Have you heard the latest rumor?
A short report on some of the BS you can find on the internet…
Back when I was a kid our TV had four channels; CBS, NBC, ABC and some local channel that was one of our favorites because it featured Big Time Wrestling which appeared to take place in somebody’s garage.
If you wanted to hear music there were a few Top 40 radio shows and by the 1970s an alternative radio station called KZAP that played entire albums at a time and featured disc jockeys who sounded high.
There were also two newspapers.
As far as media went, that was about it.
The downside of that situation was that news and entertainment had a very narrow funnel it had to get through to make it to an audience. But because there were so many filters news had to pass through, the upside was that if Walter Cronkite said it, it was probably true.
Now the floodgates have been opened and I have hundreds of TV channels, thousands of ways to hear music that would never have made it on Top 40 radio and while we’re down to about half a newspaper a town, thousands of sources of information.
And that last one can be a problem.
These days anybody – and I’m living proof – can put pretty much anything on the internet. That means we all have to decide what we’re going to believe in what we’re going to reject.
So out of curiosity and boredom I googled “coronavirus rumors” and here’s just some of what I found:
Bill Gates is responsible for the global pandemic either because he has a secret vaccine and wants to make money by selling it to us or he wants to control the world because when we get the vaccine he’ll take the opportunity to inject “trackers” in our bodies or because he’s actually the Antichrist and Antichrists tend to be dicks in general.
The Bill Gates rumor is untrue because it’s actually Dr. Anthony Fauci that’s behind all this.
Both the Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci rumors are untrue because the COVID-19 virus is actually caused by 5G technology and if we want to get things back under control we need to attack cell phone towers.
The Bill Gates, Dr. Fauci and 5G technology rumors are untrue because the COVID-19 pandemic is actually an excuse for the government to round up devil-worshipping sex traffickers who, according to certain wingnuts, include Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks.
There are numerous “cures” for the coronavirus including something called “black cat paste” which sounds kinda hard on the cats. You can also spend $4,000 on COVID-19 treatment packs – no word on how much black cat they contain.
Clearly, you can’t believe every rumor you read on the internet because so many rumors contradict other rumors. I could go on, but tracking down all the BS on the internet, who said it, what their supposed expertise is and what axe they have to grind is exhausting.
So what should we believe?
The best I can come up with is our own common sense, so I don’t believe the government or Bill Gates is plotting to inject trackers into our bodies because they can already track us through our cell phones which we carry voluntarily and actually pay someone else for the privilege.
I won’t be surprised if carrying around cell phones has some effect on our health (mine spends about 16 hours a day in my right pant pocket which is uncomfortably close to my crotch) so while I won’t be surprised if my sexual organs eventually glow in the dark, I don’t think it’s likely 5G technology is responsible for a virus that screws up our lungs.
I don’t think our government is busy rounding up devil-worshipping sex traffickers because they didn’t do jackshit about Jeffrey Epstein until some girl’s parent complained.
I don’t think “black cat paste” will cure COVID-19, although I wouldn’t mind having some to use in my hair which after a month and half since my last haircut, is starting to resemble a tumbleweed in a high wind.
And finally — as the cartoon above indicates — I don’t think over a quarter-million people have faked their deaths.
Stay safe, everybody…and be careful who you listen to.
It was all those old news sources that promoted the weapons of mass destruction story.
Another rumor going around is that hospital funding is based on number of Covid cases. Follow the money and then check your statistics. Apply your common sense to those numbers.
250,000- is that a projection, a guess, or more fearmongering? The IMHE projects 147,040 deaths by August 4, for the US and their projections so far have always been overestimated. I think the cure is killing more than the disease, or, at least, adding to it.
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