These are tough times that we’re living in. There’s such a huge flood of information about the coronavirus that sometimes it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and lost. We get it. However, that just means that you have to be extra careful not to fall prey to conspiracy theories.
When one person questioned whether we should “blindly listen” to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (aka the CDC’s) advice about wearing face masks, someone else wrote a great comeback and shut the skeptic down.
The best part is when they call the conspiracy theorist a breathing Dunning-Kruger graph (that is, that the skeptic vastly overestimates their skills). The interaction went viral on the internet, getting more than 77.1k upvotes on Reddit’s r/MurderedByWords community and more than 5.3k upvotes on Imgur. Doing your own research is always a plus but ignoring the advice of specialists can be dangerous.
The CDC recommends that people wear face masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus
Image credits: Alexander Lyubavin (not the actual photo)
However, one internet user told people that they shouldn't "blindly" do what the CDC says and ought to do their own research first
Image credits: TheJedibugs
Somebody immediately shut them down by explaining why it's a good idea to trust what the CDC says
Image credits: TheJedibugs
The CDC urges people to wear face masks and even has a handy guide on making them at home if you don’t have any available. Their DIY mask guide can be found right here.
Though the CDC initially said that healthy people shouldn't wear face masks based on the data available at the time, it has since recommended that everyone wear masks because asymptomatic carriers might otherwise spread the virus without even knowing that they're ill.
“If there was broken glass all over the floor, would you refuse to wear shoes on principle?”
Previously, Bored Panda spoke with former co-host of MythBusters, Adam Savage about just that—coronavirus conspiracy theories and why so many people believe them. Savage told us that some people find the idea of a worldwide conspiracy to be “comforting” in these strange times.
“Life is unending chaos. We are insignificant, we are born, briefly shine, and then we die. There’s plenty of suffering in between. Maybe, when they’re confronted with that chaos, for some people the idea of a coordinated plan is comforting, even if the plan is against them. At least someone is in charge,” he said.
“Real evil is way more banal, I imagine, than most people think it is. The true horror is preventable, incremental bureaucratic violence perpetrated on the weakest and most marginalized in society. Little people, each afraid for their jobs. Not some nefarious hidden genius with a big plan. I have no idea if I’m right but the odds are with me.”
Savage said that maintaining a conspiracy theory on a global level would be impossible: “Trying to get hundreds or thousands of human beings to keep quiet forever about something huge in a perfectly coordinated fashion is about as realistic as making a skyscraper from jello. Humans are just too squishy and unpredictable.”
The former MythBusters co-host added that the best way to fight coronavirus disinformation is to wear your face mask and not be a jerk: “If there was broken glass all over the floor, would you refuse to wear shoes on principle?”
Here's how some people reacted to the two comments and the epic shutdown of the conspiracy theorist
