Archive for month: April, 2020

I got asked “Why do people think 5G is causing coronavirus?” because I am a clearinghouse of pseudoscience bullshit and conspiracy theories. This is, after all, how I earned my role as Weirdness Consultant for the Atomic Robo gang. To be a well-rounded person with a deeper understanding of humanity, you need to not just know how the universe works and why but also know how people believe the universe works, but totally does not, and why. For shorthand, I’ve named some of those themes I’ve identified:

• Purity – There is an axiomatic Ideal, it can be attained, and you should strive for it
• Contamination – There is Otherness that taints and corrupts
• Primal/Vital Energy – There is a deep reservoir of power that can be sensed, used, and manipulated the underlies everything (yes, this does sound a lot like The Force)
• Wisdom of the Ancients – those who came before us knew more/better/had secrets we don’t (SEE ALSO: every episode of Ancient Aliens)
• The Elect – Some people are Chosen and inherently Better (HINT: it’s Atlanteans, they’re the best)

Purity and Contamination seem two sides of the same coin. They often go hand-in-hand but they come from a different sources. The difference in impulse that leads to orthorexia vs. mysophobia. One of the disappointing things about “Wisdom of the Ancients” themes is that’s more or less the core of all the mystery cults and a lot of the gnostic teaching. This is danger of hearing stories about the exploits and skills of your great-grandfather that you never met. Multiply this by centuries and millennia. In short, people have always been suckers and believed these. Even the Ancients. The Elect, wellllll, if you want to find the root cause of most every genocide ever, there you go.

The best examples for the Primal/Vital Energy theme are animal magnetism, vril, orgone and auras. The Vital Energies thread has been going strong since Anton Mesmer, continually morphing with the development of technology, and is the literal origin of wearing tin foil hats. The argument has been there that electricity and each and every iteration of wireless communication since radio became a thing is somehow distorting or destroying our connection to Teh Life Force. I have read a lot this bullshit and those flyers on the Whole Foods bulletin board start feeling like form letters where they just swap out what technology is currently 100% absolutely killing you and definitely lowering your sperm count. The funny thing is that it’s usually ionizing radiation that triggers the Contamination themes, but I blame circumstances.

So, to save you a trip down conspiracy theory rabbit holes and all the whiskey required to cushion your soul when on an Internet Helldive, I bring you this terrible firmly held untruth to answer the original question. It isn’t that they believe 5G is causing coronavirus, it’s that they believe 5G IS the coronavirus. Or rather, all the terrible effects we are seeing from COVID-19 are actually what happens when 5G disrupts the human body’s connection to the Primal/Vital Energy. Previous iterations of wifi are never good for you by this strand of thinking, but 5G is where it tripped over to lethal in their reckoning.

Basically, this is my encouragement for everyone to go read Linda Simon’s “Dark Light: Electricity and Anxiety from the Telegraph to the X-ray“. Also, please enjoy this classic comic from the sadly defunct wellingtongrey.net.