The Antiscience Movement Is Escalating, Going Global and Killing Thousands

it’s interesting to see how repbulican’s pick and choose on the science that they want to believe in. but this kind of willfull ignorance seems to be spilling beyond the US in alarming ways. i’m clearly not tracking the political developments in other countries, but this is more than a little shocking.

The full antiscience agenda of the Republican Party has now gone beyond our national borders. In the summer of 2020, the language of the antiscience political right in America was front and center at antimask and antivaccine rallies in Berlin, London and Paris. In the Berlin rally, news outlets reported ties to QAnon and extremist groups. Adding to this toxic mix are emerging reports from U.S. and British intelligence that the Putin-led Russian government is working to destabilize democracies through elaborate programs of COVID-19 antivaccine and antiscience disinformation. Public refusal of COVID-19 vaccines now extends to India, Brazil, South Africa and many low- and middle-income countries.

what’s the long game with the perturbation of low/middle-income countries? these countries are particularly sensitive to misinformation. (i had a paritcularly maddening discussion with a guatemalan cab driver about his belief in underwater cities run by “the rothschilds”) but there has to be a market for your madness and if everyone’s sick, there’s nobody to sell your gazprom spew to.

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