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The question I am not seeing addressed in the many, many comments below is: why is there such a large pool of people willing to believe, and act on, ideas like "5G causes COVID-19 symptoms", "vaccines are harmful", anything by Alex Jones, etc? It is because people are afraid, and because there is a breakdown of trust in Authorities and Experts to tell the truth and keep people safe. Governments and intelligence agencies lied about Iraq and beyond. Large corporations were the only ones saved in 2008. There is a reproducibility crisis in science, which it pays lip service, and lip service only, to solving. Newspapers have become partisan, ad-driven shills. Corporations buy politicians, and together they invent truths as needed to further the bottom line. This is the context in which people are increasingly skeptical of Authorities. "5G causes coronavirus", I think, like flat-earth belief, is less an actual belief a person could actually have, than an almost symbolic statement of distrust in Experts. The specific belief is completely unfounded, but the feeling behind it is not. In this context, I fail to see how corporate censorship could possibly be the answer. At the very best, it is a band-aid. The necessary solution is for our institutions to regain their credibility. The first in many steps will be for them to show some humility and acknowledge that they have failed us badly. Until that credibility is re-established, they need to use a softer touch, rather than doubling down on the obviously false idea that their words are the Infallible Truth. |