IdleRich

IdleRich
Jesus fucking christ! Basically, what it is, is, we know everyone is stupid, but even if you assume that everyone is stupid and work with that hypothesis, in fact even if you assume them to be dumber than you can possibly imagine they are, it still turns out that everyone is much stupider than that. There is no limit to people's stupidity. An infinite resource.
 

Leo

Well-known member
it all goes back to tribalism. if the facts support what the tribe wants to believe, then it's evidence. if the facts don't support the tribe's beliefs, it's fake news.

I'm not so sure we can blame it all on stupidity (some of it, yes). some groups are just so divided into their tribes that they are willing to accept a post-truth world.
 

version

Well-known member
I wish that reporter had asked him, if he knows that people's feelings don't correspond with the facts, why he doesn't make an effort to make the facts clear to them. Obviously we know the answer, but I think it's important to put people like that on the spot and make them justify their position publicly and in clear terms.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
That's one thing yeah but I'm talking specifically about the people who think that UKIP has loads of MPs, they're not saying that cos they are rejecting the left wing narrative peddled by the BBC and the rest of the mainstream media that that party doesn't have any MPs. They are not choosing their own alternative facts like Gingrich above. It's rather because they are ignorant and they simply don't know that they don't.
Now I don't know what's worse, someone who denies clear facts cos they don't like them and demand to have their own, or someone who just doesn't know what the basic facts are - but I don't think I'm being hugely elitist by saying that neither are that good.
 
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version

Well-known member
Now I don't know what's worse, someone who denies clear facts cos they don't like them and demand to have their own, or someone who just doesn't know what the basic facts are - but I don't think I'm being hugely elitist by saying that neither are that good.

I think the former is much worse. I can forgive ignorance, there's plenty of stuff I don't know and probably never will, what I can't forgive is outright and purposeful deceit, especially in the case of something as serious as Brexit.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
OK yes it's more malicious or whatever. But people who are ignorant of basic facts and plough on regardless cause just as much damage I think and are most likely more malleable by evil demagogues such as, er, Mark Francois (who is in fact also an idiot who can in turn be controlled by a higher level evil genius such as, er, JRM)
 

Leo

Well-known member
yeah, agree there. I sometimes wonder why those sort of "stupid" people even care. if they can't be bothered to search out basic facts, how is it that they have the energy and interest in holding and promoting a political position? why the laziness on one hand yet activism on the other?
 

version

Well-known member
OK yes it's more malicious or whatever. But people who are ignorant of basic facts and plough on regardless cause just as much damage I think and are most likely more malleable by evil demagogues such as, er, Mark Francois (who is in fact also an idiot who can in turn be controlled by a higher level evil genius such as, er, JRM)

Oh yeah, they're both incredibly damaging. I just think that if one's worse than the other, it's intentionally twisting the facts.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
A lethal combination. Sometimes I think you should have to pass a test to vote... just really basic stuff but you know. I mean I know the problems with that but fuck it.
 

Leo

Well-known member
A lethal combination. Sometimes I think you should have to pass a test to vote... just really basic stuff but you know. I mean I know the problems with that but fuck it.

when my English wife was studying to take her American citizenship test, it became obvious that many native born here would fail it.
 
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version

Well-known member
One thing I've noticed about social media is that it encourages you to have and offer an opinion on everything and frequently rewards you for doing so, e.g. you can skim a story, brand someone a twat and someone else will probably validate you with a 'like'.
 

Leo

Well-known member
One thing I've noticed about social media is that it encourages you to have and offer an opinion on everything and frequently rewards you for doing so, e.g. you can skim a story, brand someone a twat and someone else will probably validate you with a 'like'.

just like dissensus.

< jk >
 

version

Well-known member
How do people feel about this? - https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1117694844753858561.html

Those who do not think the rising threats of political violence, strident nationalism, attempts to bypass parliamentary institutions and increasing nastiness towards minorities do not indicate the beginning of a turn towards fascism must ask themselves...

...what would? The way fascism manifested itself in the 1920s and 1930s was not the only way it can manifest itself.

Fascism does not only exist in black and white photos and Pathe news reels.

The nastiness adapts to new promising environments. Think, for example, of the independent institutions which extreme "will of the people" Brexiters have sought to trash:

- parliamentary "saboteurs"
- judicial "enemies of the people"
- civil service "traitors"

Even demanding letters to universities.

This cannot be healthy. There is no value whatsoever in "taking back control" if the cost of Brexit is to trash the very domestic institutions - parliament, judiciary, civil service - which we would require to function more than ever outside the EU. Look at the casual trashing of human rights law and legal aid.

The primary purposes of human rights law and legal aid is to support the individual against the coercive power of law.

Without them an individual is powerless in the last resort against the State. And look at the routine casual insults and nastiness regarding Jewish people, Muslims, trans people.

Attacks on LGBT education.

And recall the first books to be burned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institut_für_Sexualwissenschaft#Nazi_era

Lots of "others" to be de-humanised, despised, mocked. Look at all this - the attacks on independent institutions, the attacks on legal aid and human rights law, the attacks on the "easy" targets of minorities, and ask yourself...

...what would a rise of fascism not look like in 2019?
 

version

Well-known member
Someone posted a particularly unsettling excerpt from Eco's essay on "Ur-Fascism" in response:

Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view – one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Not really Brexit related - except that everything that happens in Britain is Brexit-related now - but Gavin Williamson has been sacked for leaking from the National Security Council meeting, or possibly he's been sacked for not cooperating with the enquiry into who leaked and doing it in a suspicious manner. Anyway, he's still saying that he didn't leak and he did cooperate but I say "fuck off you twunt".
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Not really Brexit related - except that everything that happens in Britain is Brexit-related now - but Gavin Williamson has been sacked for leaking from the National Security Council meeting, or possibly he's been sacked for not cooperating with the enquiry into who leaked and doing it in a suspicious manner. Anyway, he's still saying that he didn't leak and he did cooperate but I say "fuck off you twunt".

 
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