But the problem with this sort of attitudes is that governments constantly lie. In a number of cases this is explainable. For instance, one way we do nuclear weapon containment is by lying about certain properties of Uranium (and of course mostly lie about lying, and of course, most researchers don't think it's particularly effective. While you need uranium to find the correct values, uranium + an old tv can tell you exactly what's being lied about and what the correct values are. Any experimental physicist leans how to do this).
But we are now in the situation that media in Europe are lying every day about the constant violence used by the police in Paris (and Brussels, and Madrid, and ...) against COVID-protestors. For example, just from today:
So you cannot trust these messages. Your argument is essentially an appeal to an authority. It is critically dependent on the authority not lying, and not leaving out critical information, and since you have no ability to figure out what they would lie about (and the State Dept has lied about their own people getting hurt and the causes many times).
That doesn't mean other sources are believable or not. The sources of these conspiracies do mean
1) people who were here were hurt.
2) the state department is not helping them.
3) the purpose of these denial messages is, at least in part, to justify 2).
I'm willing to bet that you at the very least think 2) is not true. So your careful fact checking has in fact lead you astray as well, because authorities, just like anyone else, serve their own interests.
I don't know if it was correct for the police to get those people away, but from the video the police
1. didn't use force until someone started kicking against them etc
2. when people continued moving away police immediately left them alone
I was expecting police to run after someone who hadn't done anything or something but this looks like a quite ordinary example of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes".
You don't kick after a police officer (or anyone else for that matter) and act surprised when you get a beating.
> But the problem with this sort of attitudes is that governments constantly lie.
Governments do lie and there have been many real conspiracies. I don't exactly see how that is a problem with what I wrote. Sure sometimes you have to more research than just look up snopes but the real conspiracies mostly have some realistic motivations and reasons behind them to explain them. Critical thinking can get you far.
> While you need uranium to find the correct values, uranium + an old tv can tell you exactly what's being lied about and what the correct values are. Any experimental physicist leans how to do this).
Exactly, applying the scientific method to find out the truth works.
> But we are now in the situation that media in Europe are lying every day about the constant violence used by the police in Paris (and Brussels, and Madrid, and ...) against COVID-protestors. For example, just from today:
Any measures fighting a pandemic are by nature authoritarian. That can not be helped and doesn't invalidate the measures.
Covid-19 is just the beginning. The more our world is globalized the more often will we have to deal with new viruses and the like. If we don't find a way to effectively contain these challenges we are looking at a world that I don't find particular worth living in. So you are barking up the wrong tree here.
> 1) people who were here were hurt.
Even this is not proven. The symptoms are very unspecific and might not be related to their work.
> 2) the state department is not helping them.
Maybe because of my answer to 1.
> 3) the purpose of these denial messages is, at least in part, to justify 2).
Again the whole arguments fails apart of as the 1st point is not proven.
> Governments do lie and there have been many real conspiracies. I don't exactly see how that is a problem with what I wrote.
Your central thesis is an appeal to authority ... and the authority you pick is one that never really tells the truth, has interests at stake here, and has historically lied with rather large consequences. Nor have they ever even apologised or even admitted wrongdoing. What I'm saying is: pick another authority.
> Exactly, applying the scientific method to find out the truth works.
That seems like an excellent proposal for another authority to go to. A well-cited academic that would at least lose credibility if they lied, for example.
> Any measures fighting a pandemic are by nature authoritarian. That can not be helped and doesn't invalidate the measures.
The measures are authoritarian wild guesses. With, of course, a healthy dose of denying there was anything wrong with past measures and complete refusal to help with the massive damage they are causing or accepting anything remotely resembling responsibility. And half the measures are pandering to special interest groups of course.
None of it justifies feeding people wrong information. And let's not joke here. The government is feeding information, and hiding other information, just like all the other groups are. For instance, they are massively downplaying that the big source of infections was hospitals. We all know why: they're afraid of being called to account for ancient ventilation systems in particularly infectious hospitals. They're afraid of the current systems (of having all publicly insured patients share rooms, EVEN when caring for infectious patients) might be in need of redesign. And the second source of infections is restaurants. That is being downplayed everywhere they reopen them.
And of course, they're especially afraid of the knowledge that we don't know all that much about how it spreads coming out. That it will become public knowledge that most measures are just wild guesses. I understand that, it won't make negotiation about measures easier. It's still wrong.
> one way we do nuclear weapon containment is by lying about certain properties of Uranium (and of course mostly lie about lying, and of course, most researchers don't think it's particularly effective.
It sounds to me like GP is hinting that the rate of particle emission for a given mass of uranium (maybe just the more fissile U-235?) is deliberately misreported in the literature. The way people originally determined that value experimentally was to count the light flashes produced over a period of time by a source of ionizing radiation placed at one end of a vacuum tube. I'm not a physicist, so hopefully someone can correct me if I'm barking up the wrong tree here.
But we are now in the situation that media in Europe are lying every day about the constant violence used by the police in Paris (and Brussels, and Madrid, and ...) against COVID-protestors. For example, just from today:
https://twitter.com/KevinTONON_/status/1388575836387880965
(Paris is usually much worse btw)
So you cannot trust these messages. Your argument is essentially an appeal to an authority. It is critically dependent on the authority not lying, and not leaving out critical information, and since you have no ability to figure out what they would lie about (and the State Dept has lied about their own people getting hurt and the causes many times).
That doesn't mean other sources are believable or not. The sources of these conspiracies do mean
1) people who were here were hurt.
2) the state department is not helping them.
3) the purpose of these denial messages is, at least in part, to justify 2).
I'm willing to bet that you at the very least think 2) is not true. So your careful fact checking has in fact lead you astray as well, because authorities, just like anyone else, serve their own interests.