I can believe it, I know one of them. They’re the incel, manosphere idiots, the 4chan, never trust the government, flat earther alien conspiracy theorists who think they’re smarter than everyone else because the mainstream media always lies and they get their news from - that ‘altmedia’ you might see and think who the fuck is watching this shit??! YouTube channel etc. It’s them.
That stuff is spreading into the mainstream too. A young person in my family recently told me they don’t believe in the moon landing. Why? It doesn’t seem like that technology could exist back then. Lol.
On the positive side, I knew a Canadian couple where she was an evangelical Christian home-schooling their kids and he was a massive conspiracy theorist. They were both suspicious of vaccines and “mainstream medicine”, and he strongly disbelieved in the moon landings. 15 years ago there was no way to persuade them out of any of this. But over time, with the rise of the far right, QAnon, the antivax movement and MAGA, both of them realized they want nothing to do with those people or their insanity. She correctly identified the church as a bad influence and left it, she stopped preaching at people, they sent their kids to regular schools, they all got their vaccines, and he abandoned his conspiracy theories and now accepts that he was an idiot about the moon landings and laughs at his former self. Now you can have a perfectly normal conversation with them. So it is possible to travel in the other direction.
Yeah not only in the USA for sure.
What irks me most is that it’s often people who claim to be unpolitical. But they aren’t really, they just don’t bother to inform themselves and react on gut feelings instead. Those gut feelings can be dumb anger or dumb “Peace & Love”, but if they lead to someone saying that “Putin does not seem like he wants to harm Europe” it doesn’t really matter anymore, it’s just dumb. What can you say to such people? “Inform yourself”?
Meet them on their level. Tell them the more salacious details about what he’s already done, and that he’s basically an evil bond villain playing the long game. I tell them about the radioactive poisoning, nerve agent poisonings, troll farms, election interference. Throw in a bit of nationalism, after all Putin’s been goading us for years, he basically rubbed our faces in his misdeeds… Previously this was all the west, not just Europe.
I can believe it, I know one of them. They’re the incel, manosphere idiots, the 4chan, never trust the government, flat earther alien conspiracy theorists who think they’re smarter than everyone else because the mainstream media always lies and they get their news from - that ‘altmedia’ you might see and think who the fuck is watching this shit??! YouTube channel etc. It’s them.
That stuff is spreading into the mainstream too. A young person in my family recently told me they don’t believe in the moon landing. Why? It doesn’t seem like that technology could exist back then. Lol.
On the positive side, I knew a Canadian couple where she was an evangelical Christian home-schooling their kids and he was a massive conspiracy theorist. They were both suspicious of vaccines and “mainstream medicine”, and he strongly disbelieved in the moon landings. 15 years ago there was no way to persuade them out of any of this. But over time, with the rise of the far right, QAnon, the antivax movement and MAGA, both of them realized they want nothing to do with those people or their insanity. She correctly identified the church as a bad influence and left it, she stopped preaching at people, they sent their kids to regular schools, they all got their vaccines, and he abandoned his conspiracy theories and now accepts that he was an idiot about the moon landings and laughs at his former self. Now you can have a perfectly normal conversation with them. So it is possible to travel in the other direction.
Now that is the kind of reality I want to believe in! Those people should share their story and try to ‘save’ (oh the irony) some more of the crazies.
I keep hoping people see the insanity and turn around like this but it never seems to happen. We’ll see if it happens this time.
But the technology to fake it clearly could? Idiots…
Yeah not only in the USA for sure.
What irks me most is that it’s often people who claim to be unpolitical. But they aren’t really, they just don’t bother to inform themselves and react on gut feelings instead. Those gut feelings can be dumb anger or dumb “Peace & Love”, but if they lead to someone saying that “Putin does not seem like he wants to harm Europe” it doesn’t really matter anymore, it’s just dumb. What can you say to such people? “Inform yourself”?
Meet them on their level. Tell them the more salacious details about what he’s already done, and that he’s basically an evil bond villain playing the long game. I tell them about the radioactive poisoning, nerve agent poisonings, troll farms, election interference. Throw in a bit of nationalism, after all Putin’s been goading us for years, he basically rubbed our faces in his misdeeds… Previously this was all the west, not just Europe.
So yes, inform them. I do that. More or less - time permitting. And take care that their eyes don’t glaze over.