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These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather

These things, while fun, are frankly rather scary to me. They show us how far society has moved away from truth, in our value of other people’s opinions, rather than the institutions that actually factcheck before they spread false information. If you watch the vidio in the vice article, they even open up their fake restaurant and serve pre-processed “shit-foods” to an audience who then willingly rates their powdered soup and frozen lasagna as above average. Of courses I laughed at it and it’s certainly a well done troll, but it’s also a microverse of how we ended up with a bunch of flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, and, a reality tv star as president of the United States.

mc32 9y ago
I don't think so. Snake oil salespeople are a thing of history because people are willing to believe and people are willing to con. Many other major beliefs it can be argued have similar traits.
vlunkr 9y ago
How do you know you wouldn’t fall for frozen lasagna in the same situation?
ako 9y ago
It's nothing new, as a large group of people are raised with the values that believing is better than knowing. It's the core of every religion. As long as we accept religion, we tell people that it's ok to just believe whatever someone says or writes, instead of employing some critical thinking, and demanding facts,
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ryandrake 9y ago
Social Proof [1] in action. I'm always shocked at how much faith people put into anonymous review sites. Really? You're going to believe a bunch of strangers on how good something is, and actually spend money based on this belief? It's a marketer's wet dream. You don't need to actually prove a claim anymore: You only need to spin up enough sock puppets shouting about it, and people will substitute that for proof. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof
pensivemood 9y ago
>flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers Seriously. It hurts me to see the "anti-vaxxers" term thrown around so loosely. There are very legitimate reasons for being skeptical of vaccine research. Events like this appear quite frequently [1]. It is not at all in the same league as "flat-earths". [1] https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/12/flaws-in-the-clinical-trials-for-gardasil-made-it-harder-to-properly-assess-safety.html https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/12/flaws-in-the-cl...
- pintxo 9y ago
  Assuming that "flat-earthers" potential to cause harm is fairly limited, but that "anti-vaxxers" potential to cause harm is rather significant - population immunity comes to mind - I would rather say it hurts me to see the "flat-earthers" term thrown around so loosely.
  - pensivemood 9y ago
    If anti-vaxxers potenial to cause harm is significant, the "pro-vaxxers" potential to cause harm is significant too. Try another argument.
- eksemplar 9y ago
  We had a huge HPV debate in Denmark in 2017 because of the problems surrounding it, but as usually it turned out all the fearmongering was completely unfounded and that the vaccine was much safer than the alternative. Flatearthers are harmless. I’m not even completely convinced they are not just collectively trolling us. Anti-vaxxers mean while are responsible for weakening herd immunity in western civilization and by doing so, the killing of hundreds of people who got sick and died because of it. The measles were basically extinct, now they are even killing people in countries with low amounts of anti-vaxxers. And why? Because a group of stupid people got together on Facebook and decided they wanted to create a version of reality where vaccines were evil. Vaccines have side effects. Not taking them, however, has much worse effects. Worst case means you’re quite literally murdering people who can’t survive neither the vaccines nor the disease, best case is things like the HPV were it’s just you or your children getting completely avoidable cancer (still extremely tragic). Hell, even Donald Trump has done far less lasting harm than anti-vaxxers.

mc32 9y ago

I don't think so. Snake oil salespeople are a thing of history because people are willing to believe and people are willing to con. Many other major beliefs it can be argued have similar traits.

vlunkr 9y ago

How do you know you wouldn’t fall for frozen lasagna in the same situation?

ako 9y ago

It's nothing new, as a large group of people are raised with the values that believing is better than knowing. It's the core of every religion. As long as we accept religion, we tell people that it's ok to just believe whatever someone says or writes, instead of employing some critical thinking, and demanding facts,

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ryandrake 9y ago

Social Proof [1] in action. I'm always shocked at how much faith people put into anonymous review sites. Really? You're going to believe a bunch of strangers on how good something is, and actually spend money based on this belief? It's a marketer's wet dream. You don't need to actually prove a claim anymore: You only need to spin up enough sock puppets shouting about it, and people will substitute that for proof. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof

pensivemood 9y ago

>flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers Seriously. It hurts me to see the "anti-vaxxers" term thrown around so loosely. There are very legitimate reasons for being skeptical of vaccine research. Events like this appear quite frequently [1]. It is not at all in the same league as "flat-earths". [1] https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/12/flaws-in-the-clinical-trials-for-gardasil-made-it-harder-to-properly-assess-safety.html https://slate.com/health-and-science/2017/12/flaws-in-the-cl...

pintxo 9y ago
Assuming that "flat-earthers" potential to cause harm is fairly limited, but that "anti-vaxxers" potential to cause harm is rather significant - population immunity comes to mind - I would rather say it hurts me to see the "flat-earthers" term thrown around so loosely.
- pensivemood 9y ago
  If anti-vaxxers potenial to cause harm is significant, the "pro-vaxxers" potential to cause harm is significant too. Try another argument.
eksemplar 9y ago
We had a huge HPV debate in Denmark in 2017 because of the problems surrounding it, but as usually it turned out all the fearmongering was completely unfounded and that the vaccine was much safer than the alternative. Flatearthers are harmless. I’m not even completely convinced they are not just collectively trolling us. Anti-vaxxers mean while are responsible for weakening herd immunity in western civilization and by doing so, the killing of hundreds of people who got sick and died because of it. The measles were basically extinct, now they are even killing people in countries with low amounts of anti-vaxxers. And why? Because a group of stupid people got together on Facebook and decided they wanted to create a version of reality where vaccines were evil. Vaccines have side effects. Not taking them, however, has much worse effects. Worst case means you’re quite literally murdering people who can’t survive neither the vaccines nor the disease, best case is things like the HPV were it’s just you or your children getting completely avoidable cancer (still extremely tragic). Hell, even Donald Trump has done far less lasting harm than anti-vaxxers.