Conspiracy theorists are nothing new. They’ve been around since the moon landing which, by the way, they believe didn’t happen. In fact, most will confidently look you in the eye and tell you it was filmed in a Hollywood studio. Or the theory that the Democrats are really the ones who are behind some child sex ring. Utter nonsense: that’s the Catholic Church’s playground. And more famous still is the theory in which Queen Elizabeth sent her goons to bump off Diana for cavorting with a Muslim, who was better looking than her large-eared son. Charles thereafter didn’t take long to hook up with his long-lost love Camilla Parker Bowles.
Speaking of horses, that brings me onto Ivermectin. You may not have heard of this but it’s a medicine that works phenomenally well, for horses and other farmyard animals. And people too, according to those who refuse to take the vaccine that has passed the FDA standards and would instead take medicine for farm animals. Originally, I thought they were horsing around, but learned that they’re as serious as Melinda Gates about her 60 billion Dollar divorce settlement.
So, what is the actual conspiracy theory behind the Coronavirus and the vaccine? Conspiracy theorists believe that the global elites, better known as the 1 percenters, including but not limited to the infamous Illuminati, want to cull large numbers of the earth’s population, because of overpopulation. Supposedly, Bill Gates, Dr Anthony Fauci and a few others are ushering us all into the slaughterhouse by way of a man-made virus, and they also happened to have developed the vaccine which, along with the virus, will kill us. Right now, Bill Gates has bigger problems than losing sleep over ways to half the earth’s population, such as that 60 billion dollars he now has to part ways with.
Interestingly enough, if you’ve ever chatted to a conspiracy theorist one thing will become evident: they believe in almost every conspiracy theory they have ever heard, instead of only one or two which may seem to present semi-convincing evidence.
Growing curious, I turned to the internet and scanned several articles on what drives them to this silliness; to see what is going on in their heads and, perhaps even more importantly, to find out what’s missing from their minds.
Turns out that conspiracy theorists have a challenging time employing critical thinking. Not the Stephen Hawking sort of critical thinking that requires one to imagine what lies just beyond the lip of a black hole hurtling through space. I mean the sort of critical thinking that is called logic. Apart from a clear difference in reasoning ability, it is also common for them to have a deep distrust of society, especially of people in powerful positions, such as government. Don’t confuse this with symptoms of paranoia or mental illness: many mentally ill patients can still reason.
Despite the gargantuan odds stacked against them, what the conspiracy theorist wants more than anything else in the entire world is a chance to be right; they want to expose those of us who read and believe in science as having been duped by the elites and governments; to show us that the world is exactly as sinister as they believe and then some. For the conspiracy theorist, the greatest pay-off will be the day they can look us in the eye and say, “see, I told you so!” Coincidentally, that will occur on the same day Lucy lets Charlie Brown kick the football.
Chatting over a cigarette I told a friend who lives for conspiracy theories that as a child he had the polio vaccine, for which he couldn’t name one ingredient. I also reminded him that had he not been given the polio vaccine, he could never have been the school hopscotch champion.
Why rely on silly scientific advancements to save us when all we need to do is turn to a book written more than two thousand years ago, is the reply I get when approaching antivaxxers. In case you’re confused, I am talking about a book in which snakes talk and the book whose longest-lasting legacy is that Israel and Palestine cannot stop showering each other in missiles and whatever sized stones Palestinians can hurl.
The biggest challenge of all is getting antivaxxers to join the real world and receive their vaccinations. Without it, we won’t be able to save lives, and as a result society is prevented from developing herd immunity, making us less resilient against the virus and whatever mutations may be waiting in the wings. Notwithstanding the fact that nine out of every ten patients who die from Covid is someone who has not yet had the vaccine, or refuses entirely, antivaxxers persist in reminding us that we are a bunch of gullible fools too stupid to see the vaccine for what it really is: a means by which to control who lives and who dies. And in a bizarre twist, for once they are right: it is they who have chosen to die.