this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
48 points (100.0% liked)

Technology

37705 readers
109 users here now

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] daemonspudguy@lemmy.fmhy.ml 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean like the insane theories people propagate about trans people? Yeah, no shit.

[–] luna@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

People like the BBC, yes, exactly.

[–] xxkickassjackxx@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Well when a lot of things that were “conspiracy theories” ended up just being things the government refused to tell us during covid, of course the wilder and clearly wrong conspiracies will gain legitimacy.

If the government were honest and open about covid and the lab leak hypothesis and masking from the beginning, no one would lend credence to new outlandish conspiracies.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 8 points 1 year ago

If the government were honest and open about covid and the lab leak hypothesis and masking from the beginning, no one would lend credence to new outlandish conspiracies.

can we uh... get some elaboration here on what exactly is meant by "honest and open about about covid and the lab leak hypothesis and masking"; as far as i'm aware governments were broadly, if anything, too conservative with their recommendations on how to handle COVID and masking and it's ambiguous what you mean here if you're alluding to that.

as far as i'm aware there's also nothing that privileges the lab leak hypothesis above any other explanation for COVID's origin, except low-confidence speculation by some branches of the US government (who don't all agree on it either).

[–] IcedCoffeeBitch@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what you mean by the governments being honest about the lab hypothesis and masking.

With that said, I'm of the believers that governments throw out fake conspiracy theories to hide the real ones. I have no evidence for this, but it makes sense to me.

[–] Derproid@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Yep, such a tactic seems really obvious to me, especially considering that the term "conspiracy theorist" was used to discredit those that didn't trust the official narative on JFK's death.

[–] Thor@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m not 100% sure what you’re referring to when it comes to being honest about masking. If you’re referring to how some governments said “Don’t mask” and then were like “Nvm, y’all should put on masks” then I kinda disagree.

The reason it started off as “Don’t mask” is because we had very little information to go of off. One very real hypothesis was that masking was gonna make things worse, because we weren’t sure if it was airborne or not yet, and that masking might make people touch their faces more often.

Basically, if COVID wasn’t airborne, masking could very well have made things worse, because it wouldn’t protect against anything, it would only make people touch their faces more often. So I 100% understand the decision they made.

[–] sarsaparilyptus@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

One very real hypothesis was that masking was gonna make things worse, because we weren’t sure if it was airborne or not yet, and that masking might make people touch their faces more often.

Was that actually real? I was under the impression that this was a red herring used to make sure lab and medical professionals got ahold of PPE before the general public could hoard it all.

[–] Billy_Gnosis@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

COVID, UFO/UAP's...the list goes on and on. Conspiracy theories are actually turning out to be the most reliable news sources. The MSM has proved over and over that they are just shills for whatever government they serve and we can't believe anything they put out as news.

[–] rimu@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Derproid@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

To be fair the Fermi paradox says we should have evidence of extraterrestrial life already. There are a few possible explanations and one of them being "the government keeps them hidden" isn't exactly the most unlikely.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] nogooduser@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s mental that we need such a specialised role in journalism.

Is it surprising? There are specialists pushing nonsense to dupe people constantly, fake experts, real news branded as fake news. No one reasonably has the time to research every bit of news they see. The world is a weird place rn.

[–] jeff@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's a good thing if people trust the government less and less, all this conspiracy stuff just means that people have access to other information. I'll end up dying alone in a run-down hostel at the rate things are going, I have no interest in defending the government here in New Zealand after everything they've done to spread poverty. I don't care what the official narrative is. I may be aware of it, but I don't actively follow it.

[–] SubArcticTundra@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Does that include Arden's government? I heard they were quite progressive

[–] nogooduser@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s mental that we need such a specialised role in journalism.

Is it surprising? There are specialists pushing nonsense to dupe people constantly, fake experts, real news branded as fake news. No one reasonably has the time to research every bit of news they see. The world is a weird place rn.

load more comments
view more: next ›