This post is a day late because late Thursday afternoon I had an eye exam. Unfortunately, I should have thought of how painful having my pupils dilated for several hours would make trying to stare at a screen and bang out some Insolence on Thursday evening for the edification of my readers, which is why I gave up. Still, waiting for my eyes to return to normal gave me an extra day to ponder a post on Substack—where else?— that I had come across earlier in the week as a result of another post on Substack—because of course that’s where I saw it—by Dr. Paul “We Want Them Infected” Alexander entitled using his usual rambling word salad, The PLAN revealed: They are Social Darwinists: they say we deserve their digi-tatorship because we, the unfittest, are stupid enough to let them, the fittest. Solutions? I like this substack & wanted“to share; support; the way I approach other people’s work is that I find the nuggets, the truths in them, same for mine when you read my work; we sift the wheat from the chaff.” (See what I mean.) Reading Alexander’s rant and the post that inspired it, entitled The Plan Revealed, led me to contemplate just how essential the attribution of malevolence to the enemy is to a conspiracy theory. Even though the post is nearly a year old, I just had to discuss it.
The post is by someone whom I don’t recall ever having heard of before, Prof. Federico Nazar, whose Substack is entitled Scientific Progress but is chock full of the exact opposite. The fact that his pinned post is Depop Vaccines: No Myth, complete with that photo of a smiling Bill Gates holding vials of vaccines that antivaxxers so love to meme. It’s possible that I’ve encountered his “work” in the past but just don’t remember, but I don’t think so. As I’ve pointed out before, the whole “vaccines as depopulation” conspiracy theory long predates the pandemic, with antivaxxers willfully misinterpreting Gates’ observation that wealth, better reproductive healthcare, and vaccines can decrease the global population growth rate by 10-15% as indicating malevolence, a plan to “depopulate” the earth, which Nazar does, subtitling his post, “Population control through injections: they were never meant for health and reduced mortality, only for infertilizing, handicapping and murdering!” “Infertilizing?” “Murder”? Seriously?
Whenever I see that particularly stupid antivax meme, I like to point out that Gates was making a simple, science-based observation on how public health interventions and wealth do tend to decrease birthrates in societies in which they are introduced because more children end up surviving to adulthood and women have options that they’d never had before, namely to choose not to have children. I also like to point out that Gates wasn’t even talking about decreasing the population (e.g., “depopulation”), just slowing its rate of increase, which is a different thing. It never works. Antivax conspiracy theorists always attribute either malevolence or ignorance to vaccine advocates—but mostly malevolence. In this, Nazar is no different, as you can see.
Indeed, let’s look at how he starts out:
What’s the FUTURE ? a self fulfilling prophecy … unless we react !
WAKE UP TO THE FULL PLAN as if your life depended on it, literally! The best part of being a “conspiracy realist” is not being dead… or at least, not having clots, myocarditis, neuropathies, cancer, infertility, and other haccine intended effects. To be (a conspiracy realist) or not to be.
See what I mean about the attribution of malevolence. To Nazar, whatever is happening are not just the results of disagreements, errors, differing interpretations of science, politics, and the messy nature of how human societies work. Oh, no. It’s malevolence! It’s intentional. It’s a plan! Evil forces are at work.
Nazar lists a whole bunch of examples, badly numbered in a manner that shows me that he doesn’t know basic HTML very well and/or how to use the built-in editor in Substack, with the numbering restarting seemingly at random. There are 17 examples in all, but I’ll only quote the first few, to give you a flavor, a taste of what he’s about:
- Lethal “medicine”: lab designed bioweapons (like COVID and the ones blocked by the war in Ukraine), measures (lockdowns), treatments (ventilators), pharmaceuticals/vaccines/haccines, changed definition of brain death (deliberately separated from cardio-respiratory death) to murder and harvest “presumed organ donors”.
- Longterm harmful microwaves: satellite, 5/6/7G, cellphone attacks
- Climate changing. Droughts or floods through satellites, cell towers, ground stations and chemtrails. Solar geoengieering by releasing sun-blocking particles in the upper atmosphere with the false excuse of planet cooling, causing the opposite (less sun, less plant carbon capture), causing global famines by reducing agricultural productivity.
- Food and water: tainted GMOs. Injecting livestock and insects with contagious “vaccines” to indirectly vax all humans without them knowing. Graphening livestock to reach humans thorough meat, milk, eggs. FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarious, etc.
Longterm lethal substances: pesticides, artificial sweeteners, additives, fluoridisation (together with other poisons like monosodium glutamate, reduces IQ as planned to turn us into sheeple, with a) addictive screens with subliminal images and ultrasonic audio, b) worse education, c) lack of humanities, and d) brainwashing: check StopCSE.org).
- Nuclear irradiation: swabs, haccines, food, places.
- Choking digi-tatorship
Note the malevolence involved. The “lethal medicine” is not just accidental. It’s intentional. To Nazar, SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is not natural. It’s not even an accident; it’s a bioweapon intentionally released. Similarly, the intent of “lockdowns” was not to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, but rather to cause pain and harm, while ventilators were not employed to try to keep people alive long enough to shake their infection and for their lungs to heal sufficiently for them to breath on their own. They were intentional death machines, while changing the definition of “death” to be brain death was also a malevolent intentional plan to provide more organs for harvesting. In Nazar’s fever swamp of an imagination, the same is true of climate change: It’s just an excuse to institute measures to cause global famines because…why? (It’s never really very clear other than a generalized malevolent, humankind-hating intent.)
Don’t believe me? Nazar makes his conspiracy mongering undeniable:
From abortion and abortifacients (all, except barrier contraceptives), the genocidal trend didn’t change, only the target population. Same serial killers, different weapons.
Hosea 4:6 “My people are dying for lack of knowledge…”
Soren Kierkegaard:
“There are two ways to be fooled.
One is to believe what isn’t true;
the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by Nazis:
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:
”God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.”Matthew 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
See what I mean? To Nazar (and other conspiracy theorists), the enemy is not just wrong, but completely malevolent—evil, even.
I am rather amused at the “evidence” that Nazar marshals, which consists mainly of a YouTube video that was removed for violating YouTube’s terms of service, plus a whole lot of his own Substack rants and one “scientific” article of his. Orac being Orac, I perused a few of them, all of which were bonkers to one degree or another, including titles like:
- David *Rockefeller, illuminati. Because of course he’s Illuminati.
- The threat of the International PLANdemic Treaty. “Plandemic”? That’s so 2020.
- Will Tedros ever go to jail? For what?
- The 2020 American coup. Because of course Nazar is an election conspiracy theorist.
- COVID cure or perpetual vaccination?: 30 cheap effective treatments or never-ending ineffective unsafe injections… Scientific proof of the PLANdemic with 2000 peer reviewed published references. Oooh. 2,000 references! That must mean this is science, man!
Of course, Nazar’s solutions involve things like “unforgeable real money” that is “based on real goods like gold, flour, fuel-oil, human hour, distance transported,” because of course a modern, technological society will want to go back to a barter system and/or the gold standard. Personally, I like this one, though:
Direct Townhall Democracy (DTC), with direct spending of the government budget proportionate to each person. Freemasons infiltrate government and use its billions for their own agenda. If this is not achievable on a county scale, the social market could work as the foundation for self-government initiatives.
Congress is the reason the budget, tax and debt grows non-stop since WWII. Also, for leaving the gold standard and giving the central bank to banksters. The only way out is direct townhall democracy: you represent yourself, no middlemen (congressmen, governor, president).
“Direct spending of the government budget proportionate to each person”? How would that even work? What does Nazar even mean? Does he mean a person’s contribution to the government, which would mean al the resources going to those who pay the most in taxes? Does he mean per person, regardless of income? I could almost get behind that latter because right now the wealthy reap by far the most benefits from government subsidies, but who knows what Nazar meant?
Of course, the last thing needed, according to Nazar, is:
Prayer: above all, this is a spiritual battle: what we see rolling out is the physical manifestation of the spiritual world. Freemasons worship Satan for a reason.
Which brings me back to malevolence. Nazar’s enemies in his conspiracy theories aren’t just evil. That’s not evil enough. Oh, no! They have to be Satan worshipers too! That’s the level of malevolence required.
Let’s narrow this discussion down a bit and limit it to COVID-19. To start, let’s go back to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was chaos. Doctors, businesses, government, scientists, and ordinary people did the best that they could to deal with the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus that was causing mass death and illness. Some decisions were later found to be in error, others correct (or at least defensible.) For the most part, the chaos was a predictable result of people, mostly well-intentioned, trying to do the best they could with limited information. Of course, another of the key characteristics of conspiracy theories is finding false patterns and order in chaos (e.g., reinterpreting randomness), with those patterns being blamed on malevolent intent.
Let’s just review the seven key characteristics of conspiracy theories:
Of these, N and P have to be at or near the top. If the conspiracy theory is due to malevolence, then there must be a malevolent villain, but there must also be the persecuted victim (the believer in the conspiracy theory plus all the other “victims” imagined). The architects of the “conspiracy” can’t just be mistaken. They must be evil!
Another excellent example of this comes from Prof. Nazar himself in his pinned post on Bill Gates. To him, Bill Gates isn’t just wrong about vaccines, he is malevolent. He is evil. The “damage” that Nazar imagines him doing is not unintentional. It’s the intended result of his malevolent intent:
Some countries have more children yet less mortality than others. In fact, in developed countries, those who have 8 children have zero mortality: it’s not about the number of children but about health and food. Gates is never interested in saving those children by enabling access to healthcare and nutrition, only in anything reducing the population.
And how does Nazar know that Gates is acting out of malevolence, not just error? Easy:
Gates’ criminal intent is proven by his abortion funding. He’d be irrational to have a different motive with vaccines. You can’t be a serial killer and a philanthropist at the same time. Also, he publicly admired his father: a freemason, director of Planned Parenthood, fond of eugenics. Bill even created a foundation with his father’s name. As proven by their own documents, freemasonry is a Luciferian cult, where Satan results in death and desolation.
Actually, a person probably can be a serial killer and philanthropist at the same time. (People are complicated and can compartmentalize to an incredible degree.) However, that’s not the main problem with Nazar’s argument. The point is that, whatever faults Bill Gates might have as a human being—and his record at Microsoft indicates that he had many—it’s not enough for a conspiracy theory in which he is the antagonist for him to be just wrong. He has to be malevolently wrong. He must be actively plotting to do harm. He must be planning to victimize people. No wonder Nazar is a 9/11 Truther as well!
Nazar also attracts believers in even more bonkers conspiracy theories, such as germ theory and virus deniers, in his comments:
Another picky point, this one about the 7 Covid Genocides: #1 is a fiction. Megatons of our regressive tax dollars may have been spent on allegedly engineering a toxic virus, but in fact there are no pathogenic viruses, & CoVID isn’t an isolatable, testable virus any more than measles, polio, or cholera are. All disease is in reality caused either by malnutrition, parasites, and/or toxins, & EMFs are TOXINS (so your #7 is right on). https://www.fluoridefreepeel.ca/fois-reveal-that-health-science-institutions-around-the-world-have-no-record-of-sars-cov-2-isolation-purification-anywhere-ever/
Excuse me, but cholera isn’t caused by a virus. Cholera is caused by Vibrio cholera, a bacteria species.
Note the commonality here with HIV/AIDS deniers: It’s not a virus causing the disease, but lifestyle or other non-infectious external factors.
Of course, elsewhere, it’s even more bonkers. I’m going to quote this long comment (which Nazar “liked”) because it really drives home the belief in malevolence that is seen in a conspiracy theorist’s reinterpretation of randomness:
We the People are facing HORRIFYING TECHNOCRATIC PSYCHOPATHY TO DESTROY HUMANITY AND ALL NATURAL LIFE!
It was NEVER about health! The Powers That Should Not Be were ALWAYS about they want you DEAD or a SLAVE! This is a painful truth to accept but we the people must wake up and fight back!
Supporting this excellent post with a statement and useful links.
We must never lose sight of the larger picture of the vile malignance we are fighting against.
There is an insidious global ruling class plot to enslave all life on earth behind all the madness and suffering inflicted on We the People.
How to fight back against this TOTAL SLAVERY!
RESIST! DO NOT COMPLY! DITCH THE DAMNED ‘SMART’ PHONES AND THE DAMNED QR CODES AND GO BACK TO LANDLINES OR FLIP PHONES AND USE CASH AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE! INSIST ON CASH! CBDC IS TOTAL SLAVERY!
Other than getting rid of nuclear weapons which I support 100% the rest of the anti-nuclear peace movement and CLIMATE CRISIS propaganda is parroting UN utter GARBAGE, a complete surrender to the ENSLAVEMENT AGENDA by the diabolical despots of Davos – ruling class criminals who lust for total power and control and all of whom should be tried and jailed for life and their malign organizations dismantled: the UN, the WEF, the IMF, the WHO, the BIS, NATO, Blackrock, Vanguard, The Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, The Bilderbergers, the CFR et al.
There is an evil predator globalist technocratic elite agenda of eugenics/depopulation/genocide using bioweapon poison jabs, war, geoengineering, EMF radiation, starvation and economic collapse – THE GREAT RESET/AGENDA 2030/4TH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION to get rid of billions of ‘useless eaters’ and to use nano tech to turn the survivors into ROBOTIZED COMPLIANT SLAVES! WAKE UP AND RESIST! DO NOT COMPLY! These are psychopath megalomaniacs who want to play god by turning all life into digitized metaverse mechanistic synthetic biology to be manipulated by their AI algorithms. A more demonic sickening idea is nearly impossible to imagine!
APPALLED AND HORRIFIED AT INSANE TYRANNICAL PROTOCOLS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HEALTH AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH TOTALITARIAN CONTROL! REVERSE THIS NOW!
MAKE THE WORLD AND AMERICA 2019 (comparatively speaking), AND FREE AGAIN!
NO, I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE MORONIC SCARIANT SHMARIANT MONKEYSHINES! WAKE UP ALREADY!
TOTALLY CONDEMN BIDEN AND ALL OTHER POLS WHO HAVE NO POWER TO LAWLESSLY ACT LIKE AN EMPEROR OR DICTATOR AND DECREE JAB CROW ‘SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS’ FASCIST SEGREGATION/DISCRIMINATION/APARTHEID VIOLATIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION, THE NUREMBERG CODES AND EVERY CIVIL RIGHT IMAGINABLE.
NO GREEN NEW DEALS OR BUILD BACK BETTER FROM THE CRIMINAL TECHNOCRAT TYRANTS KLAUS SCHWAB AND HIS CRONIES FROM THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM.
STOP THE TERRIBLE TYRANNY OF THE TECHNOCRATS GLOBAL AGENDA OF TOTAL SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL USING THE VIRUS AS EXCUSE AND PROPAGANDA TOOL!
NO MUZZLING STIFLING MASK MANDATES! NO FORCED VACCINES! END TORTUROUS DEVASTATING LOCK DOWNS NOW! I WANT MY LIFE BACK.
Why do people like this so desperately need to believe themselves the victims of malevolence and that they are warriors against evil? I don’t doubt that there is an element of ego gratification involved. After all, it feels really good to believe oneself to be one of the few who have been clever enough to have figured out hidden, secret knowledge involving such plots. However, it’s be way more than that. There seems to be a deep-seated human need to believe in an ordered—even just—world, in which bad things don’t just randomly happen but only happen because of malevolence, even evil. We also seem to need to believe that there always must be a villain.
Certainly, it’s not a lack of intelligence that makes people conspiracy theorists. Just look at the long list of physicians, academics, and scientists who have embraced COVID-19 conspiracy theories over the last three and a half years.Unfortunately, as human beings, we are all prone to believing in conspiracy theories, even as our self-image—self-delusion, actually—is one of being highly rational beings. The first step in countering that tendency is to admit that we, too, are prone to it. Unfortunately, few of us ever do.
94 replies on “Malevolence and intent: Two defining characteristics of conspiracy theories”
Every religion believes in its own benevolence.
Funny how you don’t see the irony in that statement, which is actually true but also misapplied.😂
I wouldn’t say it’s misapplied..quite well applied. The covid vaccines are a faith based exercise; they are worshipped even when the risk/reward makes no sense. Similarly with cloth masks that which are nothing more than a religious ritual. We don’t need malevolence or intent to recognize it for the cult that it is.
Just keep digging yourself in deeper and deeper, all while helping make my point for me.
Also, projection. Conspiracy theorists always project, which is what you are doing now…
Nope. I’m alleging exactly as I see it. No more. A cultish, group think public health apparatus that has less facts on its side than the so-called conspiracy-theorists.
LOLOL. You’re saying things this incredibly at odds with reality entertains me. It’s the only reason I haven’t banned you so far. The only reason.
A religion based on RCTs ? They are based on divine inspiration. In addition you “religion” as an insult. Not very conservaive.
True john, you and your fellow science deniers cling to your articles of faith about the dangers of vaccines and science in general with a fervor that almost puts Scientologists to shame.
Science is the opposite of religion. Faith is not needed. Data and discovery drive the therapy. The emotional tone is detached and skeptical, but never cynical, unless the irrational enter the room.
I have to point something out.
One of the plot points of Superman III was the villain (played by Robert Vaughan) using a satellite to cause bad weather. Someone needs to tell these guys it was a movie, not a documentary.
I also couldn’t help noticing that the rant you copied and pasted had numerous misspellings. In addition, that comment that devolved into an incoherent all-caps rant.
Not just seems. It’s scary to think that we can have our lives wrecked by sheer random chance, but it can and has happened to a great many people.
Finally, the need to believe in a malevolent agent with malign intent: what is more frightening? That there are people who control things in secret, or that the people in charge are fallible, often incompetent, and frequently in over their heads? In many ways, the latter is worse. An enemy is predictable and can be overcome. Mistakes and foolishness are harder to predict.
Idiocracy was also not a documentary. (Never watched Superman 3.). Now we have the sequel, Covidiocracy.
Indeed.
I love the sci fi stories / hoaxes that claim there’s a great conspiracy to depopulate the world. If there is, it hasn’t been very effective given that population continues to increase about a quarter million per day (births minus deaths). Guess Mr. Gates needs to get busy. Meanwhile this sort of stuff alienates the sane from looking at actual conspiracies such as how 45 and his son in law and various aides deliberately downplayed the pandemic in public (while privately realizing its reality), which led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths in our country. Must be a coincidence.
There’s some twisted religious dementia behind this one: go forth and multiply, Earth is constantly getting bigger (not flat), deities will provide for our endless consumption. Loaves and fishes was a nice story but not an approach to logistics of feeding people.
These days, there’s no line of demarcation between bad ideas and pathology. Thanks to the influence of social media mishegas and anti-science aggression, you don’t have to meet criteria for Paranoid Personality Disorder in a clinical setting to become cognitively indistinguishable from its most disturbing symptomatology.
Great questions Orac.
Keep in mind that most of the world’s past supervillains were NOT villains in their own mind. For example, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, the German mustache guy, Pol Pot etc etc.
All of them were “saviors” and on a mission to rescue the humanity, the proletariat class, the Aryan race, etc.
They also were not “corrupt”. They stole nothing. They were true believers.
With that in mind, look at the current “planet saviors”. We are all assuming that wanting to “depopulate of the planet” via deaths, genital mutilation of children, lab viruses killing the elderly, or infertility, is a bad thing and an embodiment of malevolence.
But the people who want the population to be reduced by the above means, are not “malevolent” in their own minds – they are saviors of humanity and even the planet itself. They think that they are rescuing us, the stupid masses, and the entire planet, from a climatic catastrophe.
The depopulation ideas, centering around the Club of Rome, started before the “climate change” was a thing, and were based on the older idea of limited planetary resources. When climate change did become a thing, they saw it as a great opportunity to turbocharge their reach.
And maybe they are right?
Would our planet be better off with under-500-million population?
Would getting rid of human genetic lines of those who accepted various depopulation measures, make the humanity stronger? Will the population bottleneck that we’d go through, self-select the most resilient humans? Will people most resistant to depopulation measures be the only category to have a future?
There is a lot of questions – not as many certain answers.
The only thing I know is that the future will NOT be like the past. I am all open to that and would like to live to see how events unfold.
You included the Nazis in this, which demonstrates how little you know of history. The Nazis were incredibly corrupt and, once in power, stole ceaselessly. Just look at the history of Hermann Goering if you don’t believe me. The Nazis looted Europe while in charge.
Similarly, Stalin’s regime was also incredibly corrupt. Bribery was basically a way of life, the only way to get the government to do anything.
No doubt the Nazis stole a lot and were full of s,,t. Their leader, as full of s,,t as they were, was not corrupt, and stole nothing.
Oh, how little you know about history.🙄🤦🏻♂️
Igor knows exactly as much as he thinks he needs to know to make his argument.
If he know more, he might realize that his knowledge is only partial – and that might force his to confront the fallacies at the root of his beliefs.
It’s easier to make this kind of definitive statements if your knowledge is partial (or your an expert who has spent years studying the specific subject). The result of ‘doing your own research’ if often not realizing that your research is flawed and that you answer is incorrect.
Precisely. Igor’s knowledge is superficial, paper-thin. He knows a lot of the terminology but clearly doesn’t understand a lot of the basics. He knows enough to throw the terms around in a way that is convincing to people without a background in molecular biology and genetics but that has massive flaws obvious to those of us who do have such a background.
I suppose it is as thin as airmail-paper (in the past there was very thin paper specially for airmail letters), or cigarette paper (I’m not sure if it is a thing in the US, but in the Netherlands people can buy tobacco for cigarettes and a package of very thin paper and roll their own cigarettes.
Pro-tip:
Don’t argue SBM or Nazis** with Orac:
you’re gonna lose!
For a guy who didn’t “steal” from his people, Hitler had some awfully nice vacation places near Berchtesgaden!
** my cousin worked as a visiting nurse and had several Holocaust survivors amongst her patients decades ago which inspired her to study WWII, Nazism, Hitler etc. She knows volumes.
Dream on Igor, dream on.
I suppose you think Stalin was a great guy as well, just like Putin, and Russia is a country where the people can really experience freedom and justice.
Neither Stalin nor the other moustached leader were “good”. They were bad. But they were not corrrupt and both stole nothing. And yet millions died because of them.
While its’s true that he did not demand bribes to make decisions, Hitler gladly lived a luxurious lifestyle funded by “gifts” from Nazi Party supporters, both individuals and corporations . He also exploited his position as head of state to enrich himself. For example, he charged image rights for the use of his portrait on German stamps. Another example, a law was passed that the state presented a copy of “Mein Kampf” to all newlyweds, on which Hitler received a royalty. He was also part owner of the company which published the book. As head of state he had himself exempted from personal taxes, that after having been a persistent tax evader before he became Chancellor and was still a private citizen. Look it up if you don’t believe me.🙄🤦🏻♂️
Igor, your ignorance and denial of basic history is astounding. Look up the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery. But a question:
If, after he took power, Stalin did not engage in theft but ordered minions to steal for him and the party, you’re saying he’s not responsible? Same for hitler?
I see even you can copy/paste from middle school history books. It’s too bad you can’t be bothered to actually read and understand history [but since you don’t read or understand what you write about most, the science of vaccines, I’m not surprised at your laziness.]
Stalin lived in former palc of tsars and NKVD unit to protec him (it had defence contigent)
Hitler got his money for royalties Mein Kampf (required reading) and Post Office who paid to use his picture in post stamps.
So Igor, you out general relativity in scare quotes in the past and you do the same with climate science. On what bits of ignorance do you doubt those areas of science?
Excuse me, I never expressed doubts about theory of relativity. It is based on simple and solid thinking.
“The depopulation ideas, centering around the Club of Rome…”
Is there any lie you won’t link them to? How do you manage to live believing all of these lies that float in your head?
I read books. I purchased and read Club of Rome’s book “Earth for All”. (kindle edition). I only report what I am fairly convinced is true. Specifically, about the Club of Rome, I reported on what they wrote about themselves. They are proud of their mission.
Yeah, just as with your “reports” about vaccines, the only thing required to convince you something is true is whether you can spin a conspiracy about it so wild the clueless subscribers you have will eat it up. Facts and data have nothing to do with convincing you.
Their message waas not killlin lots of people, it was zero growth
“Would our planet be better off with under-500-million population?”
The planet doesn’t care how many people there are. Saving the Earth isn’t required. Environmental concerns are about saving ourselves.
Even when it’s about saving a rare animal, it’s setting a precedent. That maintaining environmental diversity is the same as maintaining environmental health. A healthy environment supplies us with food, a breathable atmosphere, it absorbs our waste (within limits).
Climate change causes no harm to the world. It does, however, cause immense harm to humans and the local environment. Changes in rain patterns, shifts in microclimate lead to changes in weather. Changes in weather lead to crop failure. Fancy another dust bowl? How about entire food staples having to change because they can no longer be grown in a particular area?
Fewer people, or the same number of people living a less resource intensive life, or scientific advancement to improve efficiency, or any combination of these helps preserve the environment.
However, humans don’t like the idea of killing off large percentages of themselves deliberately. Except hard core environmentalists or, weirdly enough, the right wing conspiracy theorists who’s bunker-like mentality says ‘hoard the resources and wait for everyone else to die’. Much like they accuse the rich of doing, but with more guns. Of course, once everyone else is dead, you can rebuild the population in your own image. Good thinking people who like fixed gender roles, church on Sunday and a nice hanging to round the afternoon off.
And of cause this isn’t a guaranty the offspring will keep thinking this way.
@NumberWang, you are beginning to “get it”, congratulations.
Our family owned a summer house near Moscow, where I would spend my summers as a child. (it was 100 times better than spending summers in Moscow, which totally sucked)
Anyway, at a mile’s distance there was an abandoned sand mine pit. Anyone could go there (I know it sounds weird for Americans with property rights and lawsuits but that’s how it was at the time) and I often went there as a curious child.
In the walls of the pit, there was an about 10 foot thick layer of ocean sediment. Just digging through there uncovered fossils of various prehistoric marine creatures. I even kept a couple of fossils when I moved to the United States.
What this means is that for some millions of years, THAT AREA WAS COVERED BY OCEAN.
Mind you, the elevation of that area is roughly 200 meters above current ocean level.
From that exploration, two things were quite obvious:
1) Our planet was not created 6,000 years ago
2) The climate does change from time to time, covering vast continental expanses with ocean
3) Tectonic shifts (see sea fossils in the Himalaya)
There it is, the basis of the majority of the “arguments” against climate science by the deniers. A statement that is technically true but doesn’t touch on the issue of the role of people on what we’re seeing now. “Open mind” on it eh Igor? Bullshit.
Think what happens if the sea actually rises 100 m (check the maps). Check correlation between CO2 in atmosphere and sea level, Give natural explanatiion to the fact that climate warmed during last few hundred years. When you are in to it, check sunspot cycle, a good proxy for solar activity.
Sea aninal fossils at Himalaya does not mean that sea has once covered Himalaya. It means that Himalaya has risen from the sea.
I was wondering if Igor had evaluated the geological evidence for plate tectonics and decided it was unbelievable and obviously untrue.
You know, while playing SPC 5k the other week me and my friends and I were talking about how stupid the Foundation in that setting is and from there we got to talking about how in general most large scale villainous plots seem to get really, really stupid unless the end goal is purely chaos and misery.
I know I’m rambling here, but I at least think I have a point – it kind of parallels your talking about a group of evil individuals wanting to depopulate the planet. What are they actually going to gain from success?
The standard and style of living to which these fabulously wealthy, remarkably evil people are accustomed to living depends on the work of countless other people and the infrastructure of modern society. If the population were to crash the instigators of the plot would end up just as dead as anyone else or just as miserable as any of the survivors.
So why are they doing it?
Are they simply in it for Chaos as an ideal? Or do they think that in some way they will be better off than they are now?
As my one friend asked (I’m paraphrasing because the conversation got pretty profane and pretty silly), ‘What the f**k was Wesker’s plan after releasing Uroboros? You can’t go back from that and everything’s gone to shit.’
So please, explain to us what success means for your villains personally.
And if it is simply to cause death and suffering explain to me why that’s their motivation. Not every villain can just be in it for the evilulzs, especially when you seem to be insisting that they aren’t.
@ Silex:
I don’t know but couldn’t some chaos seekers, like Bannon, actually enjoy seeing disruption itself, feeling powerful as its instigator and being insulated from direct harm through his money and prestige. HIs early work was in finance so he has experience in these matters.
A true story which you may use somehow….
A few weeks ago, I couldn’t find the Bohemian Grove… actually, I was looking for the road it is on, the Bohemian Highway,… I was driving along the river, west-east, and knew that the BH linked up south perpendicularly at a certain point BUT there were no signs for the road or the towns** on it! I asked a few people nearby and was given dodgy instructions- including from a woman dressed in a long flowing black skirt and blouse and her androgenous pal- and a young guy who gave overly elaborate descriptions HOWEVER there aren’t many roads there!
I’ve been around there several times in the past but always from the other direction…. THEY’re hiding the Grove, the road and the towns!
** the towns have restaurants I thought my SO might like
You encountered a small conspiracy!
Igor:
Although the details are all true- IT’S A JOKE!
— why was I really looking for that road? To get paid by elitists at the Grove?
— another small town nearby famously removes signs so tourists don’t visit: you need a map to find it
-btw- I’ve never actually visited the Grove.. YET
Tourist: “Damn, even this new route leads me back to town. Rome really needs to have a better system of roads.”
Heh! Love your story because it’s something I know so well. Where I grew up there were a lot of strange roads and intersections and it was so easy for people to get really lost.
And I think you’re right that some people who are in it for the chaos are all about the feeling of power that comes from watching the consequences of it happen to other people. But that breaks down with plots of the scale that Igor is talking about with the whole depopulation thing. There’s no way to be insulated from something of that scale. You’re not watching the masses squirm beneath you, fighting for the scraps in that situation, you’re in it as deep and as bad as anyone else.
That’s what what bugs be about those kind of conspiracy theories and when I see that kind of plot in just about any other story. Once in a while it’s fun, but every single villain being deluded enough to somehow think that they’ll survive the mess that their plan will create gets boring. I mean there’s so much to poke conspiracy theorists about, but I like focusing on how silly and predictable their stories tend to be.
What did success mean for Mao? Definitely not personally getting rich!
The planet-saving billionaires are filthy rich already.
There is no human need (such as food, legally allowed sex etc) that they cannot get for a minuscule fraction of their net worth.
They are after something else. It may be power, or being in history books as planet’s saviors, or something else.
I am aware that a lot of my fellow traveler climate skeptics think that climate change is just a grift for everyone involved. I believe they are missing a big part of the story because this is a simplistic explanation that is not correct and does not account for human nature and the history of villainy.
By the way, I remain open minded about global warming because it is scientifically complicated, actually much more complicated than Covid and related subjects.
Igor, what the hell is the something that they’re after?
It can’t be power, because they already have it, probably less than you attribute to them, but still, more than they’d have if the plan you say they have was successful.
If the world is depopulated by such a degree and can be traced back to them then they won’t be remembered at saviors of anything.
So tell us what the something else is.
Going back to the conversation my friends and I had while playing videogames because the question is the same, What the hell does Wesker (Gates, the Freemasons, the lizards living in the hollow center of the earth, whatever malevolent entity you want to attribute these nefarious schemes to) do after succeeding in his plan of total global saturation (depopulation, rendering humanity sterile, toppling the economy, whatever the stupid plan is supposed to be)?
I get that you’ll bend/ignore facts to fit the narrative that you believe in, but why the hell does that narrative have so many plot holes? I get that a villain can have an unknowable plan, or deceive people, but there at least has to be some sense to it.
What is success going to look like for the antagonists of your story?
What do these people actually want and how does their plan directly bring that about?
((And to the other people here, I apologize if my trollish, kusogaki persona is grating. I crawled out of the weird corners of the internet where I usually dwell when Igor’s fiction was posted on a nonfiction part of a site I used to frequent and, somehow, that ended up bringing me here.))
Part 1, due to server error:
Perhaps this thought experiment will help:
Imagine being brought into a room, in which there is a table, and on the table there is a big “DESTROY THE WORLD” mushroom button.
Now, we all know that there is no such table with such a button (unless you are the president of a nucclear armed country), but just imagine, for a minute, that the room is real and the button works.
If you press that big button, the world would be destroyed and all people, yourself and your dear relatives included, would die relatively quickly.
Would you press it?
(continued)
Part 2, split due to server error, misspellings intentional
… Would you press such a DESTROY THE WORLD button?
I do not pretend to read your mind, but my guess is that you probably would not. Neither would I.
But, can we say that there is NOBODY IN THE WORLD who would press such a button?
Of course not: there are plenty of crazy people with all sorts of ideas: misannthropic, cra zy-religious, Earth-rescuing, resenntful, suucidal, and what not. Very few people – perhaps only a thousand or a million out of 8 billion population – would press such a button.
Those people exist and they are a good reason why tables with such buttons do not exist outside of well guarded nucclear bunkers.
Part 3, split due to server error, misspellings intentional
Does virrology give us something resembling the DESTTROY THE WORLD button? The answer is, yes. One could imagine designing a virus that would appear mild, destroy people’s immmune systems, be vacccine-resistant and in fact strengthened by the vacccine. That virus could be designed so that clueless vacccine designers would make an emergency vacccine mindlessly copying the deadly spike-protein of the virus, creating all sorts of health problems.
Part 4:
Once the virus is out, sit back and laugh until your time comes.
Smart people may, of course, come up with other ideas for depoppulation of the humanity.
Humans are very resilient, so I am mildly optimistic that some will remain alive any such red buttons hypothetically being pressed by manniacs.
@Igor Chudov Have it occurred to you that a proof is needed ? You just imagine
I’m a sucker for very bad, very long jokes where the kicker is an awful pun. The reigning champion so far is the “world’s longest joke”, with one version found here [click and read at your own risk: safe for work but 99% of the people who read it will be greatly disappointed]
https://www.longestjokeintheworld.com/
Igor’s fantastical rants about vaccines and the evils of Gates, Club of Rome, etc., are much lower quality than the joke at that link.
Maybe Igor’s been watching Escape From Los Angeles again?
@ ldw56old
More a short story than a joke. And long because it is written on a small strip of the screen.
That’s a running theme in the jokes I enjoy.
Long due to that, due to the tedious writing, and really fairly long if copied into word.
I am much in agreement with Aarno Syvanen and squirrelelite:
You can’t assert something without proof, data or evidence!
it might be alright if you are writing a movie script but not reality.
I hear/ read alt med/ anti-vax/ contrarians who weave intricate tales of dastardly crimes against humanity that sound much like apocalyptic screen plays – with and without zombies- about how the elites are destroying freedom, banks are impoverishing people ( or will, soon), corporations are poisoning babies, the government is building concentration camps, how vaccinated people will soon die off, how chronic illness is caused by pharma.
Cities will go Mad Max: gang wars and mass starvation.
It’s endless because it brings in followers, admiration and money.
They trash sources that include expert opinion, standard news, media and university science that would obliterate their writing:
in this mirror world, hiv/ aids is curable without meds/ doesn’t exist, vaccines cause autism/ everything, meds cause illness..
But not one of them criticises their own sources; RFKjr, Global Research, Zero Hedge, Breitbart, US and UK news rags, NN, prn, AoA, GBD, Naomi Wolf, faux “investigative reporters”.
If you study journalism/ write – you need to identify and present meaningful sources for what you assert whether it is a beginner’s class assignment, a dissertation or work to be published. You need to know how to separate worthwhile from disreputable sources. That can be taught.
I was lucky: I once had a prof who was first a lawyer/ foreign consul in Israel, PhD in English- in that order.
Now, contrarians fight Wikipedia/ sceptics/ Orac because they reveal who they are, their MO and how they earn money.
About Global Warming/ Climate Change:
can deniers explain why the ranges for plant/ animal taxa are shifting towards the poles/ to higher elevations/ deeper waters at a predictable, discernable rate per year for decades? Or how fast seas have risen?
This is easy to look up.
“Once the virus is out, sit back and laugh until your time comes.”
You’d be long dead of old age before it made any appreciable difference to the resource/person ratio. Not to mention that the people who extract the resources are going to be affected too. That’s why it’s bollocks. It makes no sense from any perspective. It’s not efficient, it’s not effective, it involves too many people, it’s too complicated to administrate, you’d need your own vaccine running in parallel which you would have to develop and produce without anyone involved realising. You haven’t bothered thinking it through.
Replying to you Igor, though I’m not sure where this response will show up.
I guess first things first, I’ve not seen a post broken up quite like yours since I was doing kink memes on Live Journal, but I’m not judging, after all, I’m the one talking about Live Journal.
Okay though. I’m imagining myself in that room with the big red button because when I’m writing horror, comedy, post-apoc, romance?!?, as well as a few other things that room and that button feature prominently. The weird thing is, and this is really, really weird, someone always stops me from pressing it. Some action hero or another crashes through the door as me and my partner in crime (if you must know, she’s not your average Walmart shopper, no not at all, she’s as lovely as she is evil and she has a degree in genetic engineering!) are drinking Champaign, toasting our imminent victory, and we both get ventilated.
Or I’m driving through the city, glancing at my rear view mirror and the cooler in the back seat just as often as I’m looking at the street ahead. I have the samples, I just need to make it to the airport to release them, when all of a sudden a car pulls out in front of me. Distracted I slam on the breaks seconds too late. Dazed from the crash I look up at the men in uniforms I don’t recognize, one of them nods, smirking as he double taps me.
Even when I think I’m safe on my secret island base one of my henchmen (probably Nick, because he’s actually a really chill guy) gets a case of morality and betrays me, probably because he realizes that he and everyone he knows will end up dead and he really likes happy hour at the tikibar back on the mainland which will come to an end if civilization ends…
Funny thing, no matter how evil my motivations are, I can’t manage to bring my plans to fruition because there are always other people to get in the way of them.
So how are these people you’re worried about not being stopped and what do you think they hope to gain from pressing the button? Why are they so much more successful in pressing that end of the world button than I am?
Obviously, the goal of the entire worldwide conspiracy, of which everyone is a part, is to make Igor feel dumb. It started with his kindergarten teacher and now reaches out to everyone. Igor is never, ever, ever wrong – it’s just that the textbooks change behind his back to say 2 plus 2 equals 4, when he knows it equals “The Illuminati”
I’m standing behind him now, whistling softly, but I’ll use the same technology that made iron lungs invisible to disappear before he turns around
Besides, Terry Pratchett was right. Build a hut in a remote location, install a big red ‘end of the world’ button and leave. Someone will press the button before the paint dries.
Probably Igor. He’ll convince himself that it’s really a ‘get lots of sweets and beer’ button that Bill Gates has disguised because Bill wants ALL the beer and sweets.
a) your ‘open minded’ means that you will, in a new york minute, deny all the science and data behind it as being due to some nebulous organization’s activities.
b) scientifically complicated it is, but just with vaccines and covid your lack of understanding won’t stop you from attacking it
What about general relativity, the other bit of science you have treated twice now with scare quotes?
Igor is very open minded. Actually I suppose he is so open minded, his brains may be on their way out.
If you want into history books, you publish your achievements. Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation certainly does. Gates theory of reduction of population growth is better health care and more food will reduce it, (Plus indeed contraception)
Mao lived in a former imperial palace annd ate bear paws when people were starving.
Still no proof of lab origin of SARS CoV 2, let alone world wide conspracy, (Gates rules China, anyone.)
Yup, deniers tend to completely dismiss things like this.
https://secasc.ncsu.edu/2021/03/17/tropical-plant-species-to-move-northward-as-winters-warm-due-to-climate-change/
But then in what area are there deniers who don’t flatly dismiss out of hand data and facts they don’t like?
@Igor – you forgot “Part 5” …
Something something something mumble something, because reasons.
You’re welcome.
There it is — the dumbest, most clueless thing you’ll see on the internet today, courtesy of a world-class science denier.
Yep. Nothing tells me how clueless Igor is about history better than that statement.
You mentioned bunch of dictators. Gates is not dictator of the world.
Gates indeed has spoken about reduction of population *growth” not reduction of population. You cannot understand three words in sequence ?
In developed world, even reduction of population growth is not needed.
Nobody has implemented zero growth policies,have you noticed ?
Maybe China?
In case of population growth, yes. Economic growth is another thing
<
blockquote>The only way out is direct townhall democracy: you represent yourself, no middlemen (congressmen, governor, president).
That sounds like the old “sovereign citizen” BS knuckle draggers try
I’m skeptical of that assertion.
Certainly true: Pablo Escobar might not fit the textbook definition of serial killer but he certainly wasn’t anything close to being a good person, yet he spent millions building hospitals, soccer stadiums, and some housing for the poor.
And thus buying loyalty.
Would this be some ideal for those sovereign citizens? No representation by politicians but every man for his self and the poor be damned, unless someone likes to buy their loyalty.
“,, there is an element of ego gratification involved..”
A nearly uncontained self-aggrandisement channeled into a narcissistically narrow focus: Them vs ME!!!
If you think about it, most of those I survey – and a few scoffers at RI- deem themselves superior to experts in diverse fields simultaneously: they pontificate on subtle issues in virology/ immunology whilst narrating geopolitical trends affecting economic and societal outcomes…
The frightening part is their nearly total dismissal of academic and governmental positions that are based on reality-based studies and DATA:
It isn’t unusual to hear one of them rant about vaccines and then abruptly switch to political or societal “crimes” to poison their audience against all experts at once.
If there are no experts or expertise, anyone can assert anything despite a lack of data. They can cherry pick studies or facts employing emotional outrage as fuel. I read an article ( prn.live) about why RFK jr is “correct” about vaccines/ autism which cites two major “facts”: Simpsonwood and the Whistleblower CT. That’s IT!
Chaos without oversight would allow anyone with a keyboard and followers to trump academia, research and years of serious study in life and social sciences.
I fear that’s where we’re headed, being led by self-adoring pikers who failed to achieved expertise in any field themselves.
Look at what Michigan’s largest embarrassment, hillsdale college, together with “prager U”, are pushing into florida, oklahoma, and new hampshire schools as courses up to curriculum guidance. Not a whit of valid material, but loads of right wing libertarian justification for authoritarian government and dismissal of “others” [read others as women and minorities]. Your comment hits that exactly.
@ ldw56old:
Those I survey cast damning doubt on universities, experts and standard sources of information because, I venture, they themselves are not recognised or qualified in the least.
They access power as influencers on social media by rejecting reality based material, asserting pipe dreams and fantasies to excite readers.
Amongst my frequent targets, NOT one has a decent background in relevant subjects and it’s easy to spot from their language and errors. If their enraptured thralls reject universities/ experts in general, these poseurs have a better chance of fooling them.They can’t tell the difference between worthwhile material and obvious Schlock/ Dreck!
Yet, NN has Brighteon University, Sayer Ji has an encyclopaedia, prn has a classroom on the air. CHD has instruction about vaccines.
They teach that devious authorities trample the People’s Rights while they are doing much worse: they mislead anyone who will listen to them.
True, and since folks like igor and john and others in their camp failed so completely in their education, the notion of things like medical boards enforcing quality control seems to them to be censorship, as john demonstrated in a previous blog.
You “skeptics” are gonna be sorry 😔 come October 4th, when 5G pulses activate the Marburg virus🦠 hidden in lipid nanoparticles left over from Covid “vaccine” jabs, and graphene oxide buildup shuts 👇 down your circulatory systems. Mass depopulation.
My naturopath told me all about it.
Unless the dead are going to reanimate as zombies or something, I’m afraid that I’ll have to pass on this apocalypse. Just can’t fit it into my schedule between the upcoming alien invasion and all of that.
How can people who don’t believe viruses are real be concerned about Marburg? (I’ve read Richard Preston’s description of actual Marburg, yikes.)
I think a lot of this nonsense is like a big game of Refrigerator Poetry. Word salads.
The fear is what matters more than the object of fear. As long as there is something to be afraid of they get to feel better because it lets them pretend that they are prepared in someway, knowing something that most people are ignorant of.
Once get job assigmen to make state table for MTP3.. Have tested GSM MAP stack from SMS part to MTP2, too, so I know something about it. I testify here, that it does not contain Marburg virus activation protocol.
Interesting article, Orac.
Thanks.
.
Random thoughts:
From the above article: ‘chemtrails, fluoridation, MSG, microwaves, GMOs, organ harvesting (there’s a Jew under your bed waiting for you to fall asleep so he can steal your kidneys),…’
Alexander and Nazar have managed to include every batshit insane internet delusion in their world view.
.
Ah yes. Bible quotes.
There always has to be Bible quotes because this is really the Biblical battle between God and Satan.
At the core of this is – It is all about the End Times™ and evangelicals/kooks/tea-partyists/etc. are all for bringing on the End Times™ which they see as something good.
That is why they voice insane desires for the destruction of America and, indeed, the whole earth and yet consider themselves “patriots” and morally good people.
To them it is God’s will that everybody die so that he may institute his dominion over teh earf… So they are actually being holy by praying for the destruction of teh earf…
They are quite insane.
.
I also have to laugh about “sovereigns” who are nothing more than “libertarian” anarchists.
The sovereigns fantasize about the days they take over and hold local trials and tribunals to bring the evil ones to justice. What they envision is like the post 1917 Russian revolution village soviets where the local strong man bolshevik thugs held “trials” of “enemies of the state” who were often merely local farmers/sharecroppers (labeled “kulaks” by Lenin/Stalin) who had managed to accrue some possessions which the thugs coveted.
They were tried by a gang of angry villagers, found guilty, and taken out back and promptly shot and their possessions confiscated… All very French Revolutionesque…
When their communist-equivalence is shown to these idiotic and murderous “libertarians” they promptly deny that that is what they have describe and desire.
Witness the above quoted desire for direct, village level rule with no larger political/legal structure.
That is a prescription for total anarchy… which they desire.
They often describe a fantasy of a local “constitutional judge” issuing warrants/writs/etc. and a “constitutional sheriff” arresting the supposed villain(s).
The problem is that the “villain” can just as easily have his “constitutional judge” issue a warrant for the arrest of the other “constitutional judge” and “constitutional sheriff” which leads to war between villages… Tens of thousands of little wars by local “libertarian” village strong men.
It is idiotic but they fantasize about it being some sort of Nirvana.
.
These people are dangerous.
Meehan the antivax ophthalmologist accuses pediatricians of satanic murder rituals via vaccination. Very disappointed his state medical board thinks this is ok. It’s not.
That would be a step further than Larry Cook, who accuses pediatricians that vaccinate of murder, but not the satanic kind.
Check out https://rumble.com/vze4ai-reawaken-america-tour-salem-oregon-day-2.html .
At ~ 6:43:40 ( 6 hrs 43 min 40 sec) Meehan starts talking about Thomas and the OMB stating at ~ 6:44:50 “Everyone on the OMB, we’re coming after you, because this is fraud” (to a standing ovation).
The OMB was informed of this threat.
Be careful if traveling north of the border. Remember, the Queen of Canada has a hit order out on you.
https://www.businessinsider.com/qanon-leader-tells-followers-shoot-to-kill-vaccine-doctors-2021-11
She and her turds can come get some. Sick of these blowhards.
I thought there was a new person proclaiming himself the true king.
Surely a homeopathic “mass die off” would actually involve one one ten to the (stupidly large number)?
Dammit, “one in ten to the…”