Corona Conspiracies.

[DannyL]

This is a good Qanon/Covid primer: https://theconversation.com/qanon-c...us-pandemic-are-a-public-health-threat-135515
They were all saying when he got the virus that that was "the signal" - he was gonna go into a bunker so the roundup could start. Idk how they've adapted since then but they're v creative with it.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

we all have doubts, always. of course there's an "indeterminancy and ambivalance" at the heart of all things. we're finite beings. there is no ultimate certainty.

btu most corona conspiracy thinking is so obviously deranged that people here don't generally identify with it

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

making a thread entitled "corona conspiracies" and then demanding people stop talking about QAnon etc is an exercise in self-defeat

 

[luka]

making a thread entitled "corona conspiracies" and then demanding people stop talking about QAnon etc is an exercise in self-defeat

well again this is trying to make it a tug of war. Danny is being passive aggressive which i can appreciate in a childish way. none of us are above that kind of behaviour. it always has a funny side. i enjoy it as much as anyone else.

 

[luka]

all i'm saying is it's not the point of the thread. if no one wants to play then i will just sulk. what can i do?

 

[luka]

one interesting exercise they might ask you to do in therapy is to assume the opposite of what you think you think is true.
you dont love your wife for instance. you resent her.

there's all sorts of interesting ways to reverse our order of priorities etc to twist our perceptions and assumptions out of shape and so shine a light on something which had remained hidden.

 

[luka]

weed i always found really good for this.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

they're v creative with it

that piece you linked is interesting, I hadn't considered the gaming aspect, the joy or sense of accomplishment of solving a puzzle.

I'd postulate it's linked to helplessness, a way to restore control. condense the uncontrollable into a puzzle you can solve.

if you just drill down far enough, do the right research, interpret the information correctly, you can unlock the key to everything

see also that whole deal @poetix was talking about in re the cucked/based (or, NPC/PC) alt-right fantasy, of piercing the illusion

it's not surprising that people increasingly turn to this in times of great material uncertainty, emotional upheaval etc

 

[shiels]

how much weight we give to these inutitions and forebodings varies, and how we modulate its findings by balancing them against eg received opinion, or the rational intellect etc varies. but its a probe we all send out and gather information from.

i think acknowledging this mode within us all is an important starting point .

One of the primary modes of making sense of the world is paranoic ,pattern-finding... we need an authority, we’re naturally suspicious and threat focused and even the most hardcore rationalists go around all day making up dark little plots in their head, they might be suspicious of the plots too, filter them out, break them down with logic, but new ones will emerge, because this is our story teller pattern finder instinct churning away all the time

If we recognise this in ourselves i think we're in a better position to help others in overdrive, who've fallen into mania. that's what im interested in

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the real answer is there is no ultimate answer and you just have to learn to live with your doubts like every other person ever

but that's a tough pill to swallow in the best of times, let alone when it feels like like the world is opening up into a great abyss beneath your feet

 

[shiels]

it's not surprising that people increasingly turn to this in times of great material uncertainty, emotional upheaval etc

I see a loss of trust through a traumatic experience as the primary driver for the fall into mania

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I see a loss of trust through a traumatic experience as the primary driver for the fall into mania

loss of trust seems like a good point

again, people never having had to deal with these kinds of conditions are probably more prone to disillusionment or loss of trust

what surprises me isn't the reaction, but how much trust people had in the first place

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the main drivers for conspiracy theories seem to be a need for certainty and a need to restore control

which fits into corona conspiracy thinking very well - there was I believe similar theorizing during the 1918 influenza pandemic

i.e. that it was (everywhere) "foreign", deliberately spread by Big Pharma, a tool of social control, etc

 

[constant escape]

Not sure if this was mentioned upthread, but I wonder how much of the heightened conspiracy activity, if it is indeed heightened, is merely due to people being stuck at home, often with less to do than usual. I wonder what kind of socio-economic groups the more pronounced conspiracy-peddlers fall under.

That said, I'm not exactly against the idea. Like @luka said near the start, I think it can be a useful kind of probe to send out, a hypothesis, which then gets tempered and refined.

Things perhaps switch around when the hypothesis is made without any intentions of backing it up empirically, nothing to curb the fantasy. Which, again, could be worth something, but an increasingly metaphysical something, rather than a mundane and realistic diagnosis.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I would say you don't take enough drugs Tea but actually you take loads or used to anyway.

Ha, yeah, "used to" being the operative phrase there. But there's drugs and then there's drugs. I was never a cannabis-monster for any extended period, and even when I went through phases of buying it fairly regularly, it was mostly hash rather than skunk. And I've never been a big coke fiend, either. I think those two are probably the worst for paranoia (or best, if you're luka).

weed i always found really good for this.

👆

 

[constant escape]

We lager-sheeple wouldn't have caught onto that one.

 

[linebaugh]

That its going to last forever. I already feel resigned to it. thats was the voice of gloom is telling me

 

[mixed_biscuits]

the main drivers for conspiracy theories seem to be a need for certainty and a need to restore control

Don't think you need the 'conspiracy' part there

 

[mixed_biscuits]

I think where a lot of the more out-there conspiracy theories fall down is that they get the question of cui bono? totally wrong, either in one direction or the other. As P has pointed out, sure, loads of people have benefited from the situation - companies that make PPE and ventilators, as an obvious example. But they don't run governments, and moreover, whatever money they've made is outweighed many times over by the general recession - think how many companies are going tits up, shedding employees and/or going cap-in-hand to governments for bailout loans.

A principal beneficiary of this crisis is the media sector - and it's they which have exaggerated the import of the virus and influenced decision-making...no grand conspiracy, only the pre-existing imperative to maximise the terror/credibility ratio.

 

[luka]

a lot of our paranoia will be quite generalised and diffuse. more a sense of, something fishy is going on. we're not getting the full story here. important things are happening behind the scenes we're not privy too.