Taking on the 5G nutjobs

[Simon]

apparently freedom of speech (of lies) is worth more than a mans life and infrastructure.

[Specmaster]

Precisely and that cannot be right 

[Syntax Error]

Two zero sum equations to consider:

False-Prophets (x) Unquestioning-Deciples = Brainwashed-Cults

Social-Media-Influencers (x) Social-Media-Followers = Kool-Aid-Drinking-Monkeys

Everyone, lets #join-a-conga-line-of-instant-indignation-without-questioning-why

[PlainName]

an Open Reach engineer has been attacked and stabbed multiple times

The problem there is not that he was an OR engineer, or that the person who stabbed him was taken in by whatever conspiracy theory. He was stabbed, and the answer is to prosecute the (alleged) offender for grevious bodily harm (or attempted murder, but that's more difficult to prove). Being a conspiracy nut is not an excuse or mitigation, which it will be if you aren't careful. It shouldn't matter if the  (alleged!) perp is a Jehova's Witness, Nazis nut, LibDem wannabe, nothing. It matters that someone got stabbed, period. There are laws and punishments for that, so just use them.

[Specmaster]

an Open Reach engineer has been attacked and stabbed multiple times

The problem there is not that he was an OR engineer, or that the person who stabbed him was taken in by whatever conspiracy theory. He was stabbed, and the answer is to prosecute the (alleged) offender for grevious bodily harm (or attempted murder, but that's more difficult to prove). Being a conspiracy nut is not an excuse or mitigation, which it will be if you aren't careful. It shouldn't matter if the  (alleged!) perp is a Jehova's Witness, Nazis nut, LibDem wannabe, nothing. It matters that someone got stabbed, period. There are laws and punishments for that, so just use them.

The whole point of this thread is to try and find a way of denying the people who are the ones inciting the followers to do things etc BEFORE they go out and carry out such disgusting attacks, be it on personal or infrastructure. It is much the same as addressing the aftermath of a drunk driver after they crash into a queue of people at a bus stop, when a little of action before, thus preventing them from drink-driving is the preferred action.

[DrG]

Ruling any approach in or out at this point seems somewhat premature, to me.

However, while I would agree there is a general lack of the ability to perform critical thinking nowadays, which must surely primarily be a result of the changes to the education systems, and parenting methods in recent decades, I fail to see how improving that situation can have any impact save in the long term.
It just isn't something that can be taught overnight, nor even in a week, to pick an arbitrary timeframe.

Concur. I just don't know what else to do about changing the minds of the followers. One of the videos went on about giving them more control in their lives - enrichment of a sort. Sure, ok maybe, but I have just so much enrichment and whatever I can spare will go to someone more deserved IMO. So, I just don't know what else I can do as an individual but foster, support, practice and nurture principles of critical thinking. Yes, may take generations as far as I know and may not ever make a big difference.

[DrG]

As I have said before the only way to stop this is laws, let them howl about censorship and free speech, if it's factually wrong then it should not be up. Those that go to great length to produce videos should be sued. The problem is that our legal system seem to care about money than anything else. If people can sue for defamation why can't science sue for defamation?

I note that there are creators (or producers) and also the followers, so this is a bit off of the original topic of convincing followers to change there minds, but OK, I like that, but the reality is pretty complicated. You remember Sandy Hook? It was a mass murder in a US elementary school that happened 8 years ago (26 dead including 20 children).

I can't imagine a worse nightmare. A father drops his kid off at school and a few hours later has to identify his bullet-ridden body. It is crushing to think about.

But conspiracy theorists (and one very well known one) decided that it was all fake, the whole thing. That the children never died (sometimes it was claimed that some children never even existed). They have had many followers who piled on with horrific stories of how the US G made the whole thing up (to take away guns or something like that) and many of the followers directly harassed the survivors. Imagine that, after going through that trauma to have people calling you and so on, telling you that you and your dead son is all fake and how horrible you are. Tough to believe that wouldn't make your blood boil over.

There is a case in court. It is still going on as far as I can tell. There have been judgements against the big Conspiracy guy and he has even, in a fashion, said that it did happen and pleaded a kind of mental illness that caused him to doubt everything! Just last week he was reported to be outside of an election place, at a gathering, megaphone in hand....8 years later, still peddling.

You bet I would like to see these cottage industry conspiracy theorist held accountable, but the courts move slowly. If I were that father, I don't know if I would have the strength to keep going.

[boffin]

This is what you're up against.   She was fun to watch on Facebook (complete nutter) until FB killed her acct; but there are dozens more where she came from.

[tautech]

While Wikipedia cannot be considered as the authority on things technical their 5G page offers a reasonable overview much better than last time I went looking there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G

So which 5G attribute is causing these nutjobs anxiety and why ? 

[james_s]

apparently freedom of speech (of lies) is worth more than a mans life and infrastructure.

By that reasoning you could ban and outlaw nearly anything, because a small number of people doing bad things in relation to it. Millions have died in wars over freedom and freedom of speech is something we hold very dearly here and do consider it far more valuable than a man's life. You may not understand the culture and that's fine, there are many cultures I don't understand either. In some countries you can be executed for criticizing an elected official or supernatural deity, and I can tell you that I would absolutely prefer to live in a world where a handful of nutters can spew complete nonsense without consequence than one where we are not allowed to voice an opinion or utter certain words. Where exactly to draw the line is up for debate, but just remember that you cannot suppress an idea or belief, it just isn't possible. You can try to reduce the spread, but if those people think they are being suppressed somehow they will work even harder to be heard. I do not think this can be won by force.

Thankfully it doesn't really seem to be much of an issue. I haven't heard of it happening in the US yet and I think in the places it is happening it will eventually die off once the mental health impacts of the pandemic pass and something else catches the attention of the crazies. People freaked out about 4G too, and 3G, and analog mobile phones, and power lines, and in the late 1800's people were similarly freaking out about electricity and electric light, that all passed.

[SilverSolder]

I know a man who has a living memory of his grandmother carefully putting plastic plugs into all the wall outlets at night, to reduce the chance of electricity leaking out and harming her family while they slept...

We've come a long way technologically, in not a lot of time, in the big scheme of things.  Perhaps natural that some of us go crazy on it?

[Simon]

an Open Reach engineer has been attacked and stabbed multiple times

The problem there is not that he was an OR engineer, or that the person who stabbed him was taken in by whatever conspiracy theory. He was stabbed, and the answer is to prosecute the (alleged) offender for grevious bodily harm (or attempted murder, but that's more difficult to prove). Being a conspiracy nut is not an excuse or mitigation, which it will be if you aren't careful. It shouldn't matter if the  (alleged!) perp is a Jehova's Witness, Nazis nut, LibDem wannabe, nothing. It matters that someone got stabbed, period. There are laws and punishments for that, so just use them.

The problem is that conspiracy theories themselves are creating the circumstances that put people in danger. These people are being terrified by cult leaders and now fearing for their lives will attack people and infrastructure. We don't need religious terrorism it would seem. It's now possible to have an opinion on something that scientific and kill for that opinion.

[Simon]

apparently freedom of speech (of lies) is worth more than a mans life and infrastructure.

By that reasoning you could ban and outlaw nearly anything, because a small number of people doing bad things in relation to it. Millions have died in wars over freedom and freedom of speech is something we hold very dearly here and do consider it far more valuable than a man's life. You may not understand the culture and that's fine, there are many cultures I don't understand either. In some countries you can be executed for criticizing an elected official or supernatural deity, and I can tell you that I would absolutely prefer to live in a world where a handful of nutters can spew complete nonsense without consequence than one where we are not allowed to voice an opinion or utter certain words. Where exactly to draw the line is up for debate, but just remember that you cannot suppress an idea or belief, it just isn't possible. You can try to reduce the spread, but if those people think they are being suppressed somehow they will work even harder to be heard. I do not think this can be won by force.

Thankfully it doesn't really seem to be much of an issue. I haven't heard of it happening in the US yet and I think in the places it is happening it will eventually die off once the mental health impacts of the pandemic pass and something else catches the attention of the crazies. People freaked out about 4G too, and 3G, and analog mobile phones, and power lines, and in the late 1800's people were similarly freaking out about electricity and electric light, that all passed.

We need better education but that is the long game, meanwhile we have plenty of people who are ignorant enough to follow anything if they can be terrified enough. I am not saying that we curtail freedom of speech, you should be free to say what you like AND be responsible for what you say particularly when you go to great lengths to broadcast utter lies. There is no government control conspiracy (control is the last thing the UK government is capable of), covid-19 is just an accident it was not manufactured, climate change is not being made by RF transmitters the list of stupid things people beleive goes on and on, oh the world is not flat and of course 5G won't hurt you.

People teaching people that the higher the frequency the more harmful a transmission is should be sued! there is no basis for this and no way of accidentally understanding it. This just has to stop. We now live in a world where certain things from and electoral count to well know science are a matter of publicly debated opinion, it's crazy.

Just look at the mess Donald trump is making of the election, many lawsuits based on no evidence thrown out, a couple maybe? after that he should be countersued for misuse of the system.

[boffin]

The 5G is to control people, right ?

...Despite the lack of evidence, in May a YouGov poll of 1,640 people suggested 28% of Americans believed Mr Gates wanted to use vaccines to  implant microchips in people - with the figure rising to 44% among  Republicans....

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/05/26/republicans-democrats-misinformation

[SilverSolder]

The 5G is to control people, right ?

...Despite the lack of evidence, in May a YouGov poll of 1,640 people suggested 28% of Americans believed Mr Gates wanted to use vaccines to  implant microchips in people - with the figure rising to 44% among  Republicans....

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/05/26/republicans-democrats-misinformation

25% is the background noise level of any poll, it seems.

A Canadian newspaper put up a fictitious candidate for election for local government, as an experiment back in the 70's.   They found that the non-existent candidate received about 25% of the votes...

[Specmaster]

The 5G is to control people, right ?

...Despite the lack of evidence, in May a YouGov poll of 1,640 people suggested 28% of Americans believed Mr Gates wanted to use vaccines to  implant microchips in people - with the figure rising to 44% among  Republicans....

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/05/26/republicans-democrats-misinformation

No, according to the main spreaders of misinformation, it is a weapon to kill people with, hence why we are looking to see what we can do shut these nutters down.

[Specmaster]

While Wikipedia cannot be considered as the authority on things technical their 5G page offers a reasonable overview much better than last time I went looking there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G

So which 5G attribute is causing these nutjobs anxiety and why ? 

If you play through the videos, some people are already experiencing nose bleeds, headaches etc but main pushers of the 5G fear are also saying that it is weapon that can be used to kill people, eespecially when the vaccine is given out as that is supposed to (alledgly) have microchips in it and they (governments etc) can select people to best subjects for whatever.

[james_s]

If you play through the videos, some people are already experiencing nose bleeds, headaches etc but main pushers of the 5G fear are also saying that it is weapon that can be used to kill people, eespecially when the vaccine is given out as that is supposed to (alledgly) have microchips in it and they (governments etc) can select people to best subjects for whatever.

The placebo effect is a real thing. Somewhere I read of a mobile tower that was erected and a few people started complaining of headaches and other symptoms, the thing is it had not had the equipment installed and activated yet so it was just a metal tower. If you tell someone that a certain object is known to cause headaches, a percentage of them will get a headache when in proximity of said object, the power of suggestion is strong.

[Simon]

If you play through the videos, some people are already experiencing nose bleeds, headaches etc but main pushers of the 5G fear are also saying that it is weapon that can be used to kill people, eespecially when the vaccine is given out as that is supposed to (alledgly) have microchips in it and they (governments etc) can select people to best subjects for whatever.

The placebo effect is a real thing. Somewhere I read of a mobile tower that was erected and a few people started complaining of headaches and other symptoms, the thing is it had not had the equipment installed and activated yet so it was just a metal tower. If you tell someone that a certain object is known to cause headaches, a percentage of them will get a headache when in proximity of said object, the power of suggestion is strong.

This was done as a sort of documentary too. I mean they did pick a particular luny house of students but yea, mast went up and they all felt unwell and it was never even on.

[Simon]

[james_s]

This was done as a sort of documentary too. I mean they did pick a particular luny house of students but yea, mast went up and they all felt unwell and it was never even on.

That's probably the same one I read about, I didn't recall that it was a documentary but there certainly is no shortage of similar occurrences. A few years ago there were a lot of people claiming that WiFi was causing headaches but that seems to have gone away, despite much greater proliferation of WiFi.

[bd139]

Well i got a really stupid reply from that shit box hosted hosting the web site mentioned earlier. Basically they’re a “free speech ISP” and won’t even review it 

Let’s see how their upstream behave who have a scary strict AUP.

[bd139]

The 5G is to control people, right ?

...Despite the lack of evidence, in May a YouGov poll of 1,640 people suggested 28% of Americans believed Mr Gates wanted to use vaccines to  implant microchips in people - with the figure rising to 44% among  Republicans....

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/05/26/republicans-democrats-misinformation

Bear in mind yougov’s panel consists of people stupid enough to have a $50 cheque dangled perpetually out of reach to motivate them to do surveys.

[CJay]

The 5G is to control people, right ?

...Despite the lack of evidence, in May a YouGov poll of 1,640 people suggested 28% of Americans believed Mr Gates wanted to use vaccines to  implant microchips in people - with the figure rising to 44% among  Republicans....

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/05/26/republicans-democrats-misinformation

25% is the background noise level of any poll, it seems.

A Canadian newspaper put up a fictitious candidate for election for local government, as an experiment back in the 70's.   They found that the non-existent candidate received about 25% of the votes...

There'd be a number of votes in error, a few who thought they'd seen or knew the candidate and a number who voted out of mischief but there'd also be a number who voted to express dissatisfaction with the other candidates/parties.

More a commentary on the failings of the existing systems/institutions than 'noise'

[CJay]

Well i got a really stupid reply from that shit box hosted hosting the web site mentioned earlier. Basically they’re a “free speech ISP” and won’t even review it 

Let’s see how their upstream behave who have a scary strict AUP.

Free speech comes with a hefty price for society and we're beginning to see it collected, it's going to get a lot worse before we clean out the cesspit.