I still don’t understand what people have to gain from this line of thought and applying your skills to promoting it. Surely it’s an evolutionary and career dead end?
"“Again, with my tinfoil conspiracy hat on, these things all distance us and isolate us from each other and make us easier to control I think.”"
Just look at the common ideas about the increased security after 9/11. It was similar "conspiracy theories" about the government using terrorism as an excuse to spy on people until Snowden showed they actually were. It used to be popular to use the quote "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.". Surely you can understand why some people feel that way?
It's OK to not be a conformist and it's good that we have people brave enough to do so openly.
There’s a compromise somewhere in the middle in the grey area which is actually the situation that we’re in despite it being explained as black and white but these nut cases.
We also in this case have to consider cultural differences. America is obsessed with a somewhat bent and selfish form of personal Liberty which ends up as another lever on which compromise is impossible. Liberty for the other person is their right not to be harmed by your liberty as well don’t forget. America just ends up ending up having a right to the highest body count.
It seems to me that this guy genuinely believes what he is saying.
Guilt by tentative association seems to count as investigative journalism these days, but really it's just seeding a conspiracy.
If you trace the links you'll see the same names, the same organisations, and the same funding sources appearing again and again.
When someone lies consistently, it's irrational to conclude on the basis of no evidence at all that they've suddenly gone white hat and are now acting entirely in a public-spirited and wholly reputable way.
Is that true or are you a victim of disinformation yourself? How do you know they would have lost had it not been for "engines of disinformation"? I'm not saying there wasn't disinformation used to promote them, but did they win because of it or despite it?
I agree with mask mandates and commerce closures, but when the government starts making it illegal to meet my family, including outside and in own house, then that crosses a civil liberties line for me personally. A reasonable person could hold the opposite view. A reasonable person could hold the 'total lockdown' view. But if you hold the 'anti-lockdown' viewpoint you risk being told you have just been reading 'disinformation' these days. I don't see anti-lockdown as disinformation, that's a policy option.
I also don't see it as disinformation to believe that governments are utilising propaganda to either make Covid sound worse / better according to what fits their policy narrative - that's what governments do!
There is lots of genuine disinformation about Covid, but we have to be careful that we don't just brand opposing opinions as disinformation and fake news.
> The network is using tried and tested techniques of psychological propaganda to manipulate the public and cast pressure on governments. It has already arguably paved the way for more than 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in the UK – and will likely lead to many more.
Now ironically THIS is ACTUAL misinformation. To blame the 'network' for ALL Covid deaths in the UK is just ridiculous. I personally don't think the use of 'arguably' here absolves them from the fact the claim is clearly false.