Conspiracy theories can have serious repercussions
It is pointless to try and reason with Mr. Work as everyone who is into conspiracy theories like he is are driven by paranoia, not facts.
Sadly, conspiracy theorists are a dime a dozen and are everywhere. In this crazy fast changing world of ours, conspiracy addiction is on the rise as people latch on to even the most ludicrous conspiracies to make sense of their world. They invent alternative realities as they find this world too difficult to comprehend. Somebody, somewhere, must be out to get them.
Conspiracy theories might provide thinking people with something to laugh at, and goodness knows we could use all the humour we can find now. But conspiracy theories have real world consequences and usually bad.
Mr. Work proves you can make a conspiracy theory out of anything; this time he spouts nonsense comparing the vital need for mandatory vaccinations when a vaccine is found for COVID-19. He makes outlandish claims linking mandatory vaccinations to the Nuremberg Trials. Or to the abortion issue. There is no connection to any of those comparisons except in Mr. Work’s inability to stay focused and his need to jump to unfounded and illogical conclusions. This pandemic will never truly be over until such a vaccine is found and mandatory vaccination enforced.
People who are addicted to conspiracy theories cut across all groups, ages, races, and social economic classes. Common denominators of such affected personalities are anxiety, alienation, and feelings of rejection, which isn’t surprising given how this generation, which has never been so connected, is suffering more in isolation and lacking in human interactions face to face.
I don’t make excuses for people holding onto conspiracy theories and who double down in those misguided and uniformed ideas, but I think we need to understand where they come from. It’s regrettable that some conspiracy theories have existed, and that fact has been taken by Mr. Work and others to mean that all conspiracy theories are true. They are not.
Julius Caesar was murdered by a group of conspirators. WWI started because of a group of Serbian conspirators who plotted to assassinate the Austrian Grand Duke. But loopy conspiracy theories about the alien takeover of our leaders and the military, the 9/11 Truthers, and the Birthers are sheer nonsense with not a shred of evidence or slightest probability that any of them could be real.
Conspiracy theories have consequences because ideas matter, beliefs matter, even if those beliefs are founded on irrational paranoia. Mr. Work’s unintentional attempt at gut busting hilarity comes with a dark side.
His ideas on vaccinations alone would be disastrous as well as selfish. People into conspiracy theories will quote his letters as “proof” with no need for fact checking as just reading his silliness is proof enough for them. And that is where the danger is in Mr. Work’s letters.
Twitter has come over the right side of history and now puts warnings with President Bunker Boy’s tweets for being false, misinformation, or out and out racist and incite violence. Could I ask that this paper continue to use Mr. Work’s comedy skit letters, as I don’t believe in censorship, but please consider putting a similar warning with his letters so people will think twice about going down the same rabbit hole. Nothing he has claimed as facts have a shred of credibility to them and tend to make my brain bleed.
Robert T. Rock
Mission City