3 ms·

Used to always think just shining a big light was all that was needed to overcome falsehoods and manipulation but turns out that’s not true. How naïve of me. Tu

Used to always think just shining a big light was all that was needed to overcome falsehoods and manipulation but turns out that’s not true. How naïve of me. Turns out various philosophers realised this hundreds of years ago. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, i can finally say I’ve found my people now, @thebirdsarentreal :-) (its a satirical take on belief systems that vehemently denies it’s satirical which is just chef’s kiss)

nabla9 5y ago
The reflexive satire and irony is one of the problems of social-media age. Satire and irony used to be effective. In last 20-years cynical distance and ironic posturing have become so prevalent that it is no no longer considered subversive. Citizens can consume outrage passively through various satirical media products, displacing outrage and abstaining from more active forms of resistance. People consume satirical content, and think they are above it all, while just participating in cynical ha-ha.
mediocregopher 5y ago
Way back in the stumbleupon days I stumbled onto the flat earth society message boards. It was clear to me that everyone involved knew it was satire; just a tongue-in-cheek dig at the way any conspiracy theory, no matter how outrageous, could be made plausible if you throw enough crazy at it. Fast forward 10+ years and people actually believe it. Someone recently launched themselves in a homemade rocket to prove with their own eyes the flatness of the earth (and died for their efforts). I love birdsarentreal, but part of me isn't looking forward to finding out what happens to it as more people come across it.
- nvllsvm 5y ago
  Exactly why I dislike some forms of sarcasm directed at an unknown audience.
- b3morales 5y ago
  Indeed; Umberto Eco dramatized this phenomenon in Foucault's Pendulum (even before the related Poe's Law was formulated). > People [...] sense instinctively that the [...] truths [...] don’t go together, that [the promoter is] not being logical, that [they're] not speaking in good faith. But they’ve been told that God is mysterious, unfathomable, so to them incoherence is the closest thing to God. This tangles up with the appeal of being an "initiate", "on the inside", and knowing the secret truth, and the combination is powerful.
heresie-dabord 5y ago
> all that was needed to overcome falsehoods and manipulation All that is needed is honest discourse and a good educational system. But what twaddlevision did to US society in the pre-WWW period, social memia is now doing to subsequent generations. The circle is unbroken. ^_^

nabla9 5y ago

The reflexive satire and irony is one of the problems of social-media age. Satire and irony used to be effective. In last 20-years cynical distance and ironic posturing have become so prevalent that it is no no longer considered subversive. Citizens can consume outrage passively through various satirical media products, displacing outrage and abstaining from more active forms of resistance. People consume satirical content, and think they are above it all, while just participating in cynical ha-ha.

mediocregopher 5y ago

Way back in the stumbleupon days I stumbled onto the flat earth society message boards. It was clear to me that everyone involved knew it was satire; just a tongue-in-cheek dig at the way any conspiracy theory, no matter how outrageous, could be made plausible if you throw enough crazy at it. Fast forward 10+ years and people actually believe it. Someone recently launched themselves in a homemade rocket to prove with their own eyes the flatness of the earth (and died for their efforts). I love birdsarentreal, but part of me isn't looking forward to finding out what happens to it as more people come across it.

nvllsvm 5y ago
Exactly why I dislike some forms of sarcasm directed at an unknown audience.
b3morales 5y ago
Indeed; Umberto Eco dramatized this phenomenon in Foucault's Pendulum (even before the related Poe's Law was formulated). > People [...] sense instinctively that the [...] truths [...] don’t go together, that [the promoter is] not being logical, that [they're] not speaking in good faith. But they’ve been told that God is mysterious, unfathomable, so to them incoherence is the closest thing to God. This tangles up with the appeal of being an "initiate", "on the inside", and knowing the secret truth, and the combination is powerful.

heresie-dabord 5y ago

> all that was needed to overcome falsehoods and manipulation All that is needed is honest discourse and a good educational system. But what twaddlevision did to US society in the pre-WWW period, social memia is now doing to subsequent generations. The circle is unbroken. ^_^