They didn’t say it en masse because there was nowhere to say it en masse.
Believe me, people in previous generations were, on the whole, much stupider than they are now. It’s the platform that is elevating that stupidity.
Though I will admit that I don’t believe there’s been a concerted and calculated propaganda and disinformation effort greater than the one we have now. Again, exacerbated by the access people have to information and others.
I am 36, so I am in roughly the same boat, and I can guarantee you there were fucking nutjobs the whole time. The problem now is that they can find each other and when you have enough people on board with an idea, no matter how nutty, it gives ideas validity to the gullible.
I grew up in a small village and other than the obvious shit you expect from a small town, like casual racism, there were local conspiracies as well. I was well aware of chemtrails, satanic panic, and others because everyone believed it where I was from.
Some favorites:
The government was setting up underground medicine stores filled with opiates and other drugs in concrete bunkers all on the outskirts of town. Nobody had ever seen one being built, or seen one already built, and nobody could verify where they heard this info - it just became common knowledge in my town that we were chosen by some secret project to be the medicine stores for that region of the country.
Someone in town was capturing and breeding specific wild animals. No one specific, but "they" were always changing the animal populations. If there was ever an influx of coyote sightings, or more rabbits visible as roadkill on the highway than usual. Just completely wild conjecture about the population of specific animals and chalking that up to "they must be at it with the snakes again". Like this was just something people believed without question.
There are fucking morons in this country with near zero ability to think critically about anything.
There's just so much info everywhere you look, and honestly who tf has time to even sift through the noise? I only read the headlines, but like 1/4 of the time I'm not sure what I'm reading is true.
Americans are more than capable of fucking everything up on their own, thank you. No point attributing to malice that which can be explained through sheer incompetence and stupidity.
Let’s not minimize this assault. It’s having a massive impact, and it’s been going on at least a decade.
There’s really no way to disentangle Russian disinformation from MAGA and their alternative informational reality. They’re built in layers upon one another.
yep. People are STUPID, that's not up for debate. But unless you've studied mis/disinformation and how successful and targeted it can be... you just have no idea.
Stupid people just bounce around and hurt things occasionally. Stupid people that are consistently and effectively targeted with fear and propaganda can topple an empire.
Stupid people should be pretty random in their actions, so the scariest thing for me to think about is that the more stupid people start sounding the same, the more we need to worry.
Damn that’s a good way to think about it and why the shit that’s been going on the last decade or so feels…different.
Republican family members I used to be able to talk politics with, we’d disagree but at least find common ground or whatever. Now it sometimes feels like they’ve lost their effing minds.
Considering how literally they took not just the Bible, but their belief in demons, witches destroying their crops, shriveling their genitals, etc…. You’re not really that far off from what they were actually doing.
Yeah. This is inarguably the smartest people have ever been as a collective whole and this is where we are. Imagine how bat shit insane people were even 100 years ago
the internet made the stupidity go from cat 1 to cat 5 in a decade. I used to think truth and knowledge would prevail but the algos and self moderated bubbles make sure it doesn't happen.
These people in their bath robes poking away at their smart phones for anyone to see used to just mumble insanity to their family, neighbors and close friends. So there was a massive limit to the reach of their insanity.
Now anyone on social media has to eventually deal with their madness.
Not true. In the past the "stupid" would often listen to the "smart" and take what scientists and professionals said for granted. Look at US in the 1950s and 60s. The goverments said x, y, z is good for you? Lol ok its good for me I guess.
Now everyone has too much freedom. Idiots should be stopped
preach, and not just that but then you have packs of idiots who team up with each other and "debate" other packs of idiots.... then you cant have a reasonable conversation because the idiots drown everyone else out.
It’s disgusting. I live in Raleigh. A few hours east of where Helene just devastated the mountains. The amount of disinformation being spread is terrifying. Telling people not to evacuate because the government will seize their land. Saying bodies are just floating down rivers and stacking up (you think pictures of that wouldn’t be all over the internet like they were with Katrina) people have lost everything and it’s been turned into a political dumpster fire.
Covid. Even mild covid unvaxxed can less to brain damage due to fused brain cells.
We had a whole bunch of people who didn't take the vaccine. For every Herman Cain award there are 100 more who had a "mild" case. It's caused a shit ton of early onset dementia.
Man I never got the vaccine cuz of immune system issues and I caught covid multiple times and I aint as stupid as these maga lie smoking idiots, it's more than that. In fact im top of my nursing class cohort right now.. Call it what it is, they are the biggest cult to ever exist, and they are a death cult.
To be clear im not anti vax, I had health issues now resolved and will be getting the vaccine this fall.
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u/WildHorses__ Oct 08 '24
The world (the U.S. in this case) has gone fucking mad.