The Wire producer and longtime Baltimore chronicler David Simon ripped into conspiracists spreading unfounded theories that today’s tragic and deadly collapse of the city’s Francis Scott Key Bridge could be a terrorist attack. Simon, a reporter for the Baltimore Sun before creating Homicide: Life On The Street, reserved a special ire for Marjorie Taylor Greene, […]
The fuck? There are conspiracies about this already even though there was a live stream of it? What the fuck is wrong with people?
There are conspiracies that the earth is flat too. Humans can be profoundly stupid.
And religion + racism + fear of the unknown + social echo chambers can all be exploited. Remember that MTG floated a few years ago that space lasers caused California forest fires. Never mind the power requirements and ridiculousness that would require.
I think the woman is dangerous as hell, but I don’t think she’s stupid. I think she uses dumb ideas to mobilize an ignorant base.
You give her far too much credit, she’s incredibly stupid. The people who feed her this bullshit might not be, but she is.
Idk I think she’s stupid but I don’t think that makes her unwilling of a participant in her evil or less dangerous. She’s the voice of the bigoted idiots of America rather than someone selling to them.
No, she’s pretty stupid. If she wasn’t, she’d be Steve Bannon or something similar, but instead she’s the amalgamation of crazy stupid that she is
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She’s gooned on the juice!
Most of the conspiracies I’ve seen are related to the fact that there were live streams of it.
Some people are just unfamiliar with the fact that there are webcams streaming 24/7 in cities all over the world.
When you’re trapped in the phantasm of conspiratorial thinking you’ll try to map any event that makes you feel something into that crooked framework.
It’s incredibly said when it’s involuntary, because it shows how damaged a person’s reasoning faculties have become. It’s infuriating when it’s done by assholes who use it knowingly to manipulate others.
There were conspiracies the morning of. I asked if anyone at work had seen it, about 9 California time, they hadn’t but soon after seeing pictures and video some of these guys were calling for a conspiracy.
So I leaned into it. Yeah Republicans refuse to fund infrastructure maintenance, so the conspiracy is get shipping companies to ram dilapidated bridges so their insurances fund the rebuilds.
The Key Bridge isn’t even that bad. There are WAY worse bridges. Just roll down the water a few miles and go after the Bay Bridge near Annapolis, for example. I’m still irritated that as bad as that pair of bridges is, there’s STILL no long term plan for replacement. We’ve been talking about it for at least a decade now.
One two lane bridge (circa 1952), and one three lane bridge (1973) with a lane that is often set to the reverse direction - without barriers! No shoulders at all. You break down, you’re in the lane. People freeze up from fear driving over it, and I really don’t blame them - I’ve never had an issue, but there is little to block your view of water almost straight down out the side of the vehicle. Don’t forget the metal grate section that gets nice and slick in any sort of wet weather. And they carry far more traffic than they were ever expected to handle. Oh and there are often high winds that add to the fun.
The Mackinac Bridge is exactly the same. Built in 1957, with one concrete and one metal grate lane in both directions, and in winter, it’s sheer ice. It’s so long over a strait prone to high winds, you can feel the sway. I’ve had panic attacks halfway over it as a passenger – and I’m always a passenger even if I was driving in the lead-up because it scares me so much, I was too terrified my first time driving across it and was shaking so badly, I could barely steer. Maybe I’m a pussy, and they say it’s well-maintained, but I’ve read Michigan DOT’s state-wide bridge health report, and it’s less than exemplary.
I have driven over that bridge as well and it’s definitely a scary one. Especially since part of it is that metal grating which gets slick in any kind of humidity.
But for me the Bay Bridges is worse (and I’ve driven the Bay Bridge many times, and the Mac only once - so you’d think familiarity would kick in). The Mac has the other lanes in sight, so it doesn’t seem as crazy small. Also, the Mac doesn’t climb as far over the water as the Bay Bridges do.
I actually compare the Bay Bridge more closely to the old bridges in Charleston, SC that connected downtown Charleston to Mount Pleasant. The Grace and Pearlman bridges were quite exciting, the Grace was like a roller coaster. Like the Bay Bridges, the Grace had 2 lanes and the Pearlman had 3, one of which served as a reverse lane for trucks since the Grace couldn’t handle them. They didn’t have the height over the water that the Bay Bridge does (based on my memory), though. Those bridges weren’t replaced until 2005.
Sadly truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore to a large group of people. As long as it matches their worldview they’ll just take anything at face value.
Human error is a far more reasonable explanation than complicated conspiracies, but I understand the thought. It really looked like that ship aimed for the bridge. Planning such a conspiracy would be far, far harder and more expensive to pull off than simple bridge failure, though.
People who dropped out of high school and think they never needed to learn physics are all watching the video and thinking, “why would a bridge fall THAT way?” and then blaming Biden because that’s what Fox and Newsmax keyed them into blaming.
I thought it was Obama’s fault?
There’s not. A media personality is creating that impression for future use.