Graham wrote:
That individual conspiracy theory proponents have individual commercial motivations seems far more plausible to me than them all being part of some grand conspiracy to undermine trust in governments and society.
There is currently a conspiracy theory making its rounds in muslim countries that Swedish social services are systematically “stealing” muslim children and giving them to ethnically Swedish couples. There is no commercial motivation for this conspiracy theory but it is very clearly promoted by foreign interests, probably Russia who wants to prevent Sweden from entering NATO. As you know Turkey, the only muslim country in NATO, has stalled Swedish membership for over a year. Turkey’s stated reason is completely different, but as the Turkish parliament has to approve, public opinion matters.
I participate in and practically the only places on the Internet where I post something (except occasionally posting flying/diving/trips pictures on FB), so I guess that’s why I participate in non-aviation related discussions.
Good point, and it’s the same for me.
This is the only forum I participate in and I’m not on FB, instagram, linked in or any other platform. Too scared of things I don’t understand, especially when it comes to IT.
I seem to be in good company, also excluding myself from participating in social media any any other forum than EuroGA. That’s a compliment Peter 
That means that I don’t know how these media and forums work, and whether to ban, moderate or whatever is successful.
Some thoughts though:
1. It looks like only a small group engages in political subjects. The vast majority seems to use the forum as a great tool to learn from and to contribute to regarding aviation, and probably don’t read the political threads. Which means they won’t leave even if things get ugly in those threads. So how big is our problem?
2. I like good debates, sharpens the mind. For example: much as a despise the Russian dictatorship I do feel sorry for many Russians who have been brainwashed or kept in the dark and being misused for so long. So, yes, anyone here who blows the horn for that government should be banned. And anyone who does that sneakily will be detected by Peter. But I am interested in questions like ‘how do we get out of this mess’ and ‘how can we become less dependent on Russia’s energy’ and even ‘after the dust settles, how will the relation between Russia and Europe be’. And since I value the sharp minds here, it would be a loss if such things cannot be discussed. As said earlier in this thread, any factual claims require a credible source.
Can’t wait until you open the Brexit thread, and change the heading to ‘the balance of B’, Peter 
Graham wrote:
I think it highly unlikely that there’s some over-arching purpose to it and I simply wouldn’t credit the proponents with sufficient guile and intelligence to operate that way.
Oh yes, that is true enough. On the other hand, the effect is exactly that. And there are enough political perpetrators who will profit from this. Massively.
The anti vaxxer movement is the typical proof of that: They exploited the Covid crisis for their purposes and DID achieve the end that in some countries the majority of the population refused the vaxine, resulting in staggering death figures. In others, they undermined the credibility of government and of the people acting in the crisis teams to such an extent, that between 30 and 60% of the population today would flatly refuse to follow any such orders in the future. That is a clear example how those people undermine government authority and the basic trust any society must have in order to function.
Clearly, many of the nutcase proponents do not have the guile and intelligence to do this, however given todays means of spreading disinformation, propaganda and lies on a very personal level, they have platforms they clearly do not deserve and which are dangerous to the general public.
Peter wrote:
Like I said, there has to be some sort of editorial policy. If there isn’t, a forum will fill up with crazy stuff, and one can see that all over the internet. And the editorial policy must cover political issues, otherwise – now transport yourself to say 1939 – supporting Hitler and his actions must be allowed under the banner of “free speech”.
Absolutely.
Free speech is an illusion as much as freedom itself is. It stops where it damages others. Consequently, freedom of any sort can only go so long as it does not interfere with the freedom of others. The moment it does, it will be curtailed.
Hate speech and support of rogue states, governments or organisations comitting crimes and misdemeanours on such a level have no place in any civilized forum.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In others, they undermined the credibility of government and of the people acting in the crisis teams to such an extent, that between 30 and 60% of the population today would flatly refuse to follow any such orders in the future.
That is one of my great fears: When/if the real killer (say 10%+ mortality rate and highly transmissable) epidemic comes, the humanity would be even worse prepared than before covid.
On WHY did that happen, the answer is much more nuanced than ‘conspiracy theorists spread lies and undermine credibility of institutions, we should silence them all’. The very same institutions the citizens were supposed to follow without questioning have proven to be rather incompetent, often forcing heavy handed ad-hoc ‘solutions’ (of dubious efficacy) on their citizenry. Many examples of complaints about such ‘solutions’ on this very forum. The general antipathy towards science (fueled by evangelicals and entrenched special interests) as well as economic malaise (seeing that the governing elites care only about themselves and not about normal people – google ‘rich man north of richmond’ and think why it went so viral) does not help.
aart wrote:
2. I like good debates, sharpens the mind.
Well, precisely. That’s why I posted here, hoping for good debates, with actual nuanced discussion, logical arguments backed-up by primary sources. Unfortunately, simply questioning the mainstream narrative of ‘unprovoked aggression’ (just google"Nyet means nyet" by then ambassador of US in Russia William Burnds – now CIA chief, and definitely not Putin apologist) is enough to be labeled Putin’s troll here. Hence, I will not disturb the echo chamber here.
That’s why I posted here, hoping for good debates, with actual nuanced discussion, logical arguments backed-up by primary sources. Unfortunately, simply questioning the mainstream narrative of ‘unprovoked aggression’ (just google"Nyet means nyet" by then ambassador of US in Russia William Burnds – now CIA chief, and definitely not Putin apologist) is enough to be labeled Putin’s troll here.
That’s exactly why we don’t need too much non-aviation threads. While this place is the place where majority of people contribute and seek aviation related information, some people have no other things to do except to endlessly discuss about aviation irrelevant topics.
esteban wrote:
That is one of my great fears: When/if the real killer (say 10%+ mortality rate and highly transmissable) epidemic comes, the humanity would be even worse prepared than before covid.
Yup. Actually, whatever pandemic plans we might have will prove useless as people will simply ignore them.
esteban wrote:
The very same institutions the citizens were supposed to follow without questioning have proven to be rather incompetent, often forcing heavy handed ad-hoc ‘solutions’ (of dubious efficacy) on their citizenry.
There is a huge difference between following a pandemic plan, which is usually not developed by the government but by health institutions, and following any institution without questioning. The general gist of any pandemic sort of plan is to lock down to contain it and then go back to normal once it’s gone, which is expected to be within a couple of weeks at most. Most of those plans come out of the military and biowar research, which obviously throws another element into the works. Biowar will develop quite the same as Covid did but much more lethal and quicker, with more focus centers. If pandemic orders are not followed in such a case, the win goes to the initiator of the biological attack.
Reality has shown what happenes if the plans are not implemented fast and ruthlessly enough.
I recall reading about a biowar plan and it’s implementation in Tom Clancy’s “Executive Orders” when an Ebola pandemic is let loose in the US. The military plan called for lockdowns and suspension of public life pretty much as it eventually got implemented with Covid, albeit too late. I was not really surprised later when I got to see some of the actual plans for such events to find that they are pretty much like one described in the novel and those do correspond to what’s in the drawers of most defence and health organisations. I suppose post Covid most of them have been heavily modified or trashed, as found unpracticable due to the “human factor”. Yet, that novel as many of the same author make really interesting reading and his excellent research caused quite some things he wrote about in the “Ryanverse” to actually happen in one or the other way, albeit with usually much less successful outcome.
esteban wrote:
The very same institutions the citizens were supposed to follow without questioning have proven to be rather incompetent, often forcing heavy handed ad-hoc ‘solutions’ (of dubious efficacy) on their citizenry.
I hope very much that for at least one generation we have learned to never, ever let these governmental idiots do it again.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
In others, they undermined the credibility of government and of the people acting in the crisis teams to such an extent, that between 30 and 60% of the population today would flatly refuse to follow any such orders in the future.
I don’t think most governments needed any help in undermining their credibility. They certainly did themselves no favours with such massive overreach, and I hope that in the future situation our populations continue to behave rationally based on reality rather than irrationally and unquestioningly following orders from those in government with authoritarian tendencies seeking an opportunity to exert more power.
The problem is, everyone other than Joe Public has a particular lens through which they view it. Governments view it as an opportunity to exert power and control, healthcare institutions view it purely as a public health issue (preserve health no matter the economic or social cost), businesses view it as a threat to their ongoing activities (business as usual no matter the health cost), etc. Only Joe Public sees it in the round and has to balance all these issues in determining their reaction.
esteban wrote:
That is one of my great fears: When/if the real killer (say 10%+ mortality rate and highly transmissable) epidemic comes, the humanity would be even worse prepared than before covid.
I don’t think that’s likely. The general public may be poorly educated and easily led, but they are capable of observing what’s happening around them. They quickly started to resist the lockdown nonsense once it became apparent that the C19 mortality rate was ~1% and that even that risk was not evenly distributed across the population, i.e. if you were healthy you had very little to fear. If something started going round that caused a random 1 in 10 to drop dead you’d see very different behaviour, since the instinct of self-preservation is strong.
