8 ms·

People will never accept that they followed the word of “experts” as if it was religion, and lacked rational thinking and original critical analysis. It’s 2021

People will never accept that they followed the word of “experts” as if it was religion, and lacked rational thinking and original critical analysis. It’s 2021, we have the Internet and yet the masses were still as easily manipulated as the people in the 60’s who only had the TV and newspapers.

aulin 5y ago
You really notice this if you're outside mainstream social networks. People at some point start to have infinite discussions IRL about some new uninteresting topic you never heard about like it was the most important thing in the world. You listen them argue with polarized and surprisingly well defined opinions, like they're reciting some script they're supposed to follow to defend their faction of choice. You change social circle, like go from friends to family, to find the very same discussions with the same factions and the same detailed, almost scripted arguments. Meanwhile you keep wondering why they even care, and why they're so passionate about it, it's like they're under some kind of spell which for some reason didn't work on you.
- peytn 5y ago
  Can confirm; have been living under a rock, and it’s bizarre. Doubly so if the topic is something with which you have real-world experience. It’s so clear people are living in a weird propaganda world.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  I have a large Indian family. Nobody is writing newspaper articles about it. The same thing happens with family gossip. You’re describing basic human social dynamics.
aww_dang 5y ago
The illusion of openness can be more convincing in the case of the Internet. It isn't just a talking head telling you what to think on TV, it is a collection of curated and censored opinions from a simulated peer group.
- DevKoala 5y ago
  Yes I agree. As someone who works with programmatic advertising technologies, I struggle to convince friends that 80% of what they see in a screen has been decided by a third party and it is not them “looking for it”.
sofixa 5y ago
> People will never accept that they followed the word of “experts” as if it was religion, and lacked rational thinking and original critical analysis. > It’s 2021, we have the Internet and yet the masses were still as easily manipulated as the people in the 60’s who only had the TV and newspapers I really don't know why you're assuming that the average person is capable of doing sufficiently qualitative research with Google to be better than a epidemiologist at fighting a pandemic. On the contrary, the internet makes it so that anyone can say anything they want. YouTube video saying the lizard people gave the virus? A epidemiologist-union.org website or a Facebook post claiming the same? How can you expect people without good web skill, without prior knowledge, without academic rigor to be able to filter out what is real and what is not? The best advice is listen to the fucking experts, locally and globally, think about it, compare with reputable online sources. If in doubt, doubt, discuss, search more information. But don't go against official public health guidance unless there are many officially qualified experts confirming your doubts. And even that kind of rough advice is too hard to follow for a person barely capable of Office and Facebook.
- AmericanChopper 5y ago
  > The best advice is listen to the fucking experts, locally and globally, think about it, compare with reputable online sources. The “experts” have been exposed lying, and carrying out their own political agendas many times throughout this pandemic. The appeal to authority is a logical fallacy in the first place, and “expert” credibility is (rightly) at an all time low. It’s now almost entirely evaluated politically, rather than on any criteria of trustworthiness. I would suggest the best advice is to treat everything you hear/read with a healthy dose of skepticism, especially in regards to people who rely heavily on their credentials to deflect criticism.
  - raffraffraff 5y ago
    > The “experts” have been exposed lying This is the biggest problem that social media has brought us. Everyone is under scrutiny, afraid of the mob, afraid of losing their job. Too many experts go along with the dogma-de-jour. And then, like we're all idiots or something, they just "flip" and say the opposite, thinking we won't notice, because scrolling back 3 months on Twitter is hard.

aulin 5y ago

You really notice this if you're outside mainstream social networks. People at some point start to have infinite discussions IRL about some new uninteresting topic you never heard about like it was the most important thing in the world. You listen them argue with polarized and surprisingly well defined opinions, like they're reciting some script they're supposed to follow to defend their faction of choice. You change social circle, like go from friends to family, to find the very same discussions with the same factions and the same detailed, almost scripted arguments. Meanwhile you keep wondering why they even care, and why they're so passionate about it, it's like they're under some kind of spell which for some reason didn't work on you.

peytn 5y ago
Can confirm; have been living under a rock, and it’s bizarre. Doubly so if the topic is something with which you have real-world experience. It’s so clear people are living in a weird propaganda world.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
I have a large Indian family. Nobody is writing newspaper articles about it. The same thing happens with family gossip. You’re describing basic human social dynamics.

aww_dang 5y ago

The illusion of openness can be more convincing in the case of the Internet. It isn't just a talking head telling you what to think on TV, it is a collection of curated and censored opinions from a simulated peer group.

DevKoala 5y ago
Yes I agree. As someone who works with programmatic advertising technologies, I struggle to convince friends that 80% of what they see in a screen has been decided by a third party and it is not them “looking for it”.

sofixa 5y ago

> People will never accept that they followed the word of “experts” as if it was religion, and lacked rational thinking and original critical analysis. > It’s 2021, we have the Internet and yet the masses were still as easily manipulated as the people in the 60’s who only had the TV and newspapers I really don't know why you're assuming that the average person is capable of doing sufficiently qualitative research with Google to be better than a epidemiologist at fighting a pandemic. On the contrary, the internet makes it so that anyone can say anything they want. YouTube video saying the lizard people gave the virus? A epidemiologist-union.org website or a Facebook post claiming the same? How can you expect people without good web skill, without prior knowledge, without academic rigor to be able to filter out what is real and what is not? The best advice is listen to the fucking experts, locally and globally, think about it, compare with reputable online sources. If in doubt, doubt, discuss, search more information. But don't go against official public health guidance unless there are many officially qualified experts confirming your doubts. And even that kind of rough advice is too hard to follow for a person barely capable of Office and Facebook.

AmericanChopper 5y ago
> The best advice is listen to the fucking experts, locally and globally, think about it, compare with reputable online sources. The “experts” have been exposed lying, and carrying out their own political agendas many times throughout this pandemic. The appeal to authority is a logical fallacy in the first place, and “expert” credibility is (rightly) at an all time low. It’s now almost entirely evaluated politically, rather than on any criteria of trustworthiness. I would suggest the best advice is to treat everything you hear/read with a healthy dose of skepticism, especially in regards to people who rely heavily on their credentials to deflect criticism.
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  > The “experts” have been exposed lying This is the biggest problem that social media has brought us. Everyone is under scrutiny, afraid of the mob, afraid of losing their job. Too many experts go along with the dogma-de-jour. And then, like we're all idiots or something, they just "flip" and say the opposite, thinking we won't notice, because scrolling back 3 months on Twitter is hard.