is covid 19 a hoax?
Hi lucio I am curious about your thoughts on the covid 19 being a made-up thing. Conspiracy theorists seem to make good points. What do you think about it?
How would you define hoax?
Would you define it as "totally made up"?
To believe it's totally made up, you'd have to believe and answer many follow up questions.
Are the videos of crammed hospitals made up?
The statistics of death rates made up?
The interviews with doctors and nurses and hundreds of different countries, in thousands of different publications all made up?
Did all the government bodies fell for it, or were they into the conspiracy? If so, why there were not whistleblowers?
Or would you define it as "exaggerated"?
Might be the reactions to it were somewhat exaggerated.
But if governments willfully exaggerated the dangers of Coronavirus, then the question to consider a conspiracy theory seriously would become: why?
I'm not against all conspiracy theories out of principles.
There are plenty of reasons why someone might sway people's thinking or hide some uncomfortable truths.
There are a few key questions to analyze conspiracy theories.
But one of them, which is very relevant here, is this:
- To take a conspiracy theory seriously there must be a very strong "what's in it for the conspirators"
Such as, a strong, compelling reason that would push some people to get together and concoct a plan to fool and/or screw up everyone else. The WIIFT should be very strong, because a conspiracy against people is a grave act. The risks are sky-high, so the benefits should be sky-high. If Anyone caught wind of the conspiration, the responsible ones would end up as the world's biggest enemies.
So, for example, with that WIIFT first line of questioning, I might be willing to consider that the moon landing might have been a fake because there was a strong reason to fake it.
Coronavirus' Missing a WIIFT (them = conspirators)
But what's in it for anyone in shutting down countries and economies?
What's in it for the politicians who'd make this up? Staying locked in at home for weeks on end? Dealing with economies in tatters? Angry voters without an income?
I don't see many people benefiting from this.
That's what I'm missing to take any Coronavirus-related conspiracy theory seriously.
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But what's in it for anyone in shutting down countries and economies?
the idea would be something like put them in a economically hard situation, then offer them "help" with strings attached, when they cant pay the debt plus the interest, you ask them for other stuff to condone the debt ( passing laws, land, natural resources, political favors, their virgin daughters, etc), in that way you can make a "slave" out of a country.
no idea if this is doable against stronger/bigger countries or world wide,
pretty sure they have done it before with "banana" countries
The issue with that is: richer countries are all paying a huge price with it.
In digital terms, it would be the equivalent of spreading a virus in the LAN network to infect your computer... While also infecting mine.
We could say that richer countries have more resources to weather the pandemic and various shut-offs, but on the other hand, it's also true that richer countries have more to lose, and bigger bills to pay.
And they might also have an angrier population with more power to evict the politicians.
Take the Philipines: its president is not afraid of people's vote, and the poorer people in the country are used to receiving no help from the government.
Richer countries with stronger democracies are not used with struggling to make ends meet or going hungry, and they can vote politicians out.
So the same situation might hit the rich-world leaders harder than poorer ones.
Take Trump, for example: afraid of the political risks for him, he went out of his way to deny, minimize, and move past Covid.
It's the opposite behavior that the exploitation theory would predict -unless of course, it was all an act and/or Trump wasn't aware of the plot. But the again: how do you keep all world's presidents out of the loop, and why would Trump sacrifice his political capital and pay the highest personal price?-.
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I agree, this only make sense (a conspiracy) if there is some powerful group in the shadows with agendas even diverging from the ones of the local politicians of powerful countries.
I would say I am agnostic and paranoid about the existence of those groups and their goals...
Quote from Stef on April 25, 2021, 2:11 amI agree, this only make sense (a conspiracy) if there is some powerful group in the shadows with agendas even diverging from the ones of the local politicians of powerful countries.
I would say I am agnostic and paranoid about the existence of those groups and their goals...
I am not conspiracy theorist but I confirm that this group exists. They do not represent any specific country, rich or poor.
COVID is real, but the effect of COVID is exaggerated in some regions some periods of time and suppressed in some regions some periods of time.
WIIFT for exaggeration:
For one example, COVID is a great way to create distress, and general public sell risky investment for cash during distressed time. Therefore, the capital have been pulling up stock market with less free-riders.
For another example, although COVID is real, most if not all COVID vaccine are faux, as they cannot really deal with a significantly mutated type. Vaccine not only makes a lot of money, but also influences other regions' political balance.
For another example, some US entities exaggerated COVID to bring Trump down, and they succeeded. After the new administration is up, COVID case suddenly goes done.
Let's all make each other a pact then:
Once one of us will join that behind the scene power, we'll collect evidence, blow the whistle, bring the whole thing down.
Or if we want to do in ruthless style, we'll organize something like Joe Sasa in The Godfather III:
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I know your last post is kind of in a jesting-good-fun spirit.
and I would be making the conspiracy theory almost unfalsifiable by saying this, yet I am not doing it in bad faith:
If I were part of the most or the most powerful group on earth, pretty sure big part of that power will go to (if that is my desire) stay exclusive and in the shadows.
It would be very rare that they let anyone of us in, and what would be the price to pay to get there even if the way existed? probably is gonna be something no one us of here would want to do.
Then again, as per my own assertion, the existence of this group would be one of the hardest things to prove in the world, I would have to do some kind of "pascal wager" about it and consider some of the implications and probable consequences of:
A) they exist
B) they do not.
conspiracy theorist
funny thing is some say conspiracy theorist is a phrase designed by conspirators to shame anyone who may be investigating their secret plots, etc.
then agains this assertion may be precisely the paranoid mind of a conspiranoic, OR it may be truth.
for sure conspiracy theories have divergent levels of "plausibility" in their correspondence with reality, and they should be studied on a case by case basis.
And as always one should keep his mind as opens as possible to change if new data, evidence or logical arguments push in a different direction.
Very interesting, Stef.
I'm going on one specific passage which I think is crucial:
Quote from Stef on April 27, 2021, 2:56 amIf I were part of the most or the most powerful group on earth, pretty sure big part of that power will go to (if that is my desire) stay exclusive and in the shadows.
True.
But also the opposite is true, albeit to a smaller extent:
Most humans are born with a natural drive to advertise their power and status.
That's just part of human nature: if you have power and status but nobody knows it, it's not nearly as useful.
Now, smart and rational players would know that having endless money and power without flaunting still gives you lots of advantages and is better than flaunting and risk losing.
But how long would it take before someone slips, turns, gets drunk and sloppy, gets tired of the secrecy, or who is simply too narcissistic to keep his mouth shut?
Interestingly enough, we've had this experience already:
The mafia.
The mafia is supposed to be a secret organization.
It stayed that way for quite some time, and it remains "secret enough" that you don't know who's in there and how much power it actually us.
BUT, enough has come out now that it's not "secret" anymore.
And it took until John Gotti to find a powerful member whose narcissism led him to brag and flaunt his status of boss.
So I think logic dictates that "on a long enough timeline, a secret power organization is bound to eventually slip up and come to the surface". It's not a matter of if, but when.
Of course, then one could say "it might slip up, but it hasn't happened yet, and it might not happen in our lifetime".
Well, that's possible and now we'd back to opinions.
My opinion is that cracks are relatively common to the point that several of them are likely to happen over a lifetime. But of course, that's no guarantee of it.
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