I’d argue it started with Bush and his No Child Left Behind bullshit. It forced a certain curriculum to leave out common sense and critical thinking skills

Children aren’t the problem. it’s adults who get their constant education off anonymous memes. The year 2007 introduction of the Apple iPhone changed everything about USA society. We had the Fox News Rupert Murdoch problem since 1996, but the shit memes people flock to and “shit postings” addiction are the learning / education / study problem.

Shitpostinh education is very predictable adult education outcome. Cal Sagan predicted in in 1995: “Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding (from 1995) of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. “Beavis and Butthead” remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning—not just of science, but of anything—are avoidable, even undesirable.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, year 1995

Own your president Trump.

People need to own up to anonymous no-identity social media addiction. The egomania they get chasing junk (drugs) off of Apple iPhone / iPad / Samsung / machine devices. Donald Trump is entirely an Apple iPhone addict in egomania off machine lust, as too is Elon Musk.

nothing of this could have been possible without a ruined education system and mindless propaganda.

Nothing is more mindless than the education people get off of Lemmy memes, Reddit memes, Bluesky memes, Fox News HDTV, Joe Rogan. That’s the education that creates an audience for Donald Trump. Self-centered eoomania, like the Middle East gets with one religion vs. another religion. Fiction addiction problems are raging in USA.

Even if your theory was true

My theory:

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 1985 !BackTo1985@lemm.ee

What is looking like more of an idiot than he already does going to accomplish? He’s the most idiotic politician in living memory, by far, and there are some absolutely colossal morons on that list.

He is a Reality TV star. People can not resist mocking Donald Trump. Mocking isn’t resisting, mockery is all part of the Kremlin media techniques. The more idiotic he and Elin Musk behaves, the more people rush to their social machines and LOL. People can not resist his orange skin color, it makes skin color a constant topic (brown, black, white, orange, etc).

Introduction to the Kremlin media techniques of year 2014

1. Peter Pomerantsev September 9, 2014: Russia and the Menace of Unreality. How Vladimir Putin is revolutionizing information warfare

2. Adam Curtis, BBC, December 31, 2014: On The “Contradictory Vaudeville” Of Post-Modern Politics - “What this film is going to suggest is that that defeatist response has become a central part of a new system of political control. And to understand how this is happening, you have to look to Russia, to a man called Vladislav Surkov, who is a hero of our time. Surkov is one of President Putin’s advisers, and has helped him maintain his power for 15 years, but he has done it in a very new way.”

3. Book reading from December 5, 2014 on the subject by Peter Pomerantsev

I REALLY hope trump is just actively destroying the US either in the name of putin

People won’t discuss that this was all planned in a November 2013 Moscow meeting and announced one month later in December 2013… shortly before the February 2014 Ukraine invasion. https://lemmy.world/post/27627662/16165977

Are they just stupid or have they been paid off?

Neither one. they are in a cult. Donald Trump is entertaining / clickbait / meme leadership. The novelty of having a 78 year old man shit-talk on an Apple iPhone they can’t resist. They have brain damage from it all.

“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 1985 !BackTo1985@lemm.ee

Play stupid games and win stupid prices.

He is playing Vlad Putin 8D Chess, not Donald Trump 1D Checkers. https://lemmy.world/post/27627662/16165977 This was all planned in 2013.

Introduction to the Kremlin media techniques of year 2014

1. Peter Pomerantsev September 9, 2014: Russia and the Menace of Unreality. How Vladimir Putin is revolutionizing information warfare

2. Adam Curtis, BBC, December 31, 2014: On The “Contradictory Vaudeville” Of Post-Modern Politics - “What this film is going to suggest is that that defeatist response has become a central part of a new system of political control. And to understand how this is happening, you have to look to Russia, to a man called Vladislav Surkov, who is a hero of our time. Surkov is one of President Putin’s advisers, and has helped him maintain his power for 15 years, but he has done it in a very new way.”

3. Book reading from December 5, 2014 on the subject by Peter Pomerantsev

How do these Fox News hosts even sleep at night spouting this nonsense?

They LOL LOL amuse themselves to sleep at how awesome it is to bamboozle others (“liberal tears”) and the egomania they feel.

1. Printed more than a decade ago: “In the twenty-first century the techniques of the political technologists have become centralized and systematized, coordinated out of the office of the presidential administration, where Surkov would sit behind a desk on which were phones bearing the names of all the “independent” party leaders, calling and directing them at any moment, day or night. The brilliance of this new type of authoritarianism is that instead of simply oppressing opposition, as had been the case with twentieth-century strains, it climbs inside all ideologies and movements, exploiting and rendering them absurd. One moment Surkov would fund civic forums and human rights NGOs, the next he would quietly support nationalist movements that accuse the NGOs of being tools of the West. With a flourish he sponsored lavish arts festivals for the most provocative modern artists in Moscow, then supported Orthodox fundamentalists, dressed all in black and carrying crosses, who in turn attacked the modern art exhibitions. The Kremlin’s idea is to own all forms of political discourse, to not let any independent movements develop outside of its walls. Its Moscow can feel like an oligarchy in the morning and a democracy in the afternoon, a monarchy for dinner and a totalitarian state by bedtime.” ― Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia, year 2014

2. Theory four decades ago: “Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close around us . . . But what if there are no cries of anguish to be heard? Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements? To whom do we complain, and when, and in what tone of voice, when serious discourse dissolves into giggles? What is the antidote to a culture’s being drained by laughter?” ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, year 1985

Mocking, mockery, absurd humor, surreal antics, wild press conferences, nonsensical mannerisms, amusement in the face of serious topics, banal governing, comedic leadership, entertaining Reality media stars.

Trump administration using Fox News

“If we have to burn down a few bridges with Denmark to take Greenland, we’re big boys. We dropped A-bombs on Japan, and now they’re our top ally in the Pacific.”

“The first tool of authoritarian regimes is always informational control—both in the gathering of information on the public through surveillance and the filtration of information to the public through owned media. In its early days, the Internet seemed to pose a challenge to authoritarian regimes, but with the advent of social media, we are watching the construction of architectures that fulfill the needs of every authoritarian regime: surveillance and information control. Authoritarian movements are possible only when the general public becomes habituated to—and numbed by—a new normal.” ― Christopher Wylie, Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America, year 2019

Damned anti-vaccine activists.

I don’t blame them. In a society that worships the Apple iPhone and iPad and things that only fit in the length of a single screen, meme-speak and 3-word reaction commenting, it’s inevitable that entertainment mocking would eclipse science understanding. Carl Sagan said this in his 1995 book shortly before his death… that “10-second sound-bites” (meme-speak, Twitter-length junk) would drown society in the future if not changed. His 1995 warning has proven true since 2012.

Damned anti-vaccine activists.

I mean, who exactly educated these activists and everyday Apple iPhone users about information warfare? The most sophisticated devised by humanity? People were eaten-alive by Moscow information predators.

Look at the timing of this story, one year before the Wuhan Pandemic was front page, but nobody can seem to escape meme-think to discuss serious evidence. The activists didn’t stand a chance, they were scalped by Putin’s meme army since 2013.

Russian trolls blamed for spreading anti-vaccination propaganda
By Lia Eustachewich New York Post
Published February 17, 2019 2:01pm EST

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/russian-trolls-blamed-for-spreading-anti-vaccination-propaganda

This is what pisses me off. Most of these sicknesses could be easily avoided, yet the lack of education from many clueless people

The most clueless ones are arrogant and entirely avoid researching factual evidence of a conspiracy (with evidence conspiracy, not a bullshit “trust me bro” conspiracy) that was published by well-known reputable universities: George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University authenticated the factual evidence.

I guess since smartphones and Twitter were the venue for the evidence, social media users just can’t see past their meme addiction to simple-think and reaction-thinking and seriously discuss the fact-based conspiracy evidence. I’ve been trying to grasp why in 2020 onward this wasn’t a constant topic of discussion! Wuhan China is world famous, why isn’t this public notice about Russia discussed (constantly!)?

August 24, 2018 - Measles Russia

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45294192