"In that case, I’m going full counter intuitive. Stop all the suppression. Let everything out in the open. People are going to make their own decisions. Let the misinformation, the crazy conspiracies, and the truth compete for ears and eyes. Playing whack-a-mole with the wacky conspiracies only makes them seem more plausible. Airing them out in the light will expose their source, and their idiocy."
Given all the airline miles goalposts everywhere are earning due to being moved each and every time a mole is whacked (and re-wacked after someone rediscovers it months later), this strategy will only work if we can whack the moles faster than grifters like Candace Owens can craft new ones. On this front, I'm skeptical.
People aren’t as stupid as their self proclaimed betters assume. But we are herd animals and irrationally influenced at an emotional level. We need to break the persuasion loop and doubling down on whack-a-mole only strengthens it.
Apologies for being unclear here - by "whack a mole", I took your phrase and started referring to the natural cycle of someone advancing some kooky theory, folks arguing about it, showing that it's kooky, then the proponent moving onto the next kooky thing, all independently of any "elites", "betters", or platforms preemptively preventing the kooky message from being posted in the first place. I should have chosen a different phrase to distinguish between the two.
We're clearly in a media environment where kooks and grifters enjoy an asymmetric advantage to "flood the zone with sh*t"[1], with plenty of receptive audience members willing to amplify the message. I'm fine with adopting your proposed hands-off policy (given how poorly we're doing with a hands-on approach), but I don't think it'll be a measurable improvement over what's going on now.
This is easily the most outrageous comment/suggestion you have ever made Steve. I've grown to accept those who don't want to get vaccinated as a fact of life. I have no interest in trying to convince them. Not my job, hell not even my concern. Their decision will impact the rest of us as we fail to get over the goal line regarding covid...so be it, we'll all just live however we chose to live. Hopefully they'll make it through it as well.
With that out of the way, the idea we should let every crackpot wanting to increase pillow sales become the beacon of light for those in the wilderness is pure and utter nonsense. The crazies, the influencers' if you will, if allowed to run amuck, will only make it worse. The mere suggestion that we should simply let them spew and then people will quickly see through their gibberish is so quickly and patently dispatched i am stunned you would even suggest it.
Think not? Let's recap the big lie. Every legitimate source available, including government officials in pure red states, have plainly stated the election was not rigged, not a hoax and without question legitimate. Yet, as long as trump and all his hangers-on are able to stand and spout, roughly 35% of those on the right believe his bullshit.
Simply stated, allowing manure to be spread only insures the crap to continue to stink up our country and make people look stupid (please note i didn't call them stupid). Please explain to me why and how having countless more windbags sharing with us this noxious "data" is somehow going to magically make it better?
The grifters are gonna grift no matter how much you try to keep them down. It’s not the wingnut conspiracists I’m trying to convince but the otherwise thoughtful people who are being influenced by a campaign of suppression, which as an unintended consequence gives gravitas to the wingnuts. Most people can see through outrageous lies. We are past trying to convince the hardcore conspiracists.
They wouldn't if they were banned from social media and imprisoned. It's quickly becoming clear that willful disinformation for profit is leading to pain and suffering and death and should be treated the same way other forms of fraud are.
The nation with the power to do this would be a tyranny to live in. Who gets to decide what is truth and what is fraud? Restraining such power is precisely why we have a Bill of Rights.
It's not hard to prove vaccines don't cause infertility. It's not hard to prove vaccines are statistically safe. The people pushing these easily proven falsehoods which can lead to death should pay for it. If you lie about a drug and it leads to pain or suffering or death you can be sued for it. Why do these liars not fall under those laws? It's the same thing.
If it’s so easy to prove then why are people choosing to believe the lies vs. the provable truth? Not arguing it’s hard to prove the truth, just that it’s not the liars we need to go after. We need to make the truth true to people who believe the lies. And suppressing lies only makes them more enticing.
That logic makes no sense. People believe the lies because humans have always wanted to hear what they want and not the truth. If that wasn't the case there would be no lying.
And yes I am all for trying to counter the misinformation but wouldn't it be easier to do so if people were losing court cases and being imprisoned for telling these lies?
I think its important to stress that I'm not talking about people who are vaccine resistant or who share an opinion on why they don't want one. I'm only talking about the people who are the ones actually pushing misinformation.
That isn't Joe Blow from facebook but you can bet your backside it would be Sen. Paul who we found out had been profiting off of people sick with COVID.
"In that case, I’m going full counter intuitive. Stop all the suppression. Let everything out in the open. People are going to make their own decisions. Let the misinformation, the crazy conspiracies, and the truth compete for ears and eyes. Playing whack-a-mole with the wacky conspiracies only makes them seem more plausible. Airing them out in the light will expose their source, and their idiocy."
Given all the airline miles goalposts everywhere are earning due to being moved each and every time a mole is whacked (and re-wacked after someone rediscovers it months later), this strategy will only work if we can whack the moles faster than grifters like Candace Owens can craft new ones. On this front, I'm skeptical.
People aren’t as stupid as their self proclaimed betters assume. But we are herd animals and irrationally influenced at an emotional level. We need to break the persuasion loop and doubling down on whack-a-mole only strengthens it.
Apologies for being unclear here - by "whack a mole", I took your phrase and started referring to the natural cycle of someone advancing some kooky theory, folks arguing about it, showing that it's kooky, then the proponent moving onto the next kooky thing, all independently of any "elites", "betters", or platforms preemptively preventing the kooky message from being posted in the first place. I should have chosen a different phrase to distinguish between the two.
We're clearly in a media environment where kooks and grifters enjoy an asymmetric advantage to "flood the zone with sh*t"[1], with plenty of receptive audience members willing to amplify the message. I'm fine with adopting your proposed hands-off policy (given how poorly we're doing with a hands-on approach), but I don't think it'll be a measurable improvement over what's going on now.
[1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation
This is easily the most outrageous comment/suggestion you have ever made Steve. I've grown to accept those who don't want to get vaccinated as a fact of life. I have no interest in trying to convince them. Not my job, hell not even my concern. Their decision will impact the rest of us as we fail to get over the goal line regarding covid...so be it, we'll all just live however we chose to live. Hopefully they'll make it through it as well.
With that out of the way, the idea we should let every crackpot wanting to increase pillow sales become the beacon of light for those in the wilderness is pure and utter nonsense. The crazies, the influencers' if you will, if allowed to run amuck, will only make it worse. The mere suggestion that we should simply let them spew and then people will quickly see through their gibberish is so quickly and patently dispatched i am stunned you would even suggest it.
Think not? Let's recap the big lie. Every legitimate source available, including government officials in pure red states, have plainly stated the election was not rigged, not a hoax and without question legitimate. Yet, as long as trump and all his hangers-on are able to stand and spout, roughly 35% of those on the right believe his bullshit.
Simply stated, allowing manure to be spread only insures the crap to continue to stink up our country and make people look stupid (please note i didn't call them stupid). Please explain to me why and how having countless more windbags sharing with us this noxious "data" is somehow going to magically make it better?
The grifters are gonna grift no matter how much you try to keep them down. It’s not the wingnut conspiracists I’m trying to convince but the otherwise thoughtful people who are being influenced by a campaign of suppression, which as an unintended consequence gives gravitas to the wingnuts. Most people can see through outrageous lies. We are past trying to convince the hardcore conspiracists.
They wouldn't if they were banned from social media and imprisoned. It's quickly becoming clear that willful disinformation for profit is leading to pain and suffering and death and should be treated the same way other forms of fraud are.
The nation with the power to do this would be a tyranny to live in. Who gets to decide what is truth and what is fraud? Restraining such power is precisely why we have a Bill of Rights.
It's not hard to prove vaccines don't cause infertility. It's not hard to prove vaccines are statistically safe. The people pushing these easily proven falsehoods which can lead to death should pay for it. If you lie about a drug and it leads to pain or suffering or death you can be sued for it. Why do these liars not fall under those laws? It's the same thing.
If it’s so easy to prove then why are people choosing to believe the lies vs. the provable truth? Not arguing it’s hard to prove the truth, just that it’s not the liars we need to go after. We need to make the truth true to people who believe the lies. And suppressing lies only makes them more enticing.
That logic makes no sense. People believe the lies because humans have always wanted to hear what they want and not the truth. If that wasn't the case there would be no lying.
And yes I am all for trying to counter the misinformation but wouldn't it be easier to do so if people were losing court cases and being imprisoned for telling these lies?
I think its important to stress that I'm not talking about people who are vaccine resistant or who share an opinion on why they don't want one. I'm only talking about the people who are the ones actually pushing misinformation.
That isn't Joe Blow from facebook but you can bet your backside it would be Sen. Paul who we found out had been profiting off of people sick with COVID.