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But isn’t that just some other logical fallacy? I don’t have anything to cite, but a lot of shit is being sold to people under the pretense of religion. It doesn’t discredit the value it brings religious people. Or the people that abuse faith to swindle poor people out of their money—what’s it called? Investment Christianity or some shit? The whole “tithing brings you closer to god” thing where those incredibly wealthy televangelists are seeing the opportunity of “you just have to have faith/not having faith in me is spitting in gods eye” and abusing it. Do televangelists discredit all religion?

I mean, I’m an atheist myself, but I’ve read studies from sociologists saying the population’s increasing loss of faith does have negative effects on overall contentedness and hopefulness and community. Saying, “well televangelists exist, so just know your faith in god is being used to swindle poor people.” You can’t discredit everything having to do with a concept by finding the people taking advantage of it. People find a way to take advantage of every single thing.

I can’t discredit the concept of using phones because the concept of calling someone is being abused to steal old people’s personal info.

And, I mean, what lines are we even drawing here? It’s WELL established that data miners, data trading, invasive permissions signed away in privacy policies for the purpose of packaging and reselling, invasive domestic spying programs…these things all exist and have existed for a long time. My point is…I’m against it? I’m not drawing some insane conclusion about some conspiracy—just because there is a nuanced connection between being wary of our data being stolen and the insane conspiracy theories that the unknown aspects of that problem spawn, doesn’t mean that every person concerned with the loss of privacy is responsible for the extreme end of the spectrum.

That’s the problem I have with what you’re saying—you’re acting like there is no nuance. Because there is well-established reason for concern regarding privacy. And jumping to unfounded conclusions is almost a natural response to any new information in the internet age.

COVID denialism, illuminati, etc. is wariness brought to an illogical extreme. The existence of that phenomenon should NOT discredit any reasonable person concerned about privacy.

Remember brexit? Remember trump? Both of those world events came about from a relatively unknown industry that was exposed after the fact. And those invasive data profiling businesses didn’t go under. They changed their names.

The Edward Snowden revelations were over a decade ago. I’d argue that assuming there is no cause for concern is beyond naive.

And you’re likening crystals and telepathy to “doctors have a profit motive?” Sure, there is an illogical extreme to the information that big pharmaceutical companies have a stranglehold on the medical field and corrupt treatment by prioritizing profits—look at the opioid crisis, look at the entire concept of pharmaceutical reps and commercials for prescription drugs.

These things alone are the concern. Just because they can and do breed extreme ideas with no basis in reality doesn’t justify discrediting the concept itself.

I get it, unfounded conclusions are generally disagreeable. But “our privacy is disappearing” isn’t an unfounded conclusion. I’m saying I’ve read the privacy policy that was getting me to sign away every scrap of privacy the limits of the product could’ve possibly invaded. Conspiracy theorists don’t make that untrue.