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The problem with the moral panics is that people jump onto the bandwagon with zero evidence. Some are just paranoid and distrustful, others want to feed the pa
by LanceH 3y ago
The problem with the moral panics is that people jump onto the bandwagon with zero evidence. Some are just paranoid and distrustful, others want to feed the panic.
I'm not asking that everyone think better, just that they think. Especially in a day where everyone has a camera and there are child snatching clowns all over the place -- just a little bit of skepticism goes a long way.
Questioning a wild claim out of nowhere isn't the same as thinking something isn't dangerous. It's thinking a claim has no basis.
Take the cinnamon challenge. Literally millions of people doing this. Then the claim comes up it is killing people. Yet these claims don't have any names or actual news articles that aren't in a circular reference. It may or may not injure you, but with millions or 10's of millions doing it, if people are dying there would be evidence of that.
All those Prius's with sudden acceleration -- and when everyone calmed down, the fix was floor mats and not cosmic rays. The real answer is that it was bad driving because all the brakes still worked perfectly well and if you press both the car stops. It was bizarre watching this play out after watching the same stupidity from the Audi 5000 in the 80's.
- mistermann 3y ago> The problem with the moral panics is that people jump onto the bandwagon with zero evidence. Some are just paranoid and distrustful, others want to feed the panic. Another problem: people thinking this is what's happening, when it is actually not. > I'm not asking that everyone think better, just that they think. Especially in a day where everyone has a camera and there are child snatching clowns all over the place -- just a little bit of skepticism goes a long way. Using specific, maximally absurd examples to prove one's broad beliefs may not be optimal thinking. > Questioning a wild claim out of nowhere isn't the same as thinking something isn't dangerous. It's thinking a claim has no basis. Where "thinking" = heuristics. > Take the cinnamon challenge... There is not shortage of instances of people thinking genuinely poorly, but there is also no shortage of instances of people using such instances to predict broader instances, and predictions about reality tend to be considered to be reality itself (as a consequence of evolution, culture, etc).