Oh, no. I was referring to the conspiracy theory portion of the comment. I've no idea what is responsible for the down time. Could be software tracking at time of, before people start pulling funds in preparation for the freezing of funds as the order went through, or a simple network error. Any speculation, is just that. Speculation. The timing is suspect, though, but that's really all that can be said.

EDIT: Or in thinking about it further, it could have been thoughts of self preservation on the banks part. In order to keep a decent portion of their customer base from transferring their funds to "offshore" banks, of some sort, they simply closed their proverbial doors for a time, to let the panic die down.

government decrees that certain accounts need to be frozen. the infrastructure to do so isn't there and needs to be implemented/deployed, or is implemented but hasn't been used in a while so nobody knows how it works. in either case, the roll-out gets bungled and causes downtime.

i thought the conspiracy theory was there was a bank run caused by lack of faith in the banking system and then in order to stifle the run banks had some 'downtime' and 'networking' issues.

lol, forgot to put the word theory. What a difference a word makes =)

It shouldn't be illegal to peacefully protest.

> I'm not aware of any government forcing you to get vaccinated, I'm not sure what you're referring to.

I guess it depends on what the meaning of "force" is.

If to you "force" means a literal gun literally aimed at your head (not literally as in figuratively) then you're right, no force has been applied yet.

If to you "force" includes regulations and arm-twisting of employers and retailers to require employees and patrons to get vaccinated, then force most definitely has been applied. That force does involve figurative guns to people's heads. If the government decrees that employers must do X, employers will do X on pain of whatever the decree says (fines, cancellation of business licenses, etc.). Fines are backed by guns: if you scofflaw enough then you will end up in prison, and if you resist arrest you will end up roughed up or dead, as in the government's agents will rough you up and possibly kill you, and they'll use firearms in the process.

I.e., the threat of force is force.

The law recognizes this. "Assault with a deadly weapon" doesn't mean that the weapon was actually physically applied to the victim -- it means that de minimis a threat was made to apply it physically to the victim.

It's quite disingenuous to say that governments haven't forced anyone to get vaccinated. In many cases there are literally no laws requiring it, or requiring anyone to require it, but the impression given to the public, and to employers, retailers, etc., is very much that force is being threatened. Even if in the end there are no actual laws making it so, for the average person there might as well have been.

Back to assault with a deadly weapon, I doubt that using a realistic toy weapon would vitiate the charge. If the victim cannot trivially tell what that the deadly weapon isn't actually a deadly weapon, then the assault has to be considered as being with a deadly weapon. The same must be true for coercion with pretend-laws and decrees -- if the victims are led by their victimizers to believe that force is being threatened, then force is being threatened.

Australia and Canada both have vaccine mandates. You're either being willfully ignorant or trolling. If the later, 10/10 great bait mate.

A few off the top of my head that are extremely well-corroborated:

Jeffery Epstein (nothing in particular, just literally everything about him)

Gulf of Tonkin

MK Ultra

Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

And those are just the very obvious ones. I find that a Bayesian way of looking at the world tends to drive up the credibility of various "conspiracy theories" which would otherwise seem fairly unlikely.

I am pretty sure having to show a QR code that can prevent you from participating in society that can be retroactively deactivated was a conspiracy theory. But then in Israel, they did exactly that (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-requires-co...).

Anyone without a booster had their ability to participate in society "deactivated", like in a bad Science Fiction movie. What's more terrifying are the people who want to convince the rest of us that this should be normal and is not completely insane.

Telling businesses that they have to fire people who aren't vaccinated is basically the government forcing people to get vaccinated.

> what other conspiracy theories were there that turned out to be possible after all or even true?

Lab leak, cloth masks being ineffective, Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction being made up, Vietnam war Gulf of Tonkin, Epstein Pedophile island. JFK multiple gun theory hasn't been proven but seems more likely than not.

These are all now generally accepted facts but were once considered conspiracy theories.

It surprises me that an adult (that presumably lives in the US) wouldn't be aware of at least some of these.

> I'm not aware of any government forcing you to get vaccinated, I'm not sure what you're referring to.

This is probably due to a lack of language skills on your part. Multiple countries are discussing it and it's de facto already required in France, for example.

Because they're rich and powerful and its easier to belittle people with genuine concerns and with some incomplete evidence than it is to answer questions that might threaten their rich and powerfulness. And because there are a few who take their theories to extremes without evidence, its easy to lump all together with the crazies and demean them.

That statement in particular isn't what's crazy, of course various people of the elite strata will work and socialize and collaborate together to various extents.

The craziness is the specifics of certain conspiracy theories. For example the idea that covid itself is a conspiracy, or the there is a conspiracy to suppress ivermectin.

I have to agree with the view that outlandish conspiracy thinking isn't only wrong, it is actively dangerous and should be argued against strenuously. It was a large part of Nazi propaganda that motivated a genocide, so that is an existence proof of a danger associated with such unhinged thinking if it's allowed to go unchallenged in public discourse.