egg-fucking-zactly.
Yet another study about why people believe disinformation, that doesn’t talk about why the disinformation exists to start with.
It’s like if somebody released a bioweapon into the populace, and all we’re talking about is how people’s stupid weak immune systems have failed to fight it off, and not about how the bioweapon was deliberately constructed and targeted towards those weaknesses.
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You need to meet a Jesuit scientist @theophrastus. They will not give you any kind of pseudo-scientific explanation for the existence of God. To them belief in God is all about faith. Scientific research is an entirely separate thing.
If you do not have faith in God never go to even a high school level comparative religion class presented by a Jesuit. Remember that song “Losing My Religion” by R.E.M? After one of their courses if you don’t have faith you just might.
I think there’s maybe a dangerous short-sightedness in focussing on science denial as a conservative phenomenon. In the simplest sense, sure, it largely is, but part of that is because science denial TURNS people right wing.
I’m sure most of us know plenty people who started off the 2010s as left leaning, liberal, progressive types, only to be dragged over to the far right by successive waves of weaponised bullshit.
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I survived 12 years of Catholic school, the last 4 of which were in an all male, Jesuit run college prep school. I can vouch for the clever sophistry that can at the same time hold an imaginary belief in the nonsense of, not just religion but Catholicism, and also claim to trust logic and the scientific method.
It’s still a mystery to me how people can hold contradictory thoughts and not abandon one or the other. Humans are odd.
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Been there, done that. I have the bruised knuckles and wrists to prove it.
The literal sense of the title (rather than what Stipe says the song is about) could have been the theme song for my experience after taking the various religion classes at my Catholic high school.
The only thing that saved me was one priest who told me it was OK to question, to explore, to not believe. This was the early 1980s. He died of AIDS-related complications, and the “Church” refused to acknowledge both the ministry he provided to dozens of dying gay men, and refused to acknowledge what killed him.
And yeah I’m still angry.
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Hard disagree on this. And this is my every fucking day life. There are certainly lefty science deniers, but they were never militant, threatening, personally offended science deniers, they were more along the lines of gnostic, secret knowledge types. The right wing took the pre-existing fascist tendencies in their disciples and empowered them to impose their beliefs on others, by force if necessary. (And, of course, it is always necessary.) Their jam is not the typical lefty “I am going to do what I think is right,” it is more “I believe this is right, and anyone who disagrees is my enemy.” I never saw this even during the worst of the vaccine wars. Now I see it everywhere. Now, I am not saying that there are not lefties who have migrated to fascist, but it is not because science denial “turned them.” Most often, it’s because they have become threatened by the increasing tendency of the left to view everyone as fully human, rather than as slightly (or severely) defective straight, white, cis males. See the developments in the TERF wars. “Feminists” who are offended by trans women, despite it affecting them in no way whatsoever. Folks who would have previously identified as liberals now going hard fascist because “OMG!! Trans!” That’s not science denial. That’s bigotry. I suspect this is the root of the majority of the “left the left” asshats.
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I’ve been thinking that lumping all people who question science into the same MAGA box has not been helpful. This really highlights the “why” that is for me.
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Nazis can be terrible people and be exploited at the same time.
The “problem” with punching the loud mouthed Nazi jerk on the street corner is that the powerful people inciting him into this lifestyle and behavior is still in power making new Nazis.
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Yeah, we all know that Hitler didn’t send himself to die on the front lines. I’m not sure what you think that proves though. Trying to find common ground with fascists is still exactly the cartoon @DukeTrout posted. “Both sides” is still painting a false picture.
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There is a reason for the dramatic increase in “loud Nazis on the corner.” We as a society have decided to not punch, harass or ostracize them. We have made our whole country into the proverbial Nazi bar! While it is true that driving the Nazi off of my street corner does not hurt Tucker or his ilk in any way, making their sort socially unacceptable, as they were not very long ago at all, certainly will. I cannot personally drive Tucker out, but I can sure as hell make life very uncomfortable for any “loud Nazis” in my local area.
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the “moderates” on both sides have found common ground over the years as the g.o.p. turned itself into a death cult. 50 or 60 years ago people like krysten sinema and joe manchin would have been republicans but there is no place in the modern g.o.p. for people of even their conservative tendencies.
you need to adjust your vision and hearing to recognize that when you are fighting against a highly financed death-cult you can’t sit there and “both-sides” the situation.
are you still going to be talking this “both-sides” bullshit when the forces of the g.o.p. death cult are rounding up the leftists and the lgbtq+ and either forcing them into camps or just lining them up against a wall?
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I think the argument here is that white people never are responsible for their genocidal choices and should never be held responsible for what they do in this world…
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And results in a lot of both-sidising
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Which sides are you talking about? Even if we assume a simple single variable spectrum, there are huge swings in the framing of the of that divide. If we use a US political frame of reference, I’m a far left lunatic, by a global frame, I’m comparatively moderate, in certain local frames I’m comparatively right wing. This blind centrist ideal that everyone needs to give a little only makes sense if you assume all ideas carry equal value and equal distribution. They don’t. Pretending otherwise is a way to pretend that these actions have no consequences, which functionally always serves those with power.
Maybe, and helping them find their way to healthier expressions is fine, once the threat is contained. I may understand that a rampaging circus elephant was mistreated, but if it is about to stomp on my child, it isn’t the time to discuss animal husbandry practices in the entertainment industry.
No. Their victims didn’t get a choice, and they did. This is the type of stupid shit that centrism as its own faith makes you say.
Yes, that is why you address both. History has shown that when you ignore the one on the street corner, they beat and kill people and are able to grow their numbers faster. You may be willing to sacrifice the victims of the streetcorner fascist in hopes of someday debating their powerful backers into reason. I’m not. Each unchallenged fascist works like an unchecked vector for a pathogen. Punching Nazis lowers the R value of the infection. It is bending the curve on a grave threat. It is the handwashing of social hygiene.
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