:up: For sure... It seems to me that foundations for paranoid thinking are partly built into some political frameworks.

What relevant events occurred between 1918 (influenza pandemic) and 2019 (COVID-19) that could explain it?
— TheMadFool

The era of mass media, News Limited, the internet and some big political scandals like Watergate. Crackpots, the paranoid and the haters have a ready source of community and information all around the world in ways inconceivable in 1919. — Tom Storm

Correct and I suppose people back then had more faith in their governments than now. You mentioned some high-profile scandals and, to my reckoning, enough of them have occurred in the two decades that have passed since 1918-1919 to make even the staunchest supporters of the state have second thoughts about how sincere the state is when it comes to the welfare of the people.

COVID-19 isn't the first pandemic the world has faced
— TheMadFool

(y) It seems though, that some don't learn from history.

There have been crazies all along for sure.
Some forms of vaccination were used a millennium ago in China, but it didn't really take off until much later, the 1800s then the 1900s in particular.
Religious and other anti-vaxxers have pretty much followed suit, as far as I can tell. — jorndoe

:up: It looks like every pandemic scenario spawns it own strain of nutcases who, forget about trying to solve the problem on hand, actually make the situation go from bad to worse by denying there's a problem to begin with. It's no secret that such people are a setback for the response to such catastrophes but, I'm curious, do they have some kind of beneficial effect? Politically say? I dunno.

The answer to this seems to be that this pandemic isn’t really like the ones you mention and is more akin to the 1968 flu outbreak. No measures then of the sort we’ve seen this time around were implemented, presumably because they were seen as being out of proportion to the problem. People don’t like being confined to their homes or coerced into receiving medical treatments; so if the basis upon which these things are enforced seems questionable then it’s understandable if they become inclined to deny it fully. — AJJ

Quarantine Scroll down to History.

:up:

Now what?

Beats me!

That's why any old shit can be spun into a perfectly fine conspiracy. — Tom Storm

It's not just that. Think of old monocultures where there is a culture of "public secrets", ie. there are things that everybody knows (and talks about them in private with people whom one trusts), but in public, will never admit to them (and will consider it outrageous that anyone would think of them).

For example, in traditionally Catholic countries, the priest's girlfriend and his children are such a public secret. Everyone knows who the woman is and who the father of those children is, but nobody will publicly admit to it and will claim that the priest is chaste and celibate, as it behooves a Catholic priest.

This isn't denial (because in confidential settings, people openly talk about the matter), and it's not hypocrisy/duplicity (because there seems to be no evil motive involved).

It seems that even though this system of public secrets has worked well for centuries (it helped maintain relative social stability and harmony), it can be exploited in what is now the post-truth era. It seems for two reasons: one is that there are fewer confidential settings, and more uncertainty about what makes for a confidential setting and what doesn't (so it's hard to know which narrative to go with in which setting); and two, because audio and video recording devices are so readily present and used, and in the face of such hard evidence it's hard to maintain the old system of public secrets.

Of course, this is a problem that younger people and those in multicultural societies don't face. Although we dinosaurs do ...

In short, the type of society seems to play a role in how a conspiracy theory comes about, what public traction it gets, and so on.

It seems to me that foundations for paranoid thinking are partly built into some political frameworks. — Tom Storm

Certainly. It helps the ruling party to demoralize the population at large, because if they are demoralized, they won't rebel, and the ruling party will attain its goal -- to stay in power (and obtain more of it).

Actually not. — ssu

As things stand, I'm focusing on who the beneficiaries of the incident are.

Start with finding people who have absolutely no connection and focusing on totally different aspects noting the conspiracy. Learn the history. Above all, real conspiracies do leave traces.

Then think it through yourself. Does Slovenian politics resort to such antics? Who would artificially create this pseudo-group?

In this case, I don't think the group was artificially created, but that at some point, it could be that someone (a prospective beneficiary) infiltrated it and guided it to extremism.
But I don't see how any of this could be proven (at least not without using illegal surveillance techniques). Or perhaps things will come out later in time, when the infiltrator can't help but brag.

Political infiltrations have been known to happen here. Notably, someone from a leftist party would infiltrate a rightist party and vice versa.

Slovenia is a very small country. What goes around comes around.

Actually, the situation here in the past 20 years made me lose faith in the law of karma; or at least leads me to believe that karma, like God, loves rightwingers.

In 1995, the GIA declared all Algerians to be takfir, or apostates.

The last sentence sounds absolutely bizarre, but it's true. Algerians weren't worthy of them!

It doesn't sound bizarre to me. For example, European rulers and upper classes have a long history of expressing contempt for the ordinary folk. The idea that it is the citizens who are wrong (and should be replaced), and not the government, can be heard at pretty much any election.

Of course this is sidestepping the actual topic, but I'm trying to make the point that if there is really a conspiracy, then there will be real traces of it. Nonexistent events don't leave them.

Actually, "conspiracy" isn't the right concept. "Strategy", "divide and conquer". "PR stunt".

Its not solely because the view is absurd, its also because in so many of these cases we're able to trace that absurd view back to a source of misinformation/manipulation like e.g. Fox News. Empirically, a huge number of covid/vaccine deniers have been manipulated and misinformed (and so require a degree of stupidity or at least gullibility)- we can usually even point to the specific origins of this misinformation/manipulation.

And I'd say that the resurrection of the dead is an apples/oranges comparison here since theological/supernatural claims like this don't necessarily involve the sort of straightforward/unequivocal factual claim that covid/vaccine denial does- the resurrection of the dead in Christian theology can be (and often is/has been) interpreted in a variety of ways including entirely non-literal ones, and even a literal claim of a historical miracle (the resurrection of Christ, say) is a trickier issue than something easily verifiable in the present like e.g. the efficacy of vaccines.

I mean, in general its just basic charity (and good form) to assume that a view you disagree with isn't held on the basis of stupidity or misinformation/manipulation or whatever... but its equally irrational to assume the opposite when in possession of direct and decisive evidence that the view is being held on the basis of misinformation/ignorance/etc. Which I think is quite clearly the case here, at least in the vast majority of cases.

:100:

I believe that sincere intellectual curiosity would have one move beyond what "their guy" said, and "research" what the "other guy" said about what "their guy" said. If you just stop at "your guy" and hammer on that and what he said about what the other guy said, then you should at least stipulate to his relative position in the fray.

Like me, for instance, I just stop at my guy and note that he is in the majority of experts, and relied upon by those in authority who have money and power to access the best and who have no obvious reason to BS. But if I was a "researcher" who wanted more, I'd find out what the other guy said about what my guy says, including any reasonable issues surrounding BS.

There is little intellectual rigor coming from these "researchers." That might be because it is difficult to find what the other guy said about what your guy said, especially if your guy is so marginalized as to not be worthy of the other guy's time; but that is rare in academia. If your guy has any traction whatsoever, some body is going to have to take him on. Find that, "researcher."