Greetings, pFizer pFaithful! We at the Ministry of Truthiness want you to guard against misinformation about reality that contradicts our own version of reality, otherwise known as The Science™. What should you do when evil right-wing conspiracy-theorizing domestic terrorist nutcases say Bad Things about our response to the Worst Disease Ever or the Glorious Goo or face diapers, and try to show you studies proving their point? Here are some useful strategies:
Cover Your Ears
Don’t engage! Don’t listen! Don’t read any of that terrible misinformation! Instead, say that you’ve done a lot of research (i.e., listened to NPR every morning) and you know that everything these nutcases say is wrong. Simple!
Fight Back
Call the nutcases bad names! Call them Covid-denying anti-science selfish murdering extremist granny killers. That should teach them a lesson and make you feel more virtuous.
Appeal to Authority
Tell the nutcases that since they’re not doctors, they shouldn’t have an opinion on medical matters. Instead, say that you trust only experts, like Dr. Fauci, or Joe Biden, or Rachel Maddow, or Bill Gates, or Justin Trudeau. It doesn’t matter that these experts got The Worst Disease Ever despite having injected the Glorious Goo. The point is that these experts are more famous and wealthy than you or your nutcase enemies, and thus should be trusted.
Ostracize and Shame
If the nutcases peddling misinformation are friends or family members, don’t let them hug you or even be in the same room with you, because they are obviously unclean plague rats who want to kill you.
Fire Them
If the nutcases are your employees, you should fire them so that they will retreat to their homes and lock themselves away from society. If Noam Chomsky has his way, they’ll starve to death in self-imposed isolation. Good riddance!
Censor Them
If these nutcases do any writing on social media, make sure that you get them cancelled, deleted, banned – censored, in other words. That way their dangerous misinformation won’t be a threat to our democracy any more. Remember, democracy requires total obedience and agreement.
Dismiss the Source
When the nutcases show you statistics from VAERS (the CDC’s and FDA’s own data), say that VAERS can’t be trusted, even though you trust everything else the CDC and FDA tell you. Similarly, when the nutcases show you web pages with huge lists of studies about the Glorious Goo or face diapers, say that you don’t know who created those lists, freeing you from the hassle of actually having to look at those studies. In other words, if the information doesn’t come from approved government spokescreatures, it doesn’t count.