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Comment by brazzy | Hacker News Reader

It can be used as a tool to deceive and lead you deep into conspiracy theory delusions as well, however.

Records and studies show that vaccinations have saved millions of lives? No, that's just Big Pharma propaganda to make you inject your children with expensive poison! Follow the money!

Scientific evidence shows that homeopathy doesn't work? No, again it's Big Pharma, attacking a superior competition! Follow the money!

Massive consensus among the scientific community that climate change exists, is a serious problem, and caused by burning fossil fuels? No, those scientists are just drumming up publicity to get grant money! Follow the money!

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This is also true, you are correct. But when you see news stories about something, say, 'Turns out corn syrup is good for you!' showing up on the evening news, and on Access Hollywood, and on the Yahoo! front page, and on ESPN, and on Jeopardy! questions all on the same day, there's something up.

I mean, this isn't some revelation I'm offering, it's just interesting as to why ESPN and Access Hollywood, who cover completely different genres, would both suddenly have a corn syrup story on their radar.

As for Big Pharma, I did used to wonder why prescription drugs were advertised on television...I mean, patients don't pick and choose their brands, their doctors do, right?

Until it hit me that often pharmaceutical companies find/discover drugs that don't automatically have a market. But if they advertise that new 'sleep disorder/re-order' drug, then people will think, 'Hey, maybe I need that' and start asking their doctor.

My doctor told me that people walk in all the time and ask if they should be taking some new drug they just heard of, and his reaction is 'why? you never had a problem with what this drug is describing before.' There are legitimate cases, but tv ads driving people to buy meds they might not even need is a real thing.

>I mean, patients don't pick and choose their brands, their doctors do, right?

Oftentimes, there's a choice between brand-name and generics, as well as different medications treating the same illness/disorder/symptom. In these cases, advertising would certainly have an effect. Or, maybe the ads serve as the push to convince people to take the step from OTC meds to prescription meds.

Believing in reptilian illuminati or the AH1N1 pandemia, both are delusions... one invented by internet freakos and the other invented by big pharma and mass media.

Yes, because we've never seen massive casualties as the result of a flu virus. Oh, wait...

Worrying about what influenza viruses are doing is not in any way shape or form similar to worrying about reptilian illuminati.

Anything that questions mainstream media version of the truth is automatically labeled as conspiracy theory delusion and hence put in the same category as believing in reptilian illuminati . How is this different to cult brainwash mechanics? (to ridicule a view other than the cult-accepted view).

The sirya crisis is a perfect example: a few years ago the shariah law al'qaeda guys were the movie villains: religious fanatics that stone women to death and bomb our free countries, the media now portrays them as rebel democratic heroes because they oppose the siryan government, we almost send them an aircraft carrier as military support. If you don't see the contradiction and obvious attempt to manipulate your opinion to support an agenda, then (downvote me to zero karma if you want) you are a well educated fool.

The deciding factor as to whether not something is a conspiracy theory delusion is not whether or not the mainstream media agrees. It's whether the conspiracy theory has any facts to support it. Deadly influenza viruses = lots of evidence = not a conspiracy. Reptilian illuminati = no -evidence = conspiracy. You may notice that this schema does not even reference the existence of MSM...

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