notsofunnycomment

Pythagoras’s aversion to beans, though, always got a lot of attention, even from ancient writers. According to Pliny, Pythagoreans believed that fava beans could contain the souls of the dead, since they were flesh-like. Due to their black-spotted flowers and hollow stems, some believers thought the plants connected earth and Hades, providing ladders for human souls. The beans’ association with reincarnation and the soul made eating fava beans close to cannibalism. Aristotle, writing earlier, went much further. One possible reason for the ban, he wrote, was that the bulbous shape of beans represented the entire universe. Nevertheless, other Greeks ate plenty of fava beans, and Pythagorean beliefs were mocked. The poet Horace tauntingly called beans “relations of Pythagoras.”

When it comes to spreading disinformation about climate change or the risks of smoking, I can clearly see how it protects economic interests (e.g. the value of the assets of the fossil fuel industry or the tobacco industry). I therefore understand that these lies are (have been) regularly pushed by people who do not necessarily believe in them.

But what are the strategic considerations behind the active spread of anti-vax theories? Who gains from this? Is it just an effective topic to rile up a political base? Because it hits people right in the feels? Is it just a way to bring people together on one topic, in order to use that political base for other purposes?

Or is anti-vax disinformation really only pushed by people who believe it?

Does anyone else also have issues with backspace in Jerboa? Often when I use backspace to correct a spelling mistake, spaces further back are removed as well. Also, after moving the cursor to a new place, it sometimes randomly jumps to other places (removing words in the process).

I'm on Android, /e/ OS 1.11-s-20230510288098-stable-FP3 Fairphone (and I only have this in Jerboa).