The Wow I Can't Believe That News Story Thread

[Frownland]

To what extent? It's not unlikely that they knew about it and let it happen to exploit it, but I think that people actually want to kill Americans for destabilizing their region because we kind of deserve it.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by Frownland

If the suspects in the spread of the virus are sloppy Chinese research, people eating bats, or American biological warfare, my money's on the latter with the former two just being gaslighting propaganda.

...

[...]

But in Russia the misinformation has been particularly pointed. Russia’s spin doctors have capitalized on the fear and confusion of the epidemic to point the blame at the United States, following a well-established pattern of previous Russian disinformation campaigns and evoking a Cold War-era plot by the KGB to paint HIV as a U.S. biological weapon.

Russia is certainly not alone in promulgating conspiracy theories about the virus. “At the WHO we’re not just battling the virus, we’re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theories that undermine our response,” said World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. But in Russia these theories are appearing on prominent mainstream news discussion shows such as Big Game and Time Will Tell on Channel 1, rather than just being confined to squalid corners of the internet. In late January, the firebrand leader of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia party told a Moscow radio station that he thought coronavirus was an American bioweapon or a big plot by pharmaceutical companies to get richer.

Russian efforts to undermine Western countries long predates the outbreak of coronavirus. The nature of the messaging and their singling out of the United States are typical of the Kremlin’s disinformation playbook, which loyal editors and producers are well familiar with—and know the political necessity of sticking to.

The overarching theme of the stories that appear across the Russian media, from fringe websites to prime-time television, is that the virus is the product of U.S. labs, intended to kneecap China’s economic development. Some articles have flirted with the idea that Bill Gates or Kremlin nemesis George Soros might have had a hand in the outbreak. In one of the more bizarre turns, a host on Russia’s state-funded Channel 1 floated the idea that the name “coronavirus,” is a veiled reference to its American origins, because U.S. President Donald Trump once handed out crowns at beauty pageants, and corona means crown in Latin. (Coronaviruses are, in fact, a well-established group of viruses whose name is a reference to their shape.)

There is, however, no agreement between Russia’s propagandists about who foretold the virus, with some claiming it was Nostradamus, others say it was the blind Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga, or maybe even Stephen Hawking.

The Russian messaging fits a now well-established pattern in that it doesn’t look to persuade audiences of a single alternative truth. That would take effort, planning, and persuasion. Modern-day Russian propaganda has instead been described by the Rand Corp. as a “firehose of falsehood,” a steady stream of underdeveloped, sometimes contradictory conspiracy theories intended to exhaust and confuse viewers, making them question the very notion of objective truth itself.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/14...isinformation/

[Frownland]

I'm aware of kompromat and how its existence is ironically used by politicians to paint themselves as unrealistically noble and innocent.

[The Batlord]

I still don't see the risk/benefit analysis convincing self-serving bureaucrats to sign off on something like that against mother****ing China.

[jwb]

Honestly I think the motive is questionable since it's likely to hurt our economy the long run if it spreads, which is one of the last things the Trump admin wants. It would be a very risky strategy to undertake, in an election year especially.

But even if there's a decent motive that means nothing in the way of actual evidence. There was a clearer motive to stage 9/11 if you want to be real about it.

[Frownland]

Not even an economically damaging number of civilian deaths in a country that's challenging the status quo of American global dominance?

I don't think the US did it though, it's just more probable than those other two theories.

[The Batlord]

Except if we actually killed a significant number of people and China found out and publicized it we become the new Nazi Germany even to our allies and possibly start WW3.

[Frownland]

That's just another Tuesday now.

[jwb]

Originally Posted by Frownland

Not even an economically damaging number of civilian deaths in a country that's challenging the status quo of American global dominance?

when you weigh in the risk/benefit analysis, no.

A short term moderate hit to the US economy will hurt Trump more than a short term severe hit to the Chinese economy would help him.

You could suppose they just aren't weighing those options properly, but yea.

I don't think the US did it though, it's just more probable than those other two theories.

I don't know much about it but I don't see anything particularly implausible about it spreading from bats or some other animal like most of these pandemic scares do.

[The Batlord]

Originally Posted by Frownland

That's just another Tuesday now.

Except we do that **** to podunk nations nobody cares about and (probably) not with artificial epidemics. There's a difference between not being hoodwinked by nationalism and "wake up sheeple!"