279 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2024
    1. once you realize that the world isn't what you think it is it's very easy to grab onto something else and grab onto some kind of weird conspiracy well that's the thing you've been describing thus far as well sorry to in just say but like the openness requires structure

      for - quote conspiracy theories - lizard people - first stage of initiation - if reality isn't as it appears, it's easy to latch onto something else - John Churchill

  2. Oct 2024
  3. Sep 2024
    1. nobody told it what to do that's that's the kind of really amazing and frightening thing about these situations when Facebook gave uh the algorithm the uh uh aim of increased user engagement the managers of Facebook did not anticipate that it will do it by spreading hatefield conspiracy theories this is something the algorithm discovered by itself the same with the capture puzzle and this is the big problem we are facing with AI

      for - AI - progress trap - example - Facebook AI algorithm - target - increase user engagement - by spreading hateful conspiracy theories - AI did this autonomously - no morality - Yuval Noah Harari story

  4. Aug 2024
    1. a criminal gang from Venezuela infiltrating the United States. Known as Tren de Aragua, the criminal organization has become a recurring bogeyman in anti-immigrant conspiracy theories circulating in Spanish-speaking diaspora communities over the past year.
  5. Apr 2024
    1. turns out there was another French inventor, Louis Le Prince (apparently we owe a lot to the French), who was experimenting with motion pictures and had apparently perfected the technique by 1890. But when he arrived in the US for a planned public demonstration that same year – potentially eclipsing Edison’s claim on the technology – he mysteriously vanished from a train. His body and luggage, including his invention, were never found. Conspiracy theories about his untimely disappearance have circulated ever since (we’re looking at you, Thomas Edison).

      I wouldn't 'be surprised if Edison or even the French had something to do with Louis Le Prince and his disappearance. It could've been anybody.

  6. Jan 2024
  7. Dec 2023
    1. In the neoliberal era, individuals are forced to assume sole responsibility for navigating “every hardship and every difficulty—from poverty to student debt to home eviction to drug addiction.” When the pandemic exacerbated these hardships, it was an uphill battle to build solidarity and convince people to support collective solutions. After a lifetime of being told they were on their own, “a subset of the population” doubled down on individualism. It does not, now, seem surprising to Klein that they essentially said, “Fuck you: we won’t mask or jab
      • for: key insight - anti-vaxxers, key insight - conspiracy theories, key insight - maga, key insight - neoliberalism and failure at collective action

      • key insight: neoliberalism and failure of collective action

        • neoliberalism's continuous assault on society has striped use off any support system, leaving us to fend for ourselves
        • when polycrisis events occur, it provokes a distrust of any attempt at government intervention
        • this is a sign of things to come when climate chaos will accelerate social breakdown
    1. is there a way to say what that means about the actual world you're operating in uh when you're dealing with companies 00:35:01 or governments or Davos and these fancy one% Summits or as you alluded to conspiracies earlier as you know the Illuminati qinon typ they believe that there's that seven of you guys in a room and you they're deciding it for everyone 00:35:14 else uh uh for the internet also I think that I think that's wishful thinking they hope that there is somebody in charge truth is much worse it's chaos the truth is chaos
      • for: conspiracy theories - truth is much worse
    1. Will artificial intelligence create useless class of people? - Yuval Noah Harari

      1:00 "bring the latest findings of science of the public", otherwise the public space "gets filled with conspiracy theories and fake news and whatever".<br /> he fails to mention that ALL his beautiful "scientists" are financially dependent on corporations, who dictate the expected results, and who sabotage "unwanted research".<br /> for example, the pharma industry will NEVER pay money for research of natural cancer cures, or "alternative" covid cures like ivermectin / zinc / vitamin C, because these cures have no patent, so there is no profit motive, and also because the "militant pacifists" want to fix overpopulation this way.<br /> a "scientist" should be someone, who has all freedom to propose hypotheses, which then are tested in experiments (peer review), and compared to real placebo control groups. because that is science, or "the scientific method". everything else is lobbying for "shekel shekel".

  8. Sep 2023
      • for: doppleganger, conflict resolution, deep humanity, common denominators, CHD, Douglas Rushkoff, Naomi Klein, Into the Mirror World, conspiracy theory, conspiracy theories, conspiracy culture, nonduality, self-other, human interbeing, polycrisis, othering, storytelling, myth-making, social media amplifier -summary
        • This conversation was insightful on so many dimensions salient to the polycrisis humanity is moving through.
        • It makes me think of the old cliches:
          • "The more things change, the more they remain the same"
          • "What's old is new" ' "History repeats"
        • the conversation explores Naomi's latest book (as of this podcast), Into the Mirror World, in which Naomi adopts a different style of writing to explicate, articulate and give voice to
          • implicit and tacit discomforting ideas and feelings she experienced during covid and earlier, and
          • became a focal point through a personal comparative analysis with another female author and thought leader, Naomi Wolf,
            • a feminist writer who ended up being rejected by mainstream media and turned to right wing media.
        • The conversation explores the process of:
          • othering,
          • coopting and
          • abandoning
        • of ideas important for personal and social wellbeing.
        • and speaks to the need to identify what is going on and to reclaim those ideas for the sake of humanity
        • In this context, the doppleganger is the people who are mirror-like imiages of ourselves, but on the other side of polarized issues.
        • Charismatic leaders who are bad actors often are good at identifying the suffering of the masses, and coopt the ideas of good actors to serve their own ends of self-enrichment.
        • There are real world conspiracies that have caused significant societal harm, and still do,
        • however, when there ithere are phenomena which we have no direct sense experience of, the mixture of
          • a sense of helplessness,
          • anger emerging from injustice
        • a charismatic leader proposing a concrete, possible but explanatory theory
        • is a powerful story whose mythology can be reified by many people believing it
        • Another cliche springs to mind
          • A lie told a hundred times becomes a truth
          • hence the amplifying role of social media
        • When we think about where this phenomena manifests, we find it everywhere:
  9. Mar 2023
    1. Även pandemin har skapat problem. Som vi kunnat konstatera i tidigare rapporter hade extremhögern över hela världen svårt att navigera politiskt under pandemiåren. Det gick inte att skylla problemen på de gamla vanliga syndabockarna som minoriteter eller en politiskt korrekt elit. Skulle man haka på konspirations-teorierna om vaccinet, eller följa riktlinjer för att hålla smittota-len nere? Vi kan idag konstatera att den konspirationsteoretiska linjen till slut fick flest anhängare inom extremhögern. Under början av 2022 hittade också extremhögern ett sätt att politisera pandemifrågan, när de anslöt sig till protesterna mot vaccinpass. Men sammantaget kommer de rasideologiska grupperna stukade ut ur pandemins isolering.
  10. Jan 2023
  11. www.thepostil.com www.thepostil.com
    1. This site is a cesspool of authoritarian, fascist-apologist, conspiracist mind-mangling content. It's a good place to find out what kinds of bizarre notions people (particularly Catholics of an authoritarian bent) are being fed, and consuming — ridiculous fabrications and warped interpretations of the sort contributing (with giddy joy) to the suffocation of democratic inclinations and institutions.

      The site does have some interesting images. I think this will be an inspiration for some dystopian and horror fiction ideas.

    1. Highlights

      • We exploit language differences to study the causal effect of fake news on voting.
      • Language affects exposure to fake news.
      • German-speaking voters from South Tyrol (Italy) are less likely to be exposed to misinformation.
      • Exposure to fake news favours populist parties regardless of prior support for populist parties.
      • However, fake news alone cannot explain most of the growth in populism.
    1. Who falls for fake news? Psychological and clinical profiling evidence of fake news consumers

      Participants with a schizotypal, paranoid, and histrionic personality were ineffective at detecting fake news. They were also more vulnerable to suffer its negative effects. Specifically, they displayed higher levels of anxiety and committed more cognitive biases based on suggestibility and the Barnum Effect. No significant effects on psychotic symptomatology or affective mood states were observed. Corresponding to these outcomes, two clinical and therapeutic recommendations related to the reduction of the Barnum Effect and the reinterpretation of digital media sensationalism were made. The impact of fake news and possible ways of prevention are discussed.

      Fake news and personality disorders

      The observed relationship between fake news and levels of schizotypy was consistent with previous scientific evidence on pseudoscientific beliefs and magical ideation (see Bronstein et al., 2019; Escolà-Gascón, Marín, et al., 2021). Following the dual process theory model (e.g., Pennycook & Rand, 2019), when a person does not correctly distinguish between information with scientific arguments and information without scientific grounds it is because they predominantly use cognitive reasoning characterized by intuition (e.g., Dagnall, Drinkwater, et al., 2010; Swami et al., 2014; Dagnall et al., 2017b; Williams et al., 2021).

      Concomitantly, intuitive thinking correlates positively with magical beliefs (see Šrol, 2021). Psychopathological classifications include magical beliefs as a dimension of schizotypal personality (e.g., Escolà-Gascón, 2020a). Therefore, it is possible that the high schizotypy scores in this study can be explained from the perspective of dual process theory (Denovan et al., 2018; Denovan et al., 2020; Drinkwater, Dagnall, Denovan, & Williams, 2021). Intuitive thinking could be the moderating variable that explains why participants who scored higher in schizotypy did not effectively detect fake news.

      Something similar happened with the subclinical trait of paranoia. This variable scored the highest in both group 1 and group 2 (see Fig. 1). Intuition is also positively related to conspiratorial ideation (see Drinkwater et al., 2020; Gligorić et al., 2021). Similarly, psychopathology tends to classify conspiracy ideation as a frequent belief system in paranoid personality (see Escolà-Gascón, 2022). This is because conspiracy beliefs are based on systematic distrust of the systems that structure society (political system), knowledge (science) and economy (capitalism) (Dagnall et al., 2015; Swami et al., 2014). Likewise, it is known that distrust is the transversal characteristic of paranoid personality (So et al., 2022). Then, in this case the use of intuitive thinking and dual process theory could also justify the obtained paranoia scores. The same is not true for the histrionic personality.

      The Barnum Effect

      The Barnum Effect consists of accepting as exclusive a verbal description of an individual's personality, when, the description employs contents applicable or generalizable to any profile or personality that one wishes to describe (see Boyce & Geller, 2002; O’Keeffe & Wiseman, 2005). The error of this bias is to assume as exclusive or unique information that is not. This error can occur in other contexts not limited to personality descriptions. Originally, this bias was studied in the field of horoscopes and pseudoscience's (see Matute et al., 2011). Research results suggest that people who do not effectively detect fake news regularly commit the Barnum Effect. So, one way to prevent fake news may be to educate about what the Barnum Effect is and how to avoid it.

      Conclusions

      The conclusions of this research can be summarized as follows: (1) The evidence obtained proposes that profiles with high scores in schizotypy, paranoia and histrionism are more vulnerable to the negative effects of fake news. In clinical practice, special caution is recommended for patients who meet the symptomatic characteristics of these personality traits.

      (2) In psychiatry and clinical psychology, it is proposed to combat fake news by reducing or recoding the Barnum effect, reinterpreting sensationalism in the media and promoting critical thinking in social network users. These suggestions can be applied from intervention programs but can also be implemented as psychoeducational programs for massive users of social networks.

      (3) Individuals who do not effectively detect fake news tend to have higher levels of anxiety, both state and trait anxiety. These individuals are also highly suggestible and tend to seek strong emotions. Profiles of this type may inappropriately employ intuitive thinking, which could be the psychological mechanism that.

      (4) Positive psychotic symptomatology, affective mood states and substance use (addiction risks) were not affected by fake news. In the field of psychosis, it should be analyzed whether fake news influences negative psychotic symptomatology.

    1. The uptake of mis- and disinformation is intertwined with the way our minds work. The large body of research on the psychological aspects of information manipulation explains why.

      In an article for Nature Review Psychology, Ullrich K. H. Ecker et al looked(opens in a new tab) at the cognitive, social, and affective factors that lead people to form or even endorse misinformed views. Ironically enough, false beliefs generally arise through the same mechanisms that establish accurate beliefs. It is a mix of cognitive drivers like intuitive thinking and socio-affective drivers. When deciding what is true, people are often biased to believe in the validity of information and to trust their intuition instead of deliberating. Also, repetition increases belief in both misleading information and facts.

      Ecker, U.K.H., Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J. et al. (2022). The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction.

      Going a step further, Álex Escolà-Gascón et al investigated the psychopathological profiles that characterise people prone to consuming misleading information. After running a number of tests on more than 1,400 volunteers, they concluded that people with high scores in schizotypy (a condition not too dissimilar from schizophrenia), paranoia, and histrionism (more commonly known as dramatic personality disorder) are more vulnerable to the negative effects of misleading information. People who do not detect misleading information also tend to be more anxious, suggestible, and vulnerable to strong emotions.

    1. John B. Kelly highlighted this disparity in a memorable passage published in 1973:

      Distance, the filtering of news through so many intermediate channels, and the habitual tendency to discuss and interpret Middle Eastern politics in the political terminology of the West, have all contrived to impart a certain blandness to the reporting and analysis of Middle Eastern affairs in Western countries. ... To read, for instance, the extracts from the Cairo and Baghdad press and radio ... is to open a window upon a strange and desolate landscape, strewn with weird, amorphous shapes cryptically inscribed "imperialist plot," "Zionist crime," "Western exploitation," ... and "the revolution betrayed." Around and among these enigmatic structures, curious figures, like so many mythical beats, caper and cavort - "enemies," "traitors," "stooges," "hyenas," "puppets," "lackeys," "feudalists," "gangsters," "tyrants," "criminals," "oppressors," "plotters" and deviationists". ... It is all rather like a monstrous playing board for some grotesque and sinister game, in which the snakes are all hydras, the ladders have no rungs, and the dice are blank.

    2. Americans especially tend reflexively to dismiss the idea of conspiracy. Living in a political culture ignorant of secret police, a political underground, and coups d'état,

      Not anymore.

    1. In 2003 five northern Nigerian states boycotted the oral polio vaccine due to fears that it was unsafe. Though the international responses have been scrutinised in the literature, this paper argues that lessons still need to be learnt from the boycott: that the origins and continuation of the boycott were due to specific local factors.

      Origin and continuation boycott made this unique.

    1. Indeed ‘anti-vaccination rumours’ have been defined as a major threat to achieving vaccine coverage goals. This is demonstrated in this paper through a case study of responses to the Global Polio Eradication Campaign (GPEI) in northern Nigeria where Muslim leaders ordered the boycott of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV). A 16-month controversy resulted from their allegations that the vaccines were contaminated with anti-fertility substances and the HIV virus was a plot by Western governments to reduce Muslim populations worldwide.
  12. Dec 2022
    1. Fears of a petty conspiracy — a political rival or business competitor plotting to do you harm — are as old as the human psyche. But fears of a grand conspiracy — that the Illuminati or Jews plan to take over the world — go back only 900 years and have been operational for just two centuries, since the French Revolution.
    2. The connection of conspiracy theorists and occultists follows from their common, crooked premises. First, "any widely accepted belief must necessarily be false." Second, rejected knowledge — what the establishment spurns — must be true. The result is a large, self-referential network. Flying saucer advocates promote anti-Jewish phobias. Anti-Semites channel in Peru. Some anti-Semites see extraterrestrials functioning as surrogate Jews; others believe the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are the joint product of "the Rothschilds and the reptile-Aryans." By the late 1980s, Mr. Barkun found that "virtually all of the radical right's ideas about the New World Order had found their way into UFO literature."
    1. Protestant Paranoia: The American Protective Association Oath

      In 1887, Henry F. Bowers founded the nativist American Protective Association (APA) in Clinton, Iowa. Bowers was a Mason, and he drew from its fraternal ritual—elaborate regalia, initiation ceremonies, and a secret oath—in organizing the APA. He also drew many Masons, an organization that barred Catholics. The organization quickly acquired an anti-union cast. Among other things, the APA claimed that the Catholic leader of the Knights, Terence V. Powderly, was part of a larger conspiracy against American institutions. Even so, the APA successfully recruited significant numbers of disaffected trade unionists in an era of economic hard times and the collapse of the Knights of Labor. This secret oath taken by members of the American Protective Association in the 1890s revealed the depth of Protestant distrust and fear of Catholics holding public office.

      I do most solemnly promise and swear that I will always, to the utmost of my ability, labor, plead and wage a continuous warfare against ignorance and fanaticism; that I will use my utmost power to strike the shackles and chains of blind obedience to the Roman Catholic church from the hampered and bound consciences of a priest-ridden and church-oppressed people; that I will never allow any one, a member of the Roman Catholic church, to become a member of this order, I knowing him to be such; that I will use my influence to promote the interest of all Protestants everywhere in the world that I may be; that I will not employ a Roman Catholic in any capacity if I can procure the services of a Protestant.

      I furthermore promise and swear that I will not aid in building or maintaining, by my resources, any Roman Catholic church or institution of their sect or creed whatsoever, but will do all in my power to retard and break down the power of the Pope, in this country or any other; that I will not enter into any controversy with a Roman Catholic upon the subject of this order, nor will I enter into any agreement with a Roman Catholic to strike or create a disturbance whereby the Catholic employes may undermine and substitute their Protestant co-workers; that in all grievances I will seek only Protestants and counsel with them to the exclusion of all Roman Catholics, and will not make known to them anything of any nature matured at such conferences.

      I furthermore promise and swear that I will not countenance the nomination, in any caucus or convention, of a Roman Catholic for any office in the gift of the American people, and that I will not vote for, or counsel others to vote for, any Roman Catholic, but will vote only for a Protestant, so far as may lie in my power. Should there be two Roman Catholics on opposite tickets, I will erase the name on the ticket I vote; that I will at all times endeavor to place the political positions of this government in the hands of Protestants, to the entire exclusion of the Roman Catholic church, of the members thereof, and the mandate of the Pope.

      To all of which I do most solemnly promise and swear, so help me God. Amen.

      Source: "The Secret Oath of the American Protective Association, October 31, 1893," in Michael Williams, The Shadow of the Pope (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1932), 103–104. Reprinted in John Tracy Ellis, ed., Documents of American Catholic History (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1956), 500–501.

    1. In 1988, when polio was endemic in 125 countries, the annual assembly of national health ministers, meeting in Geneva, declared their intent to eradicate polio by 2000. That target was missed, but a $3 billion campaign had it contained in six countries by early 2003.
    1. The polio-vaccine conspiracy theory has had direct consequences: Sixteen countries where polio had been eradicated have in recent months reported outbreaks of the disease – twelve in Africa (Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Sudan, and Togo) and four in Asia (India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen). Yemen has had the largest polio outbreak, with more than 83 cases since April. The WHO calls this "a major epidemic."
    1. Q-associated influencers strategically center the U.S. military in their narratives. This appearance of analliance with the military enhances their credibility and attracts followers, including veterans. Thesuggestion of an alliance also creates a cadre of committed adherents.
    1. On the one hand, conspiracy theorists seem to disregard accuracy; they tend to endorse mutually incompatible conspiracies, think intuitively, use heuristics, and hold other irrational beliefs. But by definition, conspiracy theorists reject the mainstream explanation for an event, often in favor of a more complex account. They exhibit a general distrust of others and expend considerable effort to find ‘evidence’ supporting their beliefs. In searching for answers, conspiracy theorists likely expose themselves to misleading information online and overestimate their own knowledge. Understanding when elaboration and cognitive effort might backfire is crucial, as conspiracy beliefs lead to political disengagement, environmental inaction, prejudice, and support for violence.
    1. The Open Society Foundations extend our condolences to the friends and family of loved ones on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17. We are deeply saddened to learn of the loss of the HIV/AIDS researchers and advocates onboard traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, along with all the other people who perished.
    1. Using actual fake-news headlines presented as they were seen on Facebook, we show that even a single exposure increases subsequent perceptions of accuracy, both within the same session and after a week. Moreover, this “illusory truth effect” for fake-news headlines occurs despite a low level of overall believability and even when the stories are labeled as contested by fact checkers or are inconsistent with the reader’s political ideology. These results suggest that social media platforms help to incubate belief in blatantly false news stories and that tagging such stories as disputed is not an effective solution to this problem.
    1. Exposure to elite misinformation is associated with the use of toxic language and moral outrage.

      Shown is the relationship between users’ misinformation-exposure scores and (a) the toxicity of the language used in their tweets, measured using the Google Jigsaw Perspective API27, and (b) the extent to which their tweets involved expressions of moral outrage, measured using the algorithm from ref. 28. Extreme values are winsorized by 95% quantile for visualization purposes. Small dots in the background show individual observations; large dots show the average value across bins of size 0.1, with size of dots proportional to the number of observations in each bin. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

    1. Figure 4: Top 15 spreaders of Russian propaganda (a) andlow-credibility content (b) ranked by the proportion of in-teractions generated over the period of observation, withrespect to all interactions around links to websites in eachgroup. Given the large number of verified accounts, we indi-cate those not verified using “hatched” bars.

    1. we found that social bots played a bridge role in diffusion in the apparent directional topic like “Wuhan Lab”. Previous research also found that social bots play some intermediary roles between elites and everyday users regarding information flow [43]. In addition, verified Twitter accounts continue to be very influential and receive more retweets, whereas social bots retweet more tweets from other users. Studies have found that verified media accounts remain more central to disseminating information during controversial political events [75]. However, occasionally, even the verified accounts—including those of well-known public figures and elected officials—sent misleading tweets. This inspired us to investigate the validity of tweets from verified accounts in subsequent research. It is also essential to rely solely on science and evidence-based conclusions and avoid opinion-based narratives in a time of geopolitical conflict marked by hidden agendas, disinformation, and manipulation [76].
    2. In Figure 6, the node represented by human A is a high-degree centrality account with poor discrimination ability for disinformation and rumors; it is easily affected by misinformation retweeted by social bots. At the same time, it will also refer to the opinions of other persuasive folk opinion leaders in the retweeting process. Human B represents the official institutional account, which has a high in-degree and often pushes the latest news, preventive measures, and suggestions related to COVID-19. Human C represents a human account with high media literacy, which mainly retweets information from information sources with high credibility. It has a solid ability to identify information quality and is not susceptible to the proliferation of social bots. Human D actively creates and spreads rumors and conspiracy theories and only retweets unverified messages that support his views in an attempt to expand the influence. Social bots K, M, and N also spread unverified information (rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation) in the communication network without fact-checking. Social bot L may be a social bot of an official agency.

    3. We analyzed and visualized Twitter data during the prevalence of the Wuhan lab leak theory and discovered that 29% of the accounts participating in the discussion were social bots. We found evidence that social bots play an essential mediating role in communication networks. Although human accounts have a more direct influence on the information diffusion network, social bots have a more indirect influence. Unverified social bot accounts retweet more, and through multiple levels of diffusion, humans are vulnerable to messages manipulated by bots, driving the spread of unverified messages across social media. These findings show that limiting the use of social bots might be an effective method to minimize the spread of conspiracy theories and hate speech online.
    1. Our study of QAnon messages found a highprevalence of linguistic identity fusion indicators along with external threat narratives, violence-condoninggroup norms as well as demonizing, dehumanizing, and derogatory vocabulary applied to the out-group, espe-cially when compared to the non-violent control group. The aim of this piece of research is twofold: (i.) It seeksto evaluate the national security threat posed by the QAnon movement, and (ii.) it aims to provide a test of anovel linguistic toolkit aimed at helping to assess the risk of violence in online communication channels.
    1. The style is one that is now widely recognized as a tool of sowing doubt: the author just asked ‘reasonable’ questions, without making any evidence-based conclusions.Who is the audience of this story and who could potentially be targeted by such content? As Bratich argued, 9/11 represents a prototypical case of ‘national dissensus’ among American individuals, and an apparently legitimate case for raising concerns about the transparency of the US authorities13. It is indicative that whoever designed the launch of RT US knew how polarizing it would be to ask questions about the most painful part of the recent past.
    2. Conspiracy theories that provide names of the beneficiaries of political, social and economic disasters help people to navigate the complexities of the globalized world, and give simple answers as to who is right and who is wrong. If you add to this global communication technologies that help to rapidly develop and spread all sorts of conspiracy theories, these theories turn into a powerful tool to target subnational, national and international communities and to spread chaos and doubt. The smog of subjectivity created by user-generated content and the crisis of expertise have become a true gift to the Kremlin’s propaganda.
    3. To begin with, the US output of RT tapped into the rich American culture of conspiracy theories by running a story entitled ‘911 questions to the US government about 9/11’
    1. Engagement of religious leaders, for example, has been documented as an important approach to improve vaccine acceptance16,57. Key to the preparation of a COVID-19 vaccine is, therefore, the early and frequent engagement of religious and community-leaders58, and for health authorities to work collaboratively with multiple societal stakeholders to avoid the feeling that they are only acting on behalf of government authorities59.
    2. Interestingly, while vaccine hesitant and resistant individuals in Ireland and the UK varied in relation to their social, economic, cultural, political, and geographical characteristics, both populations shared similar psychological profiles. Specifically, COVID-19 vaccine hesitant or resistant persons were distinguished from their vaccine accepting counterparts by being more self-interested, more distrusting of experts and authority figures (i.e. scientists, health care professionals, the state), more likely to hold strong religious beliefs (possibly because these kinds of beliefs are associated with distrust of the scientific worldview) and also conspiratorial and paranoid beliefs (which reflect lack of trust in the intentions of others).
    3. They were also more likely to believe that their lives are primarily under their own control, to have a preference for societies that are hierarchically structured and authoritarian, and to be more intolerant of migrants in society (attitudes that have been previously hypothesised to be consistent with, and understandable in the context of, evolved responses to the threat of pathogens)56. They were also more impulsive in their thinking style, and had a personality characterised by being more disagreeable, more emotionally unstable, and less conscientious.
    4. Across the Irish and UK samples, similarities and differences emerged regarding those in the population who were more likely to be hesitant about, or resistant to, a vaccine for COVID-19. Three demographic factors were significantly associated with vaccine hesitance or resistance in both countries: sex, age, and income level. Compared to respondents accepting of a COVID-19 vaccine, women were more likely to be vaccine hesitant, a finding consistent with a number of studies identifying sex and gender-related differences in vaccine uptake and acceptance37,38. Younger age was also related to vaccine hesitance and resistance.
    5. Similar rates of vaccine hesitance (26% and 25%) and resistance (9% and 6%) were evident in the Irish and UK samples, with only 65% of the Irish population and 69% of the UK population fully willing to accept a COVID-19 vaccine. These findings align with other estimates across seven European nations where 26% of adults indicated hesitance or resistance to a COVID-19 vaccine7 and in the United States where 33% of the population indicated hesitance or resistance34. Rates of resistance to a COVID-19 vaccine also parallel those found for other types of vaccines. For example, in the United States 9% regarded the MMR vaccine as unsafe in a survey of over 1000 adults35, while 7% of respondents across the world said they “strongly disagree” or “somewhat disagree” with the statement ‘Vaccines are safe’36. Thus, upwards of approximately 10% of study populations appear to be opposed to vaccinations in whatever form they take. Importantly, however, the findings from the current study and those from around Europe and the United States may not be consistent with or reflective of vaccine acceptance, hesitancy, or resistance in non-Western countries or regions.
    6. In the Irish sample, the combined vaccine hesitant and resistant group differed most pronouncedly from the vaccine acceptance group on the following psychological variables: lower levels of trust in scientists (d = 0.51), health care professionals (d = 0.45), and the state (d = 0.31); more negative attitudes toward migrants (d’s ranged from 0.27 to 0.29); lower cognitive reflection (d = 0.25); lower levels of altruism (d’s ranged from 0.17 to 0.24); higher levels of social dominance (d = 0.22) and authoritarianism (d = 0.14); higher levels of conspiratorial (d = 0.21) and religious (d = 0.20) beliefs; lower levels of the personality trait agreeableness (d = 0.15); and higher levels of internal locus of control (d = 0.14).
  13. Nov 2022
  14. Sep 2022
    1. In a speech Saturday in Baile Tusnad, Romania, where Orban addresses a school program every summer, the prime minister's remarks were especially polarizing. He carped about "mixed-race" populations and the "flooding" of Europe with non-European migrants, and referred to the racist concept of "population exchange." ''There is a world in which European peoples are mixed together with those arriving from outside Europe,'' he said. ''Now, that is a mixed-race world.'' In the Carpathian Basin, however, people are not mixed-race, he said: ''We are simply a mixture of peoples living in our own European homeland. ... We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race.''
    1. And in July, rapper Kanye West told Forbes that he believed a coronavirus vaccine could “put chips inside of us.”

      Unfortunately, the Pandemic and those who denied its true impact on the world increased in magnitude once more celebrities came out to express similar conspiracies. My own father partook in the spreading of the vaccine rumors and did his best to convince me not to get the vaccine. There were celebrities who I never even thought would believe such outlandish theories about the vaccines and the virus itself that amplified misinformation across the web. These conspiracy theories not only put people at physical risk but also affect the mental state of people in their "impact zone" by directly affecting relationships amongst family members and friends. This is similar to the 2016 US Presidential Election and the infamous Thanksgiving Clapbacks that occurred soon thereafter. Donald Trump directly affected my family after both of these massive events. These celebrities and influencers need to be held accountable for the spreading of disinformation. It seems as though the Pandemic has changed the way people interact with influencers by fact-checking everything they say or put out into the digital world. This needs to continue and will continue to be an effective method to disbursing ideaologies and groups similar to Q-Anon.

  15. Aug 2022
    1. 2014 stod de så pass nära att Ulf Hansen var en av gästerna på en privat maskeradfest hemma hos Jimmie Åkesson och Louise Erixon. Alltså bara ett drygt år efter att Hansen visat sitt stöd för Hells Angels. Efter det kom Ulf Hansen allt närmare partiet. Hans bakgrund verkade inte vara ett problem. Inte heller den rasism han spred på nätet.  I mars 2015 postade Ulf Hansen ett inlägg med en länk till vit makt-filmen The End Game – Full White Genocide documentary. Konspirationsteorin om att det pågår ett folkmord på vita är central i vit makt-miljön och populariserades av den amerikanska terroristen David Lane. I anslutning till klippet som Ulf Hansen spred länkades till flera rasideologiska och antisemitiska sajter.
  16. Jul 2022
    1. “Conspiracy theory, like causality, works fantastically well as an explanatory model but only if you use it backwards. The fact that we cannot predict much about tomorrow strongly indicates that most of the explanations we develop about how something happened yesterday have (like history in general) a high bullshit content.” ― Peter J. Carroll, Psybermagick: Advanced Ideas in Chaos Magick
  17. Apr 2022
    1. Kolina Koltai, PhD [@KolinaKoltai]. (2021, September 27). When you search ‘Covid-19’ on Amazon, the number 1 product is from known antivaxxer Dr. Mercola. 4 out of the top 8 items are either vaccine opposed/linked to conspiratorial narratives about covid. Amazon continues to be a venue for vaccine misinformation. Https://t.co/rWHhZS8nPl [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/KolinaKoltai/status/1442545052954202121

    1. Dr. Jonathan N. Stea. (2021, January 25). Covid-19 misinformation? We’re over it. Pseudoscience? Over it. Conspiracies? Over it. Want to do your part to amplify scientific expertise and evidence-based health information? Join us. 🇨🇦 Follow us @ScienceUpFirst. #ScienceUpFirst https://t.co/81iPxXXn4q. Https://t.co/mIcyJEsPXe [Tweet]. @jonathanstea. https://twitter.com/jonathanstea/status/1353705111671869440

  18. Mar 2022
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