One of my best friends is a very senior epidemiologist. For 30 years, his answer to the “and what do you do?” question would elicit an “Oh…” and a change of subject.
Today, we are all armchair epidemiologists. We have an opinion on the spread of Covid-19 and are sure we are right, no matter what professional epidemiologists believe. We’ve read something on social media, you see. Then we posted something about it that got some likes. Many people believe the same things we do: people who “really know”; “people like us”.
Conspiracy theorists are everywhere. They will refuse a vaccine because it’s a Bill Gates microchip. They will deny their own lived experience to insist Brexit gives us control, is going swimmingly and anyway, better this than Prime Minister Merkel.
Despite mountains of evidence, they still believe President Trump is right: the election was “stolen”. And they will do so in an increasingly intemperate manner on social media, emboldened by the validation of others in their echo chambers.
That’s how it’s been for the past decade. Last week we saw how the manipulation of conspiracy plays out.
Last week, the hard facts were: there was actually a conspiracist-inspired uprising in Washington DC; Covid-19 numbers hit at an all-time high on both sides of the Atlantic as “resist lockdown” voices got louder; British importers and exporters were actually having to deal with the reality of Brexit red tape, which has caused some household-name road hauliers to give up even trying, for now.
But, of course, that’s just the “scum media” view: fake news.
How did we get here? Conspiracy theorists used to focus on UFOs, fake Moon landings and Elvis being alive. Once dismissed as “nutters”, it is progress that we no longer use that term, but the dangerous madness of conspiracy theorists is real.
Social media provides amplification of their views. It does not help that the “lunatics have taken over the asylum” – another un-woke phrase we all understand. It is difficult to believe in science, hard facts and truth when we are governed by Trump and Johnson, men who mix facts and fantasy constantly – with calamitous consequences.
My epidemiologist friend always says it is dangerous to extrapolate a trend from personal experience. Witness how “I don’t know anyone who has had it,” became “I don’t know anyone who has died” and morphed to “but Bill Gates…” Or “WTF are Erasmus schemes? We’ve taken back control.” Such lazy thinking, such intemperate language. Conspiracy turns quickly to hatred. The bile directed at such people as Gina Miller is repellent, but somehow no longer that shocking.
So excuse me. I am just off to unfriend, unfollow and argue with some of my own family and friends. It is now dangerous not to.