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My issue with conspiracy theory commercializers is that they don't give or promote the intellectual tools to "question what they're told", they just prompt peop
by wavefunction 7y ago
My issue with conspiracy theory commercializers is that they don't give or promote the intellectual tools to "question what they're told", they just prompt people (primarily through appeals to emotion, especially fear and anger) and then turn it into a commercial product that justifies any lie. And there are real social effects from these conspiracy peddlers, like people who've lost their young children in a mass shooting receiving death threats and accusations that their dear child never existed and it's all a hoax.
I mean, I saw an anti-vaxxer post from social media that unknowingly suggested "a small piece of a virus instead of toxic chemicals" as an alternative to vaccines...
- krapp 7y agoIt would be one thing if Alex Jones and his ilk were actually challenging people to think critically and be skeptical, and look for evidence before reaching conclusions and to be aware of biases both external and internal. Those are useful values. But they simply declare that the entirety of the mainstream narrative is a lie (and that, therefore, only the alternative can be trusted) and then tell you exactly what to believe and then eventually sell you gold coins to hide under your mattress for when the globalist feminazi lizard-men finally come for your guns and precious bodily fluids. People like Alex Jones aren't helping anyone, certainly not honest skeptics, I don't understand the efforts I see to portray him and others like him as merely the loyal opposition telling truth to power, or something akin to a court jester. Ok. The mainstream media is biased and corrupt... but if someone thinks the mainstream media is more biased and more corrupt than much of the alt-conspiracy media, they're very much mistaken.