Comment on Anon's coworker is a flat-earther

rainynight65@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• Pegajace@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Exactly, the same mindset that takes you to “The entire geophysical establishment is wrong/lying about the shape of the Earth, so I’ll listen to this Youtube crank who says it’s a disc instead” will also lead you to things like “The entire medical establishment is wrong/lying about the effectiveness of masks & vaccines, so I’ll listen to this podcast crank hawking horse dewormer instead.”

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  • atomicorange@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    There’s always an implied “them” hiding the conspiracy as well. It’s just a couple of short steps from flat earth to “jews will not replace us”.

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    To be fair, the medical establishment did lie about it, but not because of some weird “big mask” or “big pharma” conspiracy, but because they have a tangible impact when used by large groups and overselling them would have better outcomes than underselling them.

    It’s a classic problem those in power have to deal with: tell the truth and get an underwhelming response, or oversell and get a better response.

    Don’t take horse dewormers though, that’s just dumb.

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    • rainynight65@feddit.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Overselling something that is true is not the same as flat out lying about the efficacy of a random pharmaceutical. Not even in the same neighbourhood.

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      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        You can surely at least understand the mindset there. Basically, when party A is obviously lying, a party B that calls them out appears more trustworthy, and it’s easier to overlook the obvious flaws in party B’s alternative. Here’s the logic, specific to vaccines:

        1. group A claims vaccines are effective against contracting a given disease
        2. group B points to evidence of actual effectiveness, which vastly falls short of what the public thinks
        3. group B proposes an alternative to the vaccine, implying it’s effective and that group A doesn’t want others to know about it
        4. group A attacks group B’s alternative

        This creates an us vs them situation, so if you already distrust group A somewhat, it’s easy to side w/ group B, assuming you have no actual knowledge to parse the available information. The same logic works with anything, you just need a little bit of distrust w/ some authority, evidence of false/misleading statements, and a seemingly credible alternative.

        The trick is to not lie/be misleading in the first place so you don’t break the trust. Trust takes years to build and a moment to break, so you need a very good reason to break the trust.

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  • bitchkat@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Don’t need a podcast when the president at the time was telling them to take the horse dewormer.

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• ashok36@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yup, the root of flat earth conspiracy y theories is that some group is fooling everyone to enrich themselves. If you keep scratching through the layers it’s always jews that are behind it.

  It’s just antisemitism cloaked in a ridiculous conspiracy.

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