'Conspiracies' are a real thing... sometimes. The first thing to ask about any conspiracy 'theory' (most are really more like idle speculation) is "why would anybody do that?" If the motives boil down to comic book villainy, then it's almost certainly nonsense.

The real 'antivax' conspiracy is that the guy who performed the study which linked contemporary vaccines with autism seriously fudged the numbers. Coincidentally, he had just created an alternative vaccine that he wanted to sell. Hmmmmm...

Flat Earth: We've been lied to about the shape of the Earth for literally thousands of years, more recently pouring vast amounts of resources and manpower into perpetuating that lie, because reasons. The Truth is that the world is flat, and its physics are painstakingly constructed in excruciating detail to provide false evidence to the contrary. Right then.

Indeed there are a loooooot of actual conspiracies that have enough proof to be an historical fact and not something that needs faith. Like the food pyramid, the price of diamonds, or the life span of light bulbs.

Most of these start because someone has something they want people to spend money on, and this fact is what fuels a bunch of conspiracy theories, getting people to be suspicious of being lied to for that kind of reason, even if they don't really understand the topic to be able to make a reasonable decision over it.

I personally have fallen for conspiracy theories in the past. It happened basically because the one trying to convince people about it cherry-pick information that benefits their narrative and leave aside anything that contradicts, so one who has no understandment of the topic at hand is presented only with information, opinion and reasoning that supports the theory and it's very easy to walk away with only that and not listen at all to what someone who is an expert in the field has to say about it.

I remember clearly that after a few years and actually learning more about the topics by myself I realized how unreasonable some of these conspiracy thories are, and how easy they are to debunk... Specially flat earth. And at that point learning a lot about geometry, physics, astrophysics and many more things... it's been awesome, so coming across some theories has been a net positive in making me much more knowledgeable about many things.

I mean, it's not just a matter of whether or not you "believe in science." There are a lot of actual conspiracies out there. It's not entirely unreasonable that a lot of these newer conspiracy theories are believed at face value. Some people believe that 9/11 was a hoax, but that's absurd, right? Well, no. Because Operation Northwoods happened in 1962. Since declassified documents from the US Military show that they seriously considered staging terrorist events in America to drum up support for a war with Cuba.

The vaccine is bad? Well, the Polio vaccine, which was administered to over 100 million Americans in the early 1960s... was contaminated with a potentially cancer-causing virus called SV40. It has been found in brain tumors that have killed people. Americans have every reason to be suspicious. Pharma companies like Johnson & Johnson tainted millions of blood transfusions in Africa with HIV. That's some scary shit.

Flat Earth? Uh... um... well... NASA spent fifty years trying to cover up the fact that the astronauts leaving the moon accidentally knocked the flag over when they left. That's reason for doubt... right? I don't actually understand this one.

Believing in science was just bad wording from me. I meant more like understanding the scientific method and realizing that it's a pretty good way to leave personal biases aside and move forward and weed out bad experiments and calculations thanks to other scientists always wanting to prove each other wrong. So it's not about faith.

Indeed there are a lot of actual conspiracies, and the fact that they exist also fuels the theories for unreasonable ones... as it's easy to be suspicious of always someone wanting to gain something out from people being lied to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SV40#....._contamination

SV40 was found in some brain tumors, but in the exposed group there were no more tumours than in the general population. You could argue that this article is part of a cover-up, but why? When a manufacturing error happens in the pharmaceutical industry, they respond with a recall, not a cover-up. Every industry needs to be held accountable, but understand that there's a difference between vigilance and paranoia.

As for the flag thing... Aldrin stated that he believed the flag had been knocked over, and this was later confirmed to be probably true. What cover-up?

You need to go down that wiki rabbit hole a bit deeper, buddy. You were one click away from a far more damning article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacci.....tion_with_SV40

No, there wasn't a notable increase in tumors in humans. But they didn't know that until a study 35 years later. The cover-up was that while they knew about it in 1961, there was no recall, they pretended it was fine and continued distributing the contaminated vaccines in America until 1963... and in several other countries, as late as 1980.

While Buzz Aldrin said he believed it was knocked over earlier, NASA didn't officially admit that the flag fell over until 2012. But this one was a joke, I don't really think that was a conspiracy, and if it was, it was harmless.

...That hole doesn't appear deep enough to contain an entire rabbit. Did you actually read the article?

The rabbit hole in that analogy was wikipedia, not the single article. And yes, I read it.

Having an education in archaeology is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you get to know all about ancient construction and life and see that humans have always been just a tad smarter than we give them credit for.

On the other side, you get to deal with people who vehemently believe in ancient astronauts, who will look at the evidence and dismiss it because it was collected using a method they believe is fake (Carbon dating is a big one that gets dismissed), and really it shows that they're all a bunch of stealth-racists because they never doubt Roman, Greek, English, or French mega-architecture, but "the people who aren't from Europe just aren't smart enough to build those structures".

When it comes to Flat Earthers, it makes a little more sense in that they're espousing the belief to cast doubt on government and educational institutions in their dismissal of any other view of the world, but like... Eratosthenes was able to calculate the circumference of the Earth in the 3nd century BCE, before we had things like social media and vaccines and all that. Why would he lie about the Earth being round? It's a dumb hill to die on honestly.

I remember seeing people suggesting time travel, ancient astronauts and alien stuff because of these kind of things indeed. I think most of the unreasonable conspiracies happen because people only take a shallow dive into very deep topics, so without the deeper knowledge about it they fill the gaps with what feels more reasonable in their lack of knowledge.

You don't have to worry about me, I took the vaccine and will be taking a booster as well, I know the earth is round, and I fucking hate Trump.

I'm not knowledgeable in everything and even my own given field of interest i'm still a novice but if I can say what I'm feeling just once I'll say this.

It all really boils down to the fact that a lot of these conspiracies and even claims that these people have rest unchallenged in their minds, they refuse to think they are wrong and are so bull headed about their own ideology that any alternative is impossible to them. Even if it means their death as I'm sure we've seen on reports denying covid.

This gets well into their religious belief in which anything not attached to their holy books is meet with vehement skepticism. Obviously not every one of religion but it is a significant non zero number of them that will not change their mind because of "jebus".

Yeah Mehfoo is right vaccines weren't perfect and even today can be tainted and mishandled but we aren't dealing with polio anymore or yellow fever ect ect. And when it comes to conspiracies the only thing that needs to be said is prove it beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt.

Science isn't saying you're wrong its saying we can't prove you right repeatedly. If the results are inaccurate enough times we simply say your prediction isn't representative enough of the reality in which we live. I think a major issue on all sides is peoples...."faith" in science when its just a tool. Not to be worshiped or praised but literally our best way to try to understand the world around us. We are fallible, squishy, mistake ridden species who can't even interact without the help of tools in many of elements in the universe.

The best thing to do is understand the claim and then, as much as it cost blood, sweat, tears, and your time, prove it. Then do it again......then do it again....then do it again.....

Even for me I seek to continue to try to not paint a broad brush, even though I did mention religion, because people are different even among the groups that have a certain type of person. I know first hand how difficult it can be to prove what people already know with scientific literature and let me tell you it is painfully boring unless you are into the subject. Hats off to any journalist out there who actually tries in their research.

Ahh there's more to say but like i said I don't have all the data my self to make claims for or against a lot of what people say though I know google exists I don't like pushing things when I'm not well read on it, whether I agree with statements or not.

To me the biggest issuse with antivaxxers or conspiracy theorist is they just feel they're so damned right, but its not just them its anyone on the extremes of logic.

Agree with most of your take about it. There's a big alure in the idea that you know something that nobody else knows and they are unable to realize the truth... It makes you feel special, and that feelings easily pushes you to isolate your information around what turns into an echo chamber, listening to only more of what you believe in instead of challenging your belief with ideas that contradict it.

I was into a few conspiracies in the past, then as I gained more knowledge about the topics I was able to start spotting the flimsy talking points and unreasonable conclusions. But I still clearly remember how good it felt to "know the truth" and look down on everyone else aka the ignorant sheeple.

It's funny how most of the time these days, those who are called "conspiracy theorists" turn out to be true here and there, granted some of their claims are way out there and are ridiculous. I really dislike how politicized the vaccine has become, with the whole "do it or else" mentality and trying to make those who are unvaxxed as if they were not citizens.. It's not right. I have the vaccine, and the booster to be safe (MY CHOICE), I am strongly against the mandates.. I strongly believe that the government does not have the right to enforce a irreversible medical procedure on anyone even though I do understand they did it once back when Chicken pox was a big thing in the past. Some people can't even get the vaccine due to medical reasons.. But it should be our choice whether we should get it or not.. and of course we need to take advice from our doctors.. Never trust the government.

Trump? Don't like him, he was the worst aspect of the country when it comes to our culture. Sure he was a Nationalist who wanted to put our country first (which in some cases its good), he has lied a good bunch of times and hasn't done enough.. Not to mention he was relentlessly smeered and screwed over by our shit excuse of a government. I don't like the guy, I do think he had good policies here and there, but I really think and hope that we get someone way better than Trump and leagues above this pathetic excuse of a President in Joe Biden. Trump was the worse when it comes to being a person.. Biden is the worst when it comes to the government.

The one thing I really HATE though, is the Establishment or the political elite in our government.. which Biden is definitely a part of. The Democrats, most of the Republicans (both of them working together as a Uniparty).. I'm really hoping we can vote out these shitholes and put in people that actually give a shit, care about freedom, our Constitution.. Just no more of these Establishment shills who wantnto burn everything to the ground or those that don't do anything (which is most of the Republicans)

I think the thing with the mandates start from compassion, people being honestly worried about all those who believe the craziest conspiracies, like microships and becoming magnetic, put themselves and others at higher risk than necessary... Like watching someone drowning, you throw them a life saver and they absolutely refusing to use it saying they'll be fine, you panic about the life of that person and want to save them, but are you supposed to respect their choice or force it into them for their benefit? At least I think most people come at it from that perspective and not something about control and power to step over peoples rights.

I can understand that, yeah.. Cause some people are too hesitant or don't trust the sources, which is understandable. I didn't trust the vaccine at first cause it was being rushed due to how bad Covid was when this shitpandemic started.. It was like we were experiments in the sense that they're still doing tests and still trying to research, but given the circumstances it had to be rushed out. Some people are really stubborn and I don't know why, you can't help them. That makes it difficult cause then you're put in this position of "Do I respect this person's wishes, or do I do what I have to do to help someone even when they don't want it, knowing they can sue me or something?" It's hard to make supposedly the "right" choice when you're put into that situation.

Back then there was a mandate for the chicken pox and one person refused and had to pay a fine each day, which was a penny, which is whatever. These days, the way its been weaponized politically by mostly the Democrats, but also by Republicans; those of the Establishment/Uniparty are using the mandates as a means for compliance.. hell, even one of their politicians say it isn't about the vaccine. They don't even follow their own rules when it comes to making and all.. You look at other countries, like Australia, where their mandates are draconian; even if you're suspected of Covid when you're negative, they will take you and put you in their camps.. where people there have said to be treated like animals..
The whole lockdown stuff has caused a lot of small businesses to shut down, people to get depressed and even commit suicide cause of the isolation and whatnot..

I get that the mandates are supposedly for good means, but never trust the government to not take advantage of a pandemic.. It's why I'm glad that people are pushing back against the mandates and some politicians are backing down. I get that it's risky, but we can't keep living stuck with these mandates and all.. at the same time, people do need to do their part: talk to their doctor to see if the vaccine is right for them, mask up when sick or around large public areas.. We need to be there for one another, not against each other vaccination status..

That's how I feel about the matter when it comes to the mandates and what's going on. Everyone has their own opinion.. Just wish we stop fighting each other and come together to help one another and put our foot down against the government trying to exploit the pandemic to the fullest.

The problem is that people are irresponsible and belligerently stupid. None of what has happened in the past two years was necessary. We could have been done with it in three to four weeks, but we couldn't be trusted to take the basic steps necessary for our well-being and the well-being of others. And now here we are in 2022, fighting with an ongoing string of variants because too many people are too fascinated with their personal entitlement to make a minor sacrifice to protect others. This is why mandates must exist: humanity is garbage.

I can't disagree with you on the notion that a lot of people are irresponsible and stupid. To be honest, if the Chinese government didn't hide the fact that something leaked out early, we would've had a better hand on it, not to mention our stupid politicians playing games before finally taking notice of Covid. This has been going on for about 2 years I think, and now we're on Omnicron.
This is where I have to disagree with you: Right now, Omnicron symptoms have been mild, but the infectivity is crazy high; the vaccine AND the booster doesn't work most of the time against Omnicron (although various studies have said that the booster is 90% effective against the symptoms). Regardless of how you look at it, you can't stop transmission. If the Vaccine and the Booster don't really work as much, and the symptoms are MILD to say the least, then what's the point of the mandates? It seems just pointless to have the mandates if so far Omnicron is just giving mild symptoms and more breakthrough cases are happening.

Now I'm not saying to not get the vaccine or booster; they do actually do the job of lowering the chance of getting the symptoms, but I really don't think there's a need for the mandates. Plus, we've seen so many times how governments, especially ours have been exploiting the mandates.. Not to mention it's UNCONSTITUTIONAL for the government to force people to undergo a irreversible medical procedure.. Hell, even politicians have said that the mandates isn't even about Covid, it's about compliance.

Now again, I agree with you that humanity is stupid, but we cannot keep living with these mandates.. People want to come back to normal and who knows, eventually covid might just be an occasional/seasonal thing like the flu if research continues. The mandates have been more exploitative by our government and other country governments as well, some of them are ending the mandates.
Overall, I get why mandates have to happen sometimes, but in this case, I personally feel it's time to end them and get our economy back. If people want to take the risk and not get vaccinated or boosted, that's their choice, but to be fair, they need to be responsible; mask up if you're feeling sick, sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. We all have to do our part to not unintentionally get others sick (I mean that's why we have the masks even though it's annoying sometimes)..
I strongly disagree with the mandates (I can understand if private businesses do them), though I understand why they have to be implemented sometimes. I just don't believe it's needed anymore considering the circumstances going on currently. You may disagree with me, but that's just how I feel and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way and vice versa. I just hope we can get pass the stupidity of people having this cult-like behavior of "Get the vaccine or we'll make your life a living hell" and stop the government from further using the mandates as a means to slowly take our rights away. Here's hoping things get better for all of us as a whole, regardless of where we stand on the matter.

Regarding the vaccines, yes, people are still getting sick. That's basically a given. It's vaccine, not a magic wand. However, a prepared immune system means that you get less sick, and you carry a reduced viral load to transmit to others. This is rock bottom base-level social responsibility that's being refused. Add to that the attitude overlap between antivax, anti-mask, and anti-lockdown, and that unholy trinity amounts to being pro-virus—in fact there's video records of some of these assholes deliberately coughing in people's faces. How many times has that happened off camera?

I'm not actually a big fan of inappropriately restrictive government, but vaccine mandates aren't violating anyone's rights. For example, if you think you have a fundamental human right to cross a national border, then try it with a truck full of firearms and see what happens. There are no 'vax squads' rounding up and immunizing citizens in the middle of the night. The mandates are a minor social price of admission to certain privileges which we've come to take for granted. When smoking in restaurants was banned, it wasn't taking away a right; it was removing an entitlement to take away the rights of others. This is precisely the same thing. It's not that it's unfair; it just isn't favourable to some people who have lived in an accustomed state of profound privilege. I might call that one differently if the vaccine was being gated by social class, but it's being paid for by tax dollars and distributed free of charge.

You'd think vaccines back then made us immune.. then again, we haven't seen the old diseases come back since cures were made. I'm not disagreeing at all that the vaccines prevent the symptoms from being severe, and those who recover from Covid do build up antibodies against it.. Sometimes more than the vaccine/booster, sometimes less.. It depends on the person. There's also vids of people who are pro-mask coughing on the faces of people who either don't want to wear a mask or can't wear it.. Which is a fucking dick move altogether, what if that person was sick? Also, some people are actually asymptomatic.. You can't tell if they have covid or not if they're not showing symptoms, though this is rare. I highly doubt people are Pro-virus, that's a ridiculous claim, with all due respect. There are antivaxers which is stupid, but not everyone who is against the mandates should be considered antivax. Like I said, I'm vaxxed and boosted, I'm just strongly against the mandates cause the government doesn't have the right to enforce shit like that.

Sometimes, but in countries, some governments are considering those who don't get vaxxed to not be citizens.. Not to mention they sometimes can't even go out to get basic necessities like FOOD. You say that the mandates aren't violating anyone's rights, but they kind of are if you can't even go to get Food just for not getting vaxxed. Don't forget, some people CAN'T get the vaccine due to medical or religious reasons, which some states are refusing to care about that, which is wrong. And the trucks thing, there ARE army trucks being used in Australia to take people, vaxxed or not to their quarantine camps.. In New Zealand, the Prime Minister said that the mandate is creating two types of classes when it comes to people, that's also fucked.
You say the mandates are a minor price.. They're slowly becoming a major price as governments keep exploiting and trying to force this on people when it should be up to the people and their doctors to decide whats best for them.

Ugh.. The lines between the mandates being needed and them going too far definitely is blurry. Again, I understand why they're needed here and there, but I'm strongly against it cause I believe the people should have that choice... Not the government.. It feels like it's pushing towards Authoritarianism, more so fascism since they're in cooperation with the big pharma corporations.. it's disgusting imo. It's hard to find the middle ground when it comes to this, if you know what I mean :(

Forgot to mention that 5% of Covid cases end up with people going to the hospital, so there's that too..

You do bring up good points, you really do. I'm just strongly against the mandates and against government overstepping their boundaries, which to me and a lot of people, it looks like they're doing. The mandates, the lockdowns.. it's destroying the economy and creating in a sense two different countries when you look at it in a political sense on some states going Freedom and having no mandates, and some preferring lockdowns and safety at the cost of freedom. It's a blurry subject when you get to the meat of it.

Okay, just deleted my response before even finishing it. I'm arguing with a broken record. Forget it.

Well, when it comes to Flat Earthers, there tend to e two main types. The first ones are the biblical ones who take all their "proof" from the Bible. the second group are the the ones that usually have some kind of social or mental condition that makes them outcasts from most of society. These people tend to find unquestioning acceptance and are welcomed into the flat earth ''movement'. There is actually a somewhat well known Flat Earther who recently came to the realization he was wrong who did a pretty good video explaining how a person could come to believe in Flat Earth here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjYc8h3xt-E

This is an excellent video, thank you for sharing ^^

Most flat earthers who are into it because religion, also easily fall for other related conspiracy thories like moonlanding, satellites and space stations(if there's a dome and no space and such), big bang and evolution(god hand-made everything only a few thousand years ago). When they come at it from a religious perspective is probably when it's the biggest waste of time to try to have a conversation with them, for them is just faith so it doesn't matter the amount of proof you bring to them. And I personally respect other people's religious beliefs, it only bothers me when they insist it's not about religion, and they call science a religion.

So many bibles in the comments xD
Not here. Im a mechanical engineer. Science ftw please vax yourself

While I personally am neither of these things, I recently found a real anti-vaxxer in the wild on the site (and they're on DA too, so...)
Holy shit, that was a very unexpecting find, not gonna lie.

My whole family are antivaxxers \o/ They are also different strands of antivaxxer.

My mother was told literally by God himself that the covid vaccine was going to be used to control people. The rest of them seem to come at it from the microchip or magnetism angle.

Pretty cool, eh? xD

Holy shit, there are different strands of antivaxxers? Oh goodness.
While these explanations are funny as Hell, I'm really sorry that you have to deal with that on a regular basis, it sounds tedious

Though... the one antivaxxer I came across was probably yet another strand - if I remember correctly, they were sure that the government uses vaccines to create a layer of people loyal to them or something

Conspiracy theorists I don't mind. Sometimes the theories they can come up with can be funny as hell.

But Anti-Vaxxers and Flatearthers? There's a term that I consider them BOTH to be part of.

Darwin Award Nominees.

The Dunning-Kruger Coalition \o/

A lot of conspiratorial beliefs are fostered by not learning how to properly employ critical thinking, not having the tools to question your own biases and to try and look at things from an objective angle. So much of it is rooted in fear and the unknown, and saying "do your own research" means next to nothing these days when someone can claim that saving Facebook jpegs from a page called "TRUTH BUNKER WARRIORZ" is research.

My insight on this is anecdotal, but I think is a story that illustrated this pretty well. My neighboring coworker, we'll call him Joe, is pretty much convinced in a lot of conspiracies. Mostly the whole anti vax stuff. He believes in the autism link (he doesn't mention this one as much but it does come up from time to time), but moreso that the new covid shots are "a form of population control". He scoffs at reports of unvaccinated people getting severely ill and dying while saying it's worthless when vaccinated people get minor breakthrough infections. One day someone from a different department who doesn't sit next to him and listen to his drivel all day, we'll call him Chris, was in our office and Joe started to go off. Chris is something of a prototypical nerd type, but is nothing if not well-spoken.

Chris bit his tongue for a bit, but once Joe started really going off he began to directly confront him on his beliefs. He would ask, "why do you think this? What is your reasoning? What is your evidence?" Just these really pointed, direct questions that anyone who knew what they were talking about would be able to answer. The only responses Joe could give were ones that moved goalposts, dodged the question, tried to answer with an unrelated question, pretty much every response in the book other than a direct answer. Finally Joe just kinda ended the conversation by going "You'll see... Just wait guys, you'll see".

Which is a common thing among all of these beliefs, is that once you boil them down past the rapid fire claims there's usually very little behind them. Someone can make ten bullshit claims a minute and it can take hours to thoroughly break down why one is so wrong, but by the time you've done that they've already made a hundred more. It's what's so difficult about engaging in conversation with some people who are so deeply entrenched in this sort of thing. Yes, some conspiracies are real, and yes, not everyone who may be wondering about this sort of stuff is an automatic crazy person. There are some people who just have legitimate questions and we should all do our best to be open and ready to talk in a way that's not condescending or belittling. Some people just want/need a different perspective. It's when you get the aggressive quacks (who usually just end up being grifters trying to sell something, but that's another topic) that it really becomes difficult to even let facts speak for themselves. Someone who has no interest in listening to objective reality will just make up their own and choose to continue living in that, it's exceptionally hard to break out of.

That's all mostly centered around the anti vax stuff, I've had a lot of time to brew on that because I deal with it pretty often. As for flat earth stuff, that's an interesting case. Something that started as a joke got taken way too far and now it's full of clowns and losers trying to "fight the establishment" using pseudoscience and Bible quotes. I will never forget the night I was taking a train back from a concert and some psycho was going between the cars espousing flat earth doctrine at the top of his lungs, I got some pretty memorable quotes from that.

"How can water stick to a ball?"
"I'm a teacher, I'm an educator. I was a pilot for 26 years."
And of course, my all time favorite:
"WHO THE FUCK SAID GRAVITY?!"

We live in a crazy world full of a lot of scary unknowns and wild claims. Just keep your head on your shoulders and learn to ask the right questions, and you'll be able to get through it without lying awake at night wondering if tonight's the night that the government lizard people chemtrails finally activate the 5G microchip in your pineal glad and lead you to the nearest FEMA camp.

Agree with your take on it. And from experience I know how good it feels to know da troof. I remember believing some conspiracy theories back then, and only after a few years and gaining more knowledge about the involved fields I understood how much BS and cherry-picked data I was fed initially.

I am almost directly in the middle of all things. As someone else said, Trump was a pretty bad person. So is Biden. They're both despicable people as is most of our government. The government is not here to help you, they are here to stay in power as has always been the case and if that's a 'conspiracy theory' then I'm one of the worst (though history does support that view)

As for anti-vax conspiracies there are different levels. Do I support most vaccines? Long standing tested ones (although there is one thing of note there as well...to speak from both perspectives here, each 'safe' vaccine was also tested in the human body. Not against each other at the same time so perhaps some spacing between receiving them would be better. It's like ammonia and bleach. Both are safe alone but together? Well, that's bad) that also prevented the catching and spreading thereof? Yes. If the new ones worked that way I could almost (keyword being "almost" support mandating them as it is proven that they lessen your symptoms and chances of death. Do they prevent it? Not at all. And as far as side effects go it has the highest ever reported numbers of side effects in the shortest amount of time ever. That is also a fact, not a conspiracy theory.
Plus, some of us were there, worked in the medical field when it was being handed out. Of the 70 of us in my unit alone 55 were put out of work for about two weeks with bad bad short-term side effects. One suffered permanent ones and lost her job being unable to continue. I was in the Union but there was nothing I could do to prevent it. That's still my only regret to this day that there was nothing I could do for her because you can't sue for an experimental one, and at the time it still was. She had signed up to take it knowing that 'something' could happen.

There's also the fact that you have at the lowest reported number a 96% chance of survival and at the other end of the scale around 98.9% chance of recovering from covid based on which study you listen to. And it did always seem fishy to me, the numbers of people that supposedly caught it...again, using my unit for reference of us only 7 (working in it every day at a hospital) ever caught covid, and they were those that didn't even wear masks properly (4 of them were vaccinated). Of our entire staff (around 2,500 when the pandemic began, down to about 1,800 due to cuts afterwards) less than 30 people total there caught it in two years.
Now all that aside I'm not saying covid 'isn't real' or isn't 'deadly' etc...it's a horrible thing once caught. But is it worth mandating an entire population to get something that won't even prevent the spread? Not in my opinion. Last bit on that topic however is the fact that there are many 'anti-vaxxers' even here, that have the vaccine. Because the dictionary definition (Websters at least) included those that were against vaccine mandates as anti vaxxer even if you support vaccines. But if you support free choice? You're still an anti-vaxxer.

I saved the easiest for last, the 'flat earther' comment... I just find that one ridiculous since you can test that yourself to prove it, unlike say for example the moon landing (also not denying it but at least it's harder to prove as you can't go there yourself so there could be doubt to some). As far as it being Biblical, I notice that a lot of people love to say that lots of things are in there...the Bible actually specifically makes mention of the earth being a 'sphere' or a 'dome' in many locations and never once says that the earth is flat. Unless you take some of the 'to the ends of the earth' parts that way, however people say things like that all the time and don't mean that the earth has an 'end'/corner

Just my two cents (dollars? I typed a lot of words that I'm sure no one will actually read...oh well). I generally find conspiracy theories...interesting... to say the least and enjoy reading them for entertainment purposes as well as to eke out the little bits of truth within all things.

I read :3

I understand your take on it, I don't agree with everything, but most of your opinion is perfectly reasonable.

I think the mandates (mostly) come from people being worried for each other, seeing people endangering themselves and others, wanting to help them... so They try to force them to put a damn life saver on when they are drowning. I personally support the idea of free choice and the option of not taking the vaccine and allowing these people to continue their normal lives and jobs, but there needs to be extra precautions for those people so THEY have a lower chance to get infected since they keep themselves at higher risk.

Last response to this as I don't want to fill up the entire comment section myself...

One thing we both agree on that is a common misconception of 'anti-vaxxers' however is that they also are against mask mandates, which that I don't think there's any reason for...yes, they're hard to breath in, and yes, they are (very, very slightly) worse for your breathing long term... but I'm okay with that. Especially for those that chose not to get vaccinated, having to wear masks (particularly N95's since they off equal protection/above 95% against all airborne particles) as well as weekly testing including paying for it should be another option.
As someone who never got covid while working at a hospital people can say what they want about masks (and cloth ones are and have been useless...hospitals know this, it's why you can't go into patient rooms with any communicable disease with a cloth mask) but N95's do work wonders. If you use it right as all hospital staff are trained to do.

Screw politics, time for some REAL conspiracies.

The government is covering up information that farts and general buttgas are the reason we aren't dead from micrometers yet. These authoritarian overlords desire us to fart at a reduced level to kill all of Earth so that they, within an underground bunker, can have it to themselves. So these dastardly villains proceed to do things like make beans more expensive, and attempt to make Taco Bell taste bad. Fart more, the atmosphere will thicken and expand. Don't worry, the law of conservation of mass is a faulty concept conceived by scientists to get people who believe everything, matter can be both created and destroyed, and the only known way to do combat this totalitarian administration is by farting assloads of buttgas. Ingest tons of taco bell and receive the enticing pleasure of the gassy diarrhea going. It's a difficult concept to interpret, I completely understand the entirety of your disquiet, but honestly, consuming taco bell in excess will definitely be beneficial to our galaxy overall. Whilst the abhorrent retards that consume our hard earned money within taxes lie back and absorb, we as a species shall overthrow the governmental bastards the only sincere way we're able, assgas!