There are a few people in my circle that are overburdened by conspiracy theories to the point where they think that humans are corrupt and everyone is out to get them. It's exhausting to live like that. My goal is to be my 13 yr old self's hero. Do cool stuff, be in a good relationship, and fix things that bother me to the best of my ability.
Indeed, for many people on both sides it was (and is!) quite a shocking revelation that in their surroundings there is a huge number of people who don't just disagree on opinions or facts but have completely contradictory values, one side praising that which the other deems as clearly, obviously evil, and vice versa.
I'd argue that this comes from a change in media - where previously you had a clear consensus either in the small community you lived in earlier times, or country-wide with the advent of mass media, and even if you'd disagree with that, then you still can't avoid knowing what the surrounding reality was; but now with personalized social media, so many people get a false impression of the actual social consensus around them, because they communicate much less with people around them but rather communicate in an "information community" which is larger geographically (often global), and which is different from the actual community where they live and which makes laws for their life; so they perceive that the "community standards" go one way (in the way which their "online information community" thinks) but then reality crashes in with something totally different, and this does "break people's minds" in some way.
To be fair there are way more leftists who think trump is as bad as hitler as there are conservatives who believe in the Q stuff. Most conservatives don't even understand what Qanon even is other than a catchall for "conspiracy theories".
The right literally elected several of these people into congress, and they are actively getting their way so that McCarthy could have his speaker seat.
Remember how, just a few months ago, one could get banned from Social media for suggesting Covid-19 originated in a lab? "Fact Checkers" were hard at work silencing that content and attributing it to "conspiracy theorists".
Now the lab leak hypothesis is mainstream, with experts supporting investigating the labs in Wuhan and bringing in evidence that the disease indeed originated in a Chinese lab.
Sometimes, it seems the difference between facts and conspiracy is 6 months or another presidential administration, whichever comes first!
Viewing this sort of issue as equivalent in personal magnitude and meaning to Galileo’s heliocentrism dispute with the renaissance church is exactly the perspective I seek to avoid by framing my mindset like the earlier commenter, personally.
Isn't the difference evidence? There were people jumping to all kinds of theories without evidence at the beginning, but acting like they knew for sure whatever their theory was. Some happened to be right, but that doesn't mean that the lesson to be learned is truth can best be found by jumping to conclusions without evidence.
If that was the lesson, then we should be jumping to exciting new conclusions without evidence like "actually, it's only changing now because US propaganda wants to harm China for their failure to align against Russia, and pinning COVID on them is a super convenient way to do that." Or whatever other exciting new theories you can come up, unbound from any evidence other than it sounds like something that could be plausible. Who knows maybe I will turn out right and I can rub it in everyone's faces later.
I mean, it was an unfounded conspiracy theory before, wasn't it? When new evidence came about then it shifted into legitimacy. That's just how evidence works.
In this context I think you're pattern matching too deterministically on the term "conspiracy theory". I just read it as "random negative news headlines of the moment". Ironically this kind of poor pattern matching is what led to the situation you speak of, where anyone talking about the lab leak hypothesis got pattern matched as sinophobic / a conspiracy theorist.
"Why keep looking at the stars through these telescopes? We all know the Earth is at the center of the Universe, the Pope said so. What good does it bring to you?"
Your rights are being eroded, your purchase power is being drained, society around you is slowly collapsing.
Change that happens slowly is insidious to notice, but it surely is impossible if you choose to actively ignore it... until it becomes unbearable, and then it's even costlier to act.
In a democracy the solution to problems is to spread the word and ensure many more people know, so that it can influence future elections. So exactly what he is doing here.
Yeah, I've tried doing it but nobody listens to me, they think I'm just stupid for having opinions "not like everybody else" or say "yeah, but what can we do about this?" or "yeah, but I don't trust that new candidate". I want to do something to better everyone's lives, but after seeing their actions day after day being anti-progress, I no longer care. Of course progress is as defined by me, they just have their own opinions which they consider as more valid. If all the people around me have other opinion about what's good for them, maybe I'm in the wrong? How would you deal with such situation?
The nice thing about strength though is that the more you get, the easier it gets to get more. Friction is greatest at rest. Maintaining existing strength has inertia.
I volunteer my time to refurbish computers that were headed to e-waste for free distribution to struggling families.
I vote, especially focusing on local elections and measures.
I just don't think paying attention to news media is doing people any favors. It's kind of telling to me that you've compared not consuming news media to literally excusing genocide. That's how entrenched this industry is in our society...
I'm sorry you choose to spend your time sniffing farts. You could take the attention you gave news media and give it to your wife that is stressed out from you going to the bar. Maybe you'd want to sniff your own farts less then?
What's the exact difference between ignoring media when they tell you a genocide is being done, and when they tell you human rights are being taken away? That one is worse than another? Where do we draw the line, then - at death? So labor camps are okay, but gas chambers are not?
You act on it, or if you're powerless, spread it around to others until hopefully it reaches someone who's powerful and cares. Or just make a politically charged rap rock band. Anything is better than sticking your head in the sand.
I am not embarrassed about anything, sounds to me like you're projecting your own emotions onto me.
I understand that your argument is "if you don't do anything about X, it is worthless to know about X", which is a defeatist attitude. You may choose to surrender yourself to your fate, and may even come up with a bunch of reasons why it's more pleasant to live that way, but if I'm locked up in a jail, I'll be spending my days trying to escape, even if in vain. Any action has a better chance of getting me out than trying to forget that I'm in jail.
Uhh. The facts are off the map for media companies and the government media.
Society alternates between 3 functions. Hiding away facts, milking good times and taking valuable resources off the map.
We're just the weird people who remember the old-school world, where the public knowing the facts was a point of order and the science would settle it all.
Conspiracies theories appear to sound the alarm on it all, but they have no unique, private facts to share with the public, just like everyone else.
Do you also remember COVID is a hoax, the vaccine is killing people for population control, 5G causes COVID, ivermectin is the real cure etc? The sheer volume is what is exhausting.
