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We live in a society where fake news, anti-vaxxers and flat earthers run amock and are convincing more and more people that it's an "us vs them" and there is a

We live in a society where fake news, anti-vaxxers and flat earthers run amock and are convincing more and more people that it's an "us vs them" and there is a giant evil government conspiracy behind everything. It's extremely cheap for say, Russia to throw a few bucks at some random bloggers, YouTubers, content creators and fringe groups causing enough distraction and chaos in society that all the good things we create end up being poisoned and society crumbles. (direct or indirect, it doesn't matter - advertising/sponsors/fake news/guest blog posts yaddy yaddy yadda) Videos like this have two courses of action - they cause turmoil - people see this as bad behavior that should be stopped and is immoral and corrupt but then they have a trigger response. The response to this content, conspiracy, turmoil justifies their means. When government/regulators/youtube step in and ban it then that is "big ol guvment and conspiracy and big brother violating their rights" Which begs the question of why in ANY democracy its citizens would be fighting to poison its democracy unless there is an external force funding, supporting and training these actors. Or is there just a growing psychosis we're ignoring of people with mental problems we're ignoring?

s_m_t 8y ago
Anti-vaxxers and flat earthers are perfect fulfillments of American values. Watch just about any Hollywood movie or popular YA novel, isn't it always about a bunch of losers discovering a conspiracy, being ignored or hindered by all the supposed experts and authorities, and joining forces with other miscontents to stop it? Your Russia comment may have just been a throwaway idea, but it is also a good example of one of these stories. The literal losers of an election invent a conspiracy to rally themselves around because it is really hard to accept that they lost.
- supernovae 8y ago
  On your first point, No... The typical YA novels and the growing up American story is the pain and suffering of teenagedom not throwing away all of our knowledge that the world is some giant conspiracy - that's largely an older age demographic - for some reason, people over the age of 50 love conspiracies. If you pay attention, a lot of young people are sneaking out to get vaccines and not telling their parents because quite frankly, they don't want to die from their parents mistakes. Anyay.. It wasn't until recently - the last 8-10 years that copnspiracy theories were used largely for cover ups politically - if you project enough you blame your opponent for things you're doing and hopefully you maintain power to impose your views. that's what we're running against. To your second point. Lol. Your language suggests that losers are only mad because they lost and you frame it in an overly simplistic way - ignoring the fact that Trump's campaign is under investigation and has what, 34 indictments? If that is a conspiracy theory then conspiracy theory has no meaning and well... good luck.
  - s_m_t 8y ago
    I was thinking of books like harry potter, the maze runner, series of unfortunate events, hunger games, divergent. Maybe conspiracy isn't the right word, it doesn't exactly fit hunger games. I don't agree that it is mainly the olds who fall for conspiracy theory. In fact, I think that sort of thinking among young people is a sort of conspiratorial idea... The dumb boomers didn't vaccinate so its up to us young people to brave the odds vaccinate ourselves (even though only 1.3 percent of children are unvaccinated, it is unclear for what reason in every instance, and 50 year olds typically aren't in charge of vaccinating kids because... 50 year olds usually don't have children for obvious reasons. It is gen x and millenials not vaccinating their kids...). Again, conspiracy isn't exactly the right word. "Conspiracy theory" is just a tool to accomplish the same thing. I don't know exactly what it is... Give oneself some sort of importance?

s_m_t 8y ago

Anti-vaxxers and flat earthers are perfect fulfillments of American values. Watch just about any Hollywood movie or popular YA novel, isn't it always about a bunch of losers discovering a conspiracy, being ignored or hindered by all the supposed experts and authorities, and joining forces with other miscontents to stop it? Your Russia comment may have just been a throwaway idea, but it is also a good example of one of these stories. The literal losers of an election invent a conspiracy to rally themselves around because it is really hard to accept that they lost.

supernovae 8y ago
On your first point, No... The typical YA novels and the growing up American story is the pain and suffering of teenagedom not throwing away all of our knowledge that the world is some giant conspiracy - that's largely an older age demographic - for some reason, people over the age of 50 love conspiracies. If you pay attention, a lot of young people are sneaking out to get vaccines and not telling their parents because quite frankly, they don't want to die from their parents mistakes. Anyay.. It wasn't until recently - the last 8-10 years that copnspiracy theories were used largely for cover ups politically - if you project enough you blame your opponent for things you're doing and hopefully you maintain power to impose your views. that's what we're running against. To your second point. Lol. Your language suggests that losers are only mad because they lost and you frame it in an overly simplistic way - ignoring the fact that Trump's campaign is under investigation and has what, 34 indictments? If that is a conspiracy theory then conspiracy theory has no meaning and well... good luck.
- s_m_t 8y ago
  I was thinking of books like harry potter, the maze runner, series of unfortunate events, hunger games, divergent. Maybe conspiracy isn't the right word, it doesn't exactly fit hunger games. I don't agree that it is mainly the olds who fall for conspiracy theory. In fact, I think that sort of thinking among young people is a sort of conspiratorial idea... The dumb boomers didn't vaccinate so its up to us young people to brave the odds vaccinate ourselves (even though only 1.3 percent of children are unvaccinated, it is unclear for what reason in every instance, and 50 year olds typically aren't in charge of vaccinating kids because... 50 year olds usually don't have children for obvious reasons. It is gen x and millenials not vaccinating their kids...). Again, conspiracy isn't exactly the right word. "Conspiracy theory" is just a tool to accomplish the same thing. I don't know exactly what it is... Give oneself some sort of importance?