S07.E18: Conspiracy Theories

[PrincessPurrsALot]

4th of July has John on hiatus.  The next episode is scheduled for 2020.07.19. 

Main topic: Conspiracy theories 

Also:  Opening US schools while coronavirus cases rise; 

[Gothish520]

This could not have been a more timely episode. Half of my family believes this is either a Democratic plot to control the country and oust Trump, or that the numbers are greatly exaggerated and it's no worse than a typical flu, or both.

Frustration doesn't begin to cover it. I'm beginning to be concerned about their mental stability!

[MrWhyt]

Cena and Oliver have the same birthday? Aging really does a number on your body, I mean Cena is all swollen , not pale and flabby like a normal human male.

Edited July 21, 2020 by MrWhyt

[Robert Lynch]

11 minutes ago, MrWhyt said:

Cena and Oliver have the same birthday? Aging really does a number on your body, I mean Cena is all swollen , not pale and flabby like a normal human make.

It's good to have plastic surgery and steroids as well. He also dyes his hair a lot.

Moving on, I think conspiracy theories are a cancer to society. What they do is distract the most important topics. No wonder the world is laughing at us.

[Gothish520]

John Oliver over John Cena any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

[swanpride]

Just for the record: Schools in Germany aren't even fully open yet! It's for one depending on the federal state (since education is "ländersache", meaning how to deal with this is a decision which is not made by the overall government), how schools handle their hygiene concept differs too (some split the classes so that there are less pupils in the room, others teach as much as possible outside), AND pretty much immediately after it was decided that they could open again, summer vacation time started, which are six weeks in the summer (when it starts depends on the federal state). We are still experimenting with what works and what didn't.

[Enigma X]

My roommate is a conspiracy theorist nut job, and I have a cousin who is also on the conspiracy theory train. 
 

I actually think John Oliver looks slightly younger and loads better than John Cena.

[angora]

Man, Sen. Kennedy saying "EVEN VIETNAM" reopened their schools was so gross and racist, it made flames burst out from the sides of my face. I'm a germophobe who semi-obsessively checks the daily WHO situation reports, and that comment had me screaming, "Vietnam, who's reported fewer than 500 cases TOTAL, as opposed to the U.S., who had like 70,000 new cases JUST TODAY?" Way too many people, politicians included, don't seem to have a clue of just how badly we're doing compared to most of the world on this.

Interesting note about how the outcome of an event influences the prevalence of conspiracy theories, excellently demonstrated by the JFK assassination vs. Reagan assassination attempt. I'd never thought about it that way before.

Loved the PSAs at the end, especially Paul Rudd confessing that he once thought he was dead when he saw it trending (every year on HIS birthday, he probably gets confused on the whereabouts of this fountain of youth everyone says he has.)

[peeayebee]

I haven't yet looked at the PSAs, but I'm looking for to it. People need to forward the most appropriate ones to their conspiracists.

I never noticed that Rudy Guiliani and Larry Kudlow look so similar. Weird.

[RedbirdNelly]

3 hours ago, angora said:

 

Interesting note about how the outcome of an event influences the prevalence of conspiracy theories, excellently demonstrated by the JFK assassination vs. Reagan assassination attempt. I'd never thought about it that way before.

 

I thought so, too. I'd never thought about it before, but he's right. 

It was very nice to have Jon back. 

[meowmommy]

Given that 7% of Americans think chocolate milk comes from brown cows, I'm not surprised at the number of people who allow themselves to be sucked into whackadoodle conspiracy theories.

Someone who should have known better sent me a text in early May, asking me to look at a video which I found out later was Plandemic.  She said a doctor forwarded it to her.  Based on what she told me about it, I said I wasn't going to watch it and suggested she talk to our mutual friend at the CDC.  And then looked it up and told her it was garbage.

"If I'm in on this conspiracy, that means my puppet master is AT&T.  And what makes you think they can pull off a global conspiracy when they can barely pull off a complete phone call."  😹😹😹😹😹     Friends don't let friends use AT&T.

I noticed that two of the four PSA hosts hoping to teach Americans not to be idiots are Canadian.  Really touching that Alex Trebek took the time to participate, given how sick he is.

[paigow]

The whole AT&T bit reminded me of Dana Carvey demonstrating how impossible a "frame O.J." conspiracy was...

Edited July 21, 2020 by paigow

[iMonrey]

Quote

Half of my family believes this is either a Democratic plot to control the country and oust Trump, or that the numbers are greatly exaggerated and it's no worse than a typical flu, or both.

Same. Are you my sister?

Quote

I haven't yet looked at the PSAs, but I'm looking for to it. People need to forward the most appropriate ones to their conspiracists.

It wouldn't even make a dent. Even Alex Trebek. They'd just go "Oh look, they got to him too." 

[Annber03]

On 7/20/2020 at 1:07 AM, Gothish520 said:

John Oliver over John Cena any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Amen to that.

I did love Cena's video, though :D. And Trebek appearing was a nice touch, too. "If nobody ever asked questions, Jeopardy would be a really weird show." LOL. 

Finally getting a chance to catch up on this one! Stupid storm this weekend knocked out my TV so I missed the show on Sunday. And a great subject to tackle, too. I love Oliver's idea at the end, and I hope those videos can prove helpful. I very much sympathize with the desire to just yell, "What the hell is wrong with you?", though, because it's really hard to have much patience or sympathy for such rampant ignorance right now. Like that guy who refused to believe the virus was real until he and his wife got sick. So, you've put yourself and your wife (and likely many others) at serious health risk because you thought you knew more than actual scientists and experts. Great job. 

And yes, the fact that we have people like Trump out there furthering these theories makes it all even more terrifying :/. Especially since you know they'll never face any actual consequences for pushing such dangerous rhetoric. The worst, and perhaps most ironic, part is that Trump's constant use of conspiracy theories lends credence to the people who claim you can't trust the government and so forth, because, well, judging from the way this administration has handled (or mishandled) this response, they aren't wrong. 

But John nailed the biggest reason for why I can't get into conspiracy theories (aside from the fact that they're just nuts): the fact that it's impossible for that many people to keep a secret for that long. And considering this virus has affected people all over the world in some form or another, for anyone to honestly believe that the entire world is somehow in on this conspiracy, for whatever reason....well, that's just a level of delusion I can't begin to fathom. 

Also, it's hard for me to lump things like the Tuskegee experiment in with the sorts of conspiracy theories being discussed here because of the fact that actually happened. Indeed, I definitely think it would also help if people learned the difference between plausible conspiracies/plots and those that are just ludicrous on their face. 

As for the school debate, I'm just going to say that a) Kudlow's comments are...wow, and b) I like how people are just now starting to discuss this issue. One would think that people would've been putting potential other options in place for the fall season over the past few months,  just in case, since we've known since March that this virus was probably going to be around a while and a vaccine probably wouldn't be available until next year. But of course, that would've required actual well-thought out planning, something which is clearly in short supply in a lot of places right now. 

On the one hand, hearing all these people being so eager to force kids and teachers back to school despite safety concerns is appalling, but on the other hand, I think about the way we've responded to the constant school shootings and, nope, yeah, this attitude isn't really all that surprising as a result :/. I wonder what would happen if teachers and parents just decided that no, they weren't going to go back, if they held some kind of strike or something. 

[swanpride]

Naturally this isn't about the kids, it is all about getting the parents back to work...but you can bet that the same people who push for it will keep their children at home.

[mojoween]

Aww man, I was really waiting for Alex Trebek to bust out a “shit” or a “fuck”.

[ahisma]

And in the spirit of this episode, the first thing I did after was check the Johns’ birthdays on IMDB! I suppose it’s possible that they could have gotten their publicists to change it, but I’ll go with the more plausible explanation—they were both really born on April 23, 1977. 

[Quilt Fairy]

On 7/23/2020 at 2:54 PM, ahisma said:

And in the spirit of this episode, the first thing I did after was check the Johns’ birthdays on IMDB! I suppose it’s possible that they could have gotten their publicists to change it, but I’ll go with the more plausible explanation—they were both really born on April 23, 1977. 

I thought he just said they were the same age.  That's not the same as having the same birthday. 

[ahisma]

They said both!

[Lantern7]

I didn’t get around to chiming in on this episode. John made a lot of valid points . . . and then I realized he didn’t take 30-45 seconds to take a swipe at Tucker Carlson, especially with the latter’s “planned vacation.” Is something amiss? Do we have to watch John blink and translate that via Morse code? Because he looks like he’d know it.

I share a birthday with Rob Mariano, so I sort of feel John’s pain. 🤓😜

[lasu]

On 7/23/2020 at 3:54 PM, ahisma said:

they were both really born on April 23, 1977. 

Dang, I dunno how I feel about the fact I thought they were BOTH a little older than me, and they...are not.

[Lantern7]

FYI: this episode will be run tonight at 11:10 p.m.