this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 160 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (42 children)

I once heard of a pediatrician who successfully convinced a concerned mother that anti-vax ideology was likely a psyop by the Russians to weaken the health of the American populace starting with our children. Doesn't hurt that it's probably true.

EDIT: My personal conspiracy theory is that the Chinese government did engineer (or at least selectively cultivate) COVID, but not to kill Americans. In the early days of the pandemic there was some speculation that it affected some blood types more than others, particularly type A. While no link to blood type specifically was found, type A is a more common genetic trait as you move out of Asia and towards the middle east. China has been heavily persecuting the Uyghurs (Chinese Muslims), and those who have managed to get out of the camps have reported medical experimentation and being injected with unknown substances. In addition, the virus would also kill a significant number of the older population, which is important because of the population crunch they're about to experience due to one-child policies resulting in a high amount of female-specific infanticide. They're about to have a bunch of old people and a massive shortage of able bodied young people to care for them. Even if they didn't directly "engineer" the virus in a gene-sequencing manner, they have a lot off motive to just generally cultivate and spread (you can't really "breed" a virus) an infectious disease targeting people of middle eastern descent and elders.

Thank you for coming to my tinfoil-hat Ted Talk.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 children)

My personal conspiracy theory is that the Chinese government did engineer (or at least selectively cultivate) COVID

The theory I'd believe more is that the U S of A govt or one of its agencies engineered and released it in China.

China and India are growing economies, with decent populations and a pandemic would seriously delay their growth and help the U S of A keep it's top place for a bit longer or destroy its competitors.

I've heard the theory being given decent thought by non-western people. And it's equally, if not, more believable than the other one.

The US is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons on civillians, so them using biological weapons on civillians would not be a big moral barrier for them or a big stretch to think about.

They probably didn't think it'd spread this much and their own citizens n even president would be idiotic enough to be against vaccines and masks, when people were dying.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The theory I'd believe more is that the U S of A govt or one of its agencies engineered and released it in China.

They did a stupid ass job them, killing the older only gonna help China, and it didn't even killed enough people to make a difference and it backfired in the US, the conspiracy that China was engineering with it and shit escaped make more sense

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

They did a stupid ass job them

They probably didn't expect their president to be idiotic enough to be against vaccines and recommend stuff like bleach.

They're a developed nation and could've had better control.
They were able to hinder Chinese trade a bit.

And didn't they try and fail to kill Castro in many stupid ass ways?

I think them doing it is more likely than China doing it to their own, considering the trade issues that the virus caused for China at the time.

And again, they were the first to use nuclear weapons on civillians. Did it twice even.
I don't think they'd have an qualms about using biological weapons, if they thought that it'd give them an edge.

They also can float the 'China virus' conspiracy to confuse the public and make them anti-China too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

You forgot the anti-vaccine campaign they ran in countries near China saying their vaccine contained pig parts. Not the US state dept's first anti-vax campaign btw.

US vaccines were made available first and foremost to Western citizens, and only then were made available to purchase. China released their vaccine worldwide, so countries without a vaccine program had access earlier and cheaper than they could acquire vaccines from the US. Their anti-vax campaign was meant to prevent other countries from accepting China's offer, thus preventing goodwill towards China, protecting the profits of US companies, and leading to the deaths of millions who could have been saved in "US Allied" countries such as the Philippines.

If you were going to buy into one of these two conspiracy theories, first you should have some actual evidence, and then you should look at the behavior of these countries and ask yourself: which behavior is more consistent with releasing a virus that could act as an economic weapon meant to shut-down a country, but not kill everyone?

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