The truth is that all of these fascists sound like morons and clowns. They’re buffoonish and stupid in how they read to anyone with an education (formal or informal). But then they gain power. And it’s not funny what they do, even though it’s the same moronic, buffoonish stupidity they’ve been saying and doing all along. Go back and read about the early Nazi party. People thought they were stupid clowns. And they were. And then they won on a technicality. And they were still stupid clowns. But with the power to do unbelievably horrible things.
So it doesn’t matter what you think of these people. It just matters what you do to them.
And the only thing to do with clownish buffoonish stupid people who want power is to make them know they are unwelcome in public wherever they are.
And they were still stupid clowns. But with the power to do unbelievably horrible things.
This is also why education is so important: It enables more people to recognize these morons for the idiots they are. Which is why one of the throughlines of any undemocratic system is to keep education away from people.
Education is not the only thing, i know some pretty well educated people, who will still buy into propaganda, it a mix of education and a more sceptical approach to information in general.
I'll be honest, champ: Your friend isn't 'generally smart' he just is coherent. Your perception of him is likely framed around his ability to operate at a functional level but his actual IQ is probably hovering much closer to the median than you think, it's just our perception of 'stupid' is really loosely defined around a series of cultural standards. It's why southern drawls cause people to assume that person is of a lower IQ with zero evidence.
This bit seems significant to me, almost sounds like an impairment of like, social literacy (?) rather than intellectual impairment.
Conspiracy theories are kinda whole other ball game though. Those guys usually aren’t stupid, they’re just intellectually lazy. Like, if they really had no ability to think in terms of cause/effect, or recognize deception or its purpose, they wouldn’t be capable of watching a movie and understanding the plot. They usually can use those skill sets. They just don’t want to because conspiracy theories give you hits of dopamine or whatever.
Again, you're presuming I meant this guy is a 70 IQ. Just go down to the low 90s and higher math skills go away, critical thinking starts to diminish. Just because people are considered 'normal' at a 85 or 91 doesn't mean they're well equipped to understand concepts.
This is why conspiracy theories are so prevalent amongst non-college grads because the margin of people who didn't attend college but have an IQ exceeding 115/120 is much smaller than those who didn't attend and have a sub-100.
The standard deviation places nearly 45% of all people below 100 but before intellectually disabled.
The amount of people who can’t show basic reasoning skills seems to back this up. I heard that something like 60% of 8th graders can’t read a 3-5 paragraph short story and tell you the characters motivations. Honestly, I’ve worked with a lot of guys that were probably around the same level. Competent at plenty of things and even clever at a few but little to no critical thinking of any kind.
It’s not about IQ. It’s about the current information landscape and the way social media algorithms work, and journalism that has evolved to rely on clicks to generate income. The way we are given information and consume information has changed and people of all IQs are susceptible to this as it’s a human bias everyone has. If you come across the same information enough you tend to subconsciously believe it to be true
OPs friend is probably really good at retaining info then recalling it at a later date. Most people will attribute that to being "smart". Critical thinking is a learned skill and I don't think most people are willing to accept that or are humble enough to be vulnerable/wrong.
If that's the lynchpin of your entire story though, why lie about it to be nice? You're talking anonymously to strangers online. That's like me telling you an entire story that hinges on my house being red, but it's actually blue and the red part was irrelevant the whole time.
It’s the algorithm. The more someone is exposed to certain information, the more they will subconsciously accept it as true.
We all know how the YouTube algorithm works, you watch one thing and then all you see are related videos, and content that disagrees or debunks that video is hidden from you. You won’t come across it without seeking it out specifically.
After being in your echo chamber for a while, because you literally see no contradicting evidence at all, and continuously are fed more videos that verify what you were exposed to earlier, your brain just starts to assume it must be true.
Everyone is susceptible to this, even the educated. Educated people are more likely to critically evaluate what they see, and look up information that contradicts that viewpoint and compare, because that’s what they were taught to do, but we all have that same bias.
So even they can find themselves radicalized and brainwashed by these algorithms, the algorithms themselves are brainwashing people. And the social media companies know it, but they don’t want to change the algorithm because they get more engagement with that algorithm over any other. They are willing to brainwash an entire generation of young men (the group most susceptible as the far right tends to target them and right now men are less educated than girls and boys tend to not do as well in school. They are also being told that education and working hard in their classes is “feminine” and misogyny will prevent them from doing anything to appear feminine) rather than make less money.
We should be mass boycotting any social media that uses this algorithm. It actually originated on YouTube and the creator has tried to speak out as he regrets it, but the damage is done
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u/ahenobarbus_horse Jan 31 '25
The truth is that all of these fascists sound like morons and clowns. They’re buffoonish and stupid in how they read to anyone with an education (formal or informal). But then they gain power. And it’s not funny what they do, even though it’s the same moronic, buffoonish stupidity they’ve been saying and doing all along. Go back and read about the early Nazi party. People thought they were stupid clowns. And they were. And then they won on a technicality. And they were still stupid clowns. But with the power to do unbelievably horrible things.
So it doesn’t matter what you think of these people. It just matters what you do to them.
And the only thing to do with clownish buffoonish stupid people who want power is to make them know they are unwelcome in public wherever they are.