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Comment by spookthesunset | Hacker News Reader

> We're watching the wealthy equivalent of that COVID-denier who, with their last breath before being intubated, calls the doctors and nurses who diagnosed them liars.

Which is a work of fiction. Such a thing probably happened no more than a few times. The only reason it gets parroted back is because it serves as a nice bit of propaganda to gin up fear and get people to fall in line.

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How does pointing out idiots doing idiotic things "gin up fear"? If it gins up anything it's pity. The fearful ones are the people being intubated and denying the cause up to their last breath, they're so fearful that they might be even partly responsible for their circumstances, they lack the moral constitution to admit it. They're weak, and weak people do not induce fear unless they're in a mob.

If I showed you a homeless person dead from a heroin overdose, would you fear heroin? No, because it's entirely within your control whether you use it or not. I think you need to learn how propaganda works.

> Which is a work of fiction.

Anyone who's spent time browsing r/HermanCainAward, or knows nurses who've been on the COVID front lines, can assure you that it's not. People die horrible deaths, often clawing harder than ever to the conspiracy theories they've been fed.

Herman Cain's Twitter account was still tweeting COVID denialism after he died of COVID.

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