For those of you who took the time to read OP, thank you. Speaking of which, I cleaned up the formatting in OP so it will be more clear which parts are quoted sources vs my commentary.
You’re welcome, I aim to be thorough. As a quick summary, I think the facts speak for themselves as outlined above regarding the actual vaccine results/delays and how those were accomplished, while the opinion parts are as follows
Pfizer delayed their results on purpose to influence the election, and
Biden or those associated with him actually made millions trading on the information they were given
Regarding #1, given Pfizer’s oddly political distancing from anything Trump-related, their large economic interest in Biden’s drug policies vs Trump’s, and their selective early disclosure of the vaccine results, I find this pretty convincing, together with the proactive changes they made in the trial and reporting around the upcoming election, that they were doing their best to influence the political outcome.
Regarding #2, I know I could have made 8 figures in profit off that information on short notice, and from what I know about finance and Wall Street, if you give a cracked up grifter hugely valuable information on the stock market together with a situation where they are legally allowed to trade on it, let’s just say I would not expect them to “do the right thing”.
Thank you for trying to keep this mostly on topic.
I think your facts are facts. Then there’s a lot of conjecture about stuff that is hidden in the shadows, where no one knows the facts except those directly involved. And there has been a really pervasive insistence on not revealing what’s in those shadows, regarding a number of subjects, going so far as to feign outrage over merely asking about what may or may not be there.
I think you’re open to the possibility there could be valid explanations for what is unknown, but the bending over backwards to avoid providing those explanations would indicate otherwise. Concluding that everything is kosher, based on the facts we do know, requires a lot of blind trust - blind trust of those with everything to gain or lose from you buying into the claim everything is kosher. This outline isnt pimping conspiracy theories, it’s practically begging for more substantial answers than “just trust us, there’s nothing to see here”.
I understand you must not believe xerty & the facts he posted “political vaccine results”. You’re welcome to your viewpoints. We Conservatives understand…
I am certainly more interested in your write ups on “money issues”. They have more merit. IMO
I understand as well. There are estimates that upwards of 25% of the country believe it to be a fact that there is a very large cabal of satan worshipping cannibalistic pedophiles who aid and abet child sex trafficking and are also in charge of our government. Who is to say what’s a fact and what isn’t anymore. The right has gone wacko with their alternative reality. I am now hearing that Charlottesville wasn’t actually alt right wackjobs but actually antifa who dressed up as alt right and white supremacist’s as if they were in a school play. Alright it’s getting late, everyone flip over to Newsmax as the next round of “truth” bombs are dropping.
I think it’s abundantly clear to most who read even half of OPs post that, yes, he/she has visited that hole. One can’t help consider if the threshold to full blown conspiracy belief and loss of ability to discern reality from fantasy is about to be crossed, or has been.
No offense intended to the OP. Leaving aside my uncharitable thoughts on personal fault in self-indoctrination, OP may well be suffering from a disconnect with reality that is just as real and very similar to mental illness.
To those asking if any of OP’s statements are not factual, that’s not a helpful standard to discern reality from fantasy in the realm of conspiracy belief. Using that heuristic is a trap, not just for those people well-intentioned enough to attempt to point out the fantastically unlikely whole of the argument being made, but more so to those using the existence of “facts” as a basis to judge what’s real.
Shame on me for not getting out of this forum when I said I was a couple weeks back, after seeing some 4chan-level dreck being casually discussed…which was explained as OK because it’s an “off topic” thread!?. But I still get the emails, and (unfortunately) I feel we all have a responsibility to call out things like this, not because they’re factually wrong, but because they’re dangerously wrong.
The storming of the US capital last week gave us a clear reminder of the real-world danger of disinformation, conspiracy, and online indoctrination. We don’t need any more echo chambers where that stuff is allowed to grow and fester.
@DaveHanson, again, I can’t believe this is what you want going on here, off-topic section or not.
Getting the emails is your choice. I don’t get emails about the politics thread, which I maybe posted in 3 or 4 times.
What exactly is dangerous about thinking that Pfizer delayed the announcement of the vaccine for a few days because they would rather have one person in the white house rather than another person? There are lots of people that think that. Are you worried that they are going to meet up and storm Pfizer’s headquarters? If so, why haven’t they done it yet? If Trump were to schedule a rally within walking distance of their headquarters, then I’d be worried, but that isn’t happening. Based on the claims about what was rumored to transpire yesterday and what actually happened, I think any belief that there is some danger coming from people talking about this sort of stuff is way off base.
So if there is no actual threat from discussing these issues, then suppressing them is simply just an issue of suppressing speech you don’t like. Do you prefer forums where everyone agrees with you 100% on everything and/or forums where you can’t know if that is the case because everything you disagree with is deleted by mods?
No, I don’t read about and intentionally avoid any Qanon coverage, and from the occasional mentions about them I see in the general news, I don’t believe any of their crazy ideas either.
I tried to be very clear and subsequently edited/reformatted OP (not sure when you read it) as to which parts where facts and which parts were opinions so you can decide for yourself what to think. I’m not trying to trick you into anything.
Both sides of the political spectrum have been making similar claims about the other for a few years now. There’s a very large disconnect in shared beliefs and that’s leading to political polarization. You might find this article I posted in the politics thread interesting on that front.
When it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is fantasy and dilusional to be open to the possibility that it might be a duck. Got it.
Tell that to the Qanon believers who spent years believing a “Great Awakening” was coming where the “deep state actors” would be rounded up and publicly executed based on all the “irrefutable evidence” they had from Q himself.
Or rather it’s dangerous to facilitate coordination of violent attacks by fringe anti- government militant groups, spurred on by pretending there is any merit to baseless conspiracy theories. (Not referring to this thread, but to companies being responsible for what they give a platform to).
At what point is yelling “fire” in a crowded Parler not protected free speech?
Well, yeah, that’s kind of my point. The line was drawn between summarily rejecting, and being open to the possibility. He actually asserted mental illness for using facts to develop opinions (that werent even stated as being conclusive).
Everyone’s goal should be to fill in the holes to create a complete, accurate picture everyone can accept. Not ignore the facts just because they complicate your preferred version of reality.
The fringe is exactly that - on the fringe, and in relatively small in numbers. Their “baseless beliefs” (as a lot like to refer to them) gain wider acceptance because you are leaving people little choice with all the “move along, nothing to see here” dismissals.
What has happened is people see a webbed foot sticking out of a shadow. The conspiracy fringe says it’s a duck. You say there is no foot. Well, plenty otherwise well-reasoned people can see there clearly is a f’n foot, and are thus left with no choice but to go along with the conspiracy angle.
If you want to get everyone back on track, paint them a picture that incorporates the known facts instead of ignoring them. Point out that being in a region with a heavy goose population, it’s probably a goose. Maybe even raise the flashlight up to illuminate the entire bird instead of just the foot. Boom - most of the problems (or what you consider the problems) go away almost instantly. But no, you just keep doubling down on insisting it isnt a duck and that everyone should just trust you.
Also open to interpretation. It doesn’t look like xerty is pondering or questioning this theory at this point, he already spent a significant amount of time (obvious from what I think is the longest thread opening post ever) and he’s all in on it:
While I’m not an expert on mental illness and I can’t comment on dman’s thinking, I do believe that every single one of us is susceptible to falling for conspiracy theories. If not entirely, then at least partially. I’ve been reading some articles about this lately as I have an older relative who’s taken a turn for the worse recently in terms of falling for conspiratorial bullshit (thankfully not Q, but just as ridiculous stuff like Bill Gates using the vaccines for population- or mind- control).
The mainstream media(tv, newspaper, magazine) does that on a daily basis. However people want to say the media lies and doesn’t present facts. You can’t have things both ways. You either stick with facts or you go down rabbit holes full of conspiracy theory. Sure, a picture can be painted that Pfizer waited for political reasons in regard to the vaccine, however there’s no actual facts, just things that happened that are painted by an artist to make one believe it to be fact. A picture can also be painted that Nancy Pelosi is involved in child sex trafficking and is part of a international “deep state”. Again there are no facts, just things that happened that are being painted by an artist to make one believe it to be fact. People start out small and get sucked in and before you know it, they’ve gone so wacko that they then start to believe anything and everything that a certain artist or artists paint. Before you know it you’re down the rabbit hold believing in crisis actors, white hats, mass military tribunals/executions, Antifa parading around in Trump hats etc. I have family this has happened to. Really really sad!
Opinions can only be based on the snapshot of information available at the time. The OP is pretty clear about what is fact, and what is opinion derrived from those facts. Fill in the holes with more facts, and those opinions will change accordingly.
Ummm… Things that happened are facts, arent they? What you are talking about are conclusions, which are derived from the facts.
The more information available, the more valid the conclusions will be. But if you arent willing/able to fill in the holes, it’s only normal that people are going to keep drawing the same conclusions from the same information. That’s on you as much as it’s on them. (Hopefully, that’s obviously a generic “you”, not you personally…)
