"Now the language of this 15-minute conspiracy theory has made its way to some of the highest levels of the British government."

Another dot for you to connect in the feral disinformation thread.

If you are following the housing debate, this NPR segment on 15 minute cities is definitely worth reading for both good and bad reasons. There are a lot of problems with the piece, not the least of which is the choice to bury the most important section in the middle. Having the country's transport secretary spreading wild conspiracy theories should be the lede.

Another important point which should have been emphasized far more is the role of Jordan Peterson and particularly Joe Rogan. Peterson has a very large cult-like following while Rogan is one of the most popular broadcasters in the country. Both are Typhoid Marys of the feral disinformation epidemic. If you want to understand this crisis, you have to understand their place in it.

 One element this story has in common with yesterday's flying syringe is that it started with something real. While conspiracy theorists are certainly capable of inventing fantasies out of whole cloth, there are usually a few grains of truth mixed in.

 Julia Simon reporting for NPR:

At the fall meeting, Enright saw a group of attendees he didn't recognize. One of them stood up and asked about 15-minute cities. "To be honest, first I'd ever heard of that phrase," Enright says.

The group grew so agitated that they stopped the meeting. "They were explaining all about this theory about world government via the World Economic Forum trying to institute this policy everywhere of '15-minute cities,'" Enright recalls, "by which they meant you would only be able to travel 15 minutes from your home."

Enright couldn't understand why the bus priority lanes were getting mixed up with a conspiracy theory about 15-minute cities that restrict people's movements. "My job is to make travel easier so people can go wherever they like to find opportunity: jobs, education," he says. "Not to stop people going more than 15 minutes."

Yet the conspiracy theory that 15-minute cities are a way for the global elite to contain people in open-air prisons took off in the past year, says Jennie King, head of climate research and policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London, a nonprofit that studies extremism.

"Fifteen-minute cities is the latest victim in a broader trend," King says. "The unifying theme of a lot of these attacks and conspiracies is that climate change is being used as a pretext to strip people of their civil liberties."

Some prominent right-wing podcasters, including Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan, have brought up the conspiracy theory on their shows. Last month, Rogan talked about 15-minute cities on his show. "You'll essentially be contained unless you get permission to leave," Rogan said. "That's the idea they're starting to roll out in Europe."

Now the language of this 15-minute conspiracy theory has made its way to some of the highest levels of the British government. Last week at the U.K.'s Conservative Party conference, the country's transport secretary, Mark Harper, said he was "calling time on the misuse of so-called 15-minute cities."

"What is sinister and what we shouldn't tolerate," Harper said, "is the idea that local councils can decide how often you go to the shops and that they ration who uses the roads and when, and they police it all with CCTV."

...

In February, thousands of protesters gathered in Oxford decrying the proposed bus priority lanes, which they saw as an onramp to draconian societal controls. Enright and his colleagues began receiving strange messages, phone calls and, eventually, death threats.