Debunking Conspiracies (CDC Version)

Good metaphor. For those who have memorized “gotcha” phrases, this can be very disarming. For some (myself included) the relational aspect can be a real surprise when you’ve been taught to see it all as an enormous, abstract spiritual war.

Yes… I’m still working on this. It’s easy to take a pragmatic view and think that if you see no change, nothing happened. I’m grateful for the patience others have exhibited toward me in my meanderings through difficult topics.

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Hmm the anti-Fauci parade now includes most (?) or large portions of mainstream thought:
https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/03/tucker-carlson-anthony-fauci-coronavirus-shutdown-economy/

Perhaps they should let him move his broadcast to reporting from a major NYC hospital.

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“What if we’d adopted a more conventional response?” Tucker, do you even know what the word “conventional” means? How in the world do you adopt a “conventional” response to a novel pandemic affecting the world in an unprecedented way. Any response, by definition, has to be totally unconventional. I just can’t respect someone who can’t use words correctly.

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Large portions of the mainstream are delusional. Everything else that comes to mind wanders into the banned subject of politics.

Nevertheless, the worst conspiracy of all is the conspiracy that there are no conspiracies :smile:

I had a particularly rough day on Facebook today. It started with having to block a dear old friend because he has no interest in anything except arguing, even if that means arguing on the side of the COVID conspirators. I did a little better on Kent Hovind’s group, where I was about to report for conspiracy crap and get it removed.

It would be great if we could reach out and talk to these people, but this is a crisis, and we need to triage those we can help and those we cannot.

Sorry I can’t offer a more optimistic message - like I said, it’s been a rough day.

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That’s what the Illuminati want you to think! :wink:

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Hey, Dan. Sorry about your day. Oh, you office in a hospital, don’t you. Can you work from home?

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Yes, I’m working from home - and spending too much time trying to be reasonable with unreasonable people. :roll_eyes:

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Unreasonable people? Where do you find those? :grin:

I bet the coronavirus has kept you busy! And people want answers from you that you can’t give them, or can’t give them fast enough?

The Dunning-Krueger Effect strikes hard. Experts understand all the ways they could be wrong and are less certain. Those with dangerously little knowledge don’t know better. The worst of the anti-experts immunize themselves from knowledge.

This isn’t just a Christian thing, or even a religious thing. The friend I blocked never expressed a religious thought in all the years I’ve known him. You can’t appeal to knowledge in someone who does not respect knowledge. You can’t gain trust of people who only withdraw when you reach out to them.

Love, respect, gaining trust, those might work. But triage your time, you can’t help everyone. Try to slow down those doing active harm.

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Those research questions haven’t gotten to the clinical research stage yet, at least not here. I helped some family members with questions about diet supplements - things that are a really good idea for the malnourished, but not very helpful to those already on a helpful diet.

Unfortunately, it looks like the opportunities for coronavirus research are going to be with us for years. :frowning:

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Oh to be in England! Ah, I am. Thank GOD! We have the BBC. The very best of British, along with Her Majesty and her first minister. Sorry for the jingoism, but your media are horrific. We have freedom from, not freedom to. And yes we have the trashiest newspapers in the world as well as the best.

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Especially all in ones own shuttered mind.

Speaking of BBC…

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We do too! … am thanking God for the internet.

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I also go to the BBC first for news!

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In Africa, as a kid in the 1980s, I used to compare the BBC to Radio Moscow on shortwave radio. I’ve been told that propaganda is “a truth, a truth, a truth, and a lie.” It was an interesting difference. It was hard to pick out the untruth, but there was much more passion and perceptible bias in RM than BBC. Interestingly, I didn’t listen to Voice of America except for a little Paul Harvey. There was no TV for us in those days.

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