Crazy crazy crazy

Why do people believe in "conspiracy theories"?  The believers are not stupid and they are not uneducated, but they share these common traits:

Those who believe these theories typically show high levels of anxiety independent of external sources of stress, a high need for control over environment, and a high need for subjective certainty and, conversely, a low tolerance for ambiguity. They tend to have negative attitudes to authority, to feel alienated from the political system, and to see the modern world as unintelligible. Conspiracy theory believers are often suspicious and untrusting, and see others as plotting against them. They struggle with anger, resentment, and other hostile feelings as well as with fear. They have lower self-esteem than nonbelievers and have a need for external validation to maintain their self-esteem. They may have a strong desire to feel unique and special, and an exaggerated need to be in an exclusive in-group. Belief in conspiracy theories often also goes along with belief in paranormal phenomena, skepticism of scientific knowledge, and weaknesses in analytic thinking. Proneness to belief in conspiracy theories is also associated with religiosity, especially with people for whom a religious worldview is especially important. These traits are hardly universal among or exclusive to conspiracy theorists, but they help create a vulnerability to belief

.For the full article click here.

The thing is, I don't find MC's noxious diatribes fun, or entertaining, or amusing.  Even though the audience of A'gon audiophiles that they reach is small, compared to other platforms, any one of these that is allowed to stand can have seriously harmful effects.

Then maybe stop reading them. They seem to have caused irreversible harm, at least in your case.

One of the people I don’t usually respond to, because its such a waste of time (even though someone I respect is able to find some redeeming value there, so I keep looking) posted:

Question for miller, since you work in the medical field, did you take your vaccine when offered or did you refuse it, you know, since its all a grand communist conspiracy to take over the world. So honestly, yes or no?

First, thanks for not saying "theory". But its also not a conspiracy. That’s like saying Islam is a conspiracy to take over the world. Its not a conspiracy when its central to your ideology. Got it? Not conspiracy. Ideology. I find it helps a great deal to get the words right and use them precisely the right way, as otherwise its like trying to find your way with a map and no way of orienting that map to the real world. You are lost. Even though you have a map. Think about it.

Whether or not they want me to take the vaccine, whoever "they" are is irrelevant. Fact of the matter, I had it- in the opinion of modern medicine. Are you seriously asking people to believe you don’t know this? Right. Whatever. Point is, according to them, I had it.

Now let’s look at what happened, just the facts, without any conspiracy or other stuff to cloud the issues.

I got real sick and went to ER. X-ray showed multi-focal pneumonia. CCP virus test came back negative. The doc said the result was "bad" and had to be repeated. I said by "bad" you mean "negative". He said yes. So it was negative.

They repeated the test and the second time got the result they wanted, positive. This result for some reason they believe. Not the first one.

So at this point you have to ask yourself, Did millercarbon have covid? Which test are we supposed to believe? Inquiring thinking independent minds will ask these kinds of questions.

So now. If you believe I had ordinary bacterial pneumonia, which fits all the signs and symptoms and the first test, then I haven’t had covid, haven’t been exposed, and might want the vaccine. But if you believe I had covid (which is by the way the official story!) well then why on Earth do I need the vaccine???

Do you see the lunatic world we have created here? In order to say I need the vaccine you have to also say I never had it in the first place. But then they treated me for something I did not have, even after a test told them I did not have it. Or else you have to say having a disease no longer confers immunity. Which means throwing out a thousand years of medical knowledge.

But by all means, whatever you believe, just be sure and believe I’m some tinfoil crackpot. I would hate to take away the one thing in the world you schlemiels are all able to agree on.

@jnovak 
You have certainly been though a lot since Thanksgiving, it's unimaginable.  Thanks goodness you are on the mend and here is wishing you the speediest recovery possible from myself and I am sure the rest of the A'gon gang..  And enjoy your new listening room.

@arch2 

In hopes of getting this back on track, I was planning to go to Axpona last year for the first time.

I would be happy to have a Colonel Taylor with you. Let’s see if they have a bottle of single barrel.