Aaron Rodgers says AIDS was created by the U.S. government in the 1980s

"We’re going to put our full trust in science that can’t be questioned?"

You can absolutely question science, Aaron. Doing science is the act of questioning science. However, you actually have to follow the scientific method to do it, and so far Aaron, you're not.

If you ever want to get out of the practice of bullshit and into the practice of science, you'd be quite welcome, but its got to be science with rigor and reproducible results. Until then, you're just talking, not scientifically questioning.

reproducible results

I dunno, seems kind of optional

One wonders... is it the CTE's or was he always just dumb?

99.999% of the time to be a NFL starter you've been the best player in the field at least at your position up till you were drafted into the NFL.

It's just how the numbers work out, exceptions are noteworthy because they're exceptional.

It doesn't make you dumb, but because education and football are so intertwined, if you don't care about education no one is going to try and make you.

Then if you keep your mouth shut in public till you sign a big contract, no one knows how dumb you are and it feels like it comes out of nowhere

I forget his name, but a recent NFL player legitimately believes he's part solar powered reptilian and that's why he's a pro athlete
- Had to Google it but: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammy_Watkins
  
  Notable that he’s acknowledged his mental health and addiction struggles since making the flat earth and lizard person comments.
He's always had agents and publicists filtering what he says publicly. I think this is just unfiltered Rodgers.

Only if time travel is somehow involved. Here's a National Library of Medicine article/book review on the history of HIV/AIDS.

"The earliest identified isolate of HIV-1 comes from an unknown male in Kinshasa, Congo, in 1959. The first identified patient with HIV infection and AIDS was a Scandinavian man in the 1960s, who had visited west-central Africa. Then came sporadic cases among gay men in the United States and among Haitians in the 1970s, leading to the global explosion in the '80s and '90s and the literal decimation of peoples in several tropical countries."

I'd say don't source the history of diseases from NFL players, but those who would take my advice seriously probably don't need it.

That's still not when it first showed up, that's when they first identified it.

The first case was likely 1920, maybe even the tail end of the 1800s.

And back then, people just died from all sorts of shit and modern medicine was practically non-existent in the area. Even when it spread to more developed countries, it took a while to put the pieces together because it wasn't like aids directly kills. The aids just made all types of shit more likely to happen and kill you. That's why it felt like it spread so fast all over the planet. It was already there and people had it, they just weren't symptomatic yet and wouldn't be for months/years.

I mean, look at the nightmare syphilis was for centuries. If AIDS had spread a century earlier no one would have known what the fuck was going on. It was bad, but it could have been so much worse.
- Sure would have been nice if people like Ronald Reagan and Marianne Williamson hadn't pushed people to rely on faith healing
I legit appreciate the history lesson but you don’t have to debunk posts on nottheonion haha
- You're probably right :) I have this compulsion where I always want to know WHY something is wrong, so when I hear something like this I run off to look it up.

Who cares what he thinks? He’s famous for mastering the art of spiral throwing a ball, which is a skill perfected by cavemen using spears to hunt with. He is no smarter or more educated than those cavemen were. In fact way less so due to the brain damage.

No kidding, will news outlets stop giving platforms to people famous for unrelated reasons?

spoiler

No, clicks are a perverse incentive.
He actually is very intelligent, as are most NFL quarterbacks. He supposedly scored a 1310 on the SAT, and got a 35 on the NFL's Wonderlic test (well above average). Also QBs don't suffer nearly as much brain damage as most NFL positions, especially Rogers.

That said, he's an idiot.
- you can't trust the grades of athletes in the first place, there are documented scandals which make this plain. The more important you are to the team (ie the more profitable you are to the school, filling seats and winning championships) the more likely you are to be given good grades even if you didn't do the work.
  
  Not to say it applies to this guy, but fair warning...
You understand less about his job than he understands about AIDS.

Alright... Nuance time. Everyone please stick with me.

I don't like Rodgers, but this is kind of a dumb headline. THIS IS NOT A DEFENSE OF RODGERS. I think what he's saying is that the "pandemic response" was the thing manufactured, not the virus itself. I think people are misreading it, because I don't think I really see how he's saying they manufactured the virus. THIS IS NOT A DEFENSE OF RODGERS. Like the government gave all this money and tried to make people reliant on the government to save them, which has been his whole position with COVID.

It's still flatly wrong. But borderline purposeful misreadings like this only embolden Rodgers and others, because it's inaccurate, and people are attacking something he didn't say. And this gives him more of a platform because people are talking about it again.

If you're going to criticize someone, it's important to be accurate and understand what they're saying, so you can appropriately shut them the fuck up with the right facts.

One more time, THIS IS NOT A DEFENSE OF RODGERS.

The blueprint, the game plan, was made in the '80s. Create a pandemic with a virus that's going wild.

But that was the game plan back then. Create an environment where only one thing works.

He literally said they "created a pandemic" and "created an environment" where they could profit. This conspiracy has been around for decades and was a prominent feature of KGB misinformation. It even has a name. Like others on the right, he's blatantly parroting Russian-rooted bullshit.
- A pandemic isn't a virus. It a designation of the effect a virus is having or how it is spreading... He might be saying they took a situation, and blew it out of proportion for political purposes. My position is that the easy way to know a politician is twisting something for thier own gain is to note when they open thier mouths. But that doesn't rule out that what they are saying might just happen to be true either.
Y'know, I went back to reread it and I think you're right.

For the record, if this were a serious community, I'd probably delete the post over this. Just saying, I won't be mad if mods decide it disqualifies the article since the headline might be misleading.
- I think it's a great example of how media outlets can seed certain ideas. If you read the headline then the context, then it's like yeah I see how he said that. But I'm not sure you arrive there if you read the quote then the headline.
  
  I'm about as liberal as they come, but holy shit the amount that this is done in politics is insane. It drives me nuts. Republicans often have so much wrong with their platform (in my opinion) that we don't need to just make shit up about them.
  
  A particularly good example that stood out to me was Trump's "Muslim Ban". Do I think it was profile-y in its application? Yes. But if you looked at the detail, the justification used was vague "national security". Why couldn't we just attack how bullshit that was? But no, media had to run with exclusively the Muslim Ban line and it was so easy to deflect for Republicans. All they had to say was "this isn't about race stop being racist". But because of that, no one asked the better questions, like saying "you say this is specifically about national security... How is this immigration program specifically being exploited in ways that harm us?" Were we blocking work visas from those countries? Because I can tell you refugee status is a fuck of a lot harder and has more screening than work visas.
  
  There were just so many glaring issues, but we decide to side step into an alternative reality.
  
  None of this frustration is pointed at you by the way, it's awesome that you just said hey I think I got this one wrong. That's an admirable quality on forums these days. I just hate the media apparatus.
Why are you defending Rodgers?
- Because he's so smart and good at throwing the oval ball that his opinions must be true and relevant and he deserves the platform to spread his views.
I hate how polarized everything is that this level of emphasis that you are not taking a certain side is required to criticize an argument made against that side. Bad, misleading arguments are bad, should always be ok to point it out.

QAaron.

He must have had to much time on his hands while injured last year

Okay so how crazy of shit can come out of his mouth before his career is affected?? Yeah I know the answer... But shit, Kaepernick says some very true but uncomfortable things and gets the boot. Rogers spouts insanity and is handed another ball.

I mean... I don't know if you're an NFL fan or not but his stock isntly exactly high right now lol. He played like three snaps all season last season, is old for the game (for anyone not named "Tom Brady" anyway), and is wayyyy to much of a liability (and just to damn weird even if the crap he spouts WASNT dangerous) to do any kind of announcing or commenting.

Hes crap in the locker room, having barley talked to Zach Wilson, the kid he left to play his whole season on a doomed team (I guess Zach does owe him a bit though, I really disliked the kid now I give him some respect for stepping aside then stepping up best he could). His career won't be affected because random crap like this IS his career now. The jets have a contract, but there is no way Rodgers plays any meaningful football anymore.
- I honestly am not much of a fan anymore I used to watch it, but I just can't be bothered to anymore. I got so sick of the management doing the, there is nothing to see behind the curtain shit. Everyone/thing has there bad side but if you can't own it, I can't be bothered.

A...B...C! Easy as C...T...E..!!

Aids the disease is natural. The aids epidemic was made by the us government by refusing to follow best practices for an epidemic when it was killing undesirable citizens.

Didn't just affect the US though.
- Yes, but it killed more Americans than the viet cong so maybe our government should’ve acknowledged it as a problem before several years of it decimating our population
  
  Also we were the first country to have an outbreak and we’re the medical research powerhouse of the industrial world, especially in the 1980s. But instead of that our president told his surgeon general not to acknowledge it. When asked about the disease killing homosexuals Ronald Reagan laughed.
It affected many countries. France in particular. Since they helped discover the virus in conjunction with the US. There are books written about this. Hell there is even a movie about it.

Concussions are serious problems

If the US created it in the 1980s, how did a guy in the Congo catch it in 1959?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_early_HIV/AIDS_cases

The US government also did time travel so that Obama could kill Kennedy.
- Effin knew it
- Don't give Aaron new ideas.
- But Kennedy dying started a series of events that lead directly to Nixon, their second favorite boy.

We couldn't possibly have landed on the moon The technology was far past us.

By the way we had access to biotechnology That's still 50 years out from being invented.

I love conspiracy theories...

Remember, if it doesn't make any sense, it's because THEY don't want it to make any sense.

I say that Aaron Rodgers is an idiot

And one of you are correct. (Hint: it's not Aaron Rodgers unless you're both correct(you aren't both correct))

Rodgers should just shut up and dribble.

This comment is insensitive to people with CTE and you should feel bad
- The people downvoting this comment have CTE.

Ya done messed up A. A. Ron!

The US certainly fucked up the handling of it but not even close to creating it.

That's because some folks think you can pray it away..
- Even more sinister, they let it willingly spread because it disproportionally affected the Gayz.

Who?

A very successful, aging NFL Quarterback. He hasn't played much the last couple of years due to injury and getting old. He's been outspoken about various far right and conspiracy theories while not playing by appearing on podcasts and radio shows.

A lot of people wish he would just shut up and retire at this point. But you know he's going to milk his platform as long as he can.
US government.

Anyone who gives any weight to the verbal vomit of a professional sports celebrity is already on the losing side in the war against Not Being A Fucking Moron.