Conspiracy nuts

"MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s" (mastermario) 03/16/2020 at 10:52 • Filed to: covid-19, coronavirus

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There is a widely listened to local morning show that I sometimes listen to on my drive in to work. While I enjoy them for the most part, when they stray into subjects on science and politics....oh boy...they are misinformed to say the least.

Today they strayed into what I’d almost consider dangerous territory with some serious misinformation. They were reading a conspi racy theory that (from what I remember) is COVID-19 was created in a lab in China that is funded by Bill Gates and that the researchers in that lab used to work in a lab in the US, but Obama revoked permission for them to continue developing this strain because it was too dangerous, so they left and went to China.

So the TLDR for this is “Thanks Obama”

And neither of the primary hosts questioned ANYTHING about this claim.

Here’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on a lot of this mis-information.

They also start talking about how it really doesn’t seem like it’s as big a deal as the media is making it out to be, because “LoOk aT HoW mAnY pEOplE dIe FrOm tHe rEgULar FlU”

The part that really gets me is one of the segment guys (not there for the whole show) brings up that this is very serious for the elderly and one of the main hosts starts questioning THOSE numbers. “Do we REALLY know it is? Where did those number come from? How big of a study was it? etc...etc”

I was audibly saying “What the F***!” in my car.

On top of all that they kept referring to it as the “Wuhan virus”, not the coronavirus or COVID-19. Probably not to hard to guess what their political leanings are.

Anyways...stay safe out their oppo. And please don’t buy into BS conspiracy theories.

Super nice CCLB OBS Ford for your time.

WilliamsSW > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:14

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“almost consider dangerous territory”

Dude there's no "almost" there.

shop-teacher > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:15

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Listening to that, sounds like listening to fingernails on a chalkboard.

vondon302 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:18

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Thats been going around at my work for over a week now. I actually heard today "it's just a virus I don't get what the big deal is"

Bryan doesn't drive a 1M > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:24

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I can’t stand shows like that, but I’ll admit to tuning in every once in a while out of some perverse kind of hate-listening.

However, working from home means not being stuck in my car with the radio!

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > WilliamsSW 03/16/2020 at 11:24

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True, the “it’s just the normal flu” part is dangerous. 

Cé hé sin > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:26

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They were reading a conspiracy theory that (from what I remember) is COVID-19 was created in a lab in China that is funded by Bill Gates and that the researchers in that lab used to work in a lab in the US, but Obama revoked permission for them to continue developing this strain because it was too dangerous, so they left and went to China.

There’s another variation of that being expounded in C hina, but this time it’s an American lab. Many in China will believe this because the Great F irewall of China will keep them from seeing any contrary opinion and soo n it’ll be the received wisdom there. The internet is a handy propa ganda tool onc e you have complete control of it.

VW Max > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:27

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More conspiracy nonsense

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Bryan doesn't drive a 1M 03/16/2020 at 11:27

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It’s generally just an entertainment show, so when they aren’t talking politics or science I usually enjoy them. But man, when they get on those topics it’s bad...really bad. Thankfully that only seems to happen once every week or two when I’m listening.

WilliamsSW > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:28

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The rest of it is, too.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > vondon302 03/16/2020 at 11:29

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I thankfully haven’t heard that at my work yet. I am a bit miffed they haven’t told us design engineers to work from home yet...seriously...there’s absolutely no reason we need to be at the office to do our work.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > WilliamsSW 03/16/2020 at 11:33

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I guess it depends on how you’re defining dangerous. Is the conspiracy theory on the origin of it going to physically put someone in danger? No, as long as they aren’t downplaying the effects of it (which they are, and is dangerous).

Either way, it’s moronic and immoral and they should be held accountable for it.

Bman76 (hates WS6 hoods, is on his phone and has 4 burners now) > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:34

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The local one likes to quote “a new study” all the time about dumb stuff (usually how alcohol or chocolate is good or bad for you this week).  I really just wish they’d avoid all of it because they’re so incredibly poorly informed.

Jason Spears > vondon302 03/16/2020 at 11:39

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Between these and the ones that think it’s necessary to their survival to hoard every hot dog bun in the metro area, I’m just about done with people, a nd I already had a pretty good start on that.

I’m watching Pandemic on Netflix to stay calm. This is fine.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:43

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I just wonder what schools are doing, I had a lot of science and it was not easy. These drumpf people don’t understand it I guess. It’s scary what some states teach kids, it’s the bloody dark ages. 

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Bman76 (hates WS6 hoods, is on his phone and has 4 burners now) 03/16/2020 at 11:45

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I find myself in disbelief at their scie ntific “ knowledge” almost every time something scientific is discussed. You’d think they’d at least fact check some of it. It always makes me a bit depressed, since these guys are probably considered a valid source of information for many people.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > shop-teacher 03/16/2020 at 11:46

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It was bad. They’ve had some bad takes on science and politics in the past, but this is by far the worst one I’ve heard.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:46

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So why were the docs in China who first reported the unusual properties of this strain arrested? That’s been confirmed.

— asking for somebody curious. He’s the same one wondering why the Chinese gov’t first said it was not-very -contagious

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 03/16/2020 at 11:50

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So why were the docs in China who first reported the unusual properties of this strain arrested?

China had incentive to keep it under wraps whether you believe it was developed in a lab or not. Look at what it’s doing to everyone’s economy right now. At that time China was the only one dealing with it.

He’s the same one wondering why the Chinese gov’t first said it was not-very-contagious

That’s the first time I’ve heard this one...but could be attributed to the fact that 80% + of the cases are mild...so they didn’t think it was spreading as much as it was at first.

The Ghost of Oppo > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 03/16/2020 at 11:55

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China arrests everyone and anyone who speaks out of turn

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > Cé hé sin 03/16/2020 at 11:57

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A rumor really loses credibility when it is so similar to confirmed propa ganda. It did originate in China, but to say it was created intentionally to destroy the US and Europe is just stupidity.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 11:59

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“The flu isn’t serious”

*Looks a t Spanish Flu and then at Coronavirus*

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 03/16/2020 at 12:05

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I’m surprised how many people are unaware of the Spanish flu. When someone started mentioning Trump’s stupid “the warm weather will kill it” talking point, I pointed out that sure it might wane or even end by summer, but it could also come back with a vengeance in the fall like the Spanish flu did. They had no idea what I was talking about.

kanadanmajava1 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:07

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Maybe they have been reading the book that had “Wuhan virus” ?

“Best-selling author Dean Koontz is going viral amid wild conspiracy theories that he predicted the novel coronavirus almost 40 years ago — even naming it after the Chinese city where COVID-19 originated.

An excerpt from the American author’s 1981 novel “ The Eyes of Darkness ” is being shared online after he wrote about a virus with an apparently uncanny resemblance to the one experts warn could prove a pandemic.

“They call the stuff ‘Wuhan-400’ because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside the city of Wuhan,” a character says in the novel — referring to the same city at the epicenter of the current global outbreak.

Nick Hinton, who posted the original shot , insisted, “A Dean Koontz novel written in 1981 predicted the outbreak of the coronavirus!”

The similarity quickly made the tweet go viral — and sparking even more conspiracy theories, with readers noting how the plot calls the Wuhan virus the “perfect weapon” to “wipe out a city or country.”

“I will say it’s damned near perfect. Long incubation, asymptomatic spread, infectious as hell…,” speculated a user named Trinity .

However, many quickly dismissed the prophecy theories — and a fact-checking investigation by Snopes said the fact that the virus was named after Wuhan is “where the similarities end.”

Noting that there is no reason to believe COVID-19 is man-made like in the book, Snopes also stressed that the novel’s virus has a 100 percent fatality rate, compared to the 2 percent death rate of the current outbreak.

The original edition named the virus “Gorki-400,” after the Russian city where it was created, getting changed to China in 1989 after the end of the Cold War, the Daily Examiner noted .

Bookstore owner Albert Wan told the South China Morning Post that a “smart, savvy” writer like Koontz would know to pick Wuhan for a plot because it is the home to many research facilities. ”

WilliamsSW > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:12

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The other crap is divisive, though, at a time when we need to work together. Not quite the immediate danger caused by downplaying it, for sure.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:15

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The ignorance of the masses is something we can all bipartisanly agree  on at least. I can't believe I haven't read a single article with that comparison. In some areas, people weren't even allowed to hold funerals yet no one seems interested.

WilliamsSW > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:15

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They did say that, and it seems as though the Chinese government was trying to keep this under wraps for a few weeks, causing critical delays in the process.

The government there has a lot more tendency to arrest people just to keep problems quiet than we do here (Not suggesting we're totally innocent either).

wkiernan > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:17

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I work with this guy who has been spouting shit like this for the last two weeks. It’s almost admirable how flexible he is, shift ing his arguments on a minute-by-minute basis to match the latest lie from Fox “News.”

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:18

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I have to tune these people out and focus on keeping myself alive.

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:20

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But if they let you work from home right now, then you might start to wonder why you can’t work from home when there ISN’T a pandemic, you see?

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:22

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The 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic was over a hundred years ago. I went to public elementary school like most of the country. There wasn’t that much discussion of it, a few paragraphs in a textbook at most.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > kanadanmajava1 03/16/2020 at 12:23

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Or they’re just parroting Fox news talking points.

One of these book predictions almost always pops up during a crisis. There are so many books written that it’s likely something similar or close to reality has played out in one of them at all times.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 03/16/2020 at 12:24

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The  madness of that

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 03/16/2020 at 12:26

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I love reading about history and I know it’s not the norm...but it still always seems to surprise me when something I would think of as general knowledge is actually relatively unknown. I should know better by now.

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:27

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Absurd! Utter insanity that I, someone who works entirely from a laptop that I take home every night and attends exactly zero meetings a week, might be permitted to work from my own home!

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:29

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I get sucked into Wikipedia holes way too much. Yesterday someone posted on here a tongue in cheek list of lessons from apocalyptic novels that could be applied to this outbreak, next thing I knew I was reading about the Antonine Wall.

kanadanmajava1 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:30

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Yes. Th is seems to be fairly common.

Cé hé sin > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:42

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As it happens, my great uncle who came th rough almost the entirety of WW1 unscathed, died of the flu in October 1918 just before the armistice.

Chariotoflove > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:43

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The problem is not in bringing up these issues. The problem is not evaluating them with decent critical thinking. And this exposes an underlying deficiency in our educational system.

First of all, calling it “Wuhan virus” is not racist in itself. It’s just a descriptive and accurate way to refer to the geographical origin of this pandemic. If it originated in Boise and we called it the Boise virus, I wouldn’t be offended by that either. There is so much racism in the world that we don’t need to look for it where it isn’t.

Do more people die from the flu each year? Yes, so far. It’s okay to ask that question and see the answer as long as we don’t misinterpret it as an excuse to dismiss the danger. Lower mortality rates, herd immunity, availability of vaccines with significant effectiveness, these are all factors that keep the flu in equilibrium and need to be considered with the raw death toll in order to have contextual meaning. We don’t have a historical equilibrium established with this new virus.

Is it most dangerous to the elderly? Okay, ask the question. And then look at the data for the answer. We have a pretty good and decently well reported data set from Italy now. The answer as I understand it is yes. Next question please.

The China research project conspiracy thing you bring up is silly of course, but it does remind me of the fact that it is easier to do sketchy science in China than here. Or at least it was. There is this guy who started out as a prominent spinal cord nerve regeneration researcher here in the US. He became convinced that injecting a specific population of stem cells into an SCI would help functional recovery. He couldn’t and didn’t publish concrete evidence that this worked in any animal model, and so the community lambasted his call for clinical trials. So he went to China and organized his trials. So he victimized a population of people looking for hope by inflicting his bad science on them. If and when his failure becomes apparent, he will also have poisoned the ground for later clinical trials supported by evidence.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent there. This stuff gets me worked up. 

Thisismydisplayname > WilliamsSW 03/16/2020 at 12:52

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Yeah at this point it doesn’t really matter how or where it started and instead we need to focus on how to deal with it now.  

That is of course unless that same lab has a vaccine for it already... /s

Pickup_man > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 12:56

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You can’t just lure a guy in with such a nice OBS and then change the topic.

I have a friend who, how should I put this, he doesn’t all out believe the conspiracies, but he sometime believes that they could be real. Like, sure if you look at all these little individual pieces of “information” they’re somewhat believable, but put them all together and the big picture is more like a drawing my toddler has done, not an actual picture.

wafflesnfalafel > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 13:01

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I heard that Democratic operatives planted corona virus on  bro-trucks so that it would spread faster! ( I’m going back to my bunker now... Watch out for those chem-trails.)

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Chariotoflove 03/16/2020 at 13:07

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The problem is not evaluating them with decent critical thinking

This is what pissed me off the most. The fact that he started questioning the reported death rates but not some wild conspiracy.

Agree on all your points though.

The “Wuhan virus” term isn’t necessarily racist, but it seems like it was specifically used by many prominent politicians instead of it’s official name as a way to help spread the hoax conspiracy just a week or two ago. 

Grindintosecond > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 13:10

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It’s the “ Wu-Tang Kung-Flu” to use the sciencey name.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Pickup_man 03/16/2020 at 13:16

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I know....I’m on Craigslist looking at OBS Ford’s now lol.

My friend’s wife believes a lot of conspiracy theory crap. I think she doesn’t bring them up around me anymore though because a couple years ago I shot down one of her beliefs pretty hard and I haven’t endured them since.

The problems with conspiracy theories unwind really fast once you start digging into them which is why they bother me so much. Especially since most conspiracy theorists also are the people going around calling everyone else
“ sheep” and to “think for yourself”.

Bman76 (hates WS6 hoods, is on his phone and has 4 burners now) > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 13:34

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People just repeat things without thinking most of the time. 

benn454 > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 13:36

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 Someone should show them the definition of "coincidence" in the dictionary. 

MKULTRA1982(ConCrustyBrick) > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 13:42

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This so much, one thing that wrecks like 70% of conspiracy theories is: “qui bono?”

WHO BENEFITS

Half the time there has to be a huge, organized and multi-organizational/international cooperation for these conspiracies to make sense, and no one can explain *why* an individual/organization would go through  that trouble

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 13:44

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I’m just surprised that no one questions the veracity of the Chinese vers ion on much of anything anymore — Especially after the Spratly Islands dust-up (‘oh, we just are worried about navigation, so need to put some lighthouses on them’) or th e Huawei thing.

Had they said “look out, this is more contagious than clap during Fleet Week”, we wouldn’t have had CNN claiming that “shutting down flights is xenophopic”— there’d have been more support to take the immediate (aka “correct”) action. Instead, it gets debated in the court of social network opinions as if if had been more prudent to not curtail flights.

The affinity of tourists from that part of the world to crawl over ancient monuments from Rome to Vesuvius to Venice (and the flights they came in on) is responsible for a large part of the carnage going on in Italy right now.

As I said the other day, one clear message out of the Spanish Flu was “reducing human movement during an outbreak” is a proven way to slow the rate of contagion. It’s a no brainer. Only in this toxic environment these days would it even be a question.

And, no, I don’t trust the Chinese on much an anything in matters of international commerce...

https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/recalls-withdrawals/melamine-pet-food-recall-2007

If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 14:05

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On a scale of Fox & Friends to Infowars, I'd rate that at about a Sean Hannity.

DipodomysDeserti > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 03/16/2020 at 14:09

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China has tried to suppress information about outbreaks before. They tried to hide SARS from the WHO in the early ‘00s. They’re assholes (the g overnment, not the people).

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 03/16/2020 at 14:23

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I don’t trust China to tell anyone the whole truth either and the travel restrictions from China were the right thing to do. The problem is there is no proof that any of what they said is true. We know viruses can jump species. We know China has many live animal markets. We know there are hundred if not thousands of people in those markets daily. There’s a reason the CDC and WHO both believe it originated there.

We also know the Chinese government hates bad press. We know they will lock up or disappear people who step out of line. We know they need their economy to keep humming along. All of this explains China’s extreme response to it just as well as the “it was made in a lab” conspiracy.

Chariotoflove > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 16:32

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I think that’s the important thing,  that we not start slinging around ethnicity as linked with causation.

coqui70 > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker 03/16/2020 at 20:29

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I got a first-hand account from my grandma who lived through it. People didn’t have enough good information. Many died needlessly.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 03/16/2020 at 22:07

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There's a bunch of nutters down here claiming it's not Covid-19 that's making everyone sick...it's the new 5G signal rollouts.