The Spread of DQS

Infectious Don-Quixote Syndrome is spreading

Don Chisholm, County Sustainability Group http://www.countysustainability.ca/

The first recorded case of Don-Quixote Syndrome (DQS) was in Spain in the 1500s. This case was treated rather as a novelty with no indication it was infectious, except perhaps to one close companion of the primary victim. The well recorded symptoms were delusional thinking and an irrational hatred of windmills.

Like the killer Ebola, the disease lay dormant for many years. In the recent 20 years there has been a growing number of recorded outbreaks and we have learned that it can spread rapidly in a community. While in the early DQS stage, there are no physical symptoms, emotional and irrational thinking is clearly indicated by a hyper - inflamed dislike for all things related to windmills and an intense desire to convince others of the newly acquired belief. Often they will put a green & white sign on the lawn indicating they like energy, even green energy, but not from windmills – unless the windmills are in someone else’s back yard.
 
When someone with DQS is exposed to an intense flow of hyper information from others with DQS, the symptoms intensify. Facts presented out-of-context, or unsupportable irrational statements become sincere beliefs. Once believers become devout, with advanced DQS there’s no turning back! After massive anti-wind data exposure a few DQS victims my lapse into, Wind Turbine Syndrome (WTS), which was unheard of 15 years ago. At the WTS stage sufferers may develop physical symptoms such as sleep loss or hyper tension and claim many other maladies. Relief from the sinister self-fulfilling symptoms of WTS may be cured by moving elsewhere, where grid energy flows from backyards far away.

The intensity of dubious data flow from the DQS communities has stimulated medical studies in many countries but none have found a credible link between windmills and physical symptoms, other than the acute fear generated by the belief itself. This is much like psycho physical effects noted by believers of voodoo. A voodoo believer can respond to a condemning hex, issued by a qualified witch doctor, by suffering great stress. There have even been cases of individuals being hexed to death. However, unlike extreme WTS, when one is under a voodoo hex even moving to another county will not help!

Australian medical doctor Simon Chapman,professor of public health at the University of Sydney, has discovered the means of spreading and the cause of WTS. In an article called, “Fanning fear: the wind farm nocebo effect”. Dr. Chapman’s academic report is described by journalistKeith Kloor (adjunct professor of journalism at New York University) who writes:

Chapman explains that most wind farms around the world have no history of complaints, but the few that do, have seen the local area targeted by external activists who spread panic. Simon Chapman reflects on the nonsense claims of anti-wind farm activists. ...” “... It is spread via the nocebo effect by being talked about, and is thereby a strong candidate for being defined as a psychogenic condition,”

From the Kloor article at http://tinyurl.com/buh3vlc you can find Dr. Chapman’s report.

Once DQS sets in, the subjects become receptive to the messages of the Fear–Uncertainty –Doubt (FUD) industry. This begins to convince otherwise intelligent citizens into thinking that the massive number of scientists who have issued warnings about with human-caused global warming must all be wrong. Once they have reassured themselves that fossil fuels are just fine, and will last forever, DQS victims feel no need for wind energy, especially if it might disturb their perceptions of community tranquility.
 
Irrational beliefs have been part of the human journey over recorded time. Just what is irrational is, of course, extremely subjective. It even occurs at our highest levels of government as they pursue eternal economic and population growth as if planet Earth was flat and infinite. Economic evidence of growth, including cleanup after hurricanes, is heralded as progress throughout the media in the daily press.