidence of a working hurricane machine I'd like to see it. We can't just say "well they seed rain, therefore they have a hurricane machine".

joshdavham 2y ago

It's not hard to accept that stupid people fall for these kinds of conspiracy theories, but I'll never forget that one professor I had in uni who was teaching us chaos theory and dynamical systems and was convinced that the government was controlling the weather. I'm kinda skeptical how much education can do to fix conspiratorial thinking. If even a professor teaching chaos theory is convinced that the government is controlling the weather then frankly anyone could probably be convinced.

autoexec 2y ago
yeah, idiots fall for more misinformation, but lots of very well educated people still fall for conspiracy theories. I feel like it's more of a lack of trust than a lack of education.
tempestn 2y ago
You've got to look at rates. I'd place a substantial bet that the percentage of professors, or even just college grads, who believe that is lower than in the general population. (Though you have to be specific about the question. We can control the weather in some very limited ways, but we can't, for example, trigger a hurricane. Or prevent one.)

VyseofArcadia 2y ago

I want to shout out a specific man quoted in the article. > “I’ve been doing this for 46 years and it’s never been like this,” says Alabama meteorologist James Spann. I grew up in Alabama, and I am positive James Spann has saved my life more than once with his tornado outbreak coverage. I can still hear him saying, "get to shelter now". He was a comforting voice at 2am when you and your family are huddled in the most central room of your house because mother nature is actively trying to kill you.

robmccoll 2y ago
Yes! James Spann was and is an excellent source of meteorological information. I remember him coming to our school and talking to kids about his job and encouraging us to take an interest in science and the world around us. Alabama needs more people like him and fewer people who are likely to encourage conspiratorial thinking for political points at the potential cost of human life. Also, appreciate the username - great game.
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
James Spann has also claimed that climate change isn't happening and it's just scientists chasing funding that explains their findings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Spann#Global_warming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Spann#Global_warming So a bit of a "first they came for the climate scientists and I did nothing" vibe.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  That is unfortunate, but the man still does good work every time weather is putting lives at stake in Alabama.
- gitaarik 2y ago
  On his wiki page it says: "He asserts that climate change is naturally caused, as part of the climate's cyclical nature." So you are, like many people, misunderstand him, and many other people like him, that they don't deny climate change, but just aren't convinced that it is primarily caused by humans. There is actually no scientific data that proofs the idea that humans are the primary cause of climate change, so it is still an open question, and therefore different beliefs about it should be respected. But it's such a controversial and sensitive topic, that many people don't even want to be open to another perspective, which is sad.

cheeseomlit 2y ago

Is this really indicative of a broad societal trend, or is it just one guy with an LLM and some burner emails?

VyseofArcadia 2y ago

I have only anecdata for this, but I have a strong suspicion that people just don't think about things on social media the same way they do physical interactions. If someone standing outside the grocery store hands you a flyer that claims the government can control the weather and they're sending you hurricanes on purpose, you'd dismiss them as insane and continue on your way. When your high school buddy Denise posts it on Facebook, though, you're more likely to believe it. Even if you'd think Denise would be crazy if she went out and handed out flyers at the grocery store. It's like most of us have a built-in crazy filter that works fine for in-person interactions, but it breaks down when that exact same interactions happens online.

EasyMark 2y ago
This is why I never believe a tweet that I can’t confirm myself. I only pay attention to sciencey/CS people on twitter. Talking heads and political sources there are always nearly extremely biased and most are flat out untruthful.
arp242 2y ago
I'm not so sure about this explanation; people believed in conspiracy theories in the past. Witch-hunts for example are fundamentally not that different from Q-Anon and all of that bollocks: "mysterious dark forces do evil stuff when we're not looking". The whole "they're abusing our children" is also a trope that goes back a long time, most recently during the 80s with the whole "Satanic Ritual Abuse" stuff. That was much worse, because innocent people's lives were complete wrecked over what was complete bollocks. Pizzagate is near-identical, with s/daycare/pizzahut/. More examples can be found throughout history – they're typically not called "conspiracy theories", but often they're not that different at its core. I think what social media has done is allowing people to reach a wider audience. That person outside the grocery store reaches what, maybe a few hundred people with several hours of work? On the internet you can reach about 1.5 billion English speaking people with a minute of work. And that person outside the grocery store has no real way to organise a meaningful community, even if they do manage to gain 2 or 3 acolytes. On the internet you just create a Facebook group, or reddit sub, or whatever. And all of that is including only the "crazy people". Add bad faith actors to the mix spreading misinformation simply to cause chaos and things quickly become well fucked.

mindcrime 2y ago

It's mind boggling. And I can't even begin to explain it. We live in an age when something pretty close to the sum total of human scientific knowledge is available online, and mostly for free (especially if you count shadow libraries like Anna's Archive, LibGen, Sci-Hub, Zlib, etc). There's millions or billions of pages of high-quality scientific content, millions or billions of hours of lectures on everything from Geology to Abstract Algebra to High Energy Physics. Anybody can use Khan Academy to get a reasonably decent education on critical aspects of math and science. Sites like Stack Exchange, (some) sub-reddits, physicsforums.com, etc. make it possible for anybody to solicit feedback and corrections on almost any technical topic. In short, it's possible to be as educated as you want to be, and it's mostly free except for the time and effort involved. And instead a large portion of the population seem to be not only not pursuing real knowledge, but actively rejecting it and embracing obvious bullshit. WTH people? OK yes.. I know. Somebody is going to say it. The critical phrase above is time and effort involved. And maybe that's right. Maybe it's just laziness. But somehow that doesn't feel right. And I understand the notion that the widespread interconnectedness of the Internet allows small numbers of people with fringe beliefs to "find each other" and reinforce each other's nuttery, and that has some amplification effect on the prevalence of flat-earth thinking, etc. And yet, I still don't think that explains what's going on with people. And the frank truth is, I don't have an explanation. Or a solution. And I wish I did. I hope sombody does. Because as @taylodl says in another thread: These kinds of articles reinforce my idea that we're witnessing our society collapse before our very eyes. I concur, and this troubles me deeply.

mppm 2y ago
I can't explain it either, but maybe prophesies of impending collapse are a bit premature. The world has never been particularly rational, even in places that have near 100% literacy. Just look at the number of people who believe in astrology or homeopathy, not to mention that one guy who created the Earth and its inhabitants some 4000 years ago, in six days no less.
- mindcrime 2y ago
  Fair enough. But I'll just say that I feel like I've seen a pronounced change in my lifetime, and more pointedly in the last 5-10 years, that I find acutely disturbing, even compared against that "background rate". And maybe the answer really is as simple as "social media". Which I find to be a sad idea, as the potential of social media act as a force for good still exists and is something I've always been particularly appreciative of.

richardw 2y ago

Why are there no class actions to take politicians to task for spreading life risking lies? It seems like a slam dunk in such a litigious society.

time0ut 2y ago

I've always been fascinated by conspiracy theories. The weather weapon conspiracy isn't even new. I remember hearing "they" were controlling the weather to create storms using HAARP [0] like 20 years go. Back then you had to seek this stuff out though. It was on obscure internet forums, fringe websites, and late night talk radio. I am not sure what to make of the current situation. Its concerning. I think there are a lot of factors at play though with a big one being we gave everyone a megaphone and then monetized the result regardless of any negative consequences. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program#Conspiracy_theories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_Active_Auroral_...

EasyMark 2y ago

It’s time that the government forms a department for this to prosecute these crimes, including working with interpol to track down foreign criminals. Then throw them in jail for a very long time. Death threats shouldn’t count as pranks but precursors to murder and be charged harshly (5-10 years in prison). I don’t care if you’re a radicalized suburban mom or MS13, no mercy for this buffoonery

tech_ken 2y ago

This is not an education issue, conspiracy theory prevalence is driven entirely by social dynamics and motivated reasoning. Watch that 2018 documentary about flat-earthers; one of the main 'characters' is like an aeronautics engineer capable of setting up a $12K laser gyroscope, but unwilling to believe it when it tells him the Earth is not flat. MGT is not spouting this stuff because she's stupid, she's spouting it because she can use the narrative to further her political agenda. All this conspiracy stuff over the last 10 years starts from what people want to be true about the world (ex. "the current political regime is evil and it is ethical to overthrow it"), and works backwards to decide what facts will justify that ("they are using the weather to hurt their political enemies"). That rank-and-file voters parrot this stuff is because it's a shibboleth for their social circle, and because it gives their chosen political proxies clout and attention; its truth is irrelevant to all but the most gullible.

rysertio 2y ago

The problem is we taught people to trust science, instead of teaching them science. People should learn to be able to critically analyze data and statistics.

_1tem 2y ago

I’m beginning to understand the worldview of these people. For those who don’t understand science and technology, it is simply magic. And the government and scientists are magicians. So it’s not surprising when they blame the magicians for what is happening to them. From their point of view, their entire experience is dictated by powerful figures who create magical things such as “click a button to make stuff appear at my home with same day shipping” and “bring Napoleon alive on the screen”. I’m beginning to understand why they start to attribute everything to these entities who create such seemingly impossible things. It is a type of pagan idolatry.

smrtinsert 2y ago

Is the real crisis here Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/TikTok? The lies just fly through all of them in an instant. Why bother sending a military against the United States when we can be divided defeated by some guy "just asking questions" after "doing his own research" and sharing to his millions of followers.

tim333 2y ago

This has some signs of deliberate Russian misinformation for example the most prominent backer of saying the government is controlling the weather is Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene who has a record of parroting Kremlin propaganda. You've got to remember the US is sending many billions in military aid to Ukraine to kill Russian troops and Russia which can't attack the US back physically, probably is retaliating through information warfare.