"Bill Gates infected humanity." Where does the Coronavirus conspiracy come from?

Coronavirus is a biological weapon. It does not exist at all, the disease causes radiation from the towers of 5G. Bill Gates is to blame for everything. These are probably the most popular conspiracy theories that explain the nature of the pandemic. Our friends from the Reminder project discussed their origin with the teacher of the University of Lids, the author of the book “Russian Culture of the Conspiracy” Ilya Yablokov.

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Version No. 1. "The virus does not exist at all or it is not particularly dangerous"

Supporters of this theory usually argue that they personally do not know anyone who would become infected with coronaviral infection.

Thousands of hospitalized, according to the supporters of this version, in reality are sick with ordinary flu, other SARS or are generally completely healthy. But the authorities specially placed them in hospitals to falsify statistics.

There is a less radical version of this theory: SARS-COV-2 exists, but it is far from so contradictory and deadly as they are officially talking about this. As evidence, propagandists of this theory can use the statistics of mortality from the same flu (often - consciously or unconsciously - manipulating it, since data on the number of deaths from influenza take over a much longer period than data on a new coronavirus).

But why does anyone mislead almost the whole world? Among those who do not believe in the virus, many explanations were invented. For example, some believe that, by artificially creating a panic, the authorities are trying in this way to limit the rights and freedoms of citizens or want to earn money on them by massively selling medicines for non -existent illness.

The opinion of Ilya Yablokov

During crises, the flowering of conspiracyology always occurs. In Russia, the first half of the 1990s circulated a lot of conspiracy theories that the collapse of the USSR organized, for example, Masons or Americans. And in 2008, the fall of stock markets played an incredible role in the fact that conspiracy again became the mainstream in the West and in Russia.

From a psychological point of view, this is an understandable mechanism: in anxious moments, we all experience confusion, powerlessness, often we do not understand the cause of what happened, at such a moment the mechanism of denial is turned on. During the pandemic, we see it again.

A couple of months ago, we were sure that our familiar way of life could not be destroyed: we bought coffee in the morning, went to the office, met in the bar with friends in the evenings, traveled at least once a year. But all this collapsed at one moment.

This situation is uncomfortable for everyone, but it is easier for people financially protected and possessing critical thinking. They are less panicked due to uncertainty and therefore go faster from the stage of denial to acceptance of reality.

But people who are less protected financially and socially, more passive and tend to rely on a conditional state - tolerate the situation harder. Stress reduces their criticality, and they become adherents of all kinds of theories.

The main thing is that these theories are simultaneously incredible enough to explain all the atypicalism of what is happening, and responded to cultural ideas - corresponded to the picture of the world - these people.

Recently, another factor has appeared - access to a large number of information. The level of media literacy remains low, and this leads users to different sites with fake news, gossip and conspiracy theories.

Version No. 2. "Coronavirus - biological weapons"

According to one version of this theory of conspiracy, the epidemic was made by order of the Chinese government, pursuing its geopolitical goals: for example, to win in a trade war with the United States.

Others, on the contrary, believe that SARS-COV-2 appeared in American laboratories. And the epidemic was initiated by the Trump government to weaken China.

Finally, some lovers of conspiracyology do not exclude that the virus came up with in Russia, for example, in the Novosibirsk Institute "Vector", where test systems were created that determine the virus in the sick, and now work is underway on the vaccine.

The opinion of Ilya Yablokov

This version is curious by the fact that, like the virus that can mutate, any conspiracy theory changes depending on which environment it falls into. If a person does not like Americans, he will be inclined to believe that they created the virus. If he is afraid of the Chinese, he will believe that everything is behind the Ulyan Institute of virology and the Chinese Communist Party.

Answer to the question: "Why did someone need this epidemic?" - Also a lot. For example, in order to destroy some people, strengthen control of humanity or destroy the world economy. The engine of the spread of this theory of conspiracy is the fear of losing freedom, the fear that a big brother is watching you.

Now to combat pandemia of the government of many countries use technologies to monitor the state of health of the population. This happened to the pandemic, but now it became clear to many that the penetration of the state into our daily life is much deeper than before.

If we generalize, theories about the artificial origin of the virus are an attempt to comprehend the change in the role of power structures in our life and answer the question: “What is human freedom in the new world in which we now have found themselves?”

Version No. 3. "Bill Gates infected humanity with coronavirus"

SARS-COV-19, according to part of the conspiracy the public, was created by order of the founder of Microsoft, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates. In confirmation of this version, her adherents often recall the performance of Gates in 2015, in which he stated that it was the viral infection that currently poses the main danger to humanity. The recordings on YouTube watched more than 27 million times.

Ilya Yablokov: “One of the leading theories in English -speaking countries. Often spreads among representatives of the anti -infruction and supporters of Donald Trump and has two main options. First: Bill Gates arranged a pandemic to gain access to healthcare systems. And simultaneously, kill part of the population with coronavirus vaccines. Second: Bill Gates wants to chip the entire population under the pretext of combating the epidemic and begin to control it.

The main factor, which made anti -precipitory theories popular, is a strong social polarization in the modern world. In the second half of the twentieth century, in Western countries (and in Russia after the collapse of the USSR), the main trend in the mass consciousness was the distrust of the political elite. Private citizen of the country saw that politicians have more and more power, that they are growing more closely with the financial elite. But he could not change this. This powerlessness led to frustration. And frustration is excellent soil for conspiracyology. People begin to believe that they want to finally “enslave” the elite - hence the version about chipization. The vivid image of this is the “fields of human bodies” from the film “Matrix”: the system feeds on the energy of people, and Vachovsky very well conveyed this concern about the influence of the system. Another anxiety, often manifested through these theories of a conspiracy: the authorities need to get rid of the elderly and disabled people, because they do not make contribution to the economy, and the state’s resources are eating. And the authorities are allegedly trying to do this with the help of harmful vaccinations.

Bill Gates is the embodiment of these insidious elites for conspiracy thes. Firstly, because it finances a charity fund that is engaged in vaccination of the population of the poorest countries. Secondly, he is media, rich and from the technological environment-which means that he, in theory, has enough resources to arrange chipization or invent a particularly cunning vaccine. Gates is an ideal candidate for the role of a villain that Hollywood loves to portray in films about secret societies and superheroes. Now the theories of the conspiracy about Bill Gates have more and more supporters, because they are based on the fear that the state will be unable to protect the health of citizens and the management of medicine at such a fatal moment for nations will be in the hands of billionaires. ”

Version No. 4. "The virus does not exist, and the symptoms causes radiation from the towers of 5G"

Fans of conspirology have long talked about the dangers of 5G for human health. True, before the appearance of a new coronavirus infection, they believed that this technology causes cancer. And now the theory dominates that radiation from the towers forces oxygen molecules to fluctuate with an unusual frequency, as a result, a person has a sharp oxygen starvation, which is an erroneous (or by malicious intent) attribute Covid-19.

To some lovers of alternative theories, all this seems so convincing that they begin to fight the towers: in the UK they already set fire to a few pieces. To Russia, the version about the 5G tower also managed to get-it began to promote instagram-recognition with a millionth audience.

The opinion of Ilya Yablokov

The version of the harmful radiation of the 5G towers is popular among the right, again in English -speaking countries. And it, it seems to me, arose in response to the growth of the economic and political influence of China in the modern world. The fact is that the basis of the right ideology is the protection of the nation from influence from the outside. The upholding of their borders: territorial, cultural, political. Since the 19th century, nationalists even had such a term - the “body of the nation”. It means a certain unity of patriots and members of a certain nation. And for the right radicals, the penetration of others - strangers - into this body is comparable to infection with the virus.

Even before every coronavirus, active discussions were conducted in the British press about whether 5G technology is safe, whether the Chinese company Huawei will receive access to information from British citizens. Even representatives of the political mainstream participated in these discussions. That is, in the mass consciousness, the idea that 5G technology can pose some kind of threat has already circulated. When coronavirus happened, the discourse at some point suddenly switched from technological safety to biological. So the version that the towers can cause symptoms attributed to the coronavirus infection, has become one of the explanatory models of what is happening.

A huge role in its distribution is played by social networks. At first, the famous author of conspiracy theories David Aik said in an interview with the dangers of 5G. Hundreds of his fans began to develop this version, and on Twitter it began - it still goes - incredible seething. Some kind of activists-conspirarologists make a video about the dangers of towers, write millions of tweets, force thematic hashtags, hair and barking. And so this information reaches a huge number of people. One of them was so imbued with so that he began real actions-he began to burn the towers, which, according to the estimates of the British The Guardian British journalists, are already a hundred.

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