How America Went Haywire

[Matata]

The article is too long to paste here. Worth the read.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/how-america-lost-its-mind/534231/

 

[whitewave]

"The second change was the onset of the new era of information. Digital technology empowers real-seeming fictions of the ideological and religious and scientific kinds. Among the web’s 1 billion sites, believers in anything and everything can find thousands of fellow fantasists, with collages of facts and “facts” to support them. Before the internet, crackpots were mostly isolated, and surely had a harder time remaining convinced of their alternate realities. Now their devoutly believed opinions are all over the airwaves and the web, just like actual news. Now all of the fantasies look real."

Here is the thing: the kooks are still less than 1/2 of 1% of the population. Their ideas don't seem more real: they are still as absurd as ever. Sure, the kooks found other kooks. They are still not a problem.

The problem is that the media gives them a platform. Look at the kardashains-- no one likes them. Yet they are everywhere. Why? Media/daily mail/pay to play etc.

Same thing with the anti-vaxxers. Who cares if they are upset peds won't see them anymore. WHY give them a news article about it?


We need to stop giving idiots a national platform to spout their idiocies. We need to stop making their ideas "talking points". I turned off the TV long ago. Time for everyone else to do the same.