Conspiracy theories in a time of crisis

Conspiracy theories seem to be endemic, at least in the US. There seems to be a sizeable size of the US population willing to believe in all manner of theories about any major event that have little or no factual basis and this period of the coronavirus pandemic is no exception.

The last thing America needed on top of a president still in denial over the state current pandemic is the rest of the population believing conspiracies about it, but here we are.

While scientists agree that the virus emerged from nature, the uncertainty over how people were first infected by Covid-19 has left space for misinformation to grow. In Britain, that has meant the propagation of a random conspiracy theory about a link between coronavirus and 5G wireless technology – which almost a third of people say they can’t rule out.

In the US, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center, about a third of Americans surveyed believe that Covid-19 was created by humans in a laboratory.
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A very stable genius discusses combating the pandemic

At the eight-minute mark in this segment from Seth Meyers, we find Trump saying antibiotics used to be able to combat all kinds of diseases but that Covid-19 is such a “brilliant enemy” that is so “very smart and invisible” that antibiotics do not work against it.

Yes folks, the person who has described himself as a “very stable genius” does not know that antibiotics only work against bacteria and that the coronavirus is, you know, a virus.

Trump is a textbook case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Voter suppression efforts in Wisconsin backfired

Last week Wisconsin held elections despite efforts by the state’s Democratic governor Tony Evers to postpone the event like other states have done due to fears of people congregating in voting places during this pandemic. But the state’s Republican controlled legislature over-ruled him and it was backed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that has a 5-2 Republican majority. Like many states in the US, the positions on the Supreme Court are elected and people run of partisan platforms. When the governor tried to at least extend the deadline for absentee voting, the legislature again blocked him and took the case to the US Supreme Court that upheld their claim. So the election went ahead with long lines of people who sometimes had to wait for hours to vote. This was especially true in the urban areas where minority and poorer voters are where, as usual, polling stations were much fewer than in more affluent suburban areas.
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The dysfunctional White House response to the pandemic

The verdict is in and the conclusion is that the Trump administration utterly botched its response to the Covid-19 epidemic. Andy Kroll catalogs the many missteps and that the dysfunction extends to the coronavirus task force created by Trump, compounded by the fact that Trump seems to have enormous faith in his son-in-law Jared Kushner to deal with complex matters even though there is no evidence that he is at all competent. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth just like Trump and they both seem to think that this denotes ability.
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Another excellent show from John Oliver

In the latest episode, he focuses on the people who are most affected by the pandemic, those who have lost their jobs and those who are deemed to be essential workers, and why their current plight is a strong argument for permanently providing the kinds of protections that the government is now trying to temporarily meet, such as universal free health care, paid sick leave, better unemployment benefits. In fact, conservatives, and businesses like Amazon, are worried that the demand for such things will be too strong to resist.

Sports addictions during the pandemic

While addressing the needs of drug addicts is an important concern during the pandemic (and I have discussed earlier coffee and alcohol, and other drugs), there are others whom we sometimes also label as ‘addicts’ because they are incredibly devoted to something, even though this may not be due to ingesting anything. One major category among these types of addictions is sports.

Rhiannon, from over at Intransitive who lives in Taiwan, knowing that I am a cricket fan, sent me a link to a Taiwanese media news item about efforts by cricket fans in India trying to get Taiwan to broadcast their games so that they can be watched in India, even though Taiwanese cricket would have been utterly scorned as a fourth-rate cricket power just a month or so earlier. This is because cricket is apparently still being played in that country and these fans, who are some of the most fanatical fans in the world, are suffering due to being deprived of watching live cricket matches. (I was surprised that Taiwan is allowing games during this time, even though the games are being played in empty stadiums with fans told to stay away.)
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Can capitalism survive the pandemic?

The answer is very likely ‘yes’. The demise of capitalism has been predicted many times since Karl Marx proposed that it would collapse because of its contradictions but it has proven to be remarkably resilient. What usually happens is that following crises, capitalism takes on new forms to escape being taken down completely,. Capitalism, like socialism, is an umbrella term that encompasses many different varieties, from the libertarian laissez faire form whose adherents have a deep belief that any government is unnecessary because the invisible hand of the market will take care of things, to social democratic forms where the government plays a big role in regulating the market and providing a social safety net for its people to shield them from the ravages of extreme capitalism.
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Introducing slow streets

One of the results of the lockdowns is the greatly reduced traffic on the streets. This has resulted in huge reductions in smog levels in cities that used to be plagued with poor air quality. But it has also resulted in some drivers taking advantage to speed. Some cities are now going further and shutting down traffic entirely on some streets, except for pedestrians and cyclists.

One such effort is in the city of Oakland, California that has shut down 74 miles of city streets, labeling them ‘slow streets’, to enable residents to use them to get outdoors and exercise while maintaining the appropriate distance from others and avoiding congesting the city’s parks and other recreational areas. The road will still be open to residents who live there.
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The great toilet paper shortage explained

I have mentioned before my puzzlement as to the run on toilet paper, where people seemed to be buying much more than they needed so that the stores ran out of them. It was put down to irrational hoarding and there were plenty of jokes made about this phenomenon. I even came across Freudian explanations, saying that the control of one’s bowels is a major achievement for little children that they are proud of, and loss of toilet paper was associated with loss of that control in people’s subconscious, which was why they did not want to risk any chance at all of running out.
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