UKH

Are all forums suffering the same influx of conspiracy theorists (or coincidentalists/whatever they want to call themselves)? 

Not intended as a criticism of the mods here, genuine query. it's near impossible to stop them and it's whack-a-mole getting rid but they seem to love it on here.

 I'm not really active on any other forums these days (not massively active in here either tbh) so curious of others experience. 

Ta

Is this forum suffering an influx of conspiracy theorists?

Yup, and any below the line comments on news sites 

This site is refreshingly clear of such folk. The Whac-A-Mole here is partly the same few climbers changing profile.

Inadequate scrotes with nought to say, so they make it up! The art to successful trolling (a worthy and honourable pastime because it broadens all our horizons), is to be correct in the first place.

There's definitely been more over the last few years than I ever noticed before and they seem to be very vociferous with it. The was one chap this morning with 3 threads going on the same subject prior to 7am. Thats what I call motivated.  All deleted now obviously.

I know the last few years has brought them all out the woodwork. I'm just curious if this site has a above /below/average attraction for them is all. 

Those type sections are usually best avoided. There only so much stupid I can take in any one sitting, which is normally surpassed within about two comments 

"Yup", "This site is refreshingly clear of such folk"

Interesting. I know the mods are pretty quick to get on stuff as soon as they realise what's going on.  Without much experience of other forums I wasn't sure how typical it all is. 

It's not even so in much the introduction of the subjects that I object to. It's the keep posting the same old pish when there's no real engagement at all. If people want to talk about it fine, but when you've been told in no uncertain terms that no one cares keeping posting is just bloody annoying. 

All over twitter too. Usual Anti vax nonsense with an added layer about the vaccine is killing millions worldwide and it's all being covered up by the World Wildlife Fund or some other shadowy organisation beginning with a W. Oh, and Jewish Space Lasers…

Lazers, please...

These nutjobs can't even spell the imaginary thing they're ranting about.

I got the impression it was just one obsessive individual on here rather than an influx.

Sometimes useful to take a reading on what some elements of Joe public are thinking or happy typing out loud!

Some of 'them' appear to be non-human/AI/chatbot. They often come up with something loosely connected to the thread topic but in a not-quite-definable non-human manner. It can be quite amusing and I'm sometimes tempted to take the bait and respond. I apologise to anyone real who's been treated this way by mistake! They are almost certainly artificial. I also suspect some posters have masqueraded as something similar to cause a stir.

I’m in quite a few forums and this is by far the worst for the random tinfoil hat and/or conspiracy theorists posters.

In fact I’d go as far as saying it’s the only one plagued by them.

I've noticed a whole bunch of new posters this week or so, often joining the forum in the early hours.  Most disappear.  A while ago, I even spent time googling their username, which often cropped up as a newbie on other forums.  I am less of a sad git now. And amongst them, there will be the odd genuine one and don't want to put off new members.

It's hard to tell if you're serious ...

I get the impression that it's one or two people who are responsible for most of it on here. It appears they are climbers who have lost it a bit and gone down the conspiracy rabbit hole. They have no argument, but they firmly believe in it anyway, so all they can think of to do is to repeat themselves over and over. It's all a bit sad.

I don't really use any other social media apart from UKC, but judging by other comment forums I've seen, and real life, I think it's better on here than most places. Start talking to random people on the street and I bet you'll get a nutjob within a few minutes. 

Is that not a conspiracy theory? 

Well, there is a lady in the US congress, Marjory Karen Green, who speaks of such things. The US congress is known globally as a robust source of truth and knowledge. They wouldn't put up with any nonsense. Perhaps there is something in it. Coincidentally, a tin foil hat would protect you from a space laser. Just sayin'.

I’m clearly not getting up early enough - I haven’t noticed any of these posts recently. 

I don't know about that, but it can't be a coincidence! 

I see what you did there, have a like!

If you do this I suspect most people will consider you the nutjob. Except for old ladies. They'll love it.

The nutters would spell it 'lazers', obviously...

The one selling dope was a change from usual

ooo... I missed that one. Premium Columbian best or common or garden ganja?

I think they were punting some home grown. Spelling was poor

I assume they got deleted because they hadn't paid for a premier post. Thems the rules.

Er, "Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation"...

I think these forums are thankfully much lower than average for conspiracy theorists anti-vax/QAnon/etc etc. Personally I'm trying to promote the idea moon is flat (and Elvis and JFK living on the secret Nazi base on the dark side just isn't true because its flat), but people here just aren't taking me seriously

The mods must be doing a very good job filtering and deleting it. Thank you mods!

Well it's flat enough to land a Lancaster bomber on it

I think you mean Lazars.

Chump

Probably Tory MP’s

Well done. What a clever boy!

Now see if you can google 'sarcasm'...

FTFY

 Are you a Londoner

They seem to be easily panicked if you try talking on the bus or train.

Please put a trigger warning on this sort of post.

People talking to you on public transport? Ughhh

You know birds aren't real, right?

I'm Yorkshire/N.Wales hybrid. It's a great blend.

But I do reluctantly live in Greater London now.

That does seem to be the way things are heading

You have public transport - lucky you. There's bugger all of it that's useable where I live.

What exactly are Jewish space lasers meant to do, make you eat more Kneidlach?

I believe when Taylor Green started babling on about them, it was in connection with forest fires in the US west. So starting forest fires is the answer! 

Yep.  While Trump was blaming the forest fires on the libtard Democrat state government failing to sweep up the leaves and keep the forest floor tidy.  Because either way climate change has nothing to do with it (and isn't really a thing anyway).

I seem to remember that, at the time, it was pointed out that the forest floor (as in the National Park) was the responsibility of the Federal Government rather than the State, and as such Trump was in charge (and hence responsible) for those keeping the forest "tidy".

Try Quora. 

It's pointless answering such a ridiculous assertion. Even the BBC News got caught out this week.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/bbc-carditologist-aseem-malho...

I saw that interview on the BBC and was astounded: the BBC giving air time to someone who doesn’t buy into the vaccine narrative. Whatever next?

A bunch of single topic shill posters start regurgitating it all over the internet, following his lead by cherry picking only his comment and not the widespread and highly evidenced snowball of dismissal that’s building in professional circles?

Is that like quinoa? 

the covid lab-leak hypothesis was once promulgated as a conspiracy theory...

Still just conjecture and what evidence there is seems to indicate natural origins. Took 14 years to isolate SARS original carrier species and it’s not yet been determined which animal carried Ebola. 
 

Theory only becomes conspiracy theory when it insists it’s true despite lack of evidence or in direct contravention of established fact.

I think a lot of the 'lab leak' conspiracy theories were more about it being a deliberate leak by the Chinese to somehow destroy the West. The idea that it could have been an accidental leak from a lab investigating coronavirii in indigenous species wasn't that far-fetched.

The problem is it got blurred into the gain of function experiment which got leaked theory.

Its still often confused with the vague "natural" covering both "infected animal got caught and transported to the wet market" vs the "infected animal got caught and got transported to the lab at which point it either escaped/infected a human".

After repeated sightings of UFOs in the sky near the UK's greatest climbing spots, some conspiracy theorists began to speculate that aliens have been visiting Earth to observe and monitor rock climbers. The evidence is limited but mounting, pointing to the aliens being interested in learning about different techniques and styles of climbing for unknown (but highly advanced and intelligent) reasons.

How appropriate 

Just got back from the US. Felt awful Friday. Tested positive for the 1st time yesterday.

Yesterday I was a wreck and couldn't get out of bed. Feeling a little better than yesterday but thankfully the fever/shivver interchange has stopped. Still profoundly weak.

Thank goodness for the vaccine I had in the Autumn.

Some of them post on here.

You might not believe this but aliens flew me to Mars where they had built a climbing wall. They made me climb it for hours while they filmed me

I failed on a slab (about 5c?). When I came down they said "We need Johnny Dawes. Got his address?"

A cluster of UFOs over Kinder monitoring the doability of the Downfall.  Explain that...

Same story, but substitute Skegness Butlins for the US. 

Ooh, that will be and interesting mix gurgling around the East Midlands 

Thank goodness for the vaccine I had in the Autumn.

This vaccine is not like other vaccines.  After a measles vaccination, you don't get measles etc.

All vaccines sit in a continuum of protection against infection. The measles vaccine has about 1% risk of infection after vaccination, the mumps vaccine about 20%, the flu vaccine around 50%. However, the percentage risk of catching the virus isn't the only factor involved, the other key factor is protecting against serious illness or death (which for covid vaccines has been the key factor).

No, but it likely reduced the symptoms, which haven't been pleasant 

which is why denial should ring alarm bells.

the House intelligence committee report goes further..

“Based on our investigation involving a variety of public and non-public information, we conclude that there are indications that SARS-CoV-2 may have been tied to China’s biological weapons research program and spilled over to the human population during a lab-related incident at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV),”

https://www.outlookindia.com/international/covid-origin-no-conclusion-yet-b...

Not quite. Measles vaccine is 97% effective, not 100%. The other big differences are that measles isn't a brand new virus in humans and it doesn't rapidly mutate into multiple strains. 

Their physicists are determined once and for all to sort out one of their last great unknowns - the grade of TPS

Some conspiracy theorists believe that a cluster of UFOs was spotted over Kinder Downfall in the Peak District in England, equipped with ice axes. They speculate that the extraterrestrial visitors might be attempting to use the tools for some unknown purpose, such as building a structure or device. Others theorize that the aliens are collecting samples of local resources for advanced scientific experimentation.

Climbing Five Pebble Slab on Mars has recently become a popular challenge for experienced climbers. The climb is graded 5C and requires an advanced knowledge of technical climbing skills, such as grip strength and balance. To make the climb even more challenging, some climbers are even attempting it without supplemental oxygen. However, one of the most difficult aspects of the climb is finding the right route up the slab. That's why many experienced climbers are saying that if someone were to attempt this climb, they would need a master climber like Johnny Dawes to guide them through the route safely.

It could be any probable state, down to quantum theory, depending on each observation.

Everyone knows it’s the descent route on approach shoes

TPS has been determined by latest physics to have a superposition of both states E0 and HVS simultaneously.

So it depends on the observer to anneal the grade. If the observer has downward spin at crux the grade is observed as E0. However observed with upward spin an HVS results

OK but did Joe Brown grade it VS on the first ascent? Or maybe HVS?

Well when you are hyper intelligent pan dimensional beings and have worked out dark antimatter and quantum isogravity - there is only the ultimate question left.....

No two vaccines are alike.  

Coronavirus are constantly changing to evade immunity-from-infection.  This is why you and I keep getting "common colds".  However, immunity-from-serious-illness persists far longer, and that's why common colds don't clobber you and I every time we get one.  Luckily for us, our immunity-from-serious-illness stems from childhood when our chance of dying from a common cold virus was exceptionally low.

Adults exposed for the first time with no prior immunity-from-serious-illness are way, way more likely to get clobbered with severe illness or death.

The intended and stated purpose of the Coronavirus vaccines was to improve people's immunity-from-serious-illness when being exposed to SARS-nCov-1 for the first time as an adult.  The vaccines have succeeded here spectacularly, with copious clear evidence that they reduce the risk of death by about 10x for adults of all ages, upon first exposure.

They were never intended to prevent transmission and it's a kind of a lie for you to present this as a flaw in the vaccines.  As it happens, they did initially prevent transmission through high neutralising antibody levels, but that was never expected to last as we know antibodies are degraded (by design) with a half-life of months, and as we knew the bit of the virus they worked on (the "RBD" in particular) was the bit that is subject to the most variation.  That's the cat-and-mouse of escaping one kind of immunity (infection) faster than other (severe illness).  That's the natural order of things for mammals and "common cold" virus.  The vaccines were always about bootstrapping a new coronavirus in to the common cold family, not about making it go away.  

Measles exists in much more of a vacuum than coronaviruses and can't do recombinant part swaps to the same degree as coronaviruses, and so it can't pull the same tricks to escape immunity from infection that coronaviruses do.  This is a good thing.

Although I'm probably wasting my time here as your last contribution on this was outright denialism of massively scientifically evidenced facts, when you said:

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/off_belay/masks_nhs_and_the_covid_wars-75...

The famous Todmorden sighting by a police officer was actually just looking for beta on Horror Arete (f6C).

Don’t you just take them with a pinch of salt 😉

Some people believe that a pinch of salt has special magical powers that can be used to control the behavior of the masses. The belief is that the salt can be added to food and beverages to influence people's decisions and sway their opinion. This so-called "salt conspiracy" has been around for centuries and continues to remain a mystery.

Some people believe that the famous Todmorden sighting by a police officer in 1972 was actually a covert mission to gather information on an illicit rock climbing route known as "Horror Arete" (f6C). The theory is that the officer was actually hoping to find a way to access the route without raising any suspicion, but the mission was eventually abandoned due to the dangerous conditions.

The meaning of life

According to records, renowned climber Joe Brown graded the three pebble slab at VS when he made the first ascent. Other climbers have since suggested a higher grade of HVS, but Joe Brown's original assessment still stands.

Thanks for your reply (about Joe Brown's original grade)

Joe was maybe right at the time. Thing is lots of other similar graded routes became better protected since then.

That's "laser" , "Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emision of Radiation"

<sigh>

Never mind, some of us got it 🙂

You know, the odd thing about these vaccine 'sceptics' is that they never say anything that would evidence a genuine belief that the vaccines don't work for them.

I say this because per the NHS there is still a high risk category with just short of 4 million people on it who "continue to be at high risk of getting seriously ill from COVID-19, despite vaccination" [my emphasis].

It's pretty crap to find yourself on that list. Sometimes it's downright terrifying.

But at no point does the realization that you've not been one of the fortunate ones lead you to question the benefits that everyone else has clearly got from the vaccine. You might be a bit jealous occasionally. And frustrated sometimes.

But outright denial of reality just isn't on the cards, because day-to-day survival and any hope that one day things might get better for you depends on your recognition of that reality. People for whom vaccination hasn't brought the end of covid just don't think, or talk, like these 'sceptics' do.