Who thinks that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump?
Who says the moon landings never happened?
Why says climate change is a hoax?
Who believes that vaccines, including the Covid vaccine, are killing us?
Who believes that there is a plot by the deep state to get rid of money so that the government can control us?
Who thinks that the 9/11 attacks were an insider plot?
Who thinks that the world is secretly controlled by lizards?
Here is your answer: always, the same people. The same people who have made us aware that they have uncovered various plots which have eluded the attention of every journalist, politician and security services all over the world. The truth is out there. You just need to look hard enough.
I read one gem on social media from someone not noted for their great intellect who cut and pasted an item found on the internet about how people who took the Covid vaccine were in fact sheep. No evidence was provided, obviously, but if you become aware of ‘facts’ that no one else knows about, then clearly you are right. The irony of cut and pasting an item and then referring to others as sheep was clearly lost on them.
That I do not fully understand the components of Covid vaccines does not stop me believing they are safe and effective because I trust the people, actual experts, who tells me they are safe and effective. Just because some nutcase or other has come up with an alternative view based on no evidence gives no me cause to doubt it. Yet there are people, increasingly quite a lot of people, who believe in things that are not true.
I know and know of some of these people and, without wishing to sound in any way superior, they are not all the sharpest tools in the box. None of the ones I know are experts in science, or anything else for that matter, but they are easily led by others who are not experts in science, but are world leaders in convincing some folk that what is not true is true. When they don’t like facts, like Donald Trump they deal in alternative facts. It’s one fucked up place to be.
With these people, one things lead to another. If someone believes that Covid is a hoax, they are likely to be the same people who think 9/11 was a hoax, carried out by George Bush and Mossad and believe that Donald Trump was cheated out of an election most people know was lost by him. And there is one simple fact, something that is despised by the conspiracy loons: evidence.
For vaccines, climate change, 9/11 and all the rest of it, there is evidence, loads of it. If you don’t accept evidence, then surely in order to disprove something, you need more evidence. And if you believe in something for which there is no evidence, then why the fuck would anyone believe a word you were saying? “Believe what I say?” “Why, do you have evidence?” “No.” “Then why should I believe you?” “Because it’s on the internet.” Hmm. Okay then.”
Some of the people who believe in things that aren’t true aren’t thick and stupid, well not all of them, and that’s what makes it all so disturbing. It must be a form of brain-washing and that’s something I haven’t experienced. Sure, I’ve got some things – many things – wrong and I am no academic, but I am not so far gone that I can’t tell between fact and fiction. I have to believe in evidence because what else is there on which to base your views? Things for which no evidence exists? How the hell can that be true, then?
I go back to my very first point. People who believe in one wacky conspiracy theory are likely to believe all of them. And it is inevitable that the conspiracy nonsense emanates from the far right fringes of politics. These days, I don’t waste my time nor energy arguing with cranks and crackpots who deal in the fictitious world of conspiracies. Most of the ones I come across are so far down the rabbit hole they’re beyond salvation. But maybe I should.
If something based on evidence appears to be true, it usually is. If a conspiracy theory is peddled for which there is no evidence, it probably isn’t true. And when these people refer to people who deal with and believe in facts as sheep, simply point out the obvious irony of those who happily believe in things that aren’t true.
