The Axis Of Ignorance: My Terrifying Journey Into COVID Conspiracy Land

[Celerity]

Q-Anon and New Age Wellness "experts" are peddling in extremely dangerous conspiracy theories that threaten to undermine our response to the Coronavirus.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/the-axis-of-ignorance-my-terrifying



I generally have a strict policy of keeping things civil on Facebook, but during the Coronavirus pandemic I have deleted dozens and dozens of friends. Why? Because it turns out I know quite a few narcissistic conspiracy theorists who think they understand the pandemic better than epidemiologists, doctors and virologists. I deleted the Trump supporters several years ago, but would have regarded the majority of the friends I deleted from my circle recently as being politically liberal. I genuinely found it perplexing that people I thought to be intelligent were sharing anti mask wearing, COVID denying posts from a plethora of Q-Anon nutjobs, anti-vaxxers and New Age spiritualists. What surprised me the most though, was the number of people I knew who were spreading versions of this nonsense. If my circle of well educated, mostly kind and thoughtful friends were falling prey to these ludicrous conspiracies, then what did that say about the rest of society? According to one frightening poll, 50% of all Fox News viewers believe Bill Gates wants to use a coronavirus vaccine to inject a microchip into people and track the world’s population. A recent report by the Guardian documented “more than 170 QAnon groups, pages and accounts across Facebook and Instagram with more than 4.5 million aggregate followers.” This warranted some investigation given the stakes during a global pandemic. What on earth was going on?

The Axis Of Ignorance

After several back and forths with some of my former acquaintances and an extremely bizarre conversation over the phone with an old friend who insisted COVID-19 was a Chinese creation built on HIV in a lab in Wuhan (and that Hillary Clinton was part of a pedophile ring trying to create a new global government), I began to look deeper into what was going on. What I discovered was truly, truly terrifying. After several weeks of reading through conspiracy filled Facebook groups and Twitter accounts, I began to see a broader web of scientifically fraudulent, occult, often racist conspiracy theories that were being propagated by a network of fringe scientists, New Age grifters, and “Wellness Experts”. In this new, bizarro COVID denialism world, COVID-19 is not real, but a manifestation of our fears and an attempt to vaccinate the population with microchips, Donald Trump (or ‘Q’) is engaged in a seismic battle against The Deep State, Bill Gates, bankers (read: Jews) and evil celebrity pedophiles to liberate the masses and usher in a new dawn of spiritual awakening and freedom. There appears to be various iterations of this conspiracy, some focused on Trump, some focused on 5g/vaccines/globalists, and some that take the craziest aspects of each to create a sort of Frankenstein Super Conspiracy. Each school of thought has differing spiritual interpretations about the up and coming “awakening”. The Q-Anon crowd appear to believe in a biblical, Revelations inspired interpretation of what is about to go down, while the New Agers are focusing on a sort of Yogic themed spiritual metamorphosis, or ‘Ascension’ (apparently with the help of deeply concerned extraterrestrials). The more you go down the rabbit hole, the darker and weirder it gets.

The Fracturing Of Reality

Extreme inequality in America has made the country ripe for a fascist takeover for decades, and Trump had the right combination of ego, charisma, and narcissism to finally make it happen. The president has made it his mission to confuse and disorient the American population so that they no longer have a grasp on what is true and what is not. As chess grandmaster and Russian political dissident Gary Kasparov said, “The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” In the Age of Donald Trump, the foundation of reality has now become so fractured that these wild conspiracy theories should not come as much of a surprise to those who have been paying attention. Trump’s war on critical thinking has exacerbated the deep dysfunction in American society and further separated the population into increasingly militant echo chambers with radically different understandings of reality. Presidents from both parties have historically been careful not to foment too much unrest for fear of breaking the politically fragile union beyond repair. But not Trump. He thrives on conflict, and he has done everything in his power to destroy what is left of American civil society. Right wing conspiracy theories have become mainstream news. New Age pseudoscience and “Wellness” grifting are multi billion dollar industries. The public is bombarded with a potent mixture of political conspiracy theories, diet supplements, and fraudulent health advice on social media, and with access to Trump’s insane trail of thought on his Twitter feed, their brains are now completely fried. In this new era of political chaos, misinformation and hucksterism, it is no wonder people are falling for conspiracy theories. They are so confused, so scared, and so desperate for certainty that they will believe almost anything — as long as it isn’t on CNN.

Damage people in a damaged movement

Looking at the psychological profile of the Q-Anon and New Age crowd pushing these conspiracy theories, several overlapping characteristic become immediately apparent. Firstly, there is an extreme need for certainty. While most people accept the world is a complex place they cannot understand or predict with any great reliability, Q-Anon adherents and New Agers insist that that everything can be explained by dark, coordinated forces that are responsible for humanity’s suffering. There are no random events — everything is planned and executed by a sinister cabal of nefarious globalist seeking to control the world for their own benefit. Secondly, conspiracy theorists seek to avoid their own personal pain. In a fantastic piece on Medium, yoga instructor Julian Walker writes about his experience in an industry filled with people he describes as being “ensconced in a worldview that uses metaphysical beliefs as a way to defend against, distort, or reframe legitimate human suffering, vulnerability to illness and accidents, trauma, injustice, and painful emotions as not really being what they are.” He continues: From this belief system, we practice a defensive stance that says anytime we don’t like something, some unspiritual force of darkness must be out there forcing this illusion on us, and the only way to prevail is to dig our heels in and repeat the spiritual bypass mantras and affirmations, no matter what. Sickness, negativity, painful emotions, and limited materialist science opposing any of our emotionally held beliefs, are all the many faces of this new version of a malevolent Satan who tries to keep us asleep. The bible reading Q-Anon adherents might not be practicing Yoga or trying to ascend physical reality through their third-eye, but they are convinced of occult forces out to get them and the coming dawn of a new, Jesus filled era (with no homosexuality or feminism of course).

Reality cannot be experienced for what it is, it must be escaped at all costs.

Thirdly, the New Ager conspiracy crowd and Q-Anon adherents likely suffer from a combination of paranoia, low self esteem issues, and narcissistic personality disorders. Conspiracies feed their need to feel “special” and privy to information others aren’t able to comprehend, or are too brainwashed to see. As Joseph M. Pierre, M.D., a Health Sciences Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA writes: Some of the psychological quirks that are thought to drive belief in conspiracy theories include need for uniqueness and needs for certainty, closure, and control that are especially salient during times of crisis. Conspiracy theories offer answers to questions about events when explanations are lacking. While those answers consist of dark narratives involving bad actors and secret plots, conspiracy theories capture our attention, offer a kind of reassurance that things happen for a reason, and can make believers feel special that they’re privy to secrets to which the rest of us “sheeple” are blind. I have been labeled a “sheep” (or part of the “sheeple”) many times by conspiracy theorists because I don’t believe there is a coordinated effort to insert microchips into babies via vaccines, or that the pandemic is a manifestation of our fears that can be cured with pilates and positive thinking. And as a result, I have had to let go of several friendships.

How do we combat this?......................

snip

[dawn5651]

1. i received a video from a friend on facebook

the video was by someone who was claiming to have worked in the field and that the government has every intention of injecting this chip along with the fake coronavirus vaccine......i just shake my head.

[denem]

2. Next up: Bill Gates killed Steve Jobs.

[TomVilmer]

3. Those same strange bedfellows shares 9/11 conspiracy theories...

[Hortensis]

4. The word "terrifying" is being thrown around a lot. A guest

on Brian Williams last night said QAnon followers on line were estimated at very minimum a "terrifying" 3 million. It's way too much, but out of 330M I think it's too early to be terrified. Except for desperate leaders of evangelical churches helpless to stop the self destruction.

She herself belongs to 100 groups she observes, and no doubt a lot of others are trying to learn more about the rabbit hole friends and relatives have disappeared down.

I did pay attention, though, when she said this mostly RW conspiracist, evangelical, trumpist crowd is starting to talk genocide. Of course. Democrats eat children.

Maybe someone will help them to become a suicide cult instead. It might be shockingly easy, and one way or another membership would drop.

[Squinch]

5. Mother nature appears to be sorting this.

[Roland99]

6. K&R