T28 wrote:
The less education the more people are likely to gobble up statements given with an air of authority carrying the sheen of expertise.
The latter being a perfect description of most government officials and bureaucrats, in my experience.
I am not sure about just a lack of education.
I know several people who I would class as intelligent and probably univ educated and who are firm anti-vaxxers. One of them has bought into the 5G / Bill Gates / nanoparticles stuff and probably spends her whole day watching the countless YT videos on these topics. Social media is full of these types and all I have seen were female; I have not noticed any males who have gone for the 5G+ stuff.
I know of at least one person who I believe had an engineering PhD and who is a pilot, plus one more who has an electronics degree and works in a German biotech research establishment, plus one more who is a pilot and who is certainly bright (no idea of his education) who all believe the whole thing is a media perpetrated hoax. All these are males. Again, this angle is supported by tons of YT videos. People aren’t really dying of this, the mortality is same as normal flu, etc.
It’s an interesting phenomenon and no doubt will be researched one day – not least because of the massive implications it has for the survival of the species should a “real virus” come along one day, like the ones in the films. Presumably, the solution will be like the one in the films: vaccinate everyone at gunpoint. I reckon a virus with a few-% mortality would need gunpoint vaccination, to have any hope of the survival of the species. Economically, losing say 5% of the population would not be a problem (!) but the public order mayhem would be too great.
The latter being a perfect description of most government officials and bureaucrats
Yes – straightforward self selection on personality; found in most occupations 
On top of that, there are some occupations which deliberately recruit from a particular IQ band, and it isn’t anywhere near the RH part of the curve 
Reaching for extremes does not help but it’s clear that the public is being manipulated, and in my view that those doing the manipulation are clueless in relation to understanding what reasonable combination of leadership and technology would result in a given outcome. What drives people to ‘do something’ when they don’t have sufficient data to do so would indeed be a good subject for study, I think the answer is some combination of fear and self interest.
I’m happy to be relatively unaffected, largely by luck and location. My biggest issue with CV-19 is that my vacation routine was interrupted.
My point was that using “excessive trust in authorities” as a justification for conspiracy theories is a non sequitur – if i have 100% trust in my authority I wouldn’t need to create an alternative reality diverging from the official line.
The shifting of the discourse characterising government employees as lacking in education is par for the course sadly.
A conspiracy theory has often been the underpinning of the official line, a creation of authority, limited in negative impact by whatever degree of beneficial skepticism and critical thinking a given population may have. For example, I think the (mis) use of religion and promotion of identity groups to manipulate the population is a pretty good example of creating a boogey man to motivate the masses, and should not be trusted.
Re government employees and on topic, I should have recorded the post CV-19-positive phone conversation between the local contact tracing County employee and my German wife, who tends to think of such people with a certain fearful respect. It was amusing, the guy had a 90 IQ max, could not put together a sentence that was understandable and took 15 minutes to ask 5 minutes of questions. It did make me smile but it took her a day to get over it.
Many politicians seem to be in fear of being seen to do nothing.
In all sorts of varied situations (personal, business, health, whatever) the do-nothing option is well worth considering and often the optimal course of action.
I don’t think excessive trust in authorities causes conspiracy theories. Perhaps it does indirectly in that those without trust see the degree of trust in others and conclude that something must be going on. Lack of education – there is probably a correlation – but always exceptions.
Personally I worry more about the precedent set for curbing personal freedoms than I do about the virus. It might be stretch to say that the public is being manipulated, but certainly governments are omitting vital context from the statistics. That context being that if a population as a whole has say a 1% mortality rate following infection, then almost all of that risk lies with a very small sub-set of the population and thus it is not accurate to say that John Doe has a 1% chance of dying. This is beyond the comprehension of most of the public though.
Peter wrote:
It’s an interesting phenomenon and no doubt will be researched one day
I wonder how much effect the “work from home” factor has at present. I mean that I’m sure many people who are open to be taken in by conspiracy theories, discuss at work about “how they heard something about….”. But around the water cooler, people will quickly be able to tell them why that’s crap. Someone will know someone working on 5G etc to be able to explain why it’s crap, and that person is saved from being taken in. But now, while working from home without that social interaction, they turn online for their info. Any search for a conspiracy theory will just lead to lots of links attempting to convince you it’s true, and instead these people are taken in.
I think this is resulting in a lot of people being taken in by conspiracy theories at present, who aren’t normally taken in.
And anyone thinking they are getting 5G injected into them, is off the wall. We can’t even get fibre to the home to all homes in the country! There is no way people are getting 5G injected into them for free! Who’s going to pay the monthly bill!?? If it was possible to get 5G injected, I think there might be a queue of rural internet users willing to sign up
dublinpilot wrote:
If it was possible to get 5G injected, I think there might be a queue of rural internet users willing to sign up
On a lighter side: The latest hoax you can play on your fellow people around you:
- Hide your touch free credit card up your sleeve.
- Go to your local supermarket, buy your groceries and at the cash just hold your hand against the cash terminal so the card makes contact.
- Pay your groceries that way and remark loudly: "Wow that vaccination chip really works! "
The sad bit is there might be enough idiots around who will pick it up and report it to the Daily Fail…
T28 wrote:
My point was that using “excessive trust in authorities” as a justification for conspiracy theories is a non sequitur – if i have 100% trust in my authority I wouldn’t need to create an alternative reality diverging from the official line.
Quite right. And the next one is that seeing the total incompetence with which certain things are handled, who would give those same authorities credit in creating rather complex conspiracies involving thousands of people in the know and not one who would talk. Or, wait, there was Qanon who does?
In more than one way I feel the steady and growing influence of CT and Fake News to be a much bigger danger to us than any other thing bothering us, including the CV19 virus. And obviously it has not helped that situation either.
Peter wrote:
I have not noticed any males who have gone for the 5G+ stuff.
Oh I have (in fact quite the opposite – I know no women who have gone in for the 5G conspiracies). Including one man who has had to pass exams in RF theory and should know better.
