Oddbean

There is nothing the average NPC will not believe if exposed to sufficient propaganda. The elite WILL use massive propaganda to stay in power and enrich themselves. Ergo, democracies don't work for much else than keeping crooks and greedy commies in power.

I'm not saying all conspiracy theories are wrong nor should they be dismissed. But a huge problem I have with this kind of thinking is its mostly anti-scientific. Instead of looking at the facts and drawing conclusions, typically people with this kind of thinking have drawn conclusions and then find evidence to support it. Example: the whole COVID-19 plandemic theory that governments around the world conspired to make a pandemic and then use the opportunity to implement authoritarian rule over people. Typically, these people already held the view that governments are waiting for the opportunity to tighten their grips, power hungry monsters, etc. Then when the pandemic happened and governments *did* employ authoritarian measures, it fit their narrative and so it must be true. But now in 2024, we can see they were wrong. The world didn't slip into full on authoritarianism as they said they would with vaccine passports still in effect, police check points, bread lines, etc. Should governments have this kind of power? Were the authoritarian measures justified or worth it? Those are different questions. But the point stands, I find in Bitcoin/Nostr communities this kind of thinking pervasive. If holding this opinion makes me an NPC then so be it.

Do you think people resisting had anything to do with the failure to bring in vaccine passports and prolonging measures? Would you call it a conspiracy theory to suggest that if everyone complied, it could have continued that way? What I always find is that there is rarely any space for nuance on these topics. Have politicians like the speaker of the house ever coerced others into voting a certain way, threatening to remove funding from their campaigns if they don't? If so, do you think this is common or a rare occurrence, and do you think it is limited to a single country? Have politicians ever threatened, silenced, debanked, fired or silenced people for speaking up and challenging them? Have they ever engaged in collusion with corporations? How about bribes, sorry, I mean donations?

Has force ever not been equal to mass*acceleration? No but that doesn't mean Newton was right. Its a good model of physics in many applications but it has its shortcomings. Einsteins theory of relativity is far closer to the answer than Newton's model. Are politicians known to be corrupt? Absolutely. Will they continue to be corrupt? Most likely but you don't approach new situations with your biases and then find evidence that matches your world view. You look at every situation indepedentely, look at all the facts, then draw your conclusions. Einstein's own biases cloud his judgement when evaluating quantum mechanics he said "God doesn't roll dice". Yet he was wrong, quantum mechanics is the best model of the atom we have currently.

I asked those questions, which you don't seem to want to answer, in order to see if we can establish any precedent for the conspiracy theories. I approached the situation with skepticism, as I do with everything. I never had a bias because I didn't want to believe it. Then all the evidence came out and I was forced to accept reality for what it is. Einstein is a great example. He contributed nothing meaningful to the world other than theoretical nonsense. The fundamentals of his work were stolen from Henri Poincare. His work didn't translate to anything tangible, and he was rightfully called out by those who did contribute long before our 'educations' brainwashed us into believing otherwise. “The theory, wraps all these errors and fallacies and clothes them in magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors.” (Tesla on Einstein’s theory of relativity) “Not a single one of the relativity propositions has been proved.” (Tesla’s criticism of Einstein’s theory) “I hold that space cannot be curved, for the simple reason that it can have no properties.” (Tesla’s rejection of Einstein’s curved space-time) Who to believe? Hmmm, the people responsible for the AC motor and our electrical grid, or a fraud who 'dazzled' the masses? Tough call indeed.

I was thinking like you before Covid. But… So many things happened to support what you call “anti-scientific” ideas, that I had to convince me that it’s not anti-science by any means. It is anti-this-pseudoscience that disrespects any other voices. They pretended to bel us when in reality they couldn’t care less about health.