90% of Americans believe at least one conspiracy theory (2 Viewers)

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Very interesting article about how people into wellness are susceptible to conspiracy theories
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…….Thanks to wellness, QAnon is the conspiracy that can draw in the mum who shops at Holland & Barrett and her Andrew Tate-watching teenage son. The QAnon conspiracy is one of the most dangerous in the world, directly linked to attempted insurrections in the US and Germany, and mass shootings in multiple countries – and wellness is helping to fuel it.

Something about the strange mixture of mistrust of the mainstream, the intimate nature of the relationship between a therapist, spiritual adviser, or even personal trainer, and their client, combined with the conspiratorial world in which we now live, is giving rise to a new kind of radicalisation. How did we end up here?

There are many people interested in spiritualism, alternative medicine, meditation, or personal training, whose views fall well within the mainstream – and more who, if they have niche views, choose not to share them with their clients. But even a cursory online request about this issue led to me being deluged with responses. Despite most experiences being far less intense than Jane’s, no one wanted to put their name to their story – something about the closeness of wellness interactions makes people loth to commit a “betrayal”, it seems.

One person recounted how her pole-dancing instructor would – while up the pole, hanging on with her legs – explain how the CIA was covering up evidence of aliens, and offer tips on avoiding alien abduction.

“A physiotherapist would tell me, while working on my back with me lying face down, about her weekly ‘meetings’ in London about ‘current affairs’,” another said. “There was a whiff about it, but it was ignorable. Then, the last time I saw her, she muttered darkly about the Rothschilds [a common target of antisemitic conspiracy theories] ‘and people like that’. I didn’t go back.”

Some people’s problems escalated when their personal trainer learned about their work. “I had three successive personal trainers who were anti-vax. One Belgian, two Swiss,” I was told by a British man who has spent most of the past decade working in Europe for the World Economic Forum, which organises the annual summit at Davos for politicians and the world’s elite.

“It was hard because I used to argue with all of them and the Swiss made life very difficult for the unvaccinated, but the Swiss bloke insisted that, with the right mental attitude and exercise, you could defeat any illness. I was always asking what would happen if he got rabies.”

When the trainer found out the man worked for the World Economic Forum, he was immediately cut off.

Other respondents’ stories covered everything from yoga to reiki, weightlifters to alternative dog trainers. The theories they shared ranged from extreme versions of wellness-related conspiracies – about the risks of 5G and wifi, or Microsoft founder Bill Gates plotting with vaccines – to 15-minute cities, paedophile rings and bankers’ conspiracies.

Is there a reason why people under the wellness and fitness umbrella might be prone to being induced into conspiracy? It is not that difficult to imagine why young men hitting the gym might be susceptible to QAnon and its ilk. This group spends a lot of time online, there is a supposed crisis of masculinity manifesting in the “incel” (involuntary celibacy) movement and similar, and numerous rightwing influencers have been targeting this group. Add in a masculine gym culture and a community already keen to look for the “secrets” of getting healthy, and there is a lot for a conspiracy theory to hook itself on to.

What is more interesting, surely, is how women old enough to be these men’s mothers find themselves sucked in by the same rhetoric. These are often people with more life experience, who have completed their education and been working – often for decades – and have apparently functional adult lives.

But, as Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, observes, the answer may lie in looking at why women turn to wellness and alternative medicine in the first place.

“Far too often, we blame women for turning to alternative medicine, painting them as credulous and even dangerous,” she says. “But the blame does not lie with the women – it lies with the gender data gap. Thanks to hundreds of years of treating the male body as the default in medicine, we simply do not know enough about how disease manifests in the female body.”

Women are overwhelmingly likely to suffer from auto-immune disorders, chronic pain and chronic fatigue – and such patients often hit a point at which their doctors tell them there is nothing they can do.

The conditions are under-researched and the treatments are often brutal. Is it any surprise that trust in conventional medicine and big pharma is shaken? And is it any surprise that people look for something to fill that void?…….

Peter Knight, professor of American studies at the University of Manchester, who has studied conspiracy theories and their history, notes that the link between alternative therapies and conspiracy is at least a century old, and has been much ignored.

“New age and conspiracy theories both see themselves as counter-knowledges that challenge what they see as received wisdom,” he says. “Conspiracy theories provide the missing link, turbo-charging an existing account of what’s happening by claiming that it is not just the result of chance or the unintended consequences of policy choices, but the result of a deliberate, secret plan, whether by big pharma, corrupt scientists, the military-industrial complex or big tech.”

Knight notes an extra factor, though – the wellness pipeline has become a co-dependency. Many far-right or conspiracy sites now fund themselves through supplements or fitness products, usually by hyping how the mainstream doesn’t want the audience to have them.

Alex Jones, the US conspiracist who for a decade claimed the Sandy Hook shootings – which killed 20 children and six adults – were a false-flag operation, had his financial records opened up when he was sued by the families of the victims. During the cases, it emerged he had made a huge amount of money by selling his own branded wellness products…….

www.theguardian.com

‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie!’ Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline

One minute you’re doing the downward dog, the next you’re listening to conspiracy theories about Covid or the new world order. How did the desire to look after yourself become so toxic?
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
Last edited:
Optimus Prime said:
Very interesting article about how people into wellness are susceptible to conspiracy theories
=================

…….Thanks to wellness, QAnon is the conspiracy that can draw in the mum who shops at Holland & Barrett and her Andrew Tate-watching teenage son. The QAnon conspiracy is one of the most dangerous in the world, directly linked to attempted insurrections in the US and Germany, and mass shootings in multiple countries – and wellness is helping to fuel it.

Something about the strange mixture of mistrust of the mainstream, the intimate nature of the relationship between a therapist, spiritual adviser, or even personal trainer, and their client, combined with the conspiratorial world in which we now live, is giving rise to a new kind of radicalisation. How did we end up here?

There are many people interested in spiritualism, alternative medicine, meditation, or personal training, whose views fall well within the mainstream – and more who, if they have niche views, choose not to share them with their clients. But even a cursory online request about this issue led to me being deluged with responses. Despite most experiences being far less intense than Jane’s, no one wanted to put their name to their story – something about the closeness of wellness interactions makes people loth to commit a “betrayal”, it seems.

One person recounted how her pole-dancing instructor would – while up the pole, hanging on with her legs – explain how the CIA was covering up evidence of aliens, and offer tips on avoiding alien abduction.

“A physiotherapist would tell me, while working on my back with me lying face down, about her weekly ‘meetings’ in London about ‘current affairs’,” another said. “There was a whiff about it, but it was ignorable. Then, the last time I saw her, she muttered darkly about the Rothschilds [a common target of antisemitic conspiracy theories] ‘and people like that’. I didn’t go back.”

Some people’s problems escalated when their personal trainer learned about their work. “I had three successive personal trainers who were anti-vax. One Belgian, two Swiss,” I was told by a British man who has spent most of the past decade working in Europe for the World Economic Forum, which organises the annual summit at Davos for politicians and the world’s elite.

“It was hard because I used to argue with all of them and the Swiss made life very difficult for the unvaccinated, but the Swiss bloke insisted that, with the right mental attitude and exercise, you could defeat any illness. I was always asking what would happen if he got rabies.”

When the trainer found out the man worked for the World Economic Forum, he was immediately cut off.

Other respondents’ stories covered everything from yoga to reiki, weightlifters to alternative dog trainers. The theories they shared ranged from extreme versions of wellness-related conspiracies – about the risks of 5G and wifi, or Microsoft founder Bill Gates plotting with vaccines – to 15-minute cities, paedophile rings and bankers’ conspiracies.

Is there a reason why people under the wellness and fitness umbrella might be prone to being induced into conspiracy? It is not that difficult to imagine why young men hitting the gym might be susceptible to QAnon and its ilk. This group spends a lot of time online, there is a supposed crisis of masculinity manifesting in the “incel” (involuntary celibacy) movement and similar, and numerous rightwing influencers have been targeting this group. Add in a masculine gym culture and a community already keen to look for the “secrets” of getting healthy, and there is a lot for a conspiracy theory to hook itself on to.

What is more interesting, surely, is how women old enough to be these men’s mothers find themselves sucked in by the same rhetoric. These are often people with more life experience, who have completed their education and been working – often for decades – and have apparently functional adult lives.

But, as Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, observes, the answer may lie in looking at why women turn to wellness and alternative medicine in the first place.

“Far too often, we blame women for turning to alternative medicine, painting them as credulous and even dangerous,” she says. “But the blame does not lie with the women – it lies with the gender data gap. Thanks to hundreds of years of treating the male body as the default in medicine, we simply do not know enough about how disease manifests in the female body.”

Women are overwhelmingly likely to suffer from auto-immune disorders, chronic pain and chronic fatigue – and such patients often hit a point at which their doctors tell them there is nothing they can do.

The conditions are under-researched and the treatments are often brutal. Is it any surprise that trust in conventional medicine and big pharma is shaken? And is it any surprise that people look for something to fill that void?…….

Peter Knight, professor of American studies at the University of Manchester, who has studied conspiracy theories and their history, notes that the link between alternative therapies and conspiracy is at least a century old, and has been much ignored.

“New age and conspiracy theories both see themselves as counter-knowledges that challenge what they see as received wisdom,” he says. “Conspiracy theories provide the missing link, turbo-charging an existing account of what’s happening by claiming that it is not just the result of chance or the unintended consequences of policy choices, but the result of a deliberate, secret plan, whether by big pharma, corrupt scientists, the military-industrial complex or big tech.”

Knight notes an extra factor, though – the wellness pipeline has become a co-dependency. Many far-right or conspiracy sites now fund themselves through supplements or fitness products, usually by hyping how the mainstream doesn’t want the audience to have them.

Alex Jones, the US conspiracist who for a decade claimed the Sandy Hook shootings – which killed 20 children and six adults – were a false-flag operation, had his financial records opened up when he was sued by the families of the victims. During the cases, it emerged he had made a huge amount of money by selling his own branded wellness products…….

www.theguardian.com

‘Everything you’ve been told is a lie!’ Inside the wellness-to-fascism pipeline

One minute you’re doing the downward dog, the next you’re listening to conspiracy theories about Covid or the new world order. How did the desire to look after yourself become so toxic?
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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This definitely makes sense. I have a family member who is into health news and is always trying to find some new heath thing. She's the kind of person who will buy "vitamins" for whatever and it's maddening because those profiting off of the health nut craze can advertise just about anything and they're often vague about the numbers and efficacy and ultimately, a lot of the stuff she orders is as useless as a sugar pill.

She consumes news the same way. It's beyond irritating when she spouts some wild theory she reads online. She knows not to believe everything she reads, but still believes too much of it.
 
DaveXA said:
This definitely makes sense. I have a family member who is into health news and is always trying to find some new heath thing. She's the kind of person who will buy "vitamins" for whatever and it's maddening because those profiting off of the health nut craze can advertise just about anything and they're often vague about the numbers and efficacy and ultimately, a lot of the stuff she orders is as useless as a sugar pill.

She consumes news the same way. It's beyond irritating when she spouts some wild theory she reads online. She knows not to believe everything she reads, but still believes too much of it.
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There’s another layer of complication here - the (very well documented) placebo effect
If you THINK a (chemically) useless vitamin is effective it will be (within a narrow ish range)
As well, ‘alternative’ health practices - yoga, tai chi, meditation, et al - are effective. The problem is that the practitioner seldom know what the effective limit is (yoga can help with hypertension but maybe not particular heart disease) and most medical professionals have spent their entire careers studying medicine (springing into action when things go bad) and not health/wholeness

Also, while the article is important, I’m not sure it’s as helpful as it could be - yes people concerned with health are susceptible to snake oil salesmen, just as people concerned with religion or politics or finance or any other human endeavor are
This seems as much a media literacy concern as anything
 
guidomerkinsrules said:
There’s another layer of complication here - the (very well documented) placebo effect
If you THINK a (chemically) useless vitamin is effective it will be (within a narrow ish range)
As well, ‘alternative’ health practices - yoga, tai chi, meditation, et al - are effective. The problem is that the practitioner seldom know what the effective limit is (yoga can help with hypertension but maybe not particular heart disease) and most medical professionals have spent their entire careers studying medicine (springing into action when things go bad) and not health/wholeness

Also, while the article is important, I’m not sure it’s as helpful as it could be - yes people concerned with health are susceptible to snake oil salesmen, just as people concerned with religion or politics or finance or any other human endeavor are
This seems as much a media literacy concern as anything
Click to expand...
Good point regarding media literacy.
 
DaveXA said:
This definitely makes sense. I have a family member who is into health news and is always trying to find some new heath thing. She's the kind of person who will buy "vitamins" for whatever and it's maddening because those profiting off of the health nut craze can advertise just about anything and they're often vague about the numbers and efficacy and ultimately, a lot of the stuff she orders is as useless as a sugar pill.

She consumes news the same way. It's beyond irritating when she spouts some wild theory she reads online. She knows not to believe everything she reads, but still believes too much of it.
Click to expand...

as someone on MAP said it also the appeal of being 'special' of knowing something that most don't (Oh, you actually buy canned food?")

I know that wellness has its own misinformation/snake oil problem

For every one thing that is legit and effective it seems like there's a dozen (or hundred) that is complete bullshirt

And to Guido's point on media literacy, I've seen online adds saying "Doctors beg people to start eating this one food" and there'll be a picture of an avocado.

Literally right next to that ad is another that says "Doctors beg people to stop eating this one food" and there'll be a picture of an avocado. Sometimes it's the exact same picture

So you have no idea what to think or believe
 
Optimus Prime said:
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Well I believe the earth is round cuz, like, you ever watch a lava lamp man? Those goo balls inside are, like, balls for a reason. Cuz the Earth was made of lava and it formed into a goo ball of lava just like the lava lamp. Lava lamps don’t form plates, man, they form balls.

Jeez, why is that so difficult?


😎
 
Optimus Prime said:
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The flat Earth might be the dumbest of all to me. I really believe it is a giant troll. How can anyone be that naive.

The dude called himself a "planar theorist." That is adorable.

Every day observations? What does that even mean? Like? Weather? I bet if we used the every day observations from a Aleutian and a Somali, we might get different results. Maybe he means terrain? Heck same example.

I am being facetious, I know he means "it looks flat!" Ridiculousness.

So since I had a meeting get cancelled I will do the math for him. I work in scale so I'll use that illustration here.

The Earth's diameter is 12,742km. A basketball has a diameter of about 24.26cm.

This gives us a ratio of:
1 : 52,522,671

So completing the scale down for humans:

Being the incredibly generous (and admittedly lazy) person I am, I will say the average human is 2m tall (over 6' so way over the actual average).

Using that same ratio we come to about 38 nanometers.

Google tells me that is about the size of a small virus that you would need an electron microscope to see.

So, if we were a virus on a basketball, do you think you would be able to see the curve? No. You wouldn't.

And for fun and perspective, if the Earth was a basketball, and we were the size of ants, we would be bigger than Mount Everest in scale.
 

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