It's not as if other countries are lands of gold and honey... I live in Europe, and there are also anti-lockdown Covid-skeptics around here screaming "The goverment has turned authoritarian and is slowly turning us into sheep!" (luckily they're in the minority). And surely they are or will be vaccine-skeptics.
It seems truth has become subjective. I tried to talk to a QAnon-spouting girl and posted links to Snopes or The Guardian. She said, "Well, MSM is owned by the Rottschilds so you can't rely on them to tell the truth.". I never asked where she read this, but she probably would've replied she figured this out by reading some random Wordpress blog or watching some nutter on YouTube.
I thought "So, you believe those sources and think my sources are lying?!?". But wait, from her point of view, this sentence is also true! One could try asking them to check the reputation of their sources or dig deeper, but it seems this is an exercise in futility. When there are actual doctors arguing against Covid restrictions or publishing flawed studies on hydroxychloroquine, how do we trust who is reputable? (I'm talking about Didier Raoult, who now also has conspiracy theorists championing him as someone the French government "ousted" because he wasn't towing the party line).
Then again, there are utterly stupid conspiracy theories like the Wayfair one: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53416247 ; the idea that secret cabals would use publicly accessible online shops to traffic children is laughable, but the people who believe this sort of thing doesn't get that the real human traffickers (is a sad fact that they're out there) probably knows how to communicate in secret.
> "The goverment has turned authoritarian and is slowly turning us into sheep!"
You don't need to be "covid-skeptic" to say that, I say the same thing simply because I'm strongly libertarian. It also highly depends on the value system, e.g. if you're young and healthy you might think the marginally increased chance of complications because of this virus isn't worth delaying your life for months or years.
Also, Snopes and the Guardian (along with most other MSM and fact-checking sites) have pushed enough biases, falsehoods and conspiracy theories to be completely untrustworthy.
If you're young and healthy and have fast reaction times drive a large safe vehicle you might think the marginally increased chance of injury because of a crash is not worth delaying your journey by driving at a limited speed or obeying stop lights. but now everybody's driving fast and on the wrong side of the road and zooming through red lights and nobody gets anywhere faster safely because you have to slow down at every intersection and check if a car is coming. Lock down isn't delaying people's lives it's ensuring there's a society for those lives to continue in.
That's actually a really good analogy. We don't say "drive at 5 km/h to save lives", just like we shouldn't say "only be at home, work or in the store to save lives". There's a middle ground, which in addition is consistent with freedom (don't wanna die? don't drive, don't party during a pandemic)
Ah, labels, I don't find them helpful because everyone seems to understand political labels differently. What does this label mean to you? To me it means someone who would be quite dead after he gets the systen he wants, because he would end up eating tainted meat and drinking poisoned water, because, in my imagination the libertarian mindset is "Geez, government controlling my food? how dare they?".
So I end up rolling my eyes at anyone calling themselves this label...
Exactly, it’s a confusing label. I’m a strong believer in rules that prevent market inefficiencies, e.g. against misleading advertising, some sensible health regulations, ... but most of those rules affect corporations not people (and I don’t think corporations have any rights, the society allows them to exist).
People should be mostly free, including to eat poison (as long as they actually want to and are not mislead into it).
It seems truth has become subjective. I tried to talk to a QAnon-spouting girl and posted links to Snopes or The Guardian. She said, "Well, MSM is owned by the Rottschilds so you can't rely on them to tell the truth.". I never asked where she read this, but she probably would've replied she figured this out by reading some random Wordpress blog or watching some nutter on YouTube.
I thought "So, you believe those sources and think my sources are lying?!?". But wait, from her point of view, this sentence is also true! One could try asking them to check the reputation of their sources or dig deeper, but it seems this is an exercise in futility. When there are actual doctors arguing against Covid restrictions or publishing flawed studies on hydroxychloroquine, how do we trust who is reputable? (I'm talking about Didier Raoult, who now also has conspiracy theorists championing him as someone the French government "ousted" because he wasn't towing the party line).
Then again, there are utterly stupid conspiracy theories like the Wayfair one: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53416247 ; the idea that secret cabals would use publicly accessible online shops to traffic children is laughable, but the people who believe this sort of thing doesn't get that the real human traffickers (is a sad fact that they're out there) probably knows how to communicate in secret.