4 ms·

ok but I wrote some of it and it was explicitly intended to be satire for the purpose of ridiculing people dumb enough to believe it

jolux 5y ago
I understand it was intended as satire. What I don’t understand is why anyone would be surprised that you fooled people. People are notoriously easy to fool! Smart people, dumb people, brilliant scientists. Happens all the time. I would go so far as to say that being fooled, and being a gigantic dumbass, is the state of nature of human beings. It didn’t end up in any news source I would classify as having a good reputation.
- grapist420 5y ago
  Subs like transpets illustrate more how ridiculous it is people are fooled. Thousands of upspergs on posts about dilating dogs or castrating cats. People are absurdly gullible and it’s really just terrible.
  - jolux 5y ago
    > People are absurdly gullible and it’s really just terrible. Have you considered how far we would have gotten as a species if we had a pervasive assumption of bad faith in our interactions with other people? Complex societies depend on assuming good faith. People who assume others are always acting in bad faith are often traumatized or suffering from other forms of mental illness. I don’t find it “ridiculous” that people believe stupid things. I believe stupid things, and I’m sure you do as well. It’s certainly bad, but I’m not quite sure how your contributions improve the situation. Mostly they seem calibrated to reduce social trust and push people towards assuming bad faith. What if you wrote about how to identify satire instead?
    - seabird 5y ago
      There _is_ a pervasive assumption of bad faith. People almost always consider the possibility of bad faith when they don't know the other party, at all levels of society since the beginning of recorded history. A bad actor can have a massive (sometimes irreversible) negative impact; it's an important behavior that we should encourage.
    - esyir 5y ago
      People default to assuming bad faith if they're from a different tribe. Just look at the social media loops.
    - mikem170 5y ago
      > Complex societies depend on assuming good faith. Maybe stuff like this exposes the fact that the media are not as reliable as we think. If they are propagating this fake news, what other fake news are they propagating?
  - bandyaboot 5y ago
    Yeah, it’s problematic that there are so many gullible people and also pretty problematic that there are so many useless people looking to exploit that.

jolux 5y ago

I understand it was intended as satire. What I don’t understand is why anyone would be surprised that you fooled people. People are notoriously easy to fool! Smart people, dumb people, brilliant scientists. Happens all the time. I would go so far as to say that being fooled, and being a gigantic dumbass, is the state of nature of human beings. It didn’t end up in any news source I would classify as having a good reputation.

grapist420 5y ago
Subs like transpets illustrate more how ridiculous it is people are fooled. Thousands of upspergs on posts about dilating dogs or castrating cats. People are absurdly gullible and it’s really just terrible.
- jolux 5y ago
  > People are absurdly gullible and it’s really just terrible. Have you considered how far we would have gotten as a species if we had a pervasive assumption of bad faith in our interactions with other people? Complex societies depend on assuming good faith. People who assume others are always acting in bad faith are often traumatized or suffering from other forms of mental illness. I don’t find it “ridiculous” that people believe stupid things. I believe stupid things, and I’m sure you do as well. It’s certainly bad, but I’m not quite sure how your contributions improve the situation. Mostly they seem calibrated to reduce social trust and push people towards assuming bad faith. What if you wrote about how to identify satire instead?
  - seabird 5y ago
    There _is_ a pervasive assumption of bad faith. People almost always consider the possibility of bad faith when they don't know the other party, at all levels of society since the beginning of recorded history. A bad actor can have a massive (sometimes irreversible) negative impact; it's an important behavior that we should encourage.
  - esyir 5y ago
    People default to assuming bad faith if they're from a different tribe. Just look at the social media loops.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    > Complex societies depend on assuming good faith. Maybe stuff like this exposes the fact that the media are not as reliable as we think. If they are propagating this fake news, what other fake news are they propagating?
- bandyaboot 5y ago
  Yeah, it’s problematic that there are so many gullible people and also pretty problematic that there are so many useless people looking to exploit that.