LoLoL the biggest anti vaxx conspiracy theorist I know just posted from the hospital with Covid. Like thinks Bill Gates is marking you with the number of the beast level antivaxxer. Been posting for years about vaccines and autism. Apparently monoclonal antibodies are a ok, as well as fake silicone implants. Pretty sure she's an LPN. Uneasy about a drug without long term data? I get it. Truly believing Bill Gates is a child eating satanist?
—Swish.— Hey may get to find out who the true Satanists are very soon. Shouldn’t he be in denial, yelling at the hospital staff to stop faking shit for validation?
Start compiling their social media posts and submit them here: https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
Not sure if this is the correct thread but it's kinda sorta covid related. There's a regular on the local bar scene in my area who has been VERY vocal against masks, vaccines yada yada. One night I thought he and another guy were gonna come to blows about it. We're not FB friends but we have a few mutual friends. I start seeing some "Prayers" "We love you" "Stay strong" etc etc being posted to his page. I do a little snooping and see a pic of him laying in a hospital bed about a month ago and then another pic of him a few days ago at home on a hospital style bed. He's mid 30's but a bigger guy and very social so a prime target for the delta variant. Like many on here, when someone is so anti-mask and anti-vaccine that we have a little "Serves you right" feeling when they catch the virus. Nope. Cancer. I talked to someone who knows him better and they said he has a few days left. Fuck me. I feel like a real piece of shit right now.
You aren't a piece of shit. You did NOTHING to hurt his situation. We all die some day. That fat fuck died doing what he loved, which is more than most people on this planet get to say.
I learned that for a lot of the conspiracy theorists, it starts with a belief that Revelations is real, and the end times are upon us. It's alarmingly common among Christians, I forget the study but a majority of them believe they will see the Rapture. If you think you'll be alive during the apocalypse, then finding "hints" in the news and roles played in the apocalypse by current public figures is a fun game to play. Mad Libs to Mad Max is probably why Soros and Gates are prominently featured in this nonsense. Could have just as easily been Warren Buffet and Steve Jobs ghost.
I can totally see this being true. Not just with Christians; I think if you have some spark of anything that borders on zealotry, or some kind of deep fear that everything is random, you can very quickly go down the rabbit hole of confirmation bias. Everything starts to look like a clue or a hint, and fairly quickly you can get radicalized. Now, it's safer (kind of) to radicalize and say that we're about to witness the Rapture than it is to, say, strap a bomb to your chest because your guru told you the infidels are in that building over there, but it's the same mechanism that operates both. It seems to be a combination of "there are unknown things that scare me," "I need to feel like there is control/an overarching plan," and "I am in on the secret and everyone else is too blind or stupid to see The Truth."
These are all signs of being schizophrenic. Not that I think schizophrenia is a wildly unrecognized disease, but I could definitely see 2-3% of the world's population most likely to be radicalized falling under some sort of schizophrenic diagnosis.
Personally, I think that's being a bit extreme. Particularly with the internet, where you could legitimately believe you're looking at valid websites and sources. Also, I'm not sure that being nervous about the unknown, wanting structure and wanting to be included on the inside of something special qualifies an individual as being mentally ill. To be sure, a lot of the gurus and charlatans out there attract a disproportionate amount of the nutballs, but I don't think the level of discord we're seeing can be attributed to schizophrenia.
i lurk in prepper circles on Reddit, because just in general I think it’s a smart attitude to have though I don’t go to the extent of hoarding months of food and water and ammo and all that. Look for ideas, laugh for entertainment. Anyway, there’s always this implied current that something major is about to happen. Faraday cages for your electronics, doing excel spreadsheets to inventory your food and water, taking it to the extreme (ie beyond hobby) with bushcraft and survival “skills.” Bug out bags for fucking EVERYTHING! like yeah, I just wanna make sure if I break my leg again that my house won’t break where my wife can’t repair it, that I’m ready for snow and no electricity for a few days, and that if people go nuts and start hoarding like toilet paper or whatever, that we can ride out whatever craziness for a week or so.
I've read the comment that if society and the world goes tits up and the only people able to survive are those extreme prepper and militia types, they'd rather just die anyway.
We all know that you’re going to fall off your ladder while boarding up your windows on day 1 of the apocalypse.
I can't tell you how much we laugh at those idiots in disasters....because it's too much. 90% of that is complete nonsense. They find themselves in shelters just as commonly as everyone else.
That’s what I laugh at the most around here, everyone wearing a N95 or a canister respirator with a full beard, it’s just ridiculous.
I also love it when a dude’s face is so fat that his mask looks like a piece of litter that the wind just blew into his face.
I'll post this here, because it's been on my mind for the last 18 hours. Two of my dogs do agility training, both separately with different teachers. The agility is held in a massive open space - essentially a converted horse barn, so there are big bay doors at both ends. It's also been retrofitted for an HVAC system, so it's heated and the air circulates if the doors are closed. Our class is held in the front part of the arena. A second - unrelated - class is in the back half, and the staff are constantly running around the perimeter. The facility also boards dogs and has daycare, so the foot traffic is super high, particularly at 6pm when we're there. Everyone had to produce proof of vaccination to enter, and the class itself requires a mask. As you can imagine, trying to talk through a mask and be heard over the din of dogs barking, staff running around and the distance from one end of the arena to the other is hard. I had just completed my run and the instructor was giving advice. She didn't hear me reply, so I moved the mask down so that I could be heard better. IMMEDIATELY, one of the other people attending the class asked if I could please put my mask on. She then informed the class that she was undergoing chemo. This isn't sitting well with me, I think because of the faith people are putting in this PPE, as if it's magic. I'm not sure the nature of her cancer or her treatment, but I was witness to the inconsistency of the logic she was applying. She's at an indoor, very busy location. After she asked, I started to notice that all the staff and people attending the other class who were darting all around our course were not masked (she had no comment for them). Also, everyone in my class never got closer than 20' from each other, and usually we were spaced further apart than that. I am sympathetic to the nerves and stress she must go through on a daily basis, and the courage she probably had to muster just to show up to class when she's that worried about her health. I guess I'm posting this to point out the level of fear and paranoia that's infected people, because if she thinks me exposing my nose (my mouth remained covered) from 30' away to be heard endangered her, but being in a closed space with 10-15 other individuals who were unmasked did not...I'm at a loss from where we go from here. Especially since everyone there was vaccinated. Masks may help, but as I said...they aren't magic.
Speak louder then? I'm not sure what you expect to be told here. You're sympathetic to the rigors and stress of having cancer during a pandemic with an respiratory virus, but want to ridicule this person's concerns about her own health? She has cancer. You have to wear a mask. It's etiquette paired with respect and practicality.
I'm fairly certain I never ridiculed her in my post. I'm concerned that somehow the messaging about PPE has become what it is. That lady thinks that an individual standing 30' from her wearing a partial mask is a threat, but that all the other people in the room aren't. The illogic is brutal, and I think probably widespread. THAT was the point of my post.