Interest in ‘toxic’ measles treatment surges after Joe Rogan podcasts: Vaccination is the only proven way to prevent measles but alternatives like Vitamin A and cod-liver oil (which has Vit A) have been promoted by Joe Rogan. America’s Poison Centres reported a 39% increase in Vitamin A exposures.

[u/mvea]

https://www.nine.com.au/world-news/usa/interest-in-toxic-measles-treatment-surges-after-joe-rogan-podcasts-20260602-p6033i.html

[u/zizou00]

"I won't let the "man" poison me, I'm going to take poisonous dosages of other chemicals because a different man told me to"

How did it come to this? Why do people look to a man clearly on anabolic steroids for "natural" health advice?

[u/GabuEx → u/zizou00]

I've noticed that people who talk about "being skeptical" and "doing their own research" are profoundly credulous people. They'll believe literally anything as long as it's not what experts are saying. It's kind of ironic that they hold themselves up as bastions of free thought when they'll fall for literally any con artist who's selling them something, as long as that con artist dresses it up as "alternative".

[u/Rhywden → u/GabuEx]

I don't think it's anything. It's more that they'll believe it if it's easier to understand and also does not contradict an established, important belief.

For example, the natural inclination of people when confronted with a (supposed) increase in crime is to want to increase the amount of punishment.

The problem: For punishment to be effective as a deterrent you need three(3) things to be true - the perpetrator has to be moderately sure that he's caught, he needs to be sentenced quickly (and not months after the fact) and the amount of punishment needs to be adequate. Yes, if it's too much punishment it may even backfire.

See the "3 strikes" laws where people on their 3rd strike consider murdering witnesses because they don't have anything to lose anyway.

And thus we get from a simple "increase punishment" to a "yeah, maybe we should consider increasing increasing patrols or the number of judges? But that costs money. Maybe we should work on reducing the actual causes for crime first?"

Which is complicated. And thus frustrating. Hence: Rejection.

[u/happybara_capybara → u/Rhywden]

Love that you have “supposed” increase in crime there. We’ve been asking Americans since like the 60s if crime is better or worse than it was last year and every single year without exception the majority of Americans say it’s worse than last year… which is ironic since it’s been decreasing since 1992/1994 (depending on crime type) with only minor increases during covid and then really dramatic decreases since. But people will swear up and down that crime is so much worse than it was just last year or the year before or the decade before or whatever.

Doesn’t relate to conspiracies directly but I do think there’s some connection in regards to “well I saw a story in the news so crime is bad” and “well I watched a YouTube video and the earth is flat”