Information, Misinformation, Disinformation

Not necessarily stupid. If a person was smart they might do an internet search to see if the information can be verified. And in this case information can be found that apparently veriies the idea

Trump’s ‘disinfectant injections’ idea comes straight from internet conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theorists, including those that center around the QAnon conspiracy, have also advocated for drinking a diluted form of bleach called Medical Mineral Solution, or MMS.

QAnon adherents falsely believe Donald Trump is secretly running a military operation to rid the government of satanic, child-eating cannibals, and many QAnon followers believe those same people are responsible for the virus. Prominent QAnon accounts celebrated Trump’s apparent nod to bleach consumption or injection, with one prominent QAnon YouTuber and MMS reseller calling it “a good ‘lung cleaner’” on Thursday night.

Facebook’s been inundated with these fake “miracle cures” for COVID-19 for months now (before the pandemic, they were pushed as anti-autism elixirs) and all roads lead to a widespread troll campaign by the loosely held together group of ideological shit-posters known as QAnon (a group the president’s been tacitly supportive of for years).

A quick parse of 4chan, 8kun, and other yucky places on the internet shows there’s been a months-long campaign to push the conspiracy that big pharma and the Democrats are suppressing information on how effective disinfectants are at combating the coronavirus. Trump, accordingly, is thus rebelling against the New World Order and its leader (Bill Gates) by letting the truth slip about these secret cures.

It’s more likely confirmation bias. Otherwise you have to believe that the POTUS would be on national TV just pulling shit out his ass, so to speak.

So believing a crackpot theory that Trump is running a secret military operation to rid the government of satanic child eating cannibals is not stupid as long as it can be verified online. Got it.

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It is stupid in the colloquial sense of the word, but confirmation bias is a real thing. More and more people get their news from social media. Anything someone doesn’t like can be labeled “fake news” and a lot of people will go along.

Yep, and America is getting dumber by the minute as a result

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From what I can tell, there is no reasoning with a died in the wool QAnon believer. So I say why start now? Let them drink as much ‘mineral water’ as their hearts desire.

Undiluted ‘mineral’ works even faster.

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The scary thing is they walk among us and I guarantee that you know one or two. They may not admit it but they are there. The internet has made a home for nuts. Prior to the internet they had to travel to Greenwich Village, S. Florida or S. Cal to find like souls.

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My first chuckle of the day from prior posts. Cannibals and what not, they do walk among us. Got it.

It would also work the other way around. Many people must be aware of what’s floating around out there.

When the POTUS asked about the “treatment” why did Deborah Birx give such a gentle correction instead of screaming out “you’re an idiot” ? Because to do so would not have been political correct.

It’s precisely because Brix is not stupid.

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The moral equivalent of the guy who stood in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square. Hold on tight doc, you’re not alone.

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Confirmation bias is not just a real thing. In these modern times it’s practically a sport or a religion. People will go through all sorts of gymnastics in order to try to make the world conform to their version of the facts.

Remember back when they used to talk about “adults in the room”? If it weren’t for the pandemic and the doctors, there wouldn’t be ANY adults in the room now.

All these claims are false. You might think that you’d have to be stupid to believe this kind of stuff, but this is a serious misunderstanding of the way the brain works. Psychological research shows that misinformation is cleverly designed to bypass careful analytical reasoning, meaning that it can easily slip under the radar of even the most intelligent and educated people. No one is completely immune. Indeed, there is now evidence that smarter people may sometimes be even more vulnerable to certain ideas, since their greater brainpower simply allows them to rationalise their (incorrect) beliefs.

Here’s another article - partly behind a paywall

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-02/why-smart-people-may-be-more-likely-to-fall-for-fake-news

I believe it was Adolph Hitler who once said, “The more outrageous the lie…the more inclined people will be to believe it”. (or something close to that)

“The Big Lie” as it has come to be known was explained by Hitler in his book Mein Kampf.
During the 1970’s when I was in school a common topic of discussion was, “Could the same thing that happened in WW2 Germany happen here in the USA where unscrupulous politicians would employ those same propaganda methodologies” ?

Read about “The Big Lie”, and “Hitlers use of the expression” in this link:

Big Lie

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That man put his life on the line, literally. He was willing to be crushed under the treads or shot by the crew of that tank.

Sitting quietly on the sidelines while an idiot tells dangerous lies is hardly equivalant. The true equivalent would be if Birx had stood up and stated categorically that the ideas Trump suggested were the utterances of a dangerous fool.

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I wrote this in 1917, it still amazes me. It originated from a television program which was shown here. The Health Wagon was then in a very poor coal mining area. A capitalist? Who told him that?

At the Health Wagon one guy who came for free treatment stated: “I am a capitalist and donot want a compulsory insurance.” What happened with these people which are dirt poor and suffering so much to say that they are a capitalist? Something went very wrong in the past…

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AM radio talk shows.

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Are you serious?

Yes. They’ve been dripping poison into people’s ears for a decade or more.

The worst of it started just over 30 years ago so their is a long history of poisonous Kool-Aid consumption among the most vulnerable.

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We call that a mindfuck these days. This is scary. These stations, as I remember it, were often very local but that was a long time ago. Which media are responsible for that, also the biggies?

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