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  • #49427

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    @ Davis and Robert

    I don’t promote conspiracy theories, I promote discussing alternative views.

    There is plenty of evidence to keep an open mind on the matter of the origin of Covid, including the experts, including Dr. Redfield, who tell us that the genome contains a modification that might have come out of nature but more likely came out of a lab.

    I’m not the one with the closed mind here. Don’t pretend otherwise. I’ve also reminded you of how often governments use disinformation mixed in with truth to manufacture consent. It’s happened many times and now is not the time to forget history and become blind to government propaganda.

    Propaganda is always more recognizable in retrospect than in the moment.

    #49423

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    @ Pope Beanie

    Forget names for the moment. Which one should carry more weight on the topic of the origins question: A magazine writer or the prior Director of The Centers for Disease Control who has access to all the data he needs? I mean, just off the top, which starts with the most assumed credibility?

    Which one based his view on interviews with experts and which one IS an expert with access to all the relevant expertise anyone could want, along with the expertise to accurately interpret what he hears?

    That said, I will not read the article because of certain diabetes-related visual limitations making any long reads a very trying experience. However, I will certainly listen to the article.

    “Confirmation bias”? That applies to someone who has firmly concluded something and ignores disconfirming data in order to keep on believing.

    I am arguing that we need to keep an open mind and not become committed to the natural origin theory so firmly that the alternative theory, that Covid came from a lab in Wuhan doing work either for the Chinese or American governments or both. Only someone suffering from confirmation bias himself could deny the alternative theory out of hand.

    #49421

    Unseen
    Participant

    The Warning dropped yet another good one from their October 2022 show. This one is called The Hunter:

    #49420

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    Participant

    I’m thinking that the idea that living beings from light years away coming to Earth is so unimaginable that another hypothesis has to be considered only for the reason that it boggles the imagination less, and that is that such beings don’t have an off-Earth origin but are native to Earth.

    True, that is unlikely verging on impossible, but tell me what makes it less likely than the almost impossible hypothesis that they are from a source many light years away?

    #49419

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    Participant

    So, the House of Representatives Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee held a hearing on UFO’s and all we got was more jawboning. Lots of testimony indicating that UFO’s are real and are not from Earth, but as soon as things started looking like actual evidence might be discussed, it was determined that classified matters were involved and so the investigation needed to be moved into a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility).

    I ask you, is there any better way to foster and justify conspiracy theories?

    When actual evidence is offered, we get this sort of thing:

    So, I remain a skeptic and I have to consider a conspiracy theory that for whatever reason, the government wants us to just think aliens are flying around on the planet. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Pentagon funding? A misdirection away from something else? Your guess is as good as mine.

    I still think it unlikely that aliens are visiting our planet because it just boggles the mind that beings from light years away have the technology to get here and then they get a flat tire.

    #49418

    Unseen
    Participant

    Ex-CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield (same position, BTW, as that of Anthony Fauci) believes a lab leak is the most likely explanation and, unless the CDC has its own data (remember the saying about being entitled to one’s own opinion but not one’s own facts), he has access to the same facts as the CDC and Oxford English major David Quammen.

    The Lancet sponsored a commission that found a lab leak a distinct possibility. Start listening at 12:55 below:

    So, that it came from a lab is not a hare-brained conspiracy theory. And lately, even American government agencies which previously poopooed the idea of a lab leak are taking the lab leak theory as either a distinct possibility or even the most likely explanation.

    The reasons for the resistance to a lab leak are as plain as day: 1) American sponsorship of controversial gain-of-function research, which Fauci probably either lied about or shaved the truth on in his congressional testimony under questioning by Sen. Rand Paul and 2) relations with China are bad enough right now as it is.

    Slippage is happening in the lab leak direction with both the Energy Department and FBI drifting toward a lab leak scenario with either “low confidence” (Energy Department) or “moderate confidence” (FBI). I think we can define “low confidence” as meaning something like “it seems more likely than not” and “moderate confidence” as meaning something like “most likely.”

    #49414

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    If people want the government to stop lying to them, the first step is to cultivate a society that doesn’t demand being lied to. I am not saying that to absolve government, but at the same time, there is likely a selection bias in political viability toward being rather selective with the truth (if not outright lying).

    For years I’ve been saying basically the same thing, but much more succinctly: The public is lied to because it doesn’t want to hear the truth. Sen. Mondale famously once said “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did,” and he lost the election. Reagan DID raise taxes despite insisting he wouldn’t during the run up to the vote.

    But we’re talking about something else here. That government lies in order to manufacture consent. Lies got us into both Vietnam and Iraq because the military-industrial complex saw a moneymaking opportunity. Fauci lied to us about masks early on in the pandemic, not because he didn’t believe in masks but because he didn’t trust the public to do the right thing and hold off until the doctors, nurses, and paramedics had an adequate supply.

    We were lied to about a Trump/Russia collusion. Oh, Russia did interfere but there has never been any convincing evidence that Trump and Putin conspired. Ditto for the “pee tape” that never materialized and Hunter’s laptop, which the NY Times belatedly admits, was a “thing” after all. They just didn’t want to come clean before the election for fear of affecting it, even though in doing so they may have done exactly that.

    Manufacturing consent by mixing lies that affect opinions and action in an intended way with actual truths is SOP. We know they do this, and when they do do it, it’s not conspiracy theory to say so.

    Anyway, the CDC spread its share of misinformation and the public knows it, and if trust for the CDC has gone down, a great deal of it is because the CDC hasn’t owned up to its mistakes and done a full mea culpa. But why would they want to? Walter Mondale would probably say they’re better off lying to us.

    Catch-22 anyone?

    #49410

    Unseen
    Participant

    Does the government lie to us? OF COURSE! But at the same time not everything they tell us is a lie. If it were, they couldn’t use lies to manufacture consent. Here are cases where suspicions, once dismissed as wacky conspiracy theories, turned out to be true:

    1. The US Department of the Treasury poisoned alcohol during Prohibition — and people died.

    2. The US Public Health Service lied about treating black men with syphilis for more than 40 years.

    3. More than 100 million Americans received a polio vaccine contaminated with a potentially cancer-causing virus.

    4. Parts of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which led to US intervention in Vietnam, never happened.

    5. Military leaders reportedly planned terrorist attacks in the US to drum up support for a war against Cuba.

    6. The government tested the effects of LSD on unwitting US and Canadian citizens.

    7. In 1974, the CIA secretly resurfaced a sunken Soviet submarine with three nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.

    Source for the above.

    That the Federal Government lies to us is not a crazy conspiracy theory. That they don’t is the useful idiot view of things.

    #49409

    Unseen
    Participant

    @ Robert

    First off, let’s remember that “conspiracy” has gotten something of a bad name in the news, but it’s simply a legal term covering when two people act in concert for a criminal goal. It could be just two people acting on their own or it could be two people acting as agents of something or someone else.

    That Oswald acted alone in the JFK assassination isn’t a conspiracy theory because it fits the facts better than the “acted alone” theory. There are serious problems with the single shooter theory (see toward the end below) as well as verifiable suspicious activities elsewhere in the crime scene.

    It is a conspiracy theory when one wraps it up as “the CIA did it” or “the Mafia did it” or “the Russians did it.”

    Still, if Oswald didn’t act alone isn’t exactly like believing in the flat or hollow Earth, that means there’s room for asking whom he might have worked with. His all-too-convenient assassination shortly after being apprehended sure looks like a “cleaner” making sure the truth couldn’t have been wrested out of him in intense interrogations.

    Despite Biden’s “final” release of documents related to the assassination, there are still 4,000+ documents still withheld or, while released, are highly redacted. Unfortunately, this leaves room for speculation and speculation isn’t always conspiracy theorizing, and sometimes conspiracies turn out to be true.

    And the government does lie in order to manufacture consent by distorting the truth, revealing partial truths, mixing fiction with facts, and outright lying:

    Here is testimony of a highly-credible researcher who used to buy the one shooter theory but believes he was wrong based on further thought and experimental evidence using the same sort of rifle. He’s concluded that there’s no way in hell a marksman using the same Carcano rifle and a scope could get two shots off a second apart. He concludes that if Oswald didn’t act alone, one has to believe in a conspiracy.

     

     

    #49406

    Unseen
    Participant

    New performance video release: “When I’m Alone” from the great Teatro Metropolitan concert last October.

    #49405

    Unseen
    Participant

    Do we want public health officials to report facts and uncertainties transparently? Or do we want them to shape information to influence the public to take specific actions (“manufacturing consent” being another expression for that)?

    The Noble Lies of Covid-19

    The role of government and its agencies is to serve the public, not play it like a violin.

    #49404

    Unseen
    Participant

    Is this how science should work?

    #49402

    Unseen
    Participant

    @ Robert

    An attempted “proof by meme”?

    This researcher found that the more vaccines one has had (any kind) the greater the likelihood of getting Covid. He also questions vaccine mandates with vaccines that haven’t gone through the normal process: “The idea that the FDA can arbitrarily choose which types of vaccines go out and not determine whether they’re effective and I don’t understand why anyone would force someone to get a vaccine that wasn’t shown to be effective.” (starts around 6:00 in the viddy)

     

    #49401

    Unseen
    Participant

    In the video at 2:05, he says “Even given the information  that surfaced the three years since the covid-19 pandemic began, some have contended that there’s really no point in investigating the origin of this virus.” Oh really? Only idiots would say that, like some probably in his audience.

    Are you familiar with the old bumper sticker, “I may be slow, but I’m ahead of you.” He’s the guy who was Fauci before Fauci was Fauci, a former head of the CDC. He’s not an idiot.

    Are you accurately characterizing his position? Is he saying that there’s no knowledge to be gained from gain of function research or that the risks outweigh the potential benefits?

    Lab leaks happen, and the Wuhan lab has the reputation of being a fairly leaky one to start with. I suppose the goal of gain of function research is to come up with particularly nasty viruses in order to plan to counter them, but…lab leaks happen. Dr. Redfield thinks the risks outweigh the benefits. You disagree and think risking the accidental leak of a pandemic far worse than Covid is worth the potential knowledge gained?

    The Lancet is one of the top two or three medical journals in the world, and a committee they assembled to try to figure out Covid’s origin concluded that the evidence showed it almost certainly came from lab work, not nature.

    The Lab Leak Theory Is Looking Stronger By The Day

    And you haven’t addressed the rather suspicious U-turn taken by two researchers who favored the lab leak theory once they received what appear to be suspiciously hastily-arranged research grants administered by Fauci.

    Remember, Fauci has shown that he can be very, let’s say, pragmatic when it comes to dispensing the truth. The glaring example was when early on when he said masks were of little benefit. It turns out he believed that to be false but said it because he knew there was developing a mask shortage and that masks were more urgently needed by health care providers and first responders, so he lied rather than level with the public.

    #49398

    Unseen
    Participant

    Is critical drinker meant to be parody/ satire?

    Well, he takes a comedic/sarcastic approach to his reviews. I think that fits the definition of satire at least. Parody, depending on how one defines it, a resounding “maybe.”

Viewing 15 posts - 856 through 870 (of 4,624 total)