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No. I'm saying, if you look at the web pages of fearmongering web sites, they'll tell you something unusual and scary is happening. If you compare what they're
by thirsty-gecko 5y ago
No. I'm saying, if you look at the web pages of fearmongering web sites, they'll tell you something unusual and scary is happening. If you compare what they're talking about to historical records, you often see that what's happening now is not particularly unusual or scary, because worse things have happened before. We forgot about those incidents, but they are recorded in books. The fearmongering web sites don't check those books for precedent, because if they did, they wouldn't have anything scary to say.
- aaron-santos 5y agoHelp me understand "not particularly unusual or scary, because worse things have happened before." Is it more that people have survived worse, so we can survive this? Or more of that people's response to fear should be constant throughout history?
- thirsty-gecko 5y agoAn example will be, a fearmongering web site will say "climate change is here, $someplace just experienced its hottest day on record." Go and actually check the records, and you'll find, e.g., a black and white photograph commemorating a hotter day in $someplace in 1906, or other clear records of hotter days in $someplace in the distant past. Or they'll say "climate change is here, $someplace just experienced its third hurricane this year!" But if you check the records, you find that $someplace got hit with five hurricanes in 1883. On and on like that, wrongly suggesting that current events are unusual and scary, when in fact they are not remarkable compared to the historical records that nobody seems to be checking.