I've been debating Corona Virus conspiracy theorists for the past couple of days (all from Bristol, UK), and because I've got nothing better to do, I thought I'd report back with some observations from my swift and unexpected decent into the eighth circle of hell.
I think it's worth saying that sadly the rabbit hole many of these young men have fallen down is so deep, dark and absurd that it's hard to see how they will ever emerge again without professional help. When I say 'conspiracy theorists', I'm not talking about the folks merely trying to play-down the seriousness of this crisis for economic reasons, the Trump's and Bolsanaro's of this world - whilst they're certainly obnoxious, incompetent, criminally negligent, dickheads - the characters I'm talking about are orders of magnitude more un-tethered from reality. Think Pizza Gater's of the Pandemic.
The old Twain adage to never debate stupid people, 'because they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience' largely holds, at least they certainly brought me down, but actually I think the saying 'arguing with stupid people is like arguing with pigeons, no matter how hard you try, they will shit on the board and strut away like they won' to be both fairer and more descriptive.
I'm being unnecessarily cruel I know, but the combination of total ignorance and massive smugness on display from every one of these political grifters triggered the ever livin' fuck out of me, so I really don't care. Whether it be the 'deep state' duping the masses into giving up their democratic freedoms and plunging the planet into a fascist dictatorship using 5G, Bill Gates' nefarious plan to install a vaccination chip in all of us, corrupt doctors seeking to harvest our organs, or just the basic run of the mill 'false flag operation', there are numerous Corona conspiracies doing the rounds, and somehow I managed to run head-first into nearly all of them in one place, at the same time. Thanks Facebook!
It's surreal and tragic to think that a disease born on November 17th 2019, less than five months ago, has now killed 100,0000 people. But what's weirder and no less tragic is the growing number of people who now seem to believe the death toll is a complete fabrication. My crash landing into this world started a few days ago with a rather innocuous post from a friend of mine questioning what he perceived to be the British public's desire for a more 'aggressive' approach to enforcing the current lock-down currently in place in Britain. To paraphrase my friend, he thought it was stupid and shortsighted to want the police to be in any way more 'aggressive' with the public, and argued that anyone calling for such a thing, even temporarily, was just asking for trouble. A lot of posters agreed with this sentiment, which is fine, but before long there were lot's of comments like this (actual comment):
"BEGGING for fascism because of a massive con... people are beyond saving".
I chimed in at this point, that given the (hopefully) once in a lifetime nature of this crisis, granting police temporary powers to send people home seemed a reasonable measure if large numbers of people were disobeying stay at home orders. I argued this could save thousands of lives, particularly vulnerable citizens (not to mention front-line NHS workers), and didn't amount to us giving up our freedoms and certainly didn't mean I was calling for the police to enact violence, let alone fascism.
I had no way to know the metric fuck ton of of ignorance my comment was about to unleash upon the world.
Dipshit 1: "whats more important... being forced into house-arrest/quarantine, or our rights as sovereign beings/legal citizens?"
Me: That's a false choice. You can grant police temporary powers to send people home without turning into a fascist dictatorship.
Dipshit 1: "forcing people into house-arrest is fascism. So which is more important to you?"
Me: House arrest has absolutely nothing to do with fascism. All democracies use house arrest. Staying at home to prevent your fellow citizens dying is NOT house arrest.
Dipshit 1: "So you're incapable of understanding fairly basic principles, and incapable of answering the question...Christopher do you have the rat-number for grassing up dog-walkers to hand?"
As I sat momentarily dazed by his weaselly non-sequitur, my opponent received reinforcements in the form of a new commentator who I'll simply refer to from now on as Dipshit 2, who quickly established themselves to be every bit as dense as the densest star known to humanity. Posting a link to an article urging us to believe that Covid-19 was actually caused by.... the roll-out of 5G, I suddenly realised I had to make a decision, to continue this miserable conversation risked permanent brain damage, but to pull the ejector seat and get the hell out would have left a really bad taste in my mouth. I was now outnumbered 1.5 to 1 and my reasonable conversation with a mate had degenerated to the level of the comments section under a Joe Rogan video, but for unknown reasons, (let's be honest, probably my ego) I decided to plow on anyway.
Sensing weakness at my momentary silence as I read through Dipshit 2's absolute nonsense article, Dipshit 1 struck again, swiftly posting a link to a Youtube video, just as I was clicking on it, disaster struck again, as yet more reinforcements arrived in the form of Dipshit 3, entering the fray with a perfectly timed and entirely fabricated Henry Kissinger meme. Classic. Which one, you ask? You know the one claiming that Kissinger said 'vaccinations are the way the government will control and exterminate us'? Yea that one.
At this point I knew I had to attempt to rally, so I pointed out that Kissinger never made any such speech and linked evidence that the meme was made by an anonymous Facebook user. He immediately started backpedaling and in an impressive feat of cognitive dissonance claimed both that he already knew the speech wasn't real AND that it could still be real and I should prove to him that the speech wasn't real.... OK.
I finally click on Dip shit 1's link to find a video produced by the ultra conservative 'Next News Network' YouTube channel, a notorious right-wing propaganda mill out of the U.S that supports Trump and is famous for spreading dangerous misinformation and junk science. The particular video he linked was an interview with Dr Shiva Ayyadurai, a charlatan of the most transparent kind with a record of fraud longer than my arm.
Me: 'This is dangerous right-wing propaganda from a Trump loving antivaxxer conspiracy theorist.'
Dipshit 1: 'his 4 degrees from MIT and proven track-record in innovation and genius somewhat outshines your baseless little outbursts. Its funny because you don't even realise that you are exactly why Trump wins lol' 🤣
Me: 'Says the guy regurgitating baseless conspiracies that he saw on a far-right youtube channel.'
Dipshit 1: "Did you even watch the video? Dr Shiva invented Email, has four degrees from MIT, he's running for Senate and he's calling out babylon for it's bullshit and you're right your opinion doesn't matter, except for when you start espousing fascism...then you're not only dumb but also dangerous."
Me: My honest advice to you is not to believe everything you see and hear on You Tube. Dr Shiva didn't invent email (which is almost as hilarious as thinking that inventing email would validate his bogus scientific theories) He 'ran' for election as a Republican in 2017 but lost getting only 3.4% of the vote. He has a long history of fraud, academic malfeasance and generally scummy behavior) .... Are you a Trump supporter out of interest?
(He did not like this at all. He responded nearly an hour later with a pages long diatribe)
Dipshit 1 - "You are abhorrent, derailing the conversation thinking you're being smart when you haven't contributed anything to the discourse other than 'I'm a dumb sheep incapable of critical thinking or engaging in information contrary to my currently held beliefs... and the police should have a right to punish you because I saw the news and that's what they told me and you're bad for endangering people"zzzzzzzzzzzzzz if you want to sit at home doing nothing then by all means please, for the sanctity of life, you go right ahead. society won't miss you when the police cart you off for 'treatment' People with big egos and confidence in themselves seem like crazy, bad men to people who's ego is so pathetic and diminished that they can only mirror and replicate the rhetoric of the nanny-state that owns them. I don't 'support' trump but I'm not dumb-fuck enough to be "errrrrrrr orange man bad so everything he do bad" because the media tells me. I think he's a way more geniune and admirable person than you. You have to look at demonizing an individual in order to get support for your cause and justify your belief-system rather than exploring the science of our reality. Thankfully 'truth' is way more powerful than little dumb-fucks begging for fascism... How pathetic and stupid the UK is right now. Shame on you. I support sovereignty and freedom to all beings. You support violence from the state. YOU are the threat."
Powerful stuff.
The conversation had been fun, but I knew it was well past the point a rational person would have called it quits. My new pals and I had stopped replying to each other so I had just decided to log of and go to sleep when I heard an ominous chime calling to me.. When I read the new comment, I knew an entirely new level of 'free thinker' had entered the arena. Dip shit 4 was not like the others merely echoing far right American propaganda, he had his own facts and unshakable feelings about things I could never hope to understand. I knew I was defeated. So like a coward I ran from the battle, I didn't reply, I couldn't. Simply no reply would have ever sufficed. So I'll leave you dear reader, to formulate your own response...
Dipshit 4 -
I'm being pretty heartless here obviously, a lot of this comes down to class, and the underlying level of distrust in the authorities that many people have. If you go your whole life believing the police and the government is the enemy, whether for legitimate reasons or not, when a real crisis comes along that to a large extent requires the trust and consent of the people, if you can't at least temporarily suspend your ideology and follow the science you're kind of fucked and unfortunately so is the rest of society. We have a similar problem in Hong Kong where nobody trusts a word out of any government official, but luckily a relatively strong civil society stepped in to fill the gaps.
