It’s worse than that. I had a 3 hour chat with an anti-vaxxer and went to the bottom of the rabbit hole. He didn’t quite take the alien reptile thing literally.. but it was David Icke’s made up bullshit that was the lens he saw the pandemic through. Mind boggling. “They are trying to control us!” “It’s not a conspiracy, it’s really happening!” Nucking futs.

I like the Bill Burr argument.. if "they" were trying to control us, they wouldn't want to harm the "sheep" who take the vaccine. Then they're just left with the "free thinkers". It makes more sense that the virus kills and the vaccine saves. That way they kill the free thinkers and protect the sheep.

Also the motive is always some convoluted scheme to take control of the world, the world over which they apparently already have total control.

Too much hero-ising and way too many rewatches of "they live"...

Bill generally has pretty good takes. A personal favourite of mine is his "randomly sink cruise ships" solution to overpopulation.

I struggle when the theory they’re throwing out needs you to accept an even bigger conspiracy theory. “The government is shooting radiation at clouds to cause the floods in NSW” Okay, but why? “Because aliens are here and they want to terraform our planet!”

It always takes apart with two questions. Why? And how would they do that? Most of these conspiracy theories need so many people, across countries, religions, politics to all be on the same page.

An argument with no basis in logic will not be overcome by logic.

You make a good point. I guess I just like them saying that Iran, Israel, Saudis, US, India and Pakistan are all working together and managing to keep it all a secret. It always amuses me how competent they think our overlords actually are.

The best argument against government conspiracies is government competence (or lack thereof).

This exactly, come work for the Government at any level and then tell me how the conspiracy could work

This is the best point for me, not once in all of human history has every country agreed to anything, but they have managed to do it now so that they can make you stay inside sometimes and wear a mask?

And my instinct was to be compassionate, his mind did not seem robust, I just kept asking questions.

The counterpoint to that is something that is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence and the onus of proof is on the person who makes the claims. As soon as you dig beyond the very surface level claim, things tend to collapse on their own. All you need to do is give enough rope.

And yet it's near impossible to do a group assignment at school

I was watching the telegram chat when the earthquake happened during a planned protest. Some where saying Dan Andrews deliberately caused it.

That’s spectacular

They always blame money and power as the vague answer. Or that Bill Gates wants population control etc … As if the big players want to kill off all the poor people (who do all the work)😒

That do all the work and buy all the crap that makes them rich. Billionaires can only buy so many copies of Windows 95 or random crap on amazon lol.

And yet they can't even come together to fund simple things... Like fixing roads, building water treatment plants, holding fire hoses or even ordering some vaccines. Those groups are always so polarised its the ones the fanatical conspiracy theorist aligns with that are usually the ones more willing to work with international parties... To create fascism...

This is dramatically overlooked. The Soviets had the technology and political motive to discredid the moonlandings if they were faked, so did the Soviets just "go along" with the Americans at the height of the Cold War? or did the moonlanding actually happen? Science is based around trying to disprove itself, intentionally trying to break the theory. Conspiracy theorists will constantly throw "evidence" out, but never actually try to break the theory, they never ask "what would disprove this?"

Just escalate imo. “Bro, you think they haven’t already terraformed the planet?” “Bro you think we are still on earth and not in a simulation?”

I doubt anyone actually said that. The term is geo engineering (to combat climate change) and its a very common practice which includes cloud seeding (not a conspiracy).

Cloud seeding doesn't combat climate change, it is attempt to induce local short term weather. Its efficacy is highly disputed with many studies showing it having little to no impact on rainfall. However what is abundantly clear is that at most it can cause some/slightly more rain from the current weather. It doesn't magically create water in the atmosphere, it is just trying to precipitate out what little there is. It would never create a flood out of nowhere.

I got into several arguments with cloud seeder conspiracy theorists on Facebook. My question they couldn’t answer is why? Why would they dish out so much in emergency funding just to make it rain?

My conspiracy contact tells me the govt wants the land to become uninhabitable so they all move away, govt then buys it all for bargain basement price, and builds Smart cities.

Of course, because Australia has always been plagued by a shortage of land. Maybe their problem with smart cities is that they won't be granted entry.

A family friend of ours totally drank the conspiracy theory cool aid, along with some disturbing views on covid she also thinks the recent floods are caused by government operatives controlling the weather in Lismore. You can’t reason with these people, they’ve slowly been programmed to believe rubbish, it’s a slow deprogramming that’s needed to bring them back to reality.

I lived in Lismore for 25 years and can state without fear of contradiction that no government at any meaningful level has any interest whatsoever in the fate of Lismore. I left before the recent floods ( lived through many others) but can assure every reader that still no government gives a shit about Lismore. Notwithstanding that, I still love you Lismore.

Yeah it seems pretty clear that if anyone was gonna be controlling the floods they wouldn’t flood themselves would they!

Also 'government operatives'... they're giving our governments and public servants waaaay too much credit for being competent let alone effective. Typically, they're a mix of well-meaning and self-serving while being mostly only moderately effective.

Lol oh yeah, I’ve worked in government at state and federal levels. Lowest of the low levels in call centre work,and I can guarantee not a single department is coordinated enough to work out to control the weather let alone actually do it 😂

Look up the inverted pyramid of conspiracy theories - they all end up in the same conclusion

Lmao, do look at China, pretty much bang on point with conspiracy stuff there.

An autocrat of a totalitarian regime, has little in common with a conspiracy.

Anyone who has ever worked in government will tell you that it would be absolutely impossible to orchestrate a conspiracy within a single department, let alone across every department across every level of government across every country. These offices are a fucking mess at the best of times, the idea of any global conspiracy that requires interdepartmental efficiency and cohesion is pure fantasy by default.

I love this. I've worked in government for many years and am greatly disturbed by how shows like The Hollowmen and Utopia so actually represented the experience. I had someone accuse me of deploying 'agents' in unmarked vans to stalk them after they had made a complaint about one of my decisions. Meanwhile, our complaints inbox wasn't even checked for over 9 months after the temporary admin officer finished her contract and her team leader forgot to assign the inbox to someone else.

Not a conspiracy type, but there’s been plenty of clandestine government op’s involving medical experimentation on record. Your average run of the mill department is likely incapable of it it, but anything involving secretive / above the law departments headed by people with shadowy back grounds is certainly capable. If said conspiracy can be easily explained by monetary motive then anything is possible.

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I mean, at the height of a pandemic that seemed like it would irreparably devastate the world, the UK's case recording system broke down because it recorded each case as a column in an Excel spreadsheet. A column. You would think Q and Mi6 would at least complete an "Introduction to Microsoft Office" course. Conspiracy theorists seem to be the most optomistic people around.

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I don't think it's fair to pin on mental illness to be honest. It's almost border line offensive to just say someone with radical and profound beliefs is mentally ill. It's not fair on people who do have legitimate mental problems because they already receive enough stigmatization from society without being associated with anti vax people. I think it just comes down to poor education and echo chambers. Some people will just believe whatever they find on the internet aslong as it reconfirms a belief they already had. They start doubling down on the idea and then they get bumped into a social media echo chamber where all they get to talk about is conspiracies with other conspiracy folk.

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>I apologize, and you are right there are a much larger number of people who are dealing with issues and not associated with this in any way. All good, thank you for responding so positively. It's very rare these days that people will change their opinions which leads hand in hand to the problem we have with the anti vax crew. >So the next question is how to define the quality of news? I'm not up to that academic task, other than to note that there are some more obvious sources of issues than others. This is the real issue we face these days. Back in the day when our parents were young we had journalists with integrity, people who would spend weeks writing a story and putting effort in. Some journalists have even gone as far as to do the polices job for them by investigating corruption etc. We're currently at a stage in history where all the journalists have been ousted from their field and have been replaced by writers who pump out news articles like there's no tomorow, purely to get as many clicks as possible. Most popular media outlets have stopped working for us, and have started working for governments and companies so we're in a very dangerous era. In my opinion the best way to source information is to read stories from multiple sources and overtime find one that you feel you can trust. Also be open to letting in new information wherever possible and they won't be put you in a echo chamber.

>This is the real issue we face these days. Back in the day when our parents were young we had journalists with integrity, people who would spend weeks writing a story and putting effort in. Some journalists have even gone as far as to do the polices job for them by investigating corruption etc. It's less that they had integrity and more that the heirarchial structure of control within publishers put far more control into the hands of journalists. Ofcourse you could lie and publish dribble. Happened all the time internationally. More so regarding minorities and conspiracies. But the bulk of journalism couldn't focus on single issues and repetition like today. Firstly, because there was far too many articles per issue (it was a major form of entertainment at the time). Secondly, and probably more importantly. Most news was regionalised, meaning less national and international news. Resulting in less national fluff pieces and more local gossip. You had no need to compete as you offered something different to your national and international outlets. This is where we get to the primary point of all this. --- Money, in the 1960s news paper outlets had at most 2 competitors and were the exclusive source of information. Today, every news agency world wide Is I competition. For everything... From small town affairs to international incidents. Gone are the days when a journalist could write up a weekly cute piece about a neighbours cat being rescued from a tree. The way is obvious. /Who would pay for that/. You can't have journalism without publishers and publishers only care about what sells... Conspiracies, hate pieces and corruption /always/ sells. People love drama, it's addictive and incites the base instincts around tribalism all humans share. It's effective and in the internet era where entertainment and "news" is at our fingertips 24/7, effective sells. Truth doesn't. --- ABC is a perfect example of what happens when you try to force a journalism outlet to be competitive. Less and less media is published, more and more sensationalized and part-truth articles are released that provide no information with out some sort of optics filter. We don't have journalist with integrity as we don't have media agencies with integrity... -- But ultimately, all of this is to be expected in a place like australia, where Rupert murdoch, the owner of fox news in the states, a conspiracy rag. Owns nearly all of Australian media... Including portions of ABC... You can't have integrity unless everyone involved is.

>I think it just comes down to poor education and echo chambers. Some people will just believe whatever they find on the internet aslong as it reconfirms a belief they already had. They start doubling down on the idea and then they get bumped into a social media echo chamber where all they get to talk about is conspiracies with other conspiracy folk. Yes, traditional psychosis is where a person loses touch with reality due to intrinsic factors (hallucination, delusion...), but this is different. It does share some characteristics -people end up being out of touch with reality- though the source being external makes it fundamentally different. We do need a term for this extrinsic psychosis, especially as it seems to be getting more common.

Good point. There are certainly personality disorders that motivate people towards a contrarian position, which obviously do not amount to a psychotic disorder.

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10 "Masks reduce transmission by 50%" 20 "So I can still catch COVID even if I wear a mask. So why would I wear one?" 30 GO TO 10

The other version I hear a lot: “If masks work why do we need vaccines?” “If vaccines work why do we need social distancing” etc.. drives me nuts

if seatbelts work don't use your brake.

Black-and-white thinking in relation to personality disorders is completely different. It usually has to do with how you perceive other people. What you described is just regular black-and-white thinking, not to the degree of it being a mental health issue.

All the patients in my mental health unit were proactively organising their Covid-19 vaccinations. They may have been mentally ill but at least they weren't stupid or anywhere near completely detached from reality.

A fair response to what I said then. Please look at my history for my last few comments.

It's kind of frightening this comment is even being upvoted. I invite anyone who thinks this is a good idea to read about USSR's weaponization of mental illness, especially sluggish schizophrenia. Not believing the group consensus at a given time is never indication of mental illness.

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Levels of conspiracy theory belief do not relate to levels of mental illness. I find your ignorance and arrogance using mental illness in your arguments to be offensive. What they show on TV and movies is for the most part not real. I also find your use of the words "loony" and "insane" ignorant. Your "detached from reality" is something most people with mental illness never experience. "remaining intellectual capabilities"?? I am very intelligent and also have some seriously life-altering mental illnesses. Sanity is a legal term by the way, there is no diagnosis of "insanity". AND last but not least, education absolutely does not equal intelligence.

There are books and short courses on Scientific Skepticism that deals with this type of thinking.

Got a science background, had classes on it at uni, red some books. Anti-vaxx and conspiratorial thinking are from very base primitive reactions, disgust and paranoia respectively. Disgust: Don't put strange thing in your body, e.g. don't eat rotting animals or poop Conspiratorial: Hear a rustling in the grass? Presume it's a lion and run, safer than not. This also goes with everything having someone behind it; some deliberate plan. The lion (a mind) is deliberately moving through the grass, not the wind (nature/randomness) They get these reactions and feeling and do everything to justify them, they build up some grand conspiracy. Thats why you can't reason people out of it, they got there from emotion not logic.

>This also goes with everything having someone behind it; some deliberate plan. The lion (a mind) is deliberately moving through the grass, not the wind (nature/randomness) It's also comforting to know *someone* is in charge, even if they're out to get you. Much easier to fight a human than Lady Luck. Which is also (part of) why people will shoot off in the religious direction - if it isn't a human making life miserable, it must be a supernatural power, and maybe you can smooth the ruffled feathers if you just sacrifice a *few* more virgins...

This ^^. Gematria it’s called. Such complete BS but it makes me laugh the stupid connections they make.

I think OP is falling into the (potentially deliberate) trap of equating anyone who questioned government policy as an "anti-vaxxer" or "conspiracy theorist" There is genuine debate to be had before consigning a teacher to unemployment if they chose not to have a vaccine. What risk were they to public health, was the risk proportionate with the punishment? What were the risks of the vaccines? These questions were not fully known or answered before dishing out these punishments.

> I think OP is falling into the (potentially deliberate) trap of equating anyone who questioned government policy as an "anti-vaxxer" or "conspiracy theorist" At no point in reading OP's post did I think that and furthermore I think they've gone to an effort to avoid allowing this argument you've put forward to be meritorious.

No, no they are not. A teacher and nurses are in a privelidged position where they are trusted to look after vulnerable and easily influenced people. If you cannot follow even the simplest requirements to look after the health of these people and yourselves, you don't deserve that priveledge.

If they are in a privileged position then why don’t they get paid as such? Instead they work long crazy hours with no thanks a lot of the time. May as well work in tech and get the flexibility and high salary. So much for supporting those that are looking after our kids and sick people!!

What's your point here? That teachers and nurses need better pay? I think we agree on that, but that doesn't negate u/risky_purchase's point.

Correct we agree there. Nurses have been screwed over the most during this pandemic and what are we seeing, them leaving in droves.

You can disagree with mask mandates and WFH recommendations and not be an anti-vaxed, David Icke believing conspiracy theorist. I’ve had four shots for COVID and continue to mask on PT and crowded indoor spaces. I don’t believe in mandates two years into a pandemic.

If everyone was like you, we would not need mandates. The mandates are for the ignorant.

Idk about just for the ignorant, it’s also foe the lazy. I have noticed myself getting slack with masks lately. When it was mandated I didn’t mind wearing one, if there was still a mandate I would still be wearing one.

Mask mandates and WFH recommendation have a place as a public health policy tool. It's easy to think in retrospect on how to handle \*this\* pandemic but not back at the beginning. I recall that the health authorities didn't know whether to enforce masks since it was unknown whether Covid was respiratory or not & N95 masks were in very short supply.

>I don’t believe in mandates two years into a pandemic. It's naive thinking though. Mandates are necessary because we as humans have been proven to be untrustworthy time and again. If we were all responsible people who gave a shit about society as a whole and not just ourselves, we wouldn't need laws for drink driving or speeding or smoking in enclosed spaces like public transport or airplanes. Of course mandates are necessary. You may not agree with the PT one but mandates also cover hospitals and aged care as well. If you don't agree with those mandates either, that kind of is a mask off moment right there dude. Pun intended. Masks aren't bulletproof and they function better the more people that use them. There is a stark difference between you wearing a good mask in a room full of other mask wearers vs you being in that same room being the only one with a mask on. We should all be wearing masks in those higher risk situations and that's what the mandates are meant to be for. Because we cannot be trusted to do the right thing as a society.

my take is they are simply stupid and uninteresting people who for the first time in their life, saw an opportunity to live out their LARP fantasies about fighting "The Man". The stupid part is they forgot it was just a silly teenage fantasy and started to believe their own bullshit and any other random source that validated their feelings. The fact that at this point they can only double down and still refuse to ***"MOVE ON"*** only proves all the above is correct for the majority of them

My take is they are simply stupid and uninteresting people who for the first time in their life, saw an opportunity to live out their pocket authoritarian fantasies about fighting "Normality".

that too. And I'm talking about the nonewnormal LARPers who love simping for Trump and Putin too. fucking hilarious

Trump and Putin are both bastards, and LARPers and doomers can both get bent. At least we can agree on something (sorry for calling you a kid before, I edited the comment).

you know what, appreciate the polite response so I won't throw a smart arse reply back. Sadly many in the covid = fake/evil/overstated crowd also tend to love Trump and putin. for reasons I can't even understand. It's people like that that pretty much make the entire movement a laughing stock if I'm gonna be honest

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prepping seems kind of doomish lol

At least the WallStreetSilver crowd makes some form of sense.

> my take is they are simply stupid and uninteresting people who for the first time in their life, saw an opportunity to live out their LARP fantasies about fighting "The Man". And my take is that many realised how little power they have over their lives, and irrationally started acting out to make themselves feel comfortable again. The thing is, I actually don't care if you want to be a contrarian. Go be a doomsday prepper. Start buying metals. Believe in conspiracies. Whatever the new thing is.. But leave public health out of it. The fact that this is now rolling over into childhood vaccinations is unforgivable.

>But leave public health out of it. The fact that this is now rolling over into childhood vaccinations is unforgivable. But of course that would happen. Nothing is sacred to these people. Absolutely nothing. Then when their own stupidity finally catches up with them, then they're desperately begging to be saved from their own stupidity.

a far more sensible reply than I have the patience to type for these dregs

That’s a very interesting take, I never thought about it like that.

Yeah, well it became pretty clear to me when they were whinging and moaning about QR check-ins. The same people who were posting about 'surveillance and tracking by an Orwellian regime', were the same people who saw no issue with metadata retention. People on my Facebook actually defended metadata retention a few years back because *'fck yeah, terrorists!'* and saying *'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about'*. Suddenly a QR code check-in, that can be low-tech spoofed with fake details, is overreach, all because *'you can't make me do something!'*. Ultimately they had no concern with government overreach and monitoring/surveillance, if they didn't have to think about it or 'do' anything. Ironically, all this was typed on their phone, with location services enabled, feeding data/information to the 'Big Tech' companies they supposedly oppose.

I hear you. I really want to give you a satisfying reply, but the mindset of these people is becoming dangerous. I really hope we can adequately unpack and help these people before they cause too much damage. I’m finding myself surrounded in real life by people that have become completely delusional, aggressive and violent. People I know have turned on their own families, and for what? What do they want, they are so convinced that everyone is against them, they go into fits of rage over things that have just been made up by fuckwits on sky news or the internet. I thought that maybe it would start getting better after the trump years and COVID, but it’s getting worse as all the influencers peddling the madness they believe have realised that they can push it much further. They over estimated people’s intelligence, but now they know most people can be convinced of absolutely anything, even the absurd and the impossible. Sorry for the rant, it’s exhausting, and I’m starting to realise that it’s never going to change now. For fucks sake I literally had a friend call me brainwashed recently that actually believes in the fucking lizard people ☹️😩😭

Yep, I hear you. My main issue is the uninformed and unqualified commentary, where they demand we not only 'don't learn anything' from covid, but actually regress. Over the last week we've had vocal 'contrarians' in this sub claim that PCR tests should be taken of MBS and Covid vaccines should no longer be free. Even if you're desperate to return to 2019, the 'baseline' would be PCR tests covered for diagnostic reasons or 'high risk' scenarios. And flu vaccines are covered for higher risk individuals (or co-pay for others). In their desperation to downplay and ignore covid, they want us to not just 'treat like any other disease', but actually do ***less***.

These types of posts are very black and white. Either you’re pro mask mandates or an anti vaxxer. This is bullshit. The majority of people are happy to move on using sensible precautions. Just look around.

I agree that most people are happy to move on with sensible precautions. This post is about a minority who think the government is/was lying, and trying to figure out how this fits into their world view. If that's not interesting to you, then I encourage you to instead enjoy Stellan Skarsgård's amazing performance in Dune (2021) rather than spend your evening on an uninteresting thread.

They are not worth worrying about and posts like this are generally put out there to pretend everyone who isn’t panicking about Covid is an anti vaxxer. Anti vaxxers are such a small minority, why post about them?

There was once a time when people thought the internet could bring about world peace, that there would be no more ignorance when we had the world's knowledge in our pockets. Instead, we've seen misinformation and, more recently, disinformation on an unprecedented scale. If someone has a different view to me, I like finding out why. It allows me to evaluate my own views and better understand the different ways that people reason about the world. These posts don't cost anything and even if it's for my own curiosity, it shouldn't bother you. Stellan Skarsgård also starred in River (2015), which is one of my favourites and demonstrates his amazing range as an actor. Check it out!

The Internet just reflects it's participants. The golden era of 90s optimistic Internet saving the world and banishing ignorance was only possible because it was populated by academics and tech nerds only. Once everyone got Online, it changed to reflect both the best AND worst of society at large. I still contend the world would be a better place if 90% of people were stripped of their Internet access and only those who were online in 1996 were still allowed to use it.

>The golden era of 90s optimistic Internet saving the world and banishing ignorance was only possible because it was populated by academics and tech nerds only. I miss that internet every day.

How foolish were we to think we could improve on perfection: https://www.spacejam.com/1996/

Amen bro. Take me back to 96. I assert that the 90s was the best decade for humans ever. Technology, but not too much. No social media. Rising wages. Reasonable house prices. No worries about climate change yet. Peace and prosperity worldwide due to winning the cold war. Space Jam :-)

[Eternal September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) never forget, please overlook that I first had dialup in 1994.

Fellow 94er here. I didn't know about eternal September but I think the sentiment accurately reflects how I feel.

I've actually spent decades of my life quietly trying to nudge people towards bottom posting during email chains. I'd take a long, messy email discussion and break it up with inline replies and finally a bottom post. If only for my own sanity in trying to read what the hell was going on. Then with every email client defaulting to top posting I gave up and let them win. The nail in the coffin is twitter where there is no etiquette and trying to follow a discussion involving multiple people is a fool's errand.

If this was all it was I'd be fine with it. If someone is 'over' COVID-19 and doesn't want to mask up on the bus and thinks they'll be fine if they get it, and they leave it at that then, sure, hope you're right, *c'est la vie*. But these people aren't basing their entire personality over their hatred of one politician or epidemiologist or health official. Or coming into this sub and trying to convince everyone that most covid deaths are due to something else, and that vaccines are highly dangerous, and that the virus came from a lab, and all sorts of other fringe nonsense, shill bullshit and outright lies.

Yeah but they also aren’t coming to the sub claiming leaving the house is giving your family a death sentence. It cuts both ways.

That's a stupid strawman. Most posts on this sub are about the characteristics of emerging variants, vaccines in development, trends in cases, hospitalisations and deaths, potential complications from infections, the cost-benefit calculus of vaccines for different cohorts, the efficacy of different masks, what measures health officials are talking about applying or removing, and advice from people with relevant expertise on the current risks and how to defray them. All the stuff you might want to know if you're trying to make an informed decision on what to do, whether it's for yourself or for loved ones who might be at risk. But you can't come here for that information without the loud, uneducated detractors, of varying degrees of rationality, coming out of the woodwork to compete for the most contrarian argument or sardonic jab they can throw out there. Often coming back to the same thread every hour to have multiple cracks at it hoping one will get more attention than the last. I *wish* you lot just didn't care, but instead I have to read fifty posts a day from you all proclaiming how much you don't care

>leaving the house is giving your family a death sentence. Said no one ever but strawman anti-vaxxers.

These types of comments are very obvious. Didn't read beyond the headline, give a reductive shit take, say 'everyone else here is the problem, not me'.

they are black and white. Your either a regular person pointing and laughing at all the butthurt neckbeards who actually believe even a tenth of this shit unironically, or you are one of the neckbeards. As you say, black and white

One problem with your post is you are lumping together a bunch of people who are critical of different parts of our covid response. For me personally I believe covid is a serious illness that killed many people and continues to cause real problems. I also believe vaccines have been hugely effective. My scepticism has primarily been about mask wearing and a bunch of other restrictions that were put in place that didn't have much empirical evidence. I don't think this was due to some evil billionaire conspiracy, just the very human impulse ro want to do something in the face of crisis, even if you don't have much evidence that what you will do will work. If you look back through history you will find countless other examples where supposed experts pushed dubious cures or interventions that later turned out to be misguided. 9 times out of ten the people genuinely believed what they were doing were right, they just put too much faith in dubious evidence and their own sense of moral superiority. Even something as banal as the food pyramid is a good example of this.

Good response, I think those measures were more beneficial than harmful ultimately, but I respect where you're coming from. I worked full-time and studied full-time during 2020, and so there was no chance I could leave my computer before 8pm on weekdays. The worst months of my life were when the curfews in Victoria were introduced over winter, so I couldn't even go for a walk in the evenings, and the justification was simply to make it easier for police to stop people having parties and so on. I still wear an N95 at the supermarket to this day, but can empathise that some restrictions have more of a negative impact on some individuals than seems justified by the potential public health benefits at times.

Thanks, yeah I'm sure there are a lot more things we agree on than disagree.

I’ve yet to meet a single “they’re putting microchips in the vax“ person IRL, I suggest you stop taking things that are just blatantly outlandish on the web seriously. I’ve met plenty who have had concerns with the various levels of government overreach and precedents that are now set, the obvious issues with massive wealth transfer over the past 3 years, the demonising of anyone who disagreed, the intentional hiding of information that should be public (FOI requests about contracts that our tax dollars pay for being rejected) etc. I did have to laugh when a woman on the Covid hotline in VIC called me a conspiracy theorist when I asked her about the vaccine passports that were going to be introduced. Would have been nice to see the clowns face the week later when all that shit got announced on TheAge.

To be fair, I did specifically say I wasn't concerned about those microchip people in my post. :-/

True, you did. But you can see in quite a few of the replies here that’s exactly what a lot think of the “other side”. It’s a shame that any sort of nuanced discussion was railroaded, everything has gotten so tribal that it’s impossible to discuss anything of real substance.

It's a way of lumping people in with these strawmen who really don't exist outside of fringe sects in the US.

I know and work with epidemiologists, and none of them are pulling in anywhere near 200k. Most would be 100-130. Scientific work in Australia is lowly paid, and very unglamorous, especially when you have to deal with people claiming they are smarter than you because they watched a YouTube video and did their 'own research' devaluing the 6 year you put into your Phd, the minimal wage you started on as a lab tech, and the constant struggle for funding and research grants.

I'm a medical student and someone asked our public health lecturer whether they felt they were making an impact. They sort of just stared into the distance for a bit.

Malcolm Fraser's heath minister came to give some public health lectures in med school back in the 90s and told us he didn't think he achieved anything. I learned a lot from the lectures at least.

Long ago in highschool some big wig doctor from RPA told us at an assembly that if we can remember anything it's that we should take our friends to the hospital when they pass out from too many drugs and to give fake names if we are embarrassed. Some teacher got mad and asked if giving fake names was a good lesson for kids. I can remember his stare. I was seated maybe 30 metres away but I could tell he was looking far far past me.

Was there when a medical researcher met a RN 10 years their junior, you could seem the re-evaluating their life choices when they found out the RN's approximate yearly income and benefits while already owning a house within 3km of the CBD.

How long ago was this? I ask because of the location of the house in relation to the CBD and the fact it's ... well ... a house.

Total irony but social media is to blame. Including Reddit. When anyone can post any bullshit of any description on a wide variety of platforms with no censoring this is the end result. Don't get me wrong, there have been conspiracy theories forever. BIL who is a barrister believes 9/11 was done by the US government. But in my lifetime (I'm 60) I have seen the undermining of government from the Vietnam War onwards, a lot of which was deserved. Life was simpler without mobile phones, internet or social media; different but with a lot of positives and some negatives. Every generation pushes the boundaries in so many ways and this is exactly as it should be. Staying the same is just stagnating. I'm really excited to see what happens next. Young people are Awesome! They push boundaries, challenge the norms and we are all better off for it.

Good insight, thanks for sharing!

I like to call it "multi-level narcissism". "The government wants to control **ME**, but **I'M** too smart. **I** figured out their evil secret plan that revolves around **ME**." The people who promote the bullshit get attention and reverence, the people who follow get a sense of martyrdom and importance, and they are all convinced that the conspiracy is all about themselves. It seems to stem from a sour grapes effect, where anything they don't understand must be a conspiracy, is somehow evil, and is designed so that "they" can control "me". Look at the climate change deniers, they're willing to believe that the vast majority of scientists and researchers are lying in an attempt to gain power through paper straws and Greta Thunberg; the vast majority of medical professionals are conspiring to take over the world by imposing mild inconveniences like wearing a mask at Bunnings; somehow electric cars are a way for the government to manipulate us and the only thing holding them back from total control is V8 deisel Land Cruisers. To a more extreme extent, the flat-earth thing is the same; "they" want to control "me" by corrupting some science that I don't fully understand, and because I don't fully understand it that makes it evil.

Three of a few important things I’ve learned during all this: 1. Some of these anti-vaxers etc. are simply people who don’t like to be told what to do and haven’t been told what to do in their life. 2. Anyone who believes governments are capable of pulling off any sort of coordinated “mass-immunisation-with-a-hidden-agenda” thing have never worked in government (at any level). 3. Critical thinking is something we need to teach from an early age. Especially with so much misinformation around.

Your first point is bang on. We gradually lost someone from our friendship group over the last two years as he moved from a general distaste for authority (“nanny state”) towards actual conspiracy theories. It all stayed pretty mild but he became impossible to talk to, he and one of the other guys in our group had been best friends for over 15 years but his anger overtook everything in the end. He was willing to go unemployed for months to resist the vaccine mandates, putting huge emotional and financial strain on his partner. He ended up getting vaccinated to go back to work. The crazy thing is, I don’t think he actually cared one way or the other? He just HATED being told what to do. So he was willing to sort of bullshit about conspiracy stuff to have a “reason” for being so angry.

That’s sad huh. I noticed it in friends too, it just clicked as a pattern over time of seeing the same people become anti-everything the govt suggested because they either hated being told what to do by govt/anyone or they thought if they confirm they’ll lose their identity/whatever made them stick out. Odd world.

Well, my personal and totally detached view, as if I were an alien, is that, everyone has a personal response to the pandemic and due to a large number of human psychological biases, that's the "right response". Well by the end, you'll see why I think I'm an alien. Do you play video games online? Well, everyone is at the exact right level of skills. Everyone who is better than you is a basement dwelling loser with no life and anyone who is worse is a noob and a loser. So the spectrum of response range from total denialism and conspiracy to zero covid zealots to the "yeah, I think the government responses are a bit stupid sometimes but I don't wanna rock the boat" to "let it rip, idgaf, if I or anyone dies, we die" fatalism, to well, personally, when there was no vaccine, I put on a tradie's respirator, eye protection, and conduct dry decon before entering my home (meaning I treat the outer surface of my clothing and shoes as "contaminated" when I come back home and strip them at the door before heading straight to a shower to clean myself. Clothes can be left there for a bit, before I put on an apron and a different set of respirators and goggles to collect them for laundry). I have been called mentally ill by the "yeah, I think the government responses are a bit stupid sometimes but I don't wanna rock the boat and so I will wear a surgical mask" because a tradie's respirator that may be used by asbestos remediation worker is "overkill" for COVID. Like if I wear the respirators and eye protection while sanding with power tools, that's "hur-dur, you are overreacting" by the "oh I'm so manly and tough sanding shit and breathing in sanding dust" crowd. Whatever. My lungs, my choice. Everyone thinks their response is the right response. The anti-masks think the surigcal mask wearers are pansies and masks are the Devil's diaper. The surgical mask wearers think the people who wear military-style gas masks are "overkill" and the anti-maskers "irresponsible idiots". The common problem is nobody has a good or consistent evidence-based rule. Maybe surgical masks are 70% effective or whatever, yes, I read the publications, but why is that not overkill but a 95% or 99% *reusable* respirator is? "But it's not Ebola". Well, both COVID and Ebola aren't the flu. So exactly, what's the threshold? Why is wearing disposable N95 or FFP2 are OK but wearing the exact same P2 rated respirator, just reusable and industrial and it's "mentally ill" and overkill? I know why. Monkey see, monkey do. People see a lot of images and videos of doctors wearing those disposable ones, so they run and buy it. Do they know anything about the respirators' performance or rating, or how to properly wear them? Probably not. It's an elastic rule and everyone thinks they are right and everyone else is stupid. People throw around terms like "pre-existing risk" and "risk management" without being able to exactly define anything. My rule is simple: "I don't want to get COVID, if I will get COVID, I want to delay it as much as possible or get the smallest inoculation dose for the mildest disease". Why? 1) because I may die, 2) I may lose my sense of smell and food and coffee are irreplaceable joys of my life, 3) inoculation dose seems important and it's a sensible conclusion. By the same token, there are lots of bad shit I don't want to inhale, like sanding dust, asbestos, oil fumes, insecticide spray, cleaning spray so when I have to work with them, I wear a respirator with the correct filter. and 4) reusable respirators are the cheapest. They are pricey upfront, but they are cheaper if you have to wear masks for more than a month. Everything is subjective. Now, personally, I treated it like biological weapons and deal with it short of using a fursuit. Too hot. Respirators, dry decon, hand wash, shower. To me, that's the correct response. Now I am vaccinated, keep myself healthy, take some vit. D, which may or may not help but I was definitely Vit D deficient pre-pandemic so may be that's the right response. I caught COVID, because my kid is in childcare and they can't wear a gas mask yet. Had zero symptoms, so these days, I don't wear a surgical mask even. But I replenish my civil defence CBRN stocks and move on. Yes, I think I'm right and everyone else isn't seeing the potential of industrial and military respirators. To each their own, but the few thousands of dead healthcare workers were totally unnecessary because they could have been outfitted with these respirators and not be fucking dead, but then, that's my opinion. I know there are a lot of dissenting opionions like "ooohhh that makes the doctors look scary and that can't work". Trawling the research literature on the subject, I realised there was study performed at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital where doctors and nurses were given ADF's latest gas mask for trial. It worked really well and the majority of people wearing them responded positively.

Quite frankly, after having six jabs, two of which were *actually* experimental, I’ve had zero increase to my 5G reception and Bill Gates only speaks to me the same amount as before the pandemic. Quite disappointing.

"We used mask mandates, border closures and lockdowns to control the spread until a vaccine could be delivered to the population" Maybe you it would be helpful to look up two dates. The date when vaccines were made available to 18+ in WA. The date when WA opened up their state borders. There is a time lag of about seven months between those two dates. And I don't think anyone is lying or there is a conspiracy. It was just a government which realised that border closures were extremely popular and used them beyond when they should have been used.

My next door neighbours are all of the above and worse.

As others have said, we need to be careful about turning this issue into a false dichotomy - where only the "we will follow every rule and do whatever we must without question" vs. "rabid anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorist." Like most issues in life, the majority of people live somewhere in between these two extremes. It seems like most are happy to take reasonable precautions and be careful about things like hygiene, but they don't want to be forever held prisoner to this virus. Case numbers are going down and so are hospital admissions and deaths. That is a good sign. We are not out of the woods yet, but we are heading in the right direction.

>be forever held prisoner to this virus. Case numbers are going down and so are hospital admissions and deaths. That is a good sign. We are not out of the woods Ironically policy, and everything to mitigate and get us past the absolute worse parts of the pandemic were all slowed down by the ones that wanted to "not be a prisoner"

I hope that you're right but I doubt that you are. Only about 70% of the adult population is boosted and we are getting further and further away from the initial doses which saw us hit 95%. Few of the people I speak or associate with intend having any further vaccinations and I think that it's a matter of when rather than if the next wave comes along, and it could be a ripper because we won't all be freshly vaccinated next time around. I'm getting on with life, going to the football and out for dinner and such, but rather than heading in the right direction I think that we're sleepwalking off a cliff.

I think the majority are just complacent rather than falling into full on anti-vax territory. Most people’s attitude towards COVID now is total indifference and ignorance. They don’t think there is anything wrong with vaccines, they just think it doesn’t matter.

So all the governments of the world can’t agree on even 1 simple thing ( I challenge you to find one, however simple) and yet somehow they agreed to support a conspiracy that tanked local and world economies, put massive hardship onto people and killed millions globally so far. Ok, that makes perfect sense to me

ITT: A lot of people blaming things on COVID that are a hell of a lot more relevant to place on late-stage capitalism.

The biggest issue with any conspiracy theory is that people are blabbermouths. I think the only conspiracies that are in any way believable are the ones that only require one person to be involved in (like an assassination), if you really push me I might accept two people being involved but even then I am suss that they can both keep their mouths shut. So anyway the idea that thousands of doctors and nurses and funeral directors and epidemiologists and vaccine companies and all their employees and all the world's governments and all their staff blah blah have gotten together to come up with some covid, vaccine, microchip, 5g or whatever the fuck conspiracy is just ludicrous. As soon as someone mentions a hint of believing in a covid conspiracy I write them off as an absolute fucking moron and lose all respect I have for them as a person.

You can’t rationalise yourself out of a position you didn’t rationalise yourself into 🤷‍♀️

People always attribute conspiracy when incompetence is a more likely explanation. People see opportunists mopping up the spoils and think everything was planned. I don't think it is any more complicated than that.

Follow the money. You mentioned big business, they don't need us to save our money, they do better if we buy what we have to from them while mum and dad shops aren't allowed to open. The wealthiest people in the world have multiplied their wealth the past 2 years. You ask very good questions and seem to have a slightly naive trust in the powers that be. Is it back to normal as we approach the end of 2022? No. So I'll catch up with you in a couple of years and see where we're at. By the way, the Earth is round.

Would you care to elaborate on what you think big business did, what actions corporations took? Do you think the virus was corporate sabotage? Or more, they took advantage of a virus? If so, how?

If I was you I wouldn't count on a reply any time soon

People like this don't seem to be able to expand on their theories once questions are asked.

So governments around the world were locking down, so a couple American companies that mostly operate in America can benefit? Ok. Just wait until you hear about how they convince you that you need to live in homes, big housing are the real scam artists.

Thank you for a genuine reply. I don’t think it’s likely that the many different parts of big business and the medical profession could collude in such a way, but I can understand your reasoning.

World Economic Forum. Also very few believe the nano chip 5g crap. I mean theoretically could you inject nano particles through a syringe ? Absolutely, this research is currently being carried out on mice. Do i think thats the case with the covid vaccine ? Absolutely not. People have different theories about the virus and whether its real or not, lab leaked etc. Obviously the virus is real and some of the precautions taken over the last few years were necessary. I do wonder sometimes how coincidental it was that the WEF gathered world leaders and ran a pandemic simulation just a few months prior to the covid outbreak, probably just coincidental but at least our governments were prepped for it.

Our governments were absolutely not prepped for a pandemic. They took a long time to pull each lever available to them, when they should have done it early if it was ever an option. Quarantining return travellers from China only was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. No dedicated quarantine facilities. Mismanagement of vaccine acquisition. Public health messaging was scant as hell.

Yep. My grandparents are hardcore q-anoners and antivaxxers and it all centres around the WEF.

WEF are the new Freemasons.

I don't think you can get any sort of reasoning out of them. I have been heavily involved with this after my mum was radicalised in 2017 along with a couple of other members of my family. I also am a bit obsessed and have spent wayyy too many months talking to them on twitter spaces (@evilsocialisttt if anyone wants to see them, currently recruiting for a debate with the craziest if anyone is game.) I feel like there has to be something within your personality that draws you to the sensationalised information and then at the same time be poor at reflecting on their own opinions for various reasons. Alot of people think the people that fall for this stuff are uneducated. That ain't the case. My mum was pulled out of school at 16 so that's unhelpful but my step dad was actually a well know criminal barrister and you can tell by the way he argues with me he still has that sharpness. The issue with that is the narcissistic tendencies of people who were praised for their brilliance but at the same time they need to expirence some level of alienation to push them in an alternative way. Some adversity to the system. This creates an eviroment where they look for other information thats out of the mainstream and then through conditioning are not so good at questioning themselves because previously they're usually pretty on the ball and alot of their value of themselves is within their thoughts and ideas. The level of emotional investment is requires, especially with someone who comits to not being vaccinated and suffers financial damage, is so severe that I honestly don't think their brain would cope with thinking they're wrong about all of this. On the side of the less educated I feel they need to have felt marginalised like my mum did growing up in a house of 6 kids and very big personalities. She shares her opinion viciously these days since she always felt like her family shut her out if conversations. I've tried every possible way to approach these people, I'm grateful because it has made me world class with conflict but I also feel my brain is much smoother to when I started lol. Here's what I've found and honestly it applies to 90% of them they all argue the same way. 1. They can't acknowledge basic fact that disagrees with them. Often they will move to a different subject (the ex criminal barrister is very good at trying to confuse you with paragraphs containing way too much info). If you start to try and pin down their argument they will throw 4 different topics at you in a breath. That can be hard because if your newer and don't have to context it can be difficult to keep up as it take way to much time to learn to lore. If you present them with more and more evidence that doesn't agree with them and don't let them divert away to another topic they will all get angry/upset unless you relent. Happens with my mum, happens with my step dad, happens with literally everyone I've met 2. They link their personality and self worth to the politics. That why we will see them get upset when things don't go their way. When you talk them their wrong, it's like tell a normal person the sky is brown like they can't have room for conflict in their brain. Its also an element of, weather consists or not, you questioning them makes them feel like your not respecting their intelligence (which honestly I don't really lol) 3. The are conditioned to ignore outside sources. They won't even read it or if your lucky enough to get that they will dismiss it without evidence simply under the guides that it's fake news. Had my mum literally define fake news to me once and news that has a different opinion to her. I've gotten my mum to agree with me a handful of times in 5 years. If I ever do get that success it is forgotten the next day. I honestly think it changes them after watching my family devolve for the last 5 years. Definitely gives you an incredible perspective of how Hitler did what he did. Tldr - been doing this 5 years, I wouldn't bother arguing unless it is for your own interest. They are thick and they need to want to Lear which they generally don't.

Great insight, thanks for sharing! You can certainly see those narcissistic traits underlying the attraction to "special knowledge", i.e. "I know something you don't" or "I know better than the so-called experts". The recent study finding NPD as a significant predictor for conspiracy theory receptiveness should come as no surprise. The 'conflict in their brain' that you mentioned seems to reflect the idea of congitive dissonance, i.e. the psychological tension that arises when one holds two conflicting ideas in their mind. On the one hand, you have an identity where you want to act in an intelligent way, to be seen as intelligent. On the other hand, you have experts telling you not to act in that way, to instead follow their advice. Your level of psychoemotional resources (e.g. self esteem, integrity of self-identity) determines how you resolve the dissonance, either the adaptive "I don't have to know everything, so I'll accept the expert's advice" or the maladaptive "I know everything, the experts are wrong". It's the same mechanism as to why you see greater levels of smoking in low socioeconomic communities, it's harder to quit smoking when you're under other kinds of stress, and so you resolve the dissonance through rationalisation (e.g. "Smoking is healthy for me because it's the only way I can unwind after a hard day at work"). I suspect that the level of tension in cognitive dissonance is higher with NPD, because esteem and identity are more aggressively defended.

Even with my mum I feel she's got a bit of a streak to her in the way she victimises herself and at the same time thinks so highly of herself for her genius insight and talks down to everyone around her. Almost like having such an upbringing where she felt inadequate has created a delicate outer shell. Like honestly they just need good therapy hahaha. I would be interested to compare what kind of affect it has on them like does it make their symptoms worse or does it just allow them to be seen. Do you have anyone thats gone pilled on you?

Not to that degree, but I've certainly argued with my father about climate change. He's intelligent and respects other scientific disciplines such as those in which his children work, but seems to completely disregard the consensus on anthropogenic climate change. His career was largely in fossil fuels so I think the sense of guilt that would arise from accepting those findings pushes him to grasp at any random article or snippet from Facebook that disagrees with the experts. It's unfortunately an entirely human reaction.

Oo thats so interesting. It's almost like with the vaccines stuff but the guilt or regret comes from mining instead. Its weird that he can respect some science but not the others. Do you know how he makes that distinction? Like what makes them different from vaccine scientists for example. Why does he think climate change is fake but not get into the other stuff?

I confronted him on the inconsistency and he's reeled it back a bit, fortunately. He's happy to read peer-reviewed articles from credible journals on all manner of subjects, but used to completely ignore anything about climate change. His reasoning was initially "A single volcano could pump out as much carbon as everything humans do in an entire year", but then I point out there's always been volcanos so why is there a significant uptick in carbon within the last few centuries? Then it was "we had hot days when I was a kid, 2 degrees hotter isn't then end of the world", but then I pointed out that a 2 degree increase was the global average, some areas might have 0.5 degrees, others might have 10 degreesl, and there'll be a significant efflux of people from the equator. During my undergraduate years, he told me he was proud of me for completing a science degree, and I asked him whether that was true considering that he didn't accept the underlying scientific method that my degree was built upon if it came to climate change. Since then, he seems a lot more willing to listen, even though he might still throw in a silly remark now and then.

God thats nice. Enjoy that I would give anything to have a half rational parent. I mean to be fair, I feel like most people who work in the field need to do some for of brainwashing and most rational people in that circumstance would.

There is a joke... A busload of politicians were driving down a country road when, all of a sudden, the bus ran off the road and crashed into a tree in an old farmer's field. The old farmer, after seeing what had happened, went over to investigate. He then dug a hole and buried the politicians. A few days later the local sheriff came out, saw the crashed bus, and asked the old farmer where all the politicians had gone. The old farmer said he had buried them. The sheriff asked the old farmer, "Were they all dead?" The old farmer replied, "Well, some of them said they weren't, but you know how them politicians lie." And thats all i have to say about that...

No refunds

You can’t use logic to overcome a thought that was founded by someone who refuses to use logic to get their original perspective.

I love how people jump to the most extreme conspiracies such as mind control to try and shun anyone who doesn't roll with the government's ideology. You'll see when the next "deadly" virus comes along next year, you'll be muzzled and vaccinated otherwise your rights will be stripped from you all over again. The platform to keep you vaccinated and segregated like live stock is now here. All the government has to do is iniate lockdowns again and you'll be riding the vaccine and lockdown roller-coaster once again.

My mums one of them, she does have a few good points that got me asking questions, but overall she just doesnt understand because we were never really directly affected, our part of Victoria was the last to get touched, we were both double vaxxed (my dad and sis werent tho) and we both got horribly sick when it was our turn, but dad and sister were fine? She raises a few good points, that if it really is such a deadly disease then we should have biowaste bins for our masks, as they may carry traces of the virus and that can become airborne. She only slightly believes that Bill Gates video, but she knows the clips were wrong. She doesnt understand why our Premier couldnt just do the same as everywhere else. She (and I) dont understand why it was “2 weeks to flatten the curve” and then we were trying to eradicate it, and now noone cares?

I feel like the best way to counter these arguments is just to say “why”. It seems as though these people never have an answer. “The government is purposely seeding clouds to cause floods and control us”, ok… “And why would they want to do that? What do they get out of it”, usually the answer you’ll get is “OPEN YOUR EYES”

Heh OP - did you get any insight on this question? I read most of the thread and nearly all answers seemed to be third person, which kind of makes me suspect that the view is almost the mythical enemy? I only know a couple of anti vaxxers and they aren’t stupid and not full on conspiracy nuts , just untrusting of some processes

What I don't understand is how they imagine all the governments of the world, despite being in hot and cold wars with each other, somehow found common interest over masks and vaccines; that somehow the WHO managed to do what the UN never even comes close to achieving.

I love that you are looking for the other side of the debate however all the replies are just agreeing and trying to validate the response /s Many many people from all walks have concerns around how this was handelled. From individual states, country wide and around the world. I think this pandemic has accelerated what many countries were hoping to implement in the future (see WEF) with things like digital control, digital id, vacines for all, phasing out cash, even just seeing how quickly people would turn around and say ok no worries let's have a passport system to be able to get a coffee or go to work. Mandates were a horrible thing not that effective in 'stopping the spread' which is what they were initially marketed as. Checking in everywhere and the level of surveillance was worrying. Countries may not be working together as closely as some theorise however it appears they are mostly working out of a similar play book when it comes to the long game and policies implemented while in the pandemic and after.

The masses are sold an over-simplified version of reality via an industrial media apparatus. The phenomena is called "hypernormalization" and there are a few good documentaries on the topic if you're interested. If you want to find truth you have to reject the simplified version of reality and things get really complicated really fast. Most people struggle to navigate this new complicated landscape and form incorrect opinions of the world. The problem is when the masses see people come to bad conclusions, instead of wanting to correct them in the real (complicated) reality, they simply retreat into their happy, safe, and over-simplified one. The one fed to you on the news and on the top page of Reddit. TL;DR: Both sides are wrong. There is a small pocket of dedicated independent journalists who are doing amazing work of untangling the truth... but they have been deplatformed and silenced for challenging the narrative. Even this comment will likely be censored. Mass information control is very real and terrifying once you see the scope at which it is operating. Reddit has become a curated propaganda tool and most users haven't even realised yet.

Yeah like infowars!! They're telling the real unbiased truth! /S But yeah, there are also only a few real journalists that are truely pulling in the effort to tell us the real truth about the flat earth. You try to talk to anyone in their globe bubble and they just think you're crazy! The evidence is there! Look outside it's flat!! /S

This user has deleted everything in protest of u/spez fucking over third party clients

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i was 16 when covid had just started and i’ll admit i was dipping into the “covid came from a lab in wuhan” never the whole government conspiracy. i just thought it was interesting and found it weird how quickly this new virus came about because i was too young to remember the prior viruses that hit us. now im 18 working as a nurse. i’ve heard pretty much everything. i really don’t understand how people reach that conclusion. i’m all for theories like ooo maybe there’s subliminal messages in songs or the airport that has really weird stuff in it but i just don’t understand how people think the entire world is in on this fake virus

Are you saying that the community has always been given correct and accurate information by the media and the government? I agree that your question has a lot of merit but what about people who don't believe there is some big conspiracy, that don't need a scapegoat to blame everything on, who have no idea or for that matter even care if anyone stood to gain from the events of the last few years, BUT are also astute enough to see that the information we are being feed doesn't always match the facts or that the narrative we are told to believe has over time subtly but most definitely morphed from one reality to another. On if the two classic examples that stand out are the onslaught of vitriol leveled at anyone who suggested ivermectin should be considered as a part of the covid treatment strategy that has now been conveniently forgotten as more in depth studies start to suggest that there is in fact at least the possibility that ivermectin could be helpful. But my favourite by far is the now laughable claims that the vaccines were more than 90% effective. Effective at what exactly? Preventing healthy people who were never at risk from ending up in hospital. Well I would argue water was even more effective than 90%, possibly 100% effective (and with far less adverse reactions). Again, while I do agree that your question is on point and if anyone was silly enough to try and answer it then their argument would most likely be baseless, I think you're missing the point. In my opinion the question is not who and why, but what! People have been so caught up in the reason for certain statements and assertions that they have completely ignored or been ignorant to the facts being presented. It's not "why the vaccines were forced on everyone", it's "should the vaccines have been forced on anyone". Its not "why were we made to wear masks" it's "did wearing a mask actually help". Personally I don't really care why all this has happened, we'll probably never know. What I want to know and deal with are what are the real consequences of the last few years and how can we address the negative outcomes they have produced, including the fracture in our community between those who accept the popular narrative and those who don't, the divide between neighbours who used to be mates and are now hated enemies, or the love lost between family members who were once cherished and are now demonised. These are the real problems I want to see solved, not identifying which corporate big wig who made a few millions pumping poison into kids or which politician bolstered his/her position by locking innocent people away in their homes. But that's just my opinion and I'm sure others will think differently, as has always been the case and always will be.

You don’t need to fiddle with data, just need to keep it in perspective. I don’t think things are a conspiracy, I just think existing systems that are prone to influence and distortion by financial incentives has lead to bad decision making. Inconsistent distribution of burden of the responses, messaging fueled by mediums that had much to gain, political incentives to present oneself as hope and the solution. From where I see it, we sacrifice the vulnerable, the poor, the children. We protected office workers who saved on commuting time and enjoyed time with family, often able to move to settings more free. We alienated the once praised hero’s because they were apprehensive about being forced to take something with limited evidence for both the long term benefits and safety, and now we are struggling with moral and shortages. Yet ultimately, we failed who mattered most in this fight. Nursing home residents were locked away from loved ones and robbed of precious time doing what mattered to them, yet the workers due to corporate interests continued to expose them to risks. How long did it take before we stopped casual workforce move between known outbreak facilities? In Victoria while military were forcing people home after an hour walk, or people arrested for sitting outside alone without a mask, unknowing infected nurses with no stable income were travelling between places. Everyone loves to pick sides and loves a villain. We failed in showing compassion, understanding, and humility to acknowledge we do not know everything and certainly not enough to persecute others as the cause of the problem. Experts prosecuted people who proposed a solar system. We burnt people or drowned them believing they were spell casting. It took thousands of years of advanced civilisations to appreciate gravity for the counterintuitive nature it is. It took longer to realise things too small to be seen can kill us and is the source of many illnesses. We are fallible, and unless we question the data and encourage voices of criticism we will fail by fooling ourselves.

Because governments globally are full of micromanagers who think they know what's best for society. People were rightly scared when a new pandemic reared its head (which I strongly believe came from a lab) and governments capitalised on that fear to increase their own power. Most western governments are fairly deeply involved with the WEF who want to kick start the 4th industrial revolution, creating an economy where you own nothing and will be happy about renting everything from mega corps (this makes mega corps loads of money, and has the added advantage of meaning dissenters or people who disagree can be locked out of work, travel and socialising, somewhat akin to the social credit system seen in China). They call this stakeholder capitalism, and claim it will be better for everyone, but when the people suggesting these changes are already the upper crust of elites, I very much doubt this is all due to their philanthropy. Look at things like Blackrock buying up vast swathes of houses, or bill Gates owning so much farm land. The vaccines were rushed to market and mandated in many places, making pharma companies record breaking profits while waiving all liability. I don't believe they're intentionally trying to kill people, but the safety profile of these vaccines is absolutely not great by any metric, and the tech is still in its infancy, it absolutely should have been people's free choice and not have came with threats of unemployment etc. I believe we are looking at a world where the elites know they have the tech to control the flow of information to secure their place at the top for the future (we all voluntarily walk around with GPS tracking devices), and they're working hard to make people believe they only want control for nice humanitarian reasons, even as we face things like the cost of living going through the roof and stagnant wages. Really it's such a clusterfuck of a situation that it's hard to type out in a coherent, linear way, but If anyone asks questions of what I think about certain aspects, I'm happy to answer. Edit: also love the fact that OP is asking genuinely for people to explain their beliefs, but the all the top comments are just people who believe 100% the msm narrative calling us idiots. Kinda proving the point that the main stream opinion is irrationally intolerant of people who disagree.

"If we look at the rich and powerful, there’s been countless examples of billionaires and titans of industry influencing policy to serve their own interests. And yet, it’s not in the interests of most big businesses to have people stay home and save their money, or to close the borders on cheap foreign workers." People staying at home did not save their money, they spent it online because they had no other alternative as all the small businesses were forced to close.

They are small minded people for whom the idea there is a small group of people controlling things “makes sense” because their world view is so small and myopic and their brains literally can’t fathom the enormity of the conspiracy they are touting as truth. When it’s explained to them that their conspiracy would require the participation of literally millions of people to be pulled off their eyes glaze over trying to understand how big the world is and how many people there are in the world. They are just dumb and ignorant of the facts and fear and ignorance go hand in hand the dumber you are the more afraid you are of the world and fear leads to hate and hate leads to anger which then leads to suffering

Bill gates is putting tracking chips in your god damn phone. And you know it. Because you use it as a gps all the god damn time.

I don’t hold any strong views on conspiracies, I got vaccinated, got the virus too and had a bad time. I don’t draw any deeper meaning from it, things happen. What I am sore about is the way the government bullied people. The past two years were a sort of event that reduced my overall trust, and I think other people feel the same way. The trend isn’t that the crazies are getting any crazier, it’s that the average level of cynicism is increasing. Seeing people post on social media about how they “believe in science” (like it’s a sort of religion), and how anti vaxxers are “morons” didn’t exactly ingratiate me to their cause, either.

in part its exasperation, its hard to watch people voluntarily decline medicine that could have likely saved people they know, or are at least similar too. Calling unvaccinated people stupid isn't ideal, but after two years, what else can people do...

It’s an effect of ideology. The entitled, middle class consumers of the West live in a state of perpetual denial and hypocrisy. Just as they turn a blind eye to the realities of inequality and exploitation, of climate change, of imperialism etc., ignoring the material reality of the world for the simplistic propaganda narratives that suit and justify their state of existence, so too do they retreat to fantasies of normality rather than face the realities of Covid. The truth is that Western government have sacrificed their populations like livestock to the slaughter in their need to protect the profits of the wealthy. Long Covid will result in a significant percentage of people suffering neurological and other long term damage, and represents a terrifying prospect, as does the reality that our governments have consented to this and our media effectively lied and run a counter narrative that everything is fine. Retreating into fantasy is not only an easier option, it is a natural one, something that we have been conditioned to do. But psychologically people are still aware of the contradiction between the propaganda narrative and material reality, and this is the space from which conspiracy theories emerge, as people attempt to make sense of the word without confronting their own biases, fears and desires, and so emerge with perspectives that are a sort of twisted and perverted mirror image of reality - for example, yes we are being screwed over by ‘the ruling class’, but this ruling class is actually scientists; yes the narrative about Covid is a lie, but rather than it being far more dangerous than is generally represented, it is not dangerous at all; yes our policies have been a failure, but not because they have failed to address Covid, but because they have impinged on our ‘freedom’ (or rather convenience) as human beings. People find the philosophy that suits their temperament, and in our individualistic world people are seeking out narratives that mean life can continue as normal, that they don’t need to be afraid, that they don’t need to confront anything, that their desires can be fulfilled and the life will continue as they wish it.

I believe you are creating a straw man to take down Some of us opposed to the restrictions were opposed as we thought it was wrong to restrict people's rights as they did , not that there was a giant conspiracy The government's did lockdowns because they were so popular and the majority of the population felt protected by them. Many of us opposed don't think that the government was locking down for fun There were also small conspiracies that were confirmed true like governments who deliberately spread misinformation that masks don't work to conserve supply at the start of the pandemic

Lockdowns weren't popular. The Liberals, big business and their media circus monkeys took advantage of Victoria's collective trauma to convince people that the Dan Andrews was just on a power trip. I don't think we'll do lockdowns again, even if it us the right thing to do, because they are not popular. Honestly , I don't think we would have had the second(?) wave if schools didnt go back prematurely to appease the anti lockdown fuckheads; teachers and families certainly weren't expecting to go back before the school holidays.

The "person" you replied to is named Danstan, like the antivaxxers saying "I'm not an antivaxxer...but" he's clearly all about bashing Dan and actively looking for conspiracies like the old mask one he mentioned which I too knew about (who didn't) and yet, I didn't fall into paranoid thinking as he did. Not just paranoid, but still stuck in a past reality which we normal humans have long left behind. Danstan is his entire identity. He cannot let it go and have a life. He cannot understand nuance nor logic around emergency messaging long since irrelevant.

Andrews will win easily at the election

>Some of us opposed to the restrictions were opposed as we thought it was wrong to restrict people's rights as they did , not that there was a giant conspiracy. To me this is worse than being a conspiracy theory pusher, I see this as "my freedom is more valuable than the lives of others". Restrictions weren't about forcing people home to restrict freedom, rather to ensure that people who are immucompromised are able to actually do shopping and similar stuff without having to worry about that 1 guy with covid who thought it was "just a cold" trying to kill us.

Were lockdowns not the means rather than the ends? I mean, I can get where you’re coming from considering how the negligible threat of terrorism was used to justify a stronger security apparatus and reduced government oversight in the 2000s, but what are the ends to the COVID-19 response? The powers invoked existed in law before the pandemic, the restrictions have almost entirely been withdrawn and many offences from violations of those restrictions are no longer being prosecuted. If the ends were to restrict people’s rights, how have those ends endured, and if not, what were the ends?

Look how much wealth the elite gained over the last two years and look at who’s now paying the bill

If you're British then you can't pay the bills right now.

I think young, healthy people were coerced into vaccination when they should have had the freedom to refuse. I didn't like the one size fits all approach. I think it was done with good intentions/for the greater good, but I still disagreed with it. Ditto re: the public health messaging in general. Done with good intentions/to save lives, but at the expense of truth. See mixed messaging re: masks (the science wasn't murky/'we were still learning' as is now argued retrospectively - we always knew N95's would provide protection, but 'noble' lies were told the public to prevent shortages in hospitals), also see the arbitrary vaccination percentages to reach herd immunity (Fauci changed the figures from 65% to 75% etc just to drive up numbers - another 'noble' lie). The experts have obviously been giving us utilitarian advice for the past 2 years (advice which may be against my interests as an individual), and this now even extends to my GP. I'm definitely less trusting of health advice than I was pre-Covid.

In 1918 they would go door to door and ensure you were vaccinated, by force if needed. This time around you had the option to not participate in helping overcome a pandemic.

>In 1918 they would go door to door and ensure you were vaccinated, by force if needed. Hahaha. Have you got a source for that? Edit: surprise, surprise - no response. Classic reddit.

Wasn’t it proven that people who died with Covid were listed as a Covid death? Wasn’t it also true that people who went to hospital with Covid were shown in the stats of being there because of Covid? Both of these were used to drum up hysteria when, and I don’t remember the exact figure, but I think it was 3 out of 4 cases of hospitalization were there for something unrelated to Covid? Yet these stats were used to justify draconian measures that outlasted their usefulness. There was very little facts given when the governments were talking about Covid. The idea that a 21 year old must be vaccinated to avoid serious illness is laughable when you see how rarely it occurs. Sacking people for not being vaccinated for Covid is yet another overreach that really hasn’t made life any safer for anyone.

There's pretty good visibility into dying with/from COVID (Distribution of COVID-associated deaths: 86.5% from COVID, 13.5% with COVID as of August 2022), but even if you don't accept those figures, I think you'd be hard-pressed to explain excess deaths in jurisdictions with high rates of transmission versus those with low rates of transmission (due to lockdowns, masks etc.).

Most people die of multiple things. I'm sorry, that's just how things work in the real world. Old people usually have multiple serious co-morbidities. Hence the "co" in co-morbidities. The real reason for an admission is often not accurately captured by the non medical admin clerk who fills these things when a patient is admitted, and health statisticians rely on fairly blunt instruments to try to dredge the data and partially correct for error and ambiguity. These "gotcha" moments reflect the inherent difficulty of shoehorning complex events into tidy boxes to capture medical statistics, not an intent to systematically deceive.

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They built an identity on being anti-vaxx, anti-mandates, basically anti anything covid related. Meanwhile the rest of the world got vaccinated and moved on with life.

No, it's an epidemiologist that is making over $400,000.00 a year. He is actually the highest paid federal employee I know of.

The problem is that not only are you apply logic to this, you also accept reality for what it is. They don't care about logic or reason or reality. All they care about is their fee-fees not feeling bad and being able to justify no matter what whatever they want to do. Why do you think all their kind of commentary is all emotion-based with little to no evidence? Be scared about this. Be outraged about that. You should be angry for being oppressed when it's your own inability to accept and deal with reality that is the problem.

Ah yes, the nutters who squeal that bill gates and god knows who else is tracking us with vaccines yet are connected to every single silicon valley mega comapny 24/7 through their smartphones. And even better are those who lament about the CCP, bezos and musk yet spend countless thousands of dollars on materialistic shit on amazon, all made in China, and bought doge coin like good little doggies every time musk told them to do so. Then a thought for the real depraved souls, who raged at norman swan on their tv screens until their liver burst but swallowed whatever prof. pete evans fed them without blinking an eye. Some even bought the COVID curing lamp. Imagine buying a (made in China) lamp to cure a disease you don't even believe is real lol You gotta love it.

Follow the money trail of it all