People are that stupid. I recently witnessed a guy on a vanlife sub proudly showing off his ingenious idea of having a chicken coop in the same van he lives in.
The guy was literally sleeping surrounded by bird shit, and when confronted with the criticism and links explaining the dangers of what he was doing, his response to every single one was "that's just like your opinion, man".
You can guess what his political preferences are.
People are mostly stupid. I unfortunately have to deal first hand with a lot of stupidity on a daily basis.
I do sales work in a blue collar industry. I write service quotes using the most basic sentences and descriptions to describe exactly what work will be performed.
Probably about a third of people can't even comprehend the most simple writing. They ask me the most stupid questions because they can't even comprehend 3rd grade English.
Dealing with the public is a wake up call just how dumb half the country is.
All people are mostly stupid. We don’t know everything about everything. We all have gaps. Being interested in everything and learning about life and politics and chickens is a good thing.
The issue is when you don’t want to learn about it and just think having an opinion is enough. When you google something and don’t have critical thinking skills to vet your sources or recognize that some websites are spreading misinformation. That’s when society steps in. Whoever has a stupid opinion or a hateful one has the right to free speech. But so do we. So tell them they’re wrong, how they’re wrong, if it’s hateful call it out and shut it down.
The problem is like with this example that out of lack of critical thinking skills people still don’t get it. They don’t want to learn just want their opinion to be correct and valid. Alternative facts. And in the age of social media where we don’t have downvotes, report buttons for disinformation and community notes don’t count for much, we’re platforming idiocracy and hatred. Obviously this is an easy fix but social media companies thrive on spreading disinformation, starting genocides and antivax movements, coddling incels and nazis, swinging elections, all of it purposely for their own profit and without any repercussions. Society can’t do its thing online when the platform is functioning as a disinformation spreader and silences appropriate backlash to stupid, hateful and dangerous ideas. Solution: not just fine but ban platforms that are found guilty of some of the worst offenses. Other social media companies can take their place just like how bluesky can replace twitter. There’s no loss to society if meta gets banned, Zuck and some moderators held personally responsible for their actions. We would all be better off without twitter and YouTube comments. Set a precedent and social media companies will fall in line. Set a precedent for Fox News spreading hateful misinformation purposely and news outlets will fall in line. Take away tech companies’ power, the power to sell your data and track you, and emphasize privacy of citizens instead and all of a sudden they won’t have this much power to wreck democracy for money. Easy fixes that tech companies fear more than anything.
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u/liquidhell 1d ago
Nothing surprises me anymore.