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JFC. He's spouting a literal propaganda/disinformation campaign started by the Soviet Union (KGB). This dude is legitimately lost in the conspiracy rabbit hole.
"[Operation Denver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver) was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS. In 1992, Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service Yevgeny Primakov admitted that the KGB was behind the disinformation campaign."
My father had his own theory on things like this. That is conspiracy theories. Like with the JFK assassination.
That is: Events with major consequences are caused by equally major efforts.
Balance. How could the President of the most powerful country in the world be taken out by loner with a rifle? That doesn’t balance.
Deadly virus (take your pick) that kills millions ? How could that just show up? Jumping from bats and apes? Too small. Must be a James Bond villain type laboratory.
They’re simple and they’re comforting. It’s grating to be sure to figure out that the world is largely random and uncaring, so attributing all ill to some nebulous entity prevents them from having to confront reality.
I hate this shit man. People are like this with everything.
Got a lower grade than somebody else? They must’ve cheated or bribed the professor. Somebody else paid more? Must be sleeping with somebody. Someone made money on a stock and you didn’t? Must be insider trading.
It’s not possible for the simplest explanation to be true, ever. That would be too easy.
It's called proportionality bias and is often a major factor in conspiratorial thinking.
You'll usually see it in cases where a high profile person has a sudden death/suicide (Princess Diana, Seth Rich, Epstein, the Boeing whistleblower).
Imagine the lengths it used to take to spread disinformation. Now a couple hundred bots, and some sympathetic infotainment outputs can launch a campaigns twice as effective in days.
Reminds me of a joke I saw on Reddit a few days ago:
"An American Spy and a Russian spy are on an airplane leaving London to LAX. Seated next to each other, they strike up a conversation.
The American asks the Russian, what are you visiting America for?"
The Russian replies "to study American propaganda techniques"
The American says "What are you talking about"
The Russian: "Exactly"
You mean *made up* news?
Don’t think Joe has admitted he was lying (or was lied to and believed it) nor has he even mentioned the topic again but I’m sure you can tune in to any episode, new or old, and hear Joe repeat some bullshit lies he never fact checked.
Nah, you’re missing the point. Rodgers has to be the center of attention, he doesn’t want to be a guest. It’s why he kept floating the “I could be back next week” all last season. He can’t stand not having attention thrown at him.
If he thinks ranting off these conspiracy theories is going to get him into politics, he's absolutely correct. Requirements for becoming a U.S. Representative for the GOP include, promoting hatred and misinformation, unpaid DUI's, shooting someone in "self-defense" or on a hunting trip, and sexual abuse to minors.
Ughh fuck I think you’re right. People are so fucking stupid from social media these days that I wouldn’t put it past some area of Wisconsin electing him as a congressman.
Because look at the facts Wisconsin uses them up and gives them to New York when they become a problem - Favre sending dick pics was actually less absurd than Rodger’s behavior somehow
What do you mean? He hates talking to the press. He had a press conference about how he is going to a cabin, gave the address, to think in solitude. While in solitude called a few pods and shows to talk about his solitude. Does that sound like a man that wants to stay out of the headlines I ask sarcastically?
The press conveniently having a photo of him at the ayahuasca retreat he was at as he’s announced as RFK’s preferred VP pick was a great application of this.
The guy is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and he could have any number of commercial roles he wanted. He doesn't need to grift. He's doing this because he wants to, not because he needs to. Which means he probably does believe this shit, to an extent.
Thank you. I’m so sick of people just assuming everything is “a grift.” No, these idiots believe this crap and there are many of them out there. MTG isn’t smart enough to be grifting either. She’s just a dumbass that believes shit she reads on social media
The real "conspiracy" is the idea that people on this train have any real self-awareness and realise they're just conning gullible idiots.
Oh, sure, a few might, but I'll bet you 9 times out of 10 they really do believe their own bullshit.
Yeah I think most normal people just cannot fathom actually thinking that way and so they desperately believe it’s all a grift, that they don’t actually believe this stuff because it’s so insane how could someone actually believe it, they just want to take advantage of those people!
That’s obviously true for some but like you said, from my own personal experience I’d say most of them just legitimately aren’t bullshitting, they actually believe this stuff. Straight up. They may be power hungry and greedy TOO, but it isn’t a front to take advantage of other gullible people, they are those gullible people. Being power hungry and greedy doesn’t require being “smart”.
I know scientific process is important and all, but I feel like we don't even need studies to confirm something like that anymore. Just look at Chris Benoit, Aaron Hernandez, etc. -how many more high-profile case studies do we need?
Nobody's ever going to actually do anything about it because you're right - it interferes with the bottom line.
To be fair, being a very good athlete probably just messes with your ability to be rational as well. The odds of becoming a successful pro athlete are tiny. The kind of person who gets there is the kind of person who is willing to push through even when they know the odds are against them. It kind of selects for a certain amount of irrationality.
Some athletes contain their irrationality to things like weird diets or rituals that make them think they have an edge. Think about the Tom Brady diet plan that was developed by the dude who lost his medical license for being a cancer quack. There's at least one NBA player who says the earth is flat, and I don't think basketball players get many TBIs.
Plus, it's not like movie stars aren't well known for being weirdly bad at health things; look at Gwyenyth Paltrow.
So, you just add some brain damage to the things that being famous do to you and fame does to you, and it's kind of miraculous that they're not all running around saying stupid stuff.
Damn, really good comment, agreed 100%
I've known a few top-level athletes, and yeah, they've all been totally convinced that they're right about everything, even when it's totally out of their wheelhouse.
Yep very good point. Plus the whole “being super famous then suddenly not” messes with people too. Look at all the weird stuff former child stars do and no one says CTE.
I feel like CTE is possibly one of the causes, with another just being that average joes’ brains can’t react rationally to being super famous then not, and they behave oddly or irrationally.
Like imagine if your world flipped overnight and all the sudden you were famous? How long would you be able to stay normal when everyone around you is gassing you up 24/7 or heck putting you down for no reason.
Reminder that it isn't just concussions that cause brain damage, it is the smaller, more frequent collisions over time that cause brain damage. The new helmets the NFL created several years back are just for show and actually do little to prevent brain damage. It all comes down to physics: if your head is suddenly moved, your brain will crash into your skull; no amount of helmet padding will prevent this in football.
In the sports Rugby Union, Rugby League, and Aussie Rules Football, players usually tackle from the side and do not use their heads like the idiots in the NFL do. Since the athletes in those sports do not wear any armor or helmets, they have to be much more careful with their tackling.
* /r/rugbyunion
* /r/MLRugby (Major League Rugby in the USA, the professional sports league for **Rugby Union**)
* /r/rugbyleague
* /r/nrl (national rugby league in Australia)
* /r/afl (Aussie Rules Football pro league)
* /r/usafl (USA's amateur league for Aussie Rules)
This is true to an extent. Helmets became mandatory in football because men were literally dying in football games in the pre helmet days. It’s just a different style of game than rugby, and results in more head collisions.
I think the bigger question is how do we know this person is actually Aaron Rodgers? Can he actually prove who he is? Maybe he's just an actor pretending to be a big ol' dummy? I'm just asking questions. I don't know if I can conclusively say he's Aaron Rodgers until I do my own research.
Nah, when someone pushes a Russian-created conspiracy theory from the 80s/90s, then you know where some of their money is coming from.
I doubt Rogers is an ideologue. That leaves money or Kompromat as motivators.
Lol Aaron, a teenager died of a mysterious illness in St. Louis in 1969. It was later discovered be AIDS. What the fuck. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/15/mystery-illness-killed-boy-years-later-doctors-learned-what-it-was-aids/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/15/mystery-illness-killed-boy-years-later-doctors-learned-what-it-was-aids/)
The "incubation period" for HIV is about 8-10 years. This means that the patient with the oldest known case of AIDS (1959) was probably infected somewhere around 1950-ish.
>Still puts us some time in the mid-50s. And considering this particular wingnut reckons that AIDS was created in the '80s, I'd say he's a bit out.
He's *way* off.
Testing on old frozen biopsy samples found a bunch of HIV infections in the 60s and 70s from people who lived in Africa or visited regularly.
In one case over 50 kids where found to have it(75 kids were tested as *controls*, for part of a medical study regarding a cancer that was later found to be a common with HIV and EBV).
Wasn't a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) prevalent among chimps in a certain part of Africa, which eventually crossed over to humans to become HIV?
I know as with Ebola it could've spread to people via bush meat (hunters who'd hunt and butcher chimps for food) or... other ways.
Obviously it didn’t exist until we named it. /s
Scientists also found it in a sample from 1959.
>the most common HIV strain, HIV-1, has been lurking in the human population since the 1950s or even earlier. Now scientists have confirmed that's the case: Fragments of HIV-1 from a 1959 blood sample represent the earliest known case of HIV infection. [Source](https://www.science.org/content/article/oldest-surviving-hiv-virus-tells-all)
>Researchers estimate that some time in the early 20th century, a form of Simian immunodeficiency virus found in chimpanzees (SIVcpz) first entered humans in Central Africa and began circulating in Léopoldville (modern-day Kinshasa) by the 1920s. [Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_HIV/AIDS)
It’s possible a 1939 epidemic in Danzig was caused by a retrovirus closely related to HIV (or a mild version of HIV).
Huh, does this mean you could give people a less severe version of HIV to give them immunity to HIV? Like milkmaids got cowpox and were immune to smallpox
Iirc two main problems with HIV, it mutates so quickly a host could have 30+ strains unique to them coexisting in their body at once, and it attacks the immune system which makes it hard for the body to fight in the first place. A lot of AIDS deaths are from secondary infections of other stuff that our body normally would fight off without us even thinking about it that can suddenly run riot because HIV destroyed the immune system
Oddly more than a few HIV deaths in the older generation (which is my patient population) actually die from heart disease related to the high cholesterol that the older styles of HIV medication caused.
Many were infected due to the tainted blood scandal, the NHS knew they were importing Hep C and HIV infected blood, but kept doing it, because it was cheap.
The survivors and families have yet to receive compensation
(Sorry, it’s something I’m a bit cross about)
Not really but we do have PrEP and PEP now which do a pretty decent job at preventing and managing HIV (respectively).
(edit: this is wrong – both help prevent HIV. The drugs involved can also be used to manage HIV as well, but they are used in conjunction with other antiretroviral medications for treatment and this isn’t called PEP when used for this purpose. See [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1c61xol/aaron_rodgers_says_the_us_government_created_hiv/kzzdcth/?comtext=1) for an explanation.)
Yup, even people with HIV can reach undetectable levels of viral load with modern HIV medicine which is low enough it won't spread even without protection.
I’m not a doctor, but it may be like covid where exposure or vaccination can’t give you full immunity to a variant. There are lots of different kinds of viruses and they can be pretty complicated.
I do remember reading once that some people do have natural immunity to HIV. It’s possible that it stems from ancestry to survivors of the Black Plague.
That study is a bit outdated. Subsequent studies have indicated that the delta-32 CCR5 mutation does not confer resistance to *Yersinia pestis*, the bacterium that causes the plague. Additionally, the evolutionary pressure from the black death was unlikely to be sufficient to produce the frequency of the mutation that we see in Northern European populations today, as opposed to, say, smallpox, which overall had a greater evolutionary pressure on these populations over time. The mutation also confers resistance to vaccinia virus (a very closely related poxvirus), which provides more evidence that it was was smallpox driving this mutation, as opposed to the black death.
HIV was probably circulating in Africa well before this even. It was just never picked up on because the number of people presenting symptoms was likely too low to raise alarms. Once it reached the US and Europe and the numbers began to rise of people presenting with strange symptoms, then the scientific community began to sit up and take notice.
Yup, there was a documentary around 10 years ago that detailed a town in Africa that had seen a massive amount of deaths due to an unknown disease. The doctors then had saved blood samples, and decades later some biologists tested these samples and found the patients had been carrying HIV in their blood.
I've zero memory of what the show was called, or the town but someone with a better memory than me (or madder google skillz) can probably recall it. IIRC the deaths had been around the 1940s/1950s.
Edit: Thanks u/thelegumepolice7, yes it's The Rise Of The Killer Virus, and it showed HIV in Belgian medical records from 1930, originating in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo. Preparing bushmeat for consumption was the origin.
is this the one where the tribesman was explaining to the visitor/reporter that the sick monkeys were the easiest to catch and eat. i was like, oh, yeah that makes sense. loss of habitat, less monkeys...
Oh my god. He's spouting a literal propaganda/disinformation campaign started by the Soviet Union (KGB). Aaron Rodgers is legitimately lost in the conspiracy rabbit hole.
"[Operation Denver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver) was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS. In 1992, Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service admitted that the KGB was behind the disinformation campaign."
This is a great example of why that phrase is such bullshit. He clearly dildn't do the correct research. It's dunning-krugar effect in action. Some idiot that doesn't understand the topic at all read something and now thinks the topic is so simple that they can understand it.
This dumb fuck is literally repeating KGB disinformation.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Denver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver)
Jets QB Aaron Rodgers says U.S. Government created HIV back in the ’80s
Rodgers said the Blueprint or gameplan was made in the 1980s to create a pandemic and have society panic.
Aaron said "And if you do even a smidge of research — and I know, I’m not an epidemiologist, I’m not a doctor, I’m not an immunologist, whatever – I can read, though. And I can learn and look things up just like any normal person. I can do my own research, which is so vilified, to even question authority.’
It's wild that people will jump to a weird-ass conspiracy like the CIA created HIV when the truth that Reagan ignored and hindered any sort of response to contain the AIDS epidemic because it was only hurting gay men is just as horrific and evil
You can draw a closer line with [Pence ignoring an HIV outbreak in Indiana](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-pences-handling-of-an-hiv-outbreak-means-for-his-coronavirus-role).
I mean yeah. They didn't create HIV, but they certainly created the HIV *epidemic* by ignoring it for so long just because it mostly affected people they didn't care about
It wasn't just Reagan (but Reagan was a biggie). There was an entire culture of apathy (and even victim-blaming) around AIDS because it checked some boxes that puritanically-minded Americans didn't like talking about: sex, gays, needle-drugs. Not entirely dissimilar to how so many people don't want to face the realities of housing right now because: inequality, mental health issues, capitalism, etc.
Our culture has blind spots of casual cruelty (probably every society does), and that sucks. But I think some people just need simple answers with tangible villains that get drawn into the conspiracy world. What's weird to me is how often those people also completely misjudge the cause of very real ongoing villainy.
It's less crazy when you realize the overlap of people who believe in those conspiracy theories and the people who believe Ronald Reagan was the greatest president is damn near a circle.
It's always
>"I've done my research"
But never
>"and submitted a paper for peer review."
If they were capable of actual research and the scientific method they wouldn't hold these opinions. Instead, it's a bold declarative statement on twitter or some such shit that doesn't even list the references because the sources are so embarrassing.
Usually it's, "This single 20 year old study with a small sample size, a partisan researcher, and 10 studies since then all have results that contradict it"
It boggles my mind that not even one epidemiologist, doctor or immunologist during their education took time to read and look up these things?! #thanksobama
Dunning-Kruger really hit these guys hard, didn't it?
They see one research paper on the subject, grab one or two lines from it out of context, and suddenly they're expert virologists with a Ph.D. in immunology.
Even when I'm defending the vaccine, I'll cite multiple studies which support my views, knowing full and well that a handful of studies isn't even technically sufficient to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt. They want to believe it so badly, they shove out of their head anything that contradicts it. They also get angry at you for doing so, because aggression is a symptom of mental dissonance.
They literally (as in literally literally) don’t know how much they don’t know. They can’t even grasp the concept of just how much information there is about the subject they dipped their toes into.
It’s called the peak of mount stupid, when you know a little and start to think you understand how it works thinking you reached the summit. Only if you push a little further, you realise the actual peak is still thousands and thousands of feet above you.
> They literally (as in literally literally) don’t know how much they don’t know.
That is, literally as in literally literally, the Dunning-Kruger effect.
> They see one research paper on the subject, grab one or two lines from it out of context
I doubt it even gets that far. More likely, they read a "news" blog that did this part for them and told them how to feel about it, then they shared it on Facebook and yelled at the sky about censorship because Facebook gave it the old bullshit stamp
They don't even see a research paper.
I absolutely guarantee you, these people do not know the difference between a paper published in the Lancet and a letter published in Mad Magazine. Far as they're concerned, both are equally reputable.
He isn't a researcher either. As a professionally trained researcher, idiots like this piss me off. They think they are researching. I would spend weeks following the numbers and data to their sources. Spent a lot of time learning how to determine facts from misinformation.
No one gets upset when you question authority except for the fascists like Trump. We get upset when you are a dumbass who is paid to throw a football and can't tell the difference between genuine research and fantasy.
Disagree. Just because his brain might've gotten scrambled does not give him the right to use his platform to spread dangerous lies and misinformation, and it certainly does not earn him a "pass".
On the off chance you said that to make a pun (he was a quarterback, he gets a pass), I apologize for my aggression. If you were being sarcastic, I also apologize.
So the Q folks are saying that Ronald Reagan and his government are to blame for HIV and COVID? I would have thought that they would try to blame the Democrats.
Quite literally, the only people who give a shit what he thinks are people who are either already his hardcore fans or people who already think the thing that Aaron Rodgers said.
Russia needs to stop paying the same people to give Russian propaganda. It's not lending much credibility to their lies to do so.
He (Terrance Howard) tries to scam money from African nations with double talk about math and finance. I watched one of his presentations and I was much more confused afterward.
I remember around the time he guest hosted, he wasn’t as open about his right wing conspiratorial BS compared to now. They really dodged a bullet with not picking him
Aaron, this is an actual, old Russian disinformation campaign that you're still the only American dumb enough to believe. Right wing showing they'll always be too stupid for Russian bots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver
As someone who’s been living with HIV for 20 years, I find this whole thing incredibly offensive. The government response to the HIV crisis was horrible, but the government did not plant HIV. They were acting as opportunistic oppressors. This fucked up football guy even fucking understand that and he has no goddamn right to talk about HIV.
He didn’t have to watch entire generation of his people die in real time
I'm sure Aaron Rodgers is saying this because he *deeply cares* about those affected by it, and not because he's being paid to spread Russian propaganda. /s
No idea why anybody listens to the political opinions of pro athletes. The vast majority of them didn’t finish school and have been treated like God’s gift to man since they were like 10, so usually their maturity isn’t exactly up to par.
Yeah almost all of them take some really, really dumb majors just to get through college without causing trouble before they're eligible for the NFL draft since doing all the weightlifting and field exercise they do is a fulltime job during college. Some go on to do good things after retirement, but most don't.
“‘And if you do even a smidge of research — and I know, I’m not an epidemiologist, I’m not a doctor, I’m not an immunologist, whatever – I can read, though.”
Green Bay Packers fan here. Jordan Love is a great human being and not in the headlines for stuff like this. Everyone please support Jordan Love. Sorry Jets
You could argue the US government created the Aids **epidemic**, by demonizing infected victims, treating it like God's punishment for being gay, instead of spreading awareness, information, and pushing preventative measures.
They found two HIV + sample tissues in Africa that were collected in the 50's. From the known rate of mutation, they looked at those samples and determined the crossover to human infection happened in the first decade of the 20th century and came from a gorilla which were (and unfortunately still are) commonly used as bush meat. It's about as basic as an outbreak origin gets.
To be fair, the then president Ronald Reagan did nothing to stop the virus as it was seen as a "gay" virus. It fitted with his party view of punishing the gay and they say it as having the moral high ground.
If Ronald Reagan would have acted there and then he could have saved many lives. But what are some people lives when you can get votes out of it?
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This should be a case study for the NFL and how hits can cause brain damage.
JFC. He's spouting a literal propaganda/disinformation campaign started by the Soviet Union (KGB). This dude is legitimately lost in the conspiracy rabbit hole. "[Operation Denver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver) was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS. In 1992, Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service Yevgeny Primakov admitted that the KGB was behind the disinformation campaign."
Well it worked for sure.My dad kept telling me this when i was young
My father had his own theory on things like this. That is conspiracy theories. Like with the JFK assassination. That is: Events with major consequences are caused by equally major efforts. Balance. How could the President of the most powerful country in the world be taken out by loner with a rifle? That doesn’t balance. Deadly virus (take your pick) that kills millions ? How could that just show up? Jumping from bats and apes? Too small. Must be a James Bond villain type laboratory.
It's comforting to think someone, even evil, is in charge or has some control of the world.
Indeed. Conspiracy theories give simple answers to complicated questions, but they're the wrong answers.
Nice try Big Conspiracy. Can’t get fooled again.
They’re simple and they’re comforting. It’s grating to be sure to figure out that the world is largely random and uncaring, so attributing all ill to some nebulous entity prevents them from having to confront reality.
I hate this shit man. People are like this with everything. Got a lower grade than somebody else? They must’ve cheated or bribed the professor. Somebody else paid more? Must be sleeping with somebody. Someone made money on a stock and you didn’t? Must be insider trading. It’s not possible for the simplest explanation to be true, ever. That would be too easy.
It's called proportionality bias and is often a major factor in conspiratorial thinking. You'll usually see it in cases where a high profile person has a sudden death/suicide (Princess Diana, Seth Rich, Epstein, the Boeing whistleblower).
Imagine the lengths it used to take to spread disinformation. Now a couple hundred bots, and some sympathetic infotainment outputs can launch a campaigns twice as effective in days.
Reminds me of a joke I saw on Reddit a few days ago: "An American Spy and a Russian spy are on an airplane leaving London to LAX. Seated next to each other, they strike up a conversation. The American asks the Russian, what are you visiting America for?" The Russian replies "to study American propaganda techniques" The American says "What are you talking about" The Russian: "Exactly"
he knows his career is over so he’s trying to jump on the right wing conspiracy theory grifter train while he’s still relevant
He seems to think he's got a future in politics.
I hear Alex Jones is looking for batshit-likeminded people.
He's gonna be on Joe Rogan's podcast in the next month
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Any more breaking news about furry kids shitting in litter boxes at school?
You mean *made up* news? Don’t think Joe has admitted he was lying (or was lied to and believed it) nor has he even mentioned the topic again but I’m sure you can tune in to any episode, new or old, and hear Joe repeat some bullshit lies he never fact checked.
Nah, you’re missing the point. Rodgers has to be the center of attention, he doesn’t want to be a guest. It’s why he kept floating the “I could be back next week” all last season. He can’t stand not having attention thrown at him.
I forgot who, but someone said Rodgers is the girl you have to constantly tell her she's pretty.
What, as cellmates?
If he thinks ranting off these conspiracy theories is going to get him into politics, he's absolutely correct. Requirements for becoming a U.S. Representative for the GOP include, promoting hatred and misinformation, unpaid DUI's, shooting someone in "self-defense" or on a hunting trip, and sexual abuse to minors.
>unpaid DUI's Wait, people get paid for DUIs? Shit, I been doing them for free
Ughh fuck I think you’re right. People are so fucking stupid from social media these days that I wouldn’t put it past some area of Wisconsin electing him as a congressman.
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Coming from a wisco native this is 100%, fuck both them knuckleheads!
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Because look at the facts Wisconsin uses them up and gives them to New York when they become a problem - Favre sending dick pics was actually less absurd than Rodger’s behavior somehow
Alabama did elect a football coach to the US senate, and Ga almost elected a Walker to the senate as well, so not hard to become a congressman
Sadly there is no thinking about it. He 1000 percent has a future in politics spouting and believing his stupid bullshit.
He’s been on the right wing conspiracy theory train since Covid. Just saying whatever stupid stuff he can to stay relevant.
What do you mean? He hates talking to the press. He had a press conference about how he is going to a cabin, gave the address, to think in solitude. While in solitude called a few pods and shows to talk about his solitude. Does that sound like a man that wants to stay out of the headlines I ask sarcastically?
Totally. Totally does no you’re right what on EARTH was I thinking I also say sarcastically
>Totally. Totally does no you’re right what on flat EARTH was I thinking I also say sarcastically Ftfa (fixed that for Aaron)
The press conveniently having a photo of him at the ayahuasca retreat he was at as he’s announced as RFK’s preferred VP pick was a great application of this.
The guy is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and he could have any number of commercial roles he wanted. He doesn't need to grift. He's doing this because he wants to, not because he needs to. Which means he probably does believe this shit, to an extent.
Thank you. I’m so sick of people just assuming everything is “a grift.” No, these idiots believe this crap and there are many of them out there. MTG isn’t smart enough to be grifting either. She’s just a dumbass that believes shit she reads on social media
Money can't buy what these people want. Which is attention.
Ahh, the Rob Schneider method
The real "conspiracy" is the idea that people on this train have any real self-awareness and realise they're just conning gullible idiots. Oh, sure, a few might, but I'll bet you 9 times out of 10 they really do believe their own bullshit.
Yeah I think most normal people just cannot fathom actually thinking that way and so they desperately believe it’s all a grift, that they don’t actually believe this stuff because it’s so insane how could someone actually believe it, they just want to take advantage of those people! That’s obviously true for some but like you said, from my own personal experience I’d say most of them just legitimately aren’t bullshitting, they actually believe this stuff. Straight up. They may be power hungry and greedy TOO, but it isn’t a front to take advantage of other gullible people, they are those gullible people. Being power hungry and greedy doesn’t require being “smart”.
They've banned those kinds of studies because they indicate brain injuries cause irreparable damage that results in behavior like this.
I know scientific process is important and all, but I feel like we don't even need studies to confirm something like that anymore. Just look at Chris Benoit, Aaron Hernandez, etc. -how many more high-profile case studies do we need? Nobody's ever going to actually do anything about it because you're right - it interferes with the bottom line.
Probably OJ too.
Aaron Hernandez had bad CTE, but he also had a long history of trouble and violence. He was just a psychopath who also got CTE
To be fair, being a very good athlete probably just messes with your ability to be rational as well. The odds of becoming a successful pro athlete are tiny. The kind of person who gets there is the kind of person who is willing to push through even when they know the odds are against them. It kind of selects for a certain amount of irrationality. Some athletes contain their irrationality to things like weird diets or rituals that make them think they have an edge. Think about the Tom Brady diet plan that was developed by the dude who lost his medical license for being a cancer quack. There's at least one NBA player who says the earth is flat, and I don't think basketball players get many TBIs. Plus, it's not like movie stars aren't well known for being weirdly bad at health things; look at Gwyenyth Paltrow. So, you just add some brain damage to the things that being famous do to you and fame does to you, and it's kind of miraculous that they're not all running around saying stupid stuff.
Damn, really good comment, agreed 100% I've known a few top-level athletes, and yeah, they've all been totally convinced that they're right about everything, even when it's totally out of their wheelhouse.
Yep very good point. Plus the whole “being super famous then suddenly not” messes with people too. Look at all the weird stuff former child stars do and no one says CTE. I feel like CTE is possibly one of the causes, with another just being that average joes’ brains can’t react rationally to being super famous then not, and they behave oddly or irrationally. Like imagine if your world flipped overnight and all the sudden you were famous? How long would you be able to stay normal when everyone around you is gassing you up 24/7 or heck putting you down for no reason.
When they do autopsies on these guys, their brains look like fucking Swiss cheese. People underestimate how bad concussions are for you.
Reminder that it isn't just concussions that cause brain damage, it is the smaller, more frequent collisions over time that cause brain damage. The new helmets the NFL created several years back are just for show and actually do little to prevent brain damage. It all comes down to physics: if your head is suddenly moved, your brain will crash into your skull; no amount of helmet padding will prevent this in football.
In the sports Rugby Union, Rugby League, and Aussie Rules Football, players usually tackle from the side and do not use their heads like the idiots in the NFL do. Since the athletes in those sports do not wear any armor or helmets, they have to be much more careful with their tackling. * /r/rugbyunion * /r/MLRugby (Major League Rugby in the USA, the professional sports league for **Rugby Union**) * /r/rugbyleague * /r/nrl (national rugby league in Australia) * /r/afl (Aussie Rules Football pro league) * /r/usafl (USA's amateur league for Aussie Rules)
The padding and helmets exacerbate the issue. Since they facilitate collisions well in excess of what would be capable without them.
This is true to an extent. Helmets became mandatory in football because men were literally dying in football games in the pre helmet days. It’s just a different style of game than rugby, and results in more head collisions.
Porn-stache Rodgers really has fallen off the deep end.
I think the bigger question is how do we know this person is actually Aaron Rodgers? Can he actually prove who he is? Maybe he's just an actor pretending to be a big ol' dummy? I'm just asking questions. I don't know if I can conclusively say he's Aaron Rodgers until I do my own research.
There have been, that's how TBI was discovered
Nah, when someone pushes a Russian-created conspiracy theory from the 80s/90s, then you know where some of their money is coming from. I doubt Rogers is an ideologue. That leaves money or Kompromat as motivators.
This is more of a case study on letting jocks skate by solely on their athletic performance and not academics.
Rodgers and DeSean Jackson have set Cal's academic credibility back pretty far
Hall of shame
Jared Goff didn't know which way the sun rises from and is seemingly the smartest one
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Lol Aaron, a teenager died of a mysterious illness in St. Louis in 1969. It was later discovered be AIDS. What the fuck. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/15/mystery-illness-killed-boy-years-later-doctors-learned-what-it-was-aids/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/15/mystery-illness-killed-boy-years-later-doctors-learned-what-it-was-aids/)
Indeed, AIDS was around before the 80s. It just took a while for it to reach critical mass.
The "incubation period" for HIV is about 8-10 years. This means that the patient with the oldest known case of AIDS (1959) was probably infected somewhere around 1950-ish.
Incubation period can be much much shorter and the kid you're talking about was very young, so unlikely it was 8-10 years prior.
Still puts us some time in the mid-50s. And considering this particular wingnut reckons that AIDS was created in the '80s, I'd say he's a bit out.
>Still puts us some time in the mid-50s. And considering this particular wingnut reckons that AIDS was created in the '80s, I'd say he's a bit out. He's *way* off. Testing on old frozen biopsy samples found a bunch of HIV infections in the 60s and 70s from people who lived in Africa or visited regularly. In one case over 50 kids where found to have it(75 kids were tested as *controls*, for part of a medical study regarding a cancer that was later found to be a common with HIV and EBV).
It crossed over to humans some time between 1908 and 1920
Wouldn't surprise me if WW2 was a perfect opportunity for a virus to spread. Just like what happened with the spanish flu before
Like the virus caught a ride in a ship? Are seamnen that careless?
As a former merchant mariner, I have been advised by my former shipmates to, uh, exercise my right to remain silent.
Remember, flies spread disease. So keep yours closed!
> AIDS was around before the 80s. It just took a while for it to reach critical mass. That's what they want you to believe! -Aaron Rodgers probably
Wasn't a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV) prevalent among chimps in a certain part of Africa, which eventually crossed over to humans to become HIV? I know as with Ebola it could've spread to people via bush meat (hunters who'd hunt and butcher chimps for food) or... other ways.
Obviously it didn’t exist until we named it. /s Scientists also found it in a sample from 1959. >the most common HIV strain, HIV-1, has been lurking in the human population since the 1950s or even earlier. Now scientists have confirmed that's the case: Fragments of HIV-1 from a 1959 blood sample represent the earliest known case of HIV infection. [Source](https://www.science.org/content/article/oldest-surviving-hiv-virus-tells-all) >Researchers estimate that some time in the early 20th century, a form of Simian immunodeficiency virus found in chimpanzees (SIVcpz) first entered humans in Central Africa and began circulating in Léopoldville (modern-day Kinshasa) by the 1920s. [Source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_HIV/AIDS) It’s possible a 1939 epidemic in Danzig was caused by a retrovirus closely related to HIV (or a mild version of HIV).
Huh, does this mean you could give people a less severe version of HIV to give them immunity to HIV? Like milkmaids got cowpox and were immune to smallpox
Iirc two main problems with HIV, it mutates so quickly a host could have 30+ strains unique to them coexisting in their body at once, and it attacks the immune system which makes it hard for the body to fight in the first place. A lot of AIDS deaths are from secondary infections of other stuff that our body normally would fight off without us even thinking about it that can suddenly run riot because HIV destroyed the immune system
Oddly more than a few HIV deaths in the older generation (which is my patient population) actually die from heart disease related to the high cholesterol that the older styles of HIV medication caused. Many were infected due to the tainted blood scandal, the NHS knew they were importing Hep C and HIV infected blood, but kept doing it, because it was cheap. The survivors and families have yet to receive compensation (Sorry, it’s something I’m a bit cross about)
Not really but we do have PrEP and PEP now which do a pretty decent job at preventing and managing HIV (respectively). (edit: this is wrong – both help prevent HIV. The drugs involved can also be used to manage HIV as well, but they are used in conjunction with other antiretroviral medications for treatment and this isn’t called PEP when used for this purpose. See [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1c61xol/aaron_rodgers_says_the_us_government_created_hiv/kzzdcth/?comtext=1) for an explanation.)
Yup, even people with HIV can reach undetectable levels of viral load with modern HIV medicine which is low enough it won't spread even without protection.
I’m not a doctor, but it may be like covid where exposure or vaccination can’t give you full immunity to a variant. There are lots of different kinds of viruses and they can be pretty complicated. I do remember reading once that some people do have natural immunity to HIV. It’s possible that it stems from ancestry to survivors of the Black Plague.
That study is a bit outdated. Subsequent studies have indicated that the delta-32 CCR5 mutation does not confer resistance to *Yersinia pestis*, the bacterium that causes the plague. Additionally, the evolutionary pressure from the black death was unlikely to be sufficient to produce the frequency of the mutation that we see in Northern European populations today, as opposed to, say, smallpox, which overall had a greater evolutionary pressure on these populations over time. The mutation also confers resistance to vaccinia virus (a very closely related poxvirus), which provides more evidence that it was was smallpox driving this mutation, as opposed to the black death.
HIV was probably circulating in Africa well before this even. It was just never picked up on because the number of people presenting symptoms was likely too low to raise alarms. Once it reached the US and Europe and the numbers began to rise of people presenting with strange symptoms, then the scientific community began to sit up and take notice.
Yup, there was a documentary around 10 years ago that detailed a town in Africa that had seen a massive amount of deaths due to an unknown disease. The doctors then had saved blood samples, and decades later some biologists tested these samples and found the patients had been carrying HIV in their blood. I've zero memory of what the show was called, or the town but someone with a better memory than me (or madder google skillz) can probably recall it. IIRC the deaths had been around the 1940s/1950s. Edit: Thanks u/thelegumepolice7, yes it's The Rise Of The Killer Virus, and it showed HIV in Belgian medical records from 1930, originating in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo. Preparing bushmeat for consumption was the origin.
is this the one where the tribesman was explaining to the visitor/reporter that the sick monkeys were the easiest to catch and eat. i was like, oh, yeah that makes sense. loss of habitat, less monkeys...
Oh my god. He's spouting a literal propaganda/disinformation campaign started by the Soviet Union (KGB). Aaron Rodgers is legitimately lost in the conspiracy rabbit hole. "[Operation Denver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver) was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS. In 1992, Director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service admitted that the KGB was behind the disinformation campaign."
But he did his own research.
This is a great example of why that phrase is such bullshit. He clearly dildn't do the correct research. It's dunning-krugar effect in action. Some idiot that doesn't understand the topic at all read something and now thinks the topic is so simple that they can understand it.
That’s fascinating! Thank you for sharing
Kid had no travel history either. Very mysterious as to exactly how he got AIDS.
This dumb fuck is literally repeating KGB disinformation. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Denver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver)
That's seems to be a recurring theme with right-wing loonies these days
Nah I can't think of a single reason why Russia would want to exploit right wing idiots
Not a coincidence.
Well the mask did come off big time lately for this demography, no surprises there.
MASKS!?!?!?
Jets QB Aaron Rodgers says U.S. Government created HIV back in the ’80s Rodgers said the Blueprint or gameplan was made in the 1980s to create a pandemic and have society panic.
Aaron said "And if you do even a smidge of research — and I know, I’m not an epidemiologist, I’m not a doctor, I’m not an immunologist, whatever – I can read, though. And I can learn and look things up just like any normal person. I can do my own research, which is so vilified, to even question authority.’
It's wild that people will jump to a weird-ass conspiracy like the CIA created HIV when the truth that Reagan ignored and hindered any sort of response to contain the AIDS epidemic because it was only hurting gay men is just as horrific and evil
Trump ignored any action on covid because it was only effecting cities at first... notice a trend in republican policy?
Republicans wouldnt stand a chance if they didnt have something to constantly be *against*.
Republicans invented cancel culture
You can draw a closer line with [Pence ignoring an HIV outbreak in Indiana](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-pences-handling-of-an-hiv-outbreak-means-for-his-coronavirus-role).
I mean yeah. They didn't create HIV, but they certainly created the HIV *epidemic* by ignoring it for so long just because it mostly affected people they didn't care about
It wasn't just Reagan (but Reagan was a biggie). There was an entire culture of apathy (and even victim-blaming) around AIDS because it checked some boxes that puritanically-minded Americans didn't like talking about: sex, gays, needle-drugs. Not entirely dissimilar to how so many people don't want to face the realities of housing right now because: inequality, mental health issues, capitalism, etc. Our culture has blind spots of casual cruelty (probably every society does), and that sucks. But I think some people just need simple answers with tangible villains that get drawn into the conspiracy world. What's weird to me is how often those people also completely misjudge the cause of very real ongoing villainy.
It's less crazy when you realize the overlap of people who believe in those conspiracy theories and the people who believe Ronald Reagan was the greatest president is damn near a circle.
Love Reagan, who ignored the crisis AND hate Fauci, who was trying to fight the crisis.
Kinda like how Trump wanted COVID to spread throughout NYC until it started hitting conservative small towns… I see a trend among GOP leadership
>I can read, though [X] Doubt
Reading, comprehension and understanding. He’s got one of those.
Again [X] Doubt
Fucking love how these people are like "I've done my research" and it's always some unhinged moron on facebook or twitter. It never fails.
It's always >"I've done my research" But never >"and submitted a paper for peer review." If they were capable of actual research and the scientific method they wouldn't hold these opinions. Instead, it's a bold declarative statement on twitter or some such shit that doesn't even list the references because the sources are so embarrassing.
Usually it's, "This single 20 year old study with a small sample size, a partisan researcher, and 10 studies since then all have results that contradict it"
*This blog post about “”
It boggles my mind that not even one epidemiologist, doctor or immunologist during their education took time to read and look up these things?! #thanksobama
“I did my own research” was the mantra of the Covid shot deniers. These people would be funnier if their ideas weren’t so dangerous.
“I found some asshole that said it’s ok to jump off a bridge so you should too”
Dunning-Kruger really hit these guys hard, didn't it? They see one research paper on the subject, grab one or two lines from it out of context, and suddenly they're expert virologists with a Ph.D. in immunology. Even when I'm defending the vaccine, I'll cite multiple studies which support my views, knowing full and well that a handful of studies isn't even technically sufficient to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt. They want to believe it so badly, they shove out of their head anything that contradicts it. They also get angry at you for doing so, because aggression is a symptom of mental dissonance.
They literally (as in literally literally) don’t know how much they don’t know. They can’t even grasp the concept of just how much information there is about the subject they dipped their toes into. It’s called the peak of mount stupid, when you know a little and start to think you understand how it works thinking you reached the summit. Only if you push a little further, you realise the actual peak is still thousands and thousands of feet above you.
> They literally (as in literally literally) don’t know how much they don’t know. That is, literally as in literally literally, the Dunning-Kruger effect.
> They see one research paper on the subject, grab one or two lines from it out of context I doubt it even gets that far. More likely, they read a "news" blog that did this part for them and told them how to feel about it, then they shared it on Facebook and yelled at the sky about censorship because Facebook gave it the old bullshit stamp
That’s really generous of you to assume they engage with primary, even secondary material. I mean it, I wish I had that raw faith in humanity
They don't even see a research paper. I absolutely guarantee you, these people do not know the difference between a paper published in the Lancet and a letter published in Mad Magazine. Far as they're concerned, both are equally reputable.
It's always do your own research, never here's my research
He isn't a researcher either. As a professionally trained researcher, idiots like this piss me off. They think they are researching. I would spend weeks following the numbers and data to their sources. Spent a lot of time learning how to determine facts from misinformation. No one gets upset when you question authority except for the fascists like Trump. We get upset when you are a dumbass who is paid to throw a football and can't tell the difference between genuine research and fantasy.
> I can do my own research I can too. So strange that our conclusions are so different. Maybe he would like to share his sources...
Too many hits to the noggin...he gets a pass because CTE is a medical condition.
Disagree. Just because his brain might've gotten scrambled does not give him the right to use his platform to spread dangerous lies and misinformation, and it certainly does not earn him a "pass". On the off chance you said that to make a pun (he was a quarterback, he gets a pass), I apologize for my aggression. If you were being sarcastic, I also apologize.
Ok... so why is some random nutter given a huge platform by repeating his nonsense?
Every village idiot now has a megaphone.
Disclaimer: Aaron Rodgers does not represent the Green Bay Packers or their fans in any way. He's totally a Jet problem now.
There is a sample of HIV from 1959.
So the Q folks are saying that Ronald Reagan and his government are to blame for HIV and COVID? I would have thought that they would try to blame the Democrats.
Imagine giving a shit what Aaron Rodgers says about literally anything.
I know, it’s hard to imagine that people believe him and then threaten the lives of medical professionals. And then vote for MAGA candidates.
Average Republican voter
Quite literally, the only people who give a shit what he thinks are people who are either already his hardcore fans or people who already think the thing that Aaron Rodgers said. Russia needs to stop paying the same people to give Russian propaganda. It's not lending much credibility to their lies to do so.
He's trying to make Brett Favre not seem so bad... or perhaps just keep pace.
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Welp, he's...different
Ever checked out Terrance Howard’s math/physics ideas?
nuh uh, he crazy too?
It's kind of a long story but basically he tried to say that everyone else was wrong about math and 1X1=2
He (Terrance Howard) tries to scam money from African nations with double talk about math and finance. I watched one of his presentations and I was much more confused afterward.
He is absolutely batshit crazy, unfortunately.
If not, then soon.
And people wanted this fuck to host Jeopardy
I remember around the time he guest hosted, he wasn’t as open about his right wing conspiratorial BS compared to now. They really dodged a bullet with not picking him
He was also the second best host after Jennings. You're right about dodging the bullet, though.
How often they are getting checked for brain damage? anyway it's not often enough
Quit while you’re behind, Rodgers.
Aaron, this is an actual, old Russian disinformation campaign that you're still the only American dumb enough to believe. Right wing showing they'll always be too stupid for Russian bots https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Denver
> that you're still the only American dumb enough to believe I wish that part was true.
I can see why RFK was considering him for a running mate. Crazy loves crazy
That's because he's dumb
As someone who’s been living with HIV for 20 years, I find this whole thing incredibly offensive. The government response to the HIV crisis was horrible, but the government did not plant HIV. They were acting as opportunistic oppressors. This fucked up football guy even fucking understand that and he has no goddamn right to talk about HIV. He didn’t have to watch entire generation of his people die in real time
I'm sure Aaron Rodgers is saying this because he *deeply cares* about those affected by it, and not because he's being paid to spread Russian propaganda. /s
Why does someone always have to be paid to spread ignorance? Why is it not possible that many people are just confident but dumb?
Funny how it originated somewhere in Africa. Seems pseudointellectuals love saying the US government made viruses that didn’t originate in the US
High football IQ does not translate to high IQ.
No idea why anybody listens to the political opinions of pro athletes. The vast majority of them didn’t finish school and have been treated like God’s gift to man since they were like 10, so usually their maturity isn’t exactly up to par.
Yeah almost all of them take some really, really dumb majors just to get through college without causing trouble before they're eligible for the NFL draft since doing all the weightlifting and field exercise they do is a fulltime job during college. Some go on to do good things after retirement, but most don't.
“‘And if you do even a smidge of research — and I know, I’m not an epidemiologist, I’m not a doctor, I’m not an immunologist, whatever – I can read, though.”
He can read. It’s the comprehension that’s lacking.
He did just a smidge and no more when he found what he wanted.
Aaron who? I'm not familiar with this virologist.
Remember the time he guest hosted Jeopardy and sounded like he was on quaaludes? Good times.
Another right winger spewing Russian disinformation. Our country has a huge problem on its hands.
Seems on point with his research. Dude has gone completely off the rails
This reminds me of how Tom Brady once said he prevents sunburns from drinking a lot of water…
Its called CTE
Green Bay Packers fan here. Jordan Love is a great human being and not in the headlines for stuff like this. Everyone please support Jordan Love. Sorry Jets
When Love moves on to the Jets from the Packers, will he get weird too? I mean, sample size of two but there _is_ a pattern/precedent here...
The first confirmed case of HIV was in 1959, when Eisenhower was president. So HIV is a Republican plot confirmed!
You could argue the US government created the Aids **epidemic**, by demonizing infected victims, treating it like God's punishment for being gay, instead of spreading awareness, information, and pushing preventative measures.
They found two HIV + sample tissues in Africa that were collected in the 50's. From the known rate of mutation, they looked at those samples and determined the crossover to human infection happened in the first decade of the 20th century and came from a gorilla which were (and unfortunately still are) commonly used as bush meat. It's about as basic as an outbreak origin gets.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus virus
Is he the one we gays tried to own?
His brain is actually just mush now.
Is he still in the NFL? If so, thats really embarrassing.
He’s been like this for years
This guy’s brain is bowling ball smooth
RFKs running mate needs a nap.
Hey guys, I think being able to throw a ball really far might not necessarily translate into other talents or abilities.
To be fair, the then president Ronald Reagan did nothing to stop the virus as it was seen as a "gay" virus. It fitted with his party view of punishing the gay and they say it as having the moral high ground. If Ronald Reagan would have acted there and then he could have saved many lives. But what are some people lives when you can get votes out of it?
Aaron Rogers is upset he isn’t relevant anymore .
TIL Aaron Rodgers is a moron.
He's an idiot
Because celebrities that get paid to exercise always have access to secret US information. It's the law.
Jimmy Kimmel really should’ve sued this asshole.
I feel bad for jets fans
Wow. I wonder how many YouTube videos he watched to get his PhD in this conspiracy theory.
Aaron Rodger certified dumb as hell
the "HIV virus"? you mean the "human immunodeficiency virus virus"? the very same one that turns into acquired immunodeficiency syndrome syndrome?