• Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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    7 days ago

    I once heard of a pediatrician who successfully convinced a concerned mother that anti-vax ideology was likely a psyop by the Russians to weaken the health of the American populace starting with our children. Doesn’t hurt that it’s probably true.

    EDIT: My personal conspiracy theory is that the Chinese government did engineer (or at least selectively cultivate) COVID, but not to kill Americans. In the early days of the pandemic there was some speculation that it affected some blood types more than others, particularly type A. While no link to blood type specifically was found, type A is a more common genetic trait as you move out of Asia and towards the middle east. China has been heavily persecuting the Uyghurs (Chinese Muslims), and those who have managed to get out of the camps have reported medical experimentation and being injected with unknown substances. In addition, the virus would also kill a significant number of the older population, which is important because of the population crunch they’re about to experience due to one-child policies resulting in a high amount of female-specific infanticide. They’re about to have a bunch of old people and a massive shortage of able bodied young people to care for them. Even if they didn’t directly “engineer” the virus in a gene-sequencing manner, they have a lot off motive to just generally cultivate and spread (you can’t really “breed” a virus) an infectious disease targeting people of middle eastern descent and elders.

    Thank you for coming to my tinfoil-hat Ted Talk.

    • rbits@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Can confirm this is true because the same was true for my mum. She was against the COVID vaccine, but then she started believing that the theories were started by the Chinese government to target people who don’t listen to the authorities.

      • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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        7 days ago

        That doesn’t change the distribution of demographics by itself. Even assuming the birth rate skyrocketed after the nixing of the one child policy, it takes ~20 years before those people are working age.

        • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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          7 days ago

          The big problem China faced and why the one-child policy was abandoned after all is that there was a staunch focus on having a male child to “keep the bloodline alive” (cultural reasoning) which led to a stagnation in the 0-14 years age group due to an overpopulation with males. This is not fixed by killing off your elderly.

          Covid was most deadly for the age group of 65 and above and in 2019, they had proportionally less people aged 65+ than the US (13.50% in China vs. 16.4% in the US). Either China’s scientists failed immensely or the virus stemmed from bad hygiene practices in livestock markets selling bats.

    • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org
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      6 days ago

      My personal conspiracy theory is that the Chinese government did engineer (or at least selectively cultivate) COVID

      The theory I’d believe more is that the U S of A govt or one of its agencies engineered and released it in China.

      China and India are growing economies, with decent populations and a pandemic would seriously delay their growth and help the U S of A keep it’s top place for a bit longer or destroy its competitors.

      I’ve heard the theory being given decent thought by non-western people. And it’s equally, if not, more believable than the other one.

      The US is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons on civillians, so them using biological weapons on civillians would not be a big moral barrier for them or a big stretch to think about.

      They probably didn’t think it’d spread this much and their own citizens n even president would be idiotic enough to be against vaccines and masks, when people were dying.

      • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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        5 days ago

        The US is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons on civillians, so them using biological weapons on civillians would not be a big moral barrier for them or a big stretch to think about.

        That’s such a small stretch that it’s actually a confirmed fact that the US has repeatedly used chemical and biological warfare. Korea and Vietnam are merely two easy examples.

      • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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        7 days ago

        The theory I’d believe more is that the U S of A govt or one of its agencies engineered and released it in China.

        They did a stupid ass job them, killing the older only gonna help China, and it didn’t even killed enough people to make a difference and it backfired in the US, the conspiracy that China was engineering with it and shit escaped make more sense

        • Achyu@lemmy.sdf.org
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          6 days ago

          They did a stupid ass job them

          They probably didn’t expect their president to be idiotic enough to be against vaccines and recommend stuff like bleach.

          They’re a developed nation and could’ve had better control.
          They were able to hinder Chinese trade a bit.

          And didn’t they try and fail to kill Castro in many stupid ass ways?

          I think them doing it is more likely than China doing it to their own, considering the trade issues that the virus caused for China at the time.

          And again, they were the first to use nuclear weapons on civillians. Did it twice even.
          I don’t think they’d have an qualms about using biological weapons, if they thought that it’d give them an edge.

          They also can float the ‘China virus’ conspiracy to confuse the public and make them anti-China too.

          • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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            5 days ago

            You forgot the anti-vaccine campaign they ran in countries near China saying their vaccine contained pig parts. Not the US state dept’s first anti-vax campaign btw.

            US vaccines were made available first and foremost to Western citizens, and only then were made available to purchase. China released their vaccine worldwide, so countries without a vaccine program had access earlier and cheaper than they could acquire vaccines from the US. Their anti-vax campaign was meant to prevent other countries from accepting China’s offer, thus preventing goodwill towards China, protecting the profits of US companies, and leading to the deaths of millions who could have been saved in “US Allied” countries such as the Philippines.

            If you were going to buy into one of these two conspiracy theories, first you should have some actual evidence, and then you should look at the behavior of these countries and ask yourself: which behavior is more consistent with releasing a virus that could act as an economic weapon meant to shut-down a country, but not kill everyone?

    • EleventhHour@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      The reason I absolutely believe this to be true? Because I’ve used this on my little brothers since we were kids. I’m 45.

      It’s called “reverse psychology.”

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        7 days ago

        It’s a bizarre and (afaik) unfounded conspiracy theory, but I don’t think this reasoning works as a refutation. It’s still very possible that the experiment got out, and even if not they still needed policies to protect all the people they didn’t want to be affected because the targeting isn’t perfect.

    • overcast5348@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      How are China’s stringent lockdowns explained in this conspiracy theory? Also, where do I sign up as a member?

      • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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        7 days ago

        Well you can’t not do that, especially not if you’re already known for doing that kind of thing anyway for other things.

          • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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            7 days ago

            I remember reading somewhere that while a western audience would perceive this as utterly farcical, a Chinese citizen is at least more likely to perceive it as the government taking their safety and security seriously enough to be thorough about it. While I’m sure there was some person somewhere in the chain of command who thought this was a good and important idea and that they needed to check the pigeon butts for explosives, there’s no way all of the people involved in doing those searches thought it was likely to uncover an actual weapon, but the cultural context makes it important to err in that direction. Meanwhile in the US, the government is more successful in hiding abuses by “protecting freedoms.” Powerful people all around the world have basically the same playbook, but a big part of that strategy is knowing their audience.

            You can also utilize the somewhat covert bribery and diversion systems to this end. As long as everybody thinks everybody ELSE is following the guidelines, and that they’re the only ones really getting away with things / reporting that they’re following guidelines when they’re not, you can get the same result and all you have to do is not look too closely, which is probably what you’re doing with most other things already. In the US you don’t even need to bother doing that because aside from not culturally having enough shame to do so, actively hiding our idiocy in any way would be considered a restriction on freedoms. Around these parts its your god given right to be a dumbass and the gubmit can pry that from your cold dead hands.

            We’re stupid, but at least we’re honest about it. They’re stupid, but at least they have the decency to not act like it out in broad daylight. Neither is better and both can easily be a tool of the bourgeoisie.

            • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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              5 days ago

              We’re stupid, but at least we’re honest about it. They’re stupid, but at least they have the decency to not act like it out in broad daylight.

              Wrong comparison. People from the US are stupid and proud of it. There’s nothing honest coming from the US except bombs.

            • IndiBrony@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              I like you.

              Like, this is what conspiracy should be - actually somewhat believable - and not dumb shit like flat earth.

              I always held that 9/11 was dubious. Not an “inside job” per se, but definitely a case of “we’re gonna turn our backs for just a second, and you terrorists better not do something silly while we’re not looking!”

              One of the biggest things that will always stick out to me: the WMDs. They were adamant Iraq had them. They said they had actual evidence. None of it was true. It all came across as an excuse for ol’ George to go in and try to finish what daddy started in '91.

              Just to be clear as well, I think other conspiracies such as the controlled demolition of the towers and the fake plane at the pentagon are bullshit. I don’t have my tinfoil hat on that tightly.

                • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
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                  5 days ago

                  This thread brought to you by Western Imperialism™.

                  Seeing this allowed on mander.xyz is deeply disappointing.

              • Vilian@lemmy.ca
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                7 days ago

                I always held that 9/11 was dubious. Not an “inside job” per se, but definitely a case of “we’re gonna turn our backs for just a second, and you terrorists better not do something silly while we’re not looking!”

                But why? What they won letting that happen?

              • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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                6 days ago

                other conspiracies such as the controlled demolition of the towers

                Maybe not WTC 1 or 2 but WTC 7 looks exactly like a controlled demolition.

              • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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                7 days ago

                Yeah like. They’re already covering up enough stuff that is both stupid AND awful all at once you don’t need to make up extra shit.

    • bloubz@lemmygrad.ml
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      7 days ago

      The Chinese government has not persecuted Uyghurs, tin foil hat person

      • F04118F@feddit.nl
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        7 days ago

        I understand your desire to defend communism.

        But really, how far does an authoritarian regime have to go, while calling itself communist, before you judge them?

        What evidence would change your mind about the CCP?

        • bloubz@lemmygrad.ml
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          7 days ago

          Where did I defend the CCP or communism?

          (I do fully support communism and have critical support for China, but that’s not the question here)

          What evidence would change your mind about […]

          Show me evidence that the Uyghur are being persecuted

            • F04118F@feddit.nl
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              7 days ago

              The communism preference, yes. As for the CCP: They literally denied Uyghur persecution. Not even genocide, which is a claim that, due to its severity, is always going to be hard to prove, and thus debatable, I get that.

              But even just the fact that the ethnic-religious group of Uyghurs are being persecuted on a large scale, had to be denied. That’s pretty extreme.

          • F04118F@feddit.nl
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            7 days ago

            Thank you for answering.

            I am not sure where to start, but let’s take the easy way: At the moment of writing, the wikipedia page “Persecution of Uyghurs in China” has 585 references.

            They’re probably all written by seemingly independent institutions, journalists and scientists who somehow have a McCarthyist-like fear of communism that they’d risk their credibility just to add a bit of damage to communist China’s moral standing?

            Or are they all factually incorrect through some other mechanism?

        • kureta@lemmy.ml
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          7 days ago

          I was banned from /r/latestagecapitalism for not loving China. Anytime I tried to explain why I do not unconditionally love everything about China, they said “but USA?” Dude, I don’t care about USA. It’s thousands of kilometers away from where I live. Everything I said was interpreted as defending USA. I say “China does this” they hear “USA doesn’t do that”. There are other countries in the world, you know, not everything is about USA. End of rant :)