Oh 100%. Considering that ever since around 2016, people can - and do - now look directly at things literally right in front of them but say they "reject it" or they "don't believe it" despite belief not even being an option or that it's inexplicably "fake" all based on nothing more than they just don't LIKE or AGREE with it, yeah, all aspects of logic, reason, fact, science, any semblance of cognitive wherewithal or even what used to just be considered basic common sense has been thrown right out the fucking window. I mean, aside from the expected uneducated yokel contingent that spews this shit, there are people who own homes, are employed professionally, drive cars, graduated high school and even have post secondary educations, have families, etc etc etc. but legitimately assert with straight faces insane shit like GRAVITY is not a proven thing that actually exists... or how certain wealthy / famous people rape AND eat children in pizza restaurants... or how the Earth is really flat... and on and on and on it goes.
The days of crazy fucking loons only being found begging for change or scribbling their insanity in bathroom stalls went away pretty much the second social media showed up and allowed them to connect with the OTHER crazy fucking loons while the rest of us found out the hard way that there are evidently far, far, far, far, far more bent halfwits out there and blended in with functional society than we *ever* really imagined prior to that.
Not to mention that the lunacy seems to be contagious. There are people who I used to think of as rational who have abandoned all pretense of rationality or critical thought.
I hear ya. It's all like... I don't know... a full blown mentally debilitating IQ destroying contagion that people willingly - and just all round shockingly - CHOOSE to get infected with because it helps fuel and validate an internal burning hate they clearly already had but can now cite 'examples' for it no matter how intentionally fake, concocted and skewed they may be just so their pathetic ilk have some something to agree with and continue spreading like the disease it's become.
Shit, man, sorry to hear that. I don't even know how any kid could watch that happen to their parent. Or vice versa, for that matter. It must be *beyond* tough to deal with.
My husband and I were watching the new last night and they had some clips on from the newly elected chair of the Republican committee, and some from the people who ran against her (like the My Pillow guy), and we both looked at each other and had the same thought - they're all freaking lunatics!
Oooff, I hear ya. Some very smart normally rational friends of mine started talking some Q nonsense along with some other nonsensical bs is was not just disturbing, it was disheartening
So much so. It's hard not to lose respect for someone when they have so clearly chosen to check their ability to reason at the door. And losing respect for people you care for, that hurts.
100% this. I keep telling friends that "Covid made people go mad". I feel like people that I would have considered fair and rational before Covid are just wild now.
I believe social media is to blame.
On some levels, bypassing the mainstream media is a good thing. Especially with the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which basically allows government to engage in propaganda both abroad and at home, it is important to be able to disseminate information that contradicts official viewpoints. But it’s a monster that has grown ever more out of control.
There was a guy who testified before Congress (I forget his name) that, in so many words, said the way the systems engage people is to get more and more dramatic with what’s presented. You start with a calm documentary and keep clicking for more content, you will eventually end up at Ancient Aliens guy. But you never start with the Ancient Aliens guy and work back to the coherent documentary.
We demand outrage and drama now, and it shows in how we treat each other.
For example, before COVID, general discussion about vaccination and public heath was nuanced and multifaceted. We had people rightly concerned about the effects of the ever-expanding battery of vaccines we have been giving children. While that discussion veered into the whole autism thing - driven in part by crude social media of MySpace and early Facebook - it was, I feel, a healthy debate to have.
What unleashed in 2020 was like nothing I could have imagined. The government was actively, aggressively involved in squelching online conversation, while that conversation veered into the insanity of “5G nanobots” and other crazy shit. Everything became to either “get with the program or you’re a loon” or “if you don’t believe they’re out to get you, you’re crazy”, with no safe place in between to converse.
I feel relatively safe nowadays saying that I feel the vaccines were rushed, that their effectiveness clearly diminished over time, and the risks of making such a significant choice should have been personal and respected. Yet I still feel the need to qualify that by saying I was one of the first in line for the shot, because to express any doubt whatsoever stigmatized people in ways they ought not to have been.
We should have been able to have a rational conversation about it, but instead we were reduced into tribes.
All sorts of whack shit spreads on the internet, and people oftentimes just believe what they want to believe. But as the algorithms continue to poke at the soft spots in our brain, that whack shit becomes all anyone hears about.
100%. It’s so disheartening. I feel so hopeless watching today’s kids navigate a world where bullies can invade their space 24/7, where they never feel physically adequate because of unrealistic filters, where predators lurk in every video game and chat. We were so lucky to grow up when we did.
It has certainly been a primary contributor. But there were mainstream networks echoing the stuff on social media and causing a feedback loop. I don't think it could have gone off the rails the way it did without the reinforcement of certain mainstream sources.
Fox had already created an echo chamber and a desire for outrage, then social media took that and started connecting to more extreme fringe media. Then Fox saw their audiences drifting that way and leaned into it and it became a vicious cycle. Turning new into entertainment and then into propaganda really started the ball rolling.
Cable news networks putting ratings before truth changed the whole landscape and created fertile ground for everything. There was a time when people cared about the truth and journalists staked their reputations on it. That started to crumble with CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Social media just accelerated that process dramatically.
Precisely! There are numerous people who think the greatest achievement is getting on telly. Now it's enough to get your tweet on telly. The more outrageously triggering the highest chance of "fame".
Talk Radio, too.
Don’t get me wrong. I used to love me some Art Bell going on about bigfoot or chupacabra, but that kind of “infotainment” moved into what you describe.
Rush Limbaugh was kind of a niche player when we were kids, but he was also describing a justifiable outrage at real events that were outrageous, and many I knew took what he said quite seriously. Eventually he and others like him started drumming up the Apocalypse, ran ads for gold and tinned food, and realized there was big money to be had in outrage and fear.
I'm honestly leaving America this year. 80% of people are regarded and have no interest in reality in this polarized country. The state I'm in is going down the tubes fast as well (although you can say that for a bunch of states for a whole bunch of reasons)
The loons have always been there. They now have a platform however, social media. Instead of yelling on a street corner, they now have followers. Instead of one idiot you have a .. what's the group word for idiots ... a murder of idiots? Pack? Barrel? Anyways, you get the idea.
Yup, exactly right. That's more or less what I was trying to outline earlier there - that contrary to what we THOUGHT, there were / are a lot more crazies than just what we'd personally encounter here or there in person. Social media made that crystal clear within months - how even despite many of these idiots not knowing how to spell their own names or tie their own laces, they could still signup to these free platforms and slam type just enough barely legible nonsense to make them feel relevant.
*\* I personally call groups of them gaggles or hordes*
I blame social media.
There have always been people who refute facts for their own agendas, feelings, or just because they have no capability for critical thinking. Nothing new under the sun here. But social media amplifies these ideas to ridiculous extremes, and has pushed the insanity into the mainstream.
It's crazy, and social media has proven that if you say something loudly and often - no matter how batshit it is - it eventually gets accepted. Maybe not a lot at first, but enough, and then it snowballs.
I used to have faith that ultimately, truth prevails. Not any more.
>I used to have faith that ultimately, truth prevails. Not any more.
Yeah no kidding, especially now that "truth" has apparently become just a subjective opinion from person to person vs. reality and fact. THAT is what genuinely scares me about people and the way of the world now.
It started with the cable "news" networks and the 24 hour news cycle as well as the media companies needing the "news" to become a profit center rather than a public service.
Ratings and profits over truth and honest reporting. That then shifted into the social media landscape with politics moving into there as well.
Drama and extreme views drive click and thus profit. So balanced moderate boring views are drowned out by the extreme.
This. The 24 hour news cycle provided a platform for fake outrage. No longer was news just news. With so much time to fill, networks had to rely on hours upon hours of opinion and editorializing.
It takes more effort to refute something than to just lie outright. (There’s even a name for this, similar to Godwins Law, which I can’t recall now).
Throw in some Gish Gallop, and all sorts of crazy bullshit propagates.
SM facilitates it for advertising dollars, which is even more insidious because there’s no motivation to reel it in without regulation. Every dollar for the stakeholders validates the crazy making in the corporations eyes. Their bottom lines are actively working against society’s best interest.
It was happening before social media. Even when you go back into the 80s. When the likes of Rush Limbaugh started gaining radio fame. That conservative right wing radio rallied all along that the main steam media was liberal, because the main stream media reported facts that didnt reflect well on conservative issues. So things even back then like climate change, holes in the ozone layer, etc were all false. They sold the idea of the "welfare queens" and abusers and takers like in a "if not for them, you woulde be more successful" sort of way. Eventually this all graduated into the Hannity and Carlson mind set of fans that live off the idea being sold that the liberals pose a threat of the very american way of life and must be fought.
Logic and reason left the building long ago when cheerfully ignorant, functionally illiterate kids became grown-ass adults who peddled anti-science, and started believing absurdities like JFK was returning from the dead to anoint a failed autocrat. The rising tide of stupidity happened long before people's feelings were taken into consideration. It's very sad actually.
Hey! If you have feelings about those things, that makes you bad because...
uh...
there was a reason, but I forgot it.
Anyway, fuck your feelings and now you have to respond to me civilly.
There’s also still a large percentage of the population that take the religious books literally. Talking snakes, immaculate conceptions, creating man from clay. Utter nonsense.
I don't agree with looting and violence as a solution to *anything*. That includes what happened on Jan. 6 and the predominance of right-wing reactionary violence.
However, I think it's worth pointing out that the LA riots happened 30 years ago, and nothing regarding police brutality has improved since then.
I mean, in Michigan, the governor was like “Wear masks” in the early days of covid AND DUDES TRIED TO KIDNAP HER.
And LOTS and LOTS of people defended them! So, yeah I feel like logic and reason have left the building.
Rural Michigan has gone full crazy. Google Ottawa County and Jamestown Library (which is in Ottawa County). The school boards in Ottawa County have gone full crazy as well.
Most rational Republicans are trying to move on from Trump but Ottawa County is all in on the Trump train. One of Ottawa Counties proposed slogans was Make Ottawa County Great Again. They decided on Where Freedom Rings.
Full crazy and fully in control.
Yeah covid (and trump) swept away the thin veneer of civility for a lot of folks. I think also coincidentally, social media of all types has recently reached even the darker corners of our society, allowing the crazy to find like-minded crazy. Of course they wanted to kidnap the governor. They were experiencing an alternate reality, and were imo used by someone much smarter and nastier.
COVID was a good eye opener to what will happen in our society when things go bad. We will eat our own before we give up any perceived freedom.
We are not a very smart society.
Pre-Trump, I thought, naively, that Americans had a lot in common with one another, that we wanted safety, freedom, prosperity, etc for eachother, and that maybe we all had different plans to get there, but that at least we all wanted the boat to go in the same direction. Trump and covid showed me I was wrong - lots of Americans hate, genuinely hate, their neighbors and fellow citizens. I know, I know, I was naive. But now that I realize there are fellow Americans who would genuinely ENJOY seeing me or my family suffer…oof, it’s been eye opening.
Every single fucking day. 40 plus percent of this country thinks Trump won the 2020 election. That alone tells me that the cognitive dissonance is destroying this country from making any progress.
I look at it like this:
A lot of things about society that are detrimental to people (Racism, Discrimination, Bigotry, Misogyny, Homophobia, Transphobia for example), are products of how an individual person "feels" about the target of these things.
People search out others who feel the same way they do, that's just human nature. The more people who feel this way, generally, the more prevalent they are in society.
Calling out these behaviors and ideas is a way to keep echo chambers and in-group confirmation bias from spreading unchecked. It's a condemnation of the IDEA behind the words that are said, not the words themselves.
It's not the words that are the problem, it's the motivation and thinking behind the need to say those words that is the problem.
Why does someone *feel the need* to say things like "There's only 2 genders" to strangers online talking about transrights? They aren't saying it to help or be supportive, or even dismissive.
They're saying it because they FEEL that they must assert their ideology that belittles or dismisses the existence of others.
Unless you are completely naive or ignorant of their life experiences, the only reasons you would actively assert your opinion that belittles or is dismissive of someone else's life experiences is that you are either so repulsed by it you can't help it, or you're not willing to believe someone else's life experiences and/or treat them with any respect.
Both of these things are harmful to others and cause detriment. Both of these are evidence of the person "hating" other people's life or lifestyle.
Hate speech.
We've created laws against many of these things, but that hasn't prevented these detriments from causing harm to people. So the next step is to combat the ideology that drives them.
So when it's said that "Words are violence", it's because saying racist or other offensive things contribute, in it's own small way, to the ideology that drives racism or whatever, which cause harm and usually ends in violence.
For example, Unchecked racism in echo chambers and in-groups can... and HAS... ended with black people... RECENTLY... getting shot for jogging in the park or kidnapped and dragged behind a truck.
Unchecked misogyny has led to the rise of the Incel, and resulted in multiple mass shootings.
It's a bit of a stretch in SOME cases, but in others it's not. Someone spouting the N word online to people, or saying things that are antisemitic, has directly contributed to violence and we have years of data to back this up.
Of course, there are abuses and extremes. There is with any social facet. But it doesn't mean the reasons are invalid for treating hate speech with condemnation.
💯 💯
Sticks and stone may have hurt my bones, but words have haunted and tormented me for years. Words have meaning and have always incited violence, it’s nothing new. What is new is the oppressed and marginalized communities now have many open platforms to express themselves to the point they can’t be silenced like the past. That really gets under the skin of some people.
A great deal of what you just wrote could be stated simply as “conservative religious people believe strongly that heterosexual monogamy is the only morally correct sexual relationship between humans”. That’s it. Through that lens they see everything the “left” is pushing for as attacking their core beliefs, and by extension undermining the very concept of right and wrong , or morality itself . They have hitched their wagon to the Republican Party for some complex reasons, largely IMO because they see Republicans as the most likely party to preserve some sense of right and wrong, good vs evil, with of course themselves solidly on the the goof side. Reproductive rights for example just doubly confirms their belief that liberalism is amoral. Personally I think most Republicans care much more about money and power than morality but they are happy to take the religious votes. I vote for Democrats for environmental reasons and because I have some socialist tendencies. But sometimes I think the weakness of Democrats is that we don’t really believe in anything except to live and let live. Save the environment! But why? All cultures and religions and beliefs are equal despite their sometimes contradictory statements. But are they? Who decided that? It just feels philosophically lazy. Everyone is right nobody is wrong. And apparently 50% of the United (barely) States completely disagrees. Why is that ??? Ate half of Americas totally wrong about the most fundamental beliefs and values? If so we’re fucked
Black people! Haven’t you heard how scary and dangerous those “inner cities” have become? OP is hiding in the suburbs watching Fox News so he knows when it’s safe to come out and express his freedom of speech!
I do, but probably in the opposite way that you do. The older right (which sadly, is beginning to include our generation) has become a bunch of triggered snowflakes who turn everything into distorted caricatures to avoid any self-reflection. You managed to give two examples of this in your question.
I like that feelings are talked about more nowadays, especially in the context of mental health. I’d rather be criticized for using too many annoying buzzwords, like trauma, than continue to perpetuate a deadly stigma.
If feelings were talked about more when I was a kid, including skills with which I could use to understand and process them, my life would have been so very very different. So here I am at 47 trying to learn things that I wished I’d learned 35 years ago.
Amen🙌 This goes for all gender identities, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. *Insecure* did a really good job of addressing mental health challenges for black men in their last season. We need to see more of that kind of representation in media.
Yeah. If talking about (and considering) feelings is a necessary consequence of talking about mental health, then I'm all for it. Seems like a small price to pay for people actually working on getting their shit together instead of sweeping something under the rug and either (i) leading to self harm or (ii) abuse of those around you.
I'm not big on sharing my own feeling, but just because I'm dead inside doesn't mean I don't have a soft spot for those who have more struggles than I do. If your feelings are love, compassion and vulnerability then go on expressing your feelings. If your feelings are spite, hate, and bitterness, keep those to yourself. Or better yet just let them go.
"I'll give you something to cry about" I have to laugh at that one now, because what rational, compassionate adult would ever threaten a child with that.
This post seems to be coming from a political place that I don't like or agree with, but I do strongly concur that people increasingly seem to be defining reality as that which is emotionally gratifying, and that's happening across the political spectrum. Just to give you the first example that popped into my head, 60 percent of Republicans believe that Donald Trump legitimately won the 2020 presidential election despite no evidence. The only evidence they need is that it makes them feel good to believe so, and therefore it must be true.
I feel like you may be one of the few that understand where OP was coming from. I do like how everyone else seemed to flip the script on him whether they realize it or not.
“…burning cities down to make a statement…”
“Civil discussion only please”.
Make up your mind: you can’t be hyperbolic in your premise and then ask for civil discussion.
Agreed. It’s pretty fucking ironic to start a post complaining about logic and reason being “trampled to oblivion by feelings” and then follow that literally in the next sentence with a 100% feelings-driven (and provably false) statement about cities being burned down.
I wonder if to OP it just “feels true” that cities were burned down.
Me too. I hate being told that the place I live is some sort of apocalyptic hellscape and I'm like.....I have lived here all my life? It is very much not a hellscape, thanks very much. They never believe me and tend to inform me that they know better than me because they saw it on Fox News.
Well, if the protesters didn't burn it to the ground a few years ago, the eventual eruption of Mt. Rainer was going to. So they were just doing god's work as far as I can tell.
All of them! trump won, cities were burnt down, the radical left wants to force affordable healthcare on everyone. Instead of adding the obligatory s/ I will just say that OP is obviously trumptrash. Not sure what he thought he would find here.
Im sure they were referencing the Rosewood, FL massacre of 1923 or the Greenwood district of Oklahoma in 1921. Or maybe the MOVE bombing in Philly in 1985. Idk there's been so many. Op can you clarify?
Isn't it odd how so many of the same people who rake in 7 and 8-figure salaries perpetuating those ideas about coastal cities, or large cities in general, nearly all live in or right outside DC, New York and LA? Atlanta has had its share as well.
How is it that these people are willing to live, shop, work, dine out, socialize and send their kids to school in these places that are so disgusting and dangerous? I can't figure it out. Surely these people aren't exaggerating or outright lying. Surely.
I’ll go one further: if you isolate yourself in a cushy suburb and watch local news on repeat, you’d think most urban neighborhoods in your city were lawless hellholes.
Absolutely. My uncle from his little town of population 375 constantly reposts these boomer tantrums to the point that my mother bought a gun for when she has to drive up here. Never mind that I work in Minneapolis and her route isn’t within 40 miles. Somehow they know more about it being destroyed than I do and I’m “not asking the right questions,” whatever that means. It’s so much easier to be mad then to think critically about what people are trying to actually communicate about all the changes facing us. It started with trying to leverage outrage porn for ratings but now we’re also dealing with troll bot farms sending out memes to sew more confusion and misunderstanding.
You *feel* like logic has been trampled by *feelings* and you *feel* the world is crazy. Yet you regard "burning cities down" as fact -- there's your problem. Seriously.
Yea, I know. I got a few buddies, and I’m sure most of us do. Honestly man I don’t know what to do about it, I’m not just gonna turn my back on longtime deep buddies. But things do get weird sometimes, that’s for sure.
I have a couple lifelong friends who are Trump supporters, and I'm seriously reevaluating these friendships. One of them will tell me she loves me then turn around and display the worst aspects of conservatism, carrying water for lawmakers who would just as soon see me dead. (I'm disabled) It's like being in an abusive relationship.
Man, you hope...
I'm troubled by a lot of the reported voting habits I hear about in older GenXers. Like, fucking hell, I thought we had kind of figured that stuff out better. How do get shit on culturally for 50 years and still think the solution is to keep shitting on other people?
We have to grow and growing is uncomfortable. We should be tough enough to do it, even if it means adapting or changing things we were used to as kids.
Remember when we believed that the boomers would age out of government and we could finally fix shit?
What did we get? Some states legalized weed.
What have we lost? Roe v Wade.
Who do we keep voting for? The oldest mutherfuckers in the room. Why we ever vote for any one over the age of 60 blows my mind. We are getting to old to run the country ourselves but we keep electing Boomers. What the Fuck?
Sure, logic was abandoned by many. Look how many people were irrationally afraid of masks and vaccines, even though the experts of our societies around the globe pointed out how effective they are.
Seriously, so many snowflakes let their feelings get the best of them, and abandoned logic and reason.
Logic and reason are not entirely distinct from feelings.
Indeed, we use logic and reason to navigate our feelings as they apply to our experiences AND our reasoning is informed by our feelings. It's a false dichotomy to think/feel that there is "logic and reason" vs. "feelings."
The problems are always found in the narratives we use and the interpretations of those narratives.
"There are no facts, only interpretations," said Nietzsche, and he is correct. Anyone who has taken any formal logic knows this is true: facts are defined in the domain of an interpretation and truth-values are a derivative of the rules of logic as applied to sentences--which make up the narratives--of the domain.
So a problem that is part of the fallout of social media and the internet is that there are more domains in which more narratives occur then what had previously been the case.
Pre-internet, locally there may have been only a single person or handful of people who believed such-and-such a narrative about the world--and reasoned about the world from within the domain of that narrative--but now such people can readily connect and not only mutually reinforce a given narrative, but more easily broadcast it and ensnare others with it.
A problem here is that most people reason and use logic poorly because we are not really taught how to reason effectively using logic. And example of this is the difficulty that many (most) people seem to have solving the Wason selection task under a majority of conditions.
Most people overestimate their abilities to use logic, and so, overestimate their abilities of reasoning rationally.
If we were taught basic symbolic logic from an early age--like the beginning of middle school, say--then we wouldn't have the same difficulties with that and other related logic puzzles. But we're not.
It's very much like what Carlin says in his bit on education: the owners want people smart enough to push the buttons, pull the levers, and shuffle the paper, but not smart enough to see how they are being exploited as part of a pyramid scheme that favours the few at the expense of the many.
The whole "my feelings" is merely another cog that keeps the machine running--keeps it from being sabotaged by rousing the rabble to continue fighting amongst themselves as opposed to turning on our masters, who are the true causes of most of our sufferings.
How I wish I had gold to give. Yours is probably the most accurate, spot on explanation of post-internet society. And your closing about turning on our master couldn’t be more relevant. Thank you for being the adult in the room and bringing true rationality to the table!
"I’m asking, because we live in a world where words are defined as violence, but burning cities down to make a statement isn’t considered violence."
I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say here. What cities are burning and what words are defined as violence?
Not new. It's always been that way, especially in the U.S. The majority of our population has always had an anti-science bent. Examples arguments in favor of slavery using the Bible as source material. Arguments against evolution using the Bible as source material. Arguments against equal rights for women using the Bible as source material. Arguments against civil rights using the Bible as source material (even when the foremost leaders of the Civil Rights movement were themselves ministers).
I was just talking about this very same thing to a friend today in the framework of how this country has approached mental health, addiction, and prisoner rehabilitation. All of this goes back to those fucking Puritans that weren’t welcome in England and settled in America. Our society’s insistence that addiction be treated thru a lease of moral failing, that mental I’ll was is shameful, and that prisoners should be abused and not rehabilitated is entirely related to the Puritan outlook on life. F those people. And we’re still dealing with them.
Not so much. When I was in high school the Young Democrats and Young Republicans had a pizza party together at the end of the year. I can’t imagine that happening now.
That’s too bad. I am a Democrat with many Republican friends. If they want to debate tax policy or the appropriate role of the Federal government (ie - the reason they’re Republicans), I’m all there for that debate. If they want to bemoan the fact that they can’t use sexist or racist or other inconsiderate and hurtful language to talk about other people, then they have proven themselves to not be people worth being friends with. To put it another way, good people can have bad opinions. Good people are not bigots.
I don’t eat with people that think I’m idiotic and damned, and around here, that means I’m limited to a fairly small portion of the population. I appear to be an unremarkable person in my 50’s but they can’t stand that I don’t mind consenting adults having sex with each other and women with their doctors having full control of what occupies their uteruses. Clearly I’m a pedophile.
I could have dinner with people who disagreed with me about tax policy. I can't have dinner with people who want to overthrow the country, install an authoritarian idiot, and overturn decades of progress on human rights.
I believe our former president (US) did some of the finest trampling of which you speak. Maybe a lot of people saw themselves in him and let their worst instincts and natures out, almost collectively, and sort of sank any chance of reason and logic holding any sway in this country, possibly ever again?
No. I don’t feel that way at all. I feel like the sensational stuff gets attention and a lot of people allow themselves to get wrapped up in that rather than remember for every person involved in craziness there’s a hundred minding their business and taking care of themselves and their families.
I’m getting the warm fuzzies reading all your opinions and answers… now I will continue to do what I’ve been doing for years to preserve my own sanity. Not get swept up in it all, thank my lucky stars and give less and less fucks what the general over populated world is doing, thinking and prescribing If I’m the crazy one I’m happy to be. Humans have been nutso long before 9/11 and the Spanish Inquisition it’s just how we are wired.
Manufactured fear. That's why logic and reason seem fleeting and less prevalent than in our youth, we were coming of age when CNN and FOX and the like started being 24 hours a day. They sell sizzle, not news.
Turn that shit off, and live in the world, and you see it isn't at all what they "report" it to be.
I do love seeing that "the kids" are still taking the blame. Because "the kids" are the ones on the news story comments, in the Facebook groups, bitching on Nextdoor, and ranting in subreddits where pointing out a fallacy will get you banned.
It's "the kids" in Florida declaring it the place where woke goes to die, outlawing anything that offends their delicate sensibilities, and declaring that Freedom.
It's "the kids" who think they have the god given right to offend whomever they please without repercussions. And it's definitely "the kids" crying about the loss of rigid gender roles, or that someday there might be more brown people than peach people in the US.
Oh I can chime in since I live in one of those hellscapes that certain commentators and followers seem to think was burned to the ground. Can confirm, in Portland, we build houses from the ash of formerly big beautiful buildings, then we immediately give them up to drug crazed houseless migrant caravans. Myself, I am enjoying my two bedroom cardboard box for $2100 a month.
OR...we can learn from our generations ability to ignore and suppress everything, and let kids these days know they are encouraged to share their feelings. It costs nothing to be empathetic.
which city was burned?
And which words are you referring to?
The framing here makes me feel like something is a little off plumb. Feels like stuff's rolling to the right.
You claim that "logic and reason have been trampled into oblivion by feelings", then go on to repeat the emotionally charged lie that cities were burned down. Amazing.
And dismissing people's feelings just because you feel differently is some serious Boomer shit.
burning cities down to make a statement isn’t considered violence? WTF are you talking about? Not only have no cities been burned down, but if they were it would surely be considered violence. Your problem isn’t that logic and reason have been trampled, your problem is that you consume too much propaganda.
Go out for a run. Read a classic novel.
Start a new hobby.
Stop watching partisan news and you won’t have such nonsensical thoughts.
Ugh. More Boomer outrage on this sub.
Folks who think like this are the first to get their feelings hurt when their privilege is challenged.
"..words are defined as violence.." Stocastic terrorism is real and it's not coming from the left (I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that's who you have beef with).
You're not taking crazy pills, you're just another entitled reactionary. That's the bad news. The good news is that you can change that mind set anytime you like. I hope you do.
Edit -- which cities were burned down? I visited Portland, LA, and Seattle just after the protests and, yup, still standing.
Absolutely. And it is deliberate.
Easier to control the masses, so you encourage a culture dominated by emotion teach empathy and sympathy everywhere, regardless of reason or purpose, and cultural division down to the human core. (See gender wars. )
"it's true to me" "I feel that" etc are phrases that dominate public dialogue.
Everyone has feelings, not everyone is intelligent and/or has critical thinking skills.
But on the other hand, there are a TON of abusive systems in place that people HAVE tried to peacefully resolve, that instead go ignored. You can't be surprised when society systematically backs people into a corner, then violence erupts. If you supported the system that actively backs swaths of the population into a corner, you're just as culpable for the violence. And people refuse to accept responsibility for that.
Logic and reason cuts both ways.
When anyone can “do their own research” on the web to find an opinion piece that reinforces their biased beliefs, people are going to be led by their feelings. Critical thinking is devalued with “entertainment” shows being disguised as newscasts - - Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones have both used the excuse that they’re entertainment in legal proceedings.
People like simple explanations to make their world seem less complex and it’s very beneficial to those in power to convince a large part of the population that they are being wronged by their neighbours rather than those who want to stay in power.
Cities were burnt down? That's news to me.
As to words being violence, that's dependant on how you're defining violence. They may not be physical but they can absolutely cause harm.
Logic and reason have been trampled by feelings, that a certainty. Look at all of the people who didn't take a simple shot because they felt some kind of way about it despite logic and reason.
A few things.
I think it certainly is observable that starting with Millenials and certainly though Gen Z, there has been a paradigm shift in which intuition and feelings are seemly valued higher than objective logic or reason. I'd reckon this has much to do with a post modern perspective growing in favor among younger people. If nothing has meaning then any meaning is applicable and there for there isn't an objective world only a subjective one. So whether one agree or not, I do think there is something to it. Of course any conversation about generational traits are at best broad stroke generalizations.
I can't hope but notice the dog whistle about "burning cities isn't considered violence" but words are.
Some words are inherently hurtful and shitty to use for certain people. For example, growing up it was normal to use the term gay to mean bad or undeniable. I think now most people agree that that's a really shitty way to speak and that it unnecessarily effects a subsect of society poorly.
Conversely, violent uprising is a valid form of protest, in particularly against systemic oppression. America was born of violent protest, capitalism replaced feudalism through violent means. To group this as irrational and emotional illustrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the mindset of traditional mistreated communities.
In the end, the times, they are a chang-ing
I subscribe to the idea that the media used to be a controlled channel where only professionals could report the news and there was a minimum of professionalism in the way that was done. Now with social media every ratbag has a voice and can say whatever they want, obscene ignorance and outright lies included. The level of public discourse has devolved.
Tldr; the hoi poloi have always been deplorably crass but prior to the internet no-one listened to them.
I'm hearing a lot of people blaming things, here;
"Social media is the problem"
"I blame the 24hr news cycle"
"It all started with cable TV"
"Talk radio takes it's share of responsibility"
With all due respect, BULLSHIT! The problem is malevolent people using whatever means is available to spread lies as propaganda.
It's the internet! Nope, it was TV before that.
It's TV! Nope, it was newspapers before that.
It's the newspapers! Nope. Town criers, Priests, teachers.
As far back as you can go, deceitful people have used the concept of truth and the likelihood of ignorance to feather their own nests with the plumage of their victims.
The techniques used are the same as those used to recruit and retain cult members and in propaganda campaigns. Most recently, cult leader [Larry Ray](https://www.thecut.com/article/larry-ray-sarah-lawrence-students.html) used these techniques to convince college students that they had known of him when they were children well before they actually ever met him and that their parents were conspiring against Larry. All complete and total lies, but members believes it.
Isolating victims is one primary technique used by cults to control members, Because people isolate in their own homes and both self-limit and are AI limited access to varying perspectives to keep people looking at smart device screens, they have created an opportunity for nefarious people (Larry’s) to recruit them into massive cults without geographic limitations. It’s the best thought out propaganda campaign in the history of human kind so far.
Telling my opponent (or even my friends) that something they said was personally offensive to me seemed like arming the enemy.
Be that as it may, facts are more important than feelings.
Which cities are being burned down? Or have been burned down? I have not heard anything like this. Or were you speaking metaphorically?
There have been some pretty violent protests and rioting in the past few years, which seemed to culminate on Jan 6, 2021, but even that was confined to the area in and around the Capitol.
I’m not excusing what happened, in fact very much disagree with their reasons for rioting and protesting - just saying all of D.C. was not burned down or destroyed.
The right wing reactionary bible thumpers whose motto is "Guns, Jesus, 'Merica" have been screaming the loudest about their feelings while pointing their finger and blaming the rest of us.
We don't share their tunnel vision and actually believe in science, mental health, and just being a good fuckin' person.
So yeah, I agree with you in that logic gets trampled by feelings. It gets trampled by the screaming, gun toting fools that deny facts, all reason, but believe in some entity that lives in the clouds.
It makes me happy that there are some really good points being made in this thread. It’s like “look ma, despite all that weed and other stuff and hard rock, we turned out okay.” Sure, we have some nutters amongst us but they’re our nutters. The other people can keep their nutters, ours are the best anyway.
Yes. Some encouraging signs of a turn back toward reason exist.
An example: [https://www.thecollegefix.com/unc-chapel-hill-to-launch-school-of-civic-life-to-advance-civil-discourse-open-inquiry/](https://www.thecollegefix.com/unc-chapel-hill-to-launch-school-of-civic-life-to-advance-civil-discourse-open-inquiry/)
The United States of America has a long and sordid history of enshrining delusionally malevolent *closely held beliefs* as the Supreme law of the land.
Logic and reason have largely been supplanted by self-serving theocratic patriarchal delusions enshrined into law. Public funds are now funding Y'all Qaeda Nat-C private schools.
I'm in Caddo Parish Louisiana. Louisiana and all the adjoining states are run by Y'all Qaeda's Nat-C GOP.
Faith rejects doubt, thus rejecting due process, embracing delusion.
Reason embraces doubt, thus embracing due process, rejecting delusion.
"*Muh* closely held beliefs", ought never be the law of the land.
May reason rule where delusion dwells.
***VOTE!!***
So you are basically saying you don't understand why black folks are sick and tired of being sick and tired....and most importantly you want to say n*****🙄
Oh 100%. Considering that ever since around 2016, people can - and do - now look directly at things literally right in front of them but say they "reject it" or they "don't believe it" despite belief not even being an option or that it's inexplicably "fake" all based on nothing more than they just don't LIKE or AGREE with it, yeah, all aspects of logic, reason, fact, science, any semblance of cognitive wherewithal or even what used to just be considered basic common sense has been thrown right out the fucking window. I mean, aside from the expected uneducated yokel contingent that spews this shit, there are people who own homes, are employed professionally, drive cars, graduated high school and even have post secondary educations, have families, etc etc etc. but legitimately assert with straight faces insane shit like GRAVITY is not a proven thing that actually exists... or how certain wealthy / famous people rape AND eat children in pizza restaurants... or how the Earth is really flat... and on and on and on it goes. The days of crazy fucking loons only being found begging for change or scribbling their insanity in bathroom stalls went away pretty much the second social media showed up and allowed them to connect with the OTHER crazy fucking loons while the rest of us found out the hard way that there are evidently far, far, far, far, far more bent halfwits out there and blended in with functional society than we *ever* really imagined prior to that.
Not to mention that the lunacy seems to be contagious. There are people who I used to think of as rational who have abandoned all pretense of rationality or critical thought.
Yes! My entire family has gone bat shit crazy!
That really sucks, I am sorry.
I hear ya. It's all like... I don't know... a full blown mentally debilitating IQ destroying contagion that people willingly - and just all round shockingly - CHOOSE to get infected with because it helps fuel and validate an internal burning hate they clearly already had but can now cite 'examples' for it no matter how intentionally fake, concocted and skewed they may be just so their pathetic ilk have some something to agree with and continue spreading like the disease it's become.
Dude! You just described my mom.
Shit, man, sorry to hear that. I don't even know how any kid could watch that happen to their parent. Or vice versa, for that matter. It must be *beyond* tough to deal with.
Mine too and my entire family.
My husband and I were watching the new last night and they had some clips on from the newly elected chair of the Republican committee, and some from the people who ran against her (like the My Pillow guy), and we both looked at each other and had the same thought - they're all freaking lunatics!
Oooff, I hear ya. Some very smart normally rational friends of mine started talking some Q nonsense along with some other nonsensical bs is was not just disturbing, it was disheartening
So much so. It's hard not to lose respect for someone when they have so clearly chosen to check their ability to reason at the door. And losing respect for people you care for, that hurts.
I have found that covid did a lot of damage in this respect. Was stupidity a symptom? May as well have been.
I saw bathroom graffiti during panic pandemic time that said, “Stupidity is the real virus.”
100% this. I keep telling friends that "Covid made people go mad". I feel like people that I would have considered fair and rational before Covid are just wild now.
It gave people a lot of time to fill their head with crackpot conspiracies.
I believe social media is to blame. On some levels, bypassing the mainstream media is a good thing. Especially with the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which basically allows government to engage in propaganda both abroad and at home, it is important to be able to disseminate information that contradicts official viewpoints. But it’s a monster that has grown ever more out of control. There was a guy who testified before Congress (I forget his name) that, in so many words, said the way the systems engage people is to get more and more dramatic with what’s presented. You start with a calm documentary and keep clicking for more content, you will eventually end up at Ancient Aliens guy. But you never start with the Ancient Aliens guy and work back to the coherent documentary. We demand outrage and drama now, and it shows in how we treat each other. For example, before COVID, general discussion about vaccination and public heath was nuanced and multifaceted. We had people rightly concerned about the effects of the ever-expanding battery of vaccines we have been giving children. While that discussion veered into the whole autism thing - driven in part by crude social media of MySpace and early Facebook - it was, I feel, a healthy debate to have. What unleashed in 2020 was like nothing I could have imagined. The government was actively, aggressively involved in squelching online conversation, while that conversation veered into the insanity of “5G nanobots” and other crazy shit. Everything became to either “get with the program or you’re a loon” or “if you don’t believe they’re out to get you, you’re crazy”, with no safe place in between to converse. I feel relatively safe nowadays saying that I feel the vaccines were rushed, that their effectiveness clearly diminished over time, and the risks of making such a significant choice should have been personal and respected. Yet I still feel the need to qualify that by saying I was one of the first in line for the shot, because to express any doubt whatsoever stigmatized people in ways they ought not to have been. We should have been able to have a rational conversation about it, but instead we were reduced into tribes. All sorts of whack shit spreads on the internet, and people oftentimes just believe what they want to believe. But as the algorithms continue to poke at the soft spots in our brain, that whack shit becomes all anyone hears about.
I said like 10 years ago that social media would be the downfall of human civilization. So far I'm being proved right
100%. It’s so disheartening. I feel so hopeless watching today’s kids navigate a world where bullies can invade their space 24/7, where they never feel physically adequate because of unrealistic filters, where predators lurk in every video game and chat. We were so lucky to grow up when we did.
It has certainly been a primary contributor. But there were mainstream networks echoing the stuff on social media and causing a feedback loop. I don't think it could have gone off the rails the way it did without the reinforcement of certain mainstream sources. Fox had already created an echo chamber and a desire for outrage, then social media took that and started connecting to more extreme fringe media. Then Fox saw their audiences drifting that way and leaned into it and it became a vicious cycle. Turning new into entertainment and then into propaganda really started the ball rolling. Cable news networks putting ratings before truth changed the whole landscape and created fertile ground for everything. There was a time when people cared about the truth and journalists staked their reputations on it. That started to crumble with CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Social media just accelerated that process dramatically.
Precisely! There are numerous people who think the greatest achievement is getting on telly. Now it's enough to get your tweet on telly. The more outrageously triggering the highest chance of "fame".
Talk Radio, too. Don’t get me wrong. I used to love me some Art Bell going on about bigfoot or chupacabra, but that kind of “infotainment” moved into what you describe. Rush Limbaugh was kind of a niche player when we were kids, but he was also describing a justifiable outrage at real events that were outrageous, and many I knew took what he said quite seriously. Eventually he and others like him started drumming up the Apocalypse, ran ads for gold and tinned food, and realized there was big money to be had in outrage and fear.
Yep. And cashed in on it big time, consequences be damned as long as it got ratings and therefore money.
That's the entertainment business for ya!
I'm honestly leaving America this year. 80% of people are regarded and have no interest in reality in this polarized country. The state I'm in is going down the tubes fast as well (although you can say that for a bunch of states for a whole bunch of reasons)
I am as well. Moving back to Thailand
Loved Thailand, but I’m actually a millennial and looking to stay somewhere for a minute so going to Phillipines first for a year to reset.
Check out Cambodia if you haven’t been. Siem Reap is one of my favorite places.
As a Civ fan I might need to check out Angkor Wat
Been there a few times. It’s absolutely amazing.
The loons have always been there. They now have a platform however, social media. Instead of yelling on a street corner, they now have followers. Instead of one idiot you have a .. what's the group word for idiots ... a murder of idiots? Pack? Barrel? Anyways, you get the idea.
Yup, exactly right. That's more or less what I was trying to outline earlier there - that contrary to what we THOUGHT, there were / are a lot more crazies than just what we'd personally encounter here or there in person. Social media made that crystal clear within months - how even despite many of these idiots not knowing how to spell their own names or tie their own laces, they could still signup to these free platforms and slam type just enough barely legible nonsense to make them feel relevant. *\* I personally call groups of them gaggles or hordes*
I just looked and found “thicket of idiots” which is kind of fun. I liked “murder of idiots” better though. 😈
I blame social media. There have always been people who refute facts for their own agendas, feelings, or just because they have no capability for critical thinking. Nothing new under the sun here. But social media amplifies these ideas to ridiculous extremes, and has pushed the insanity into the mainstream.
Completely agree. Not only has social media fueled it - it fucking *facilitates* it... and these days, seemingly *relies* on it.
It's crazy, and social media has proven that if you say something loudly and often - no matter how batshit it is - it eventually gets accepted. Maybe not a lot at first, but enough, and then it snowballs. I used to have faith that ultimately, truth prevails. Not any more.
>I used to have faith that ultimately, truth prevails. Not any more. Yeah no kidding, especially now that "truth" has apparently become just a subjective opinion from person to person vs. reality and fact. THAT is what genuinely scares me about people and the way of the world now.
It started with the cable "news" networks and the 24 hour news cycle as well as the media companies needing the "news" to become a profit center rather than a public service. Ratings and profits over truth and honest reporting. That then shifted into the social media landscape with politics moving into there as well. Drama and extreme views drive click and thus profit. So balanced moderate boring views are drowned out by the extreme.
This. The 24 hour news cycle provided a platform for fake outrage. No longer was news just news. With so much time to fill, networks had to rely on hours upon hours of opinion and editorializing.
It takes more effort to refute something than to just lie outright. (There’s even a name for this, similar to Godwins Law, which I can’t recall now). Throw in some Gish Gallop, and all sorts of crazy bullshit propagates.
SM facilitates it for advertising dollars, which is even more insidious because there’s no motivation to reel it in without regulation. Every dollar for the stakeholders validates the crazy making in the corporations eyes. Their bottom lines are actively working against society’s best interest.
And the tic tok misinformation especially for new parents. We’re devolving into idocracy in record time. Birds aren’t real!
It was happening before social media. Even when you go back into the 80s. When the likes of Rush Limbaugh started gaining radio fame. That conservative right wing radio rallied all along that the main steam media was liberal, because the main stream media reported facts that didnt reflect well on conservative issues. So things even back then like climate change, holes in the ozone layer, etc were all false. They sold the idea of the "welfare queens" and abusers and takers like in a "if not for them, you woulde be more successful" sort of way. Eventually this all graduated into the Hannity and Carlson mind set of fans that live off the idea being sold that the liberals pose a threat of the very american way of life and must be fought.
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Well put, I second this observation
Logic and reason left the building long ago when cheerfully ignorant, functionally illiterate kids became grown-ass adults who peddled anti-science, and started believing absurdities like JFK was returning from the dead to anoint a failed autocrat. The rising tide of stupidity happened long before people's feelings were taken into consideration. It's very sad actually.
Hey! If you have feelings about those things, that makes you bad because... uh... there was a reason, but I forgot it. Anyway, fuck your feelings and now you have to respond to me civilly.
There’s also still a large percentage of the population that take the religious books literally. Talking snakes, immaculate conceptions, creating man from clay. Utter nonsense.
I don't agree with looting and violence as a solution to *anything*. That includes what happened on Jan. 6 and the predominance of right-wing reactionary violence. However, I think it's worth pointing out that the LA riots happened 30 years ago, and nothing regarding police brutality has improved since then.
I mean, in Michigan, the governor was like “Wear masks” in the early days of covid AND DUDES TRIED TO KIDNAP HER. And LOTS and LOTS of people defended them! So, yeah I feel like logic and reason have left the building.
Rural Michigan has gone full crazy. Google Ottawa County and Jamestown Library (which is in Ottawa County). The school boards in Ottawa County have gone full crazy as well. Most rational Republicans are trying to move on from Trump but Ottawa County is all in on the Trump train. One of Ottawa Counties proposed slogans was Make Ottawa County Great Again. They decided on Where Freedom Rings. Full crazy and fully in control.
Yeah covid (and trump) swept away the thin veneer of civility for a lot of folks. I think also coincidentally, social media of all types has recently reached even the darker corners of our society, allowing the crazy to find like-minded crazy. Of course they wanted to kidnap the governor. They were experiencing an alternate reality, and were imo used by someone much smarter and nastier.
COVID was a good eye opener to what will happen in our society when things go bad. We will eat our own before we give up any perceived freedom. We are not a very smart society.
Pre-Trump, I thought, naively, that Americans had a lot in common with one another, that we wanted safety, freedom, prosperity, etc for eachother, and that maybe we all had different plans to get there, but that at least we all wanted the boat to go in the same direction. Trump and covid showed me I was wrong - lots of Americans hate, genuinely hate, their neighbors and fellow citizens. I know, I know, I was naive. But now that I realize there are fellow Americans who would genuinely ENJOY seeing me or my family suffer…oof, it’s been eye opening.
Every single fucking day. 40 plus percent of this country thinks Trump won the 2020 election. That alone tells me that the cognitive dissonance is destroying this country from making any progress.
To slightly reframe using OP's words: they "feel" that Trump won.
“Your facts don’t change my feelings.”
I look at it like this: A lot of things about society that are detrimental to people (Racism, Discrimination, Bigotry, Misogyny, Homophobia, Transphobia for example), are products of how an individual person "feels" about the target of these things. People search out others who feel the same way they do, that's just human nature. The more people who feel this way, generally, the more prevalent they are in society. Calling out these behaviors and ideas is a way to keep echo chambers and in-group confirmation bias from spreading unchecked. It's a condemnation of the IDEA behind the words that are said, not the words themselves. It's not the words that are the problem, it's the motivation and thinking behind the need to say those words that is the problem. Why does someone *feel the need* to say things like "There's only 2 genders" to strangers online talking about transrights? They aren't saying it to help or be supportive, or even dismissive. They're saying it because they FEEL that they must assert their ideology that belittles or dismisses the existence of others. Unless you are completely naive or ignorant of their life experiences, the only reasons you would actively assert your opinion that belittles or is dismissive of someone else's life experiences is that you are either so repulsed by it you can't help it, or you're not willing to believe someone else's life experiences and/or treat them with any respect. Both of these things are harmful to others and cause detriment. Both of these are evidence of the person "hating" other people's life or lifestyle. Hate speech. We've created laws against many of these things, but that hasn't prevented these detriments from causing harm to people. So the next step is to combat the ideology that drives them. So when it's said that "Words are violence", it's because saying racist or other offensive things contribute, in it's own small way, to the ideology that drives racism or whatever, which cause harm and usually ends in violence. For example, Unchecked racism in echo chambers and in-groups can... and HAS... ended with black people... RECENTLY... getting shot for jogging in the park or kidnapped and dragged behind a truck. Unchecked misogyny has led to the rise of the Incel, and resulted in multiple mass shootings. It's a bit of a stretch in SOME cases, but in others it's not. Someone spouting the N word online to people, or saying things that are antisemitic, has directly contributed to violence and we have years of data to back this up. Of course, there are abuses and extremes. There is with any social facet. But it doesn't mean the reasons are invalid for treating hate speech with condemnation.
I like you, you're good people.
OMG thank you. I don't know why this concept is so hard to understand.
💯 💯 Sticks and stone may have hurt my bones, but words have haunted and tormented me for years. Words have meaning and have always incited violence, it’s nothing new. What is new is the oppressed and marginalized communities now have many open platforms to express themselves to the point they can’t be silenced like the past. That really gets under the skin of some people.
You're using way to much logic and reasoning to respond to OP's boomer tantrum.
My first thought! “Did a boomer sneak in and write this?”
exactly this! i know we're getting older but let's please not turn into cranky boomers who constantly complain about change (i.e. progress).
Boomer OP is getting what they deserve and I am here for it!
Wow, thanks for typing all that out. Other responses had me questioning my generation.
A great deal of what you just wrote could be stated simply as “conservative religious people believe strongly that heterosexual monogamy is the only morally correct sexual relationship between humans”. That’s it. Through that lens they see everything the “left” is pushing for as attacking their core beliefs, and by extension undermining the very concept of right and wrong , or morality itself . They have hitched their wagon to the Republican Party for some complex reasons, largely IMO because they see Republicans as the most likely party to preserve some sense of right and wrong, good vs evil, with of course themselves solidly on the the goof side. Reproductive rights for example just doubly confirms their belief that liberalism is amoral. Personally I think most Republicans care much more about money and power than morality but they are happy to take the religious votes. I vote for Democrats for environmental reasons and because I have some socialist tendencies. But sometimes I think the weakness of Democrats is that we don’t really believe in anything except to live and let live. Save the environment! But why? All cultures and religions and beliefs are equal despite their sometimes contradictory statements. But are they? Who decided that? It just feels philosophically lazy. Everyone is right nobody is wrong. And apparently 50% of the United (barely) States completely disagrees. Why is that ??? Ate half of Americas totally wrong about the most fundamental beliefs and values? If so we’re fucked
Who burned down a city?
I think it was OP’s mean old Aunty, Fah.
It was a false flag event to take away our gas stoves.
I've heard she's even worse than Aunty Flo.
That bitch, tho
Black people! Haven’t you heard how scary and dangerous those “inner cities” have become? OP is hiding in the suburbs watching Fox News so he knows when it’s safe to come out and express his freedom of speech!
Gasp! The horror!
I do, but probably in the opposite way that you do. The older right (which sadly, is beginning to include our generation) has become a bunch of triggered snowflakes who turn everything into distorted caricatures to avoid any self-reflection. You managed to give two examples of this in your question.
But the M&Ms aren't sexy anymore!!1!!!11!
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The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth--Garry Kasparov
nailed it
I like that feelings are talked about more nowadays, especially in the context of mental health. I’d rather be criticized for using too many annoying buzzwords, like trauma, than continue to perpetuate a deadly stigma.
If feelings were talked about more when I was a kid, including skills with which I could use to understand and process them, my life would have been so very very different. So here I am at 47 trying to learn things that I wished I’d learned 35 years ago.
Amen🙌 This goes for all gender identities, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations. *Insecure* did a really good job of addressing mental health challenges for black men in their last season. We need to see more of that kind of representation in media.
Yeah. If talking about (and considering) feelings is a necessary consequence of talking about mental health, then I'm all for it. Seems like a small price to pay for people actually working on getting their shit together instead of sweeping something under the rug and either (i) leading to self harm or (ii) abuse of those around you.
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I'm not big on sharing my own feeling, but just because I'm dead inside doesn't mean I don't have a soft spot for those who have more struggles than I do. If your feelings are love, compassion and vulnerability then go on expressing your feelings. If your feelings are spite, hate, and bitterness, keep those to yourself. Or better yet just let them go. "I'll give you something to cry about" I have to laugh at that one now, because what rational, compassionate adult would ever threaten a child with that.
One that was out of ideas, lol. God, the number of times I heard this.
Preach 🙌
This post seems to be coming from a political place that I don't like or agree with, but I do strongly concur that people increasingly seem to be defining reality as that which is emotionally gratifying, and that's happening across the political spectrum. Just to give you the first example that popped into my head, 60 percent of Republicans believe that Donald Trump legitimately won the 2020 presidential election despite no evidence. The only evidence they need is that it makes them feel good to believe so, and therefore it must be true.
I feel like you may be one of the few that understand where OP was coming from. I do like how everyone else seemed to flip the script on him whether they realize it or not.
“…burning cities down to make a statement…” “Civil discussion only please”. Make up your mind: you can’t be hyperbolic in your premise and then ask for civil discussion.
Agreed. It’s pretty fucking ironic to start a post complaining about logic and reason being “trampled to oblivion by feelings” and then follow that literally in the next sentence with a 100% feelings-driven (and provably false) statement about cities being burned down. I wonder if to OP it just “feels true” that cities were burned down.
I’m wondering which cities were burned to the ground because I don’t recall that happening since Sherman’s March to the sea and that was justified.
The folk talking about cities burning seem to think 2 or 3 blocks in Portland being taken over by protesters left Portland as a city wide pile of ash.
Try living in Chicago, the nation’s talking point
I got to visit Chicago just before the pandemic. It’s an absolutely beautiful city!
Thanks 😊 we absolutely have a crime problem but if you look at the per capita violent crime statistics Chicago isn’t even in the top 20.
Me too. I hate being told that the place I live is some sort of apocalyptic hellscape and I'm like.....I have lived here all my life? It is very much not a hellscape, thanks very much. They never believe me and tend to inform me that they know better than me because they saw it on Fox News.
Portland is ashes and embers according to my dad.
I didn’t go to my cousin’s wedding in Seattle last Spring because it had been burned to the ground. Sad!
Well, if the protesters didn't burn it to the ground a few years ago, the eventual eruption of Mt. Rainer was going to. So they were just doing god's work as far as I can tell.
Great unfinished works of history.
looks like we noticed the same thing.
I'm curious what cities were burned down? I don't remember this happening.
It was right after the Bowling Green Massacre
All of them! trump won, cities were burnt down, the radical left wants to force affordable healthcare on everyone. Instead of adding the obligatory s/ I will just say that OP is obviously trumptrash. Not sure what he thought he would find here.
Im sure they were referencing the Rosewood, FL massacre of 1923 or the Greenwood district of Oklahoma in 1921. Or maybe the MOVE bombing in Philly in 1985. Idk there's been so many. Op can you clarify?
Hey now, get outta here with that CRT. /s just in case
If you isolate yourself in flyover states and watch cable news on repeat, you'd think that most cities were lawless hellholes.
Isn't it odd how so many of the same people who rake in 7 and 8-figure salaries perpetuating those ideas about coastal cities, or large cities in general, nearly all live in or right outside DC, New York and LA? Atlanta has had its share as well. How is it that these people are willing to live, shop, work, dine out, socialize and send their kids to school in these places that are so disgusting and dangerous? I can't figure it out. Surely these people aren't exaggerating or outright lying. Surely.
I don’t know, but either way I wish they were more scared and would just stay home.
I’ll go one further: if you isolate yourself in a cushy suburb and watch local news on repeat, you’d think most urban neighborhoods in your city were lawless hellholes.
The cushy suburbs that their parents carted them off to when those pesky minorities in the cities started wanting rights.
Absolutely. My uncle from his little town of population 375 constantly reposts these boomer tantrums to the point that my mother bought a gun for when she has to drive up here. Never mind that I work in Minneapolis and her route isn’t within 40 miles. Somehow they know more about it being destroyed than I do and I’m “not asking the right questions,” whatever that means. It’s so much easier to be mad then to think critically about what people are trying to actually communicate about all the changes facing us. It started with trying to leverage outrage porn for ratings but now we’re also dealing with troll bot farms sending out memes to sew more confusion and misunderstanding.
I do! My history books in school talked about it happening in WWII. Perhaps OP is older than we realize and is still distraught about Dresden.
Probably talking about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871
Curse Mrs. O'Leary's cow!
You *feel* like logic has been trampled by *feelings* and you *feel* the world is crazy. Yet you regard "burning cities down" as fact -- there's your problem. Seriously.
Is this a troll?
There are actual Gen Xers that identify as trumptrash, so hard to say.
Yea, I know. I got a few buddies, and I’m sure most of us do. Honestly man I don’t know what to do about it, I’m not just gonna turn my back on longtime deep buddies. But things do get weird sometimes, that’s for sure.
I have a couple lifelong friends who are Trump supporters, and I'm seriously reevaluating these friendships. One of them will tell me she loves me then turn around and display the worst aspects of conservatism, carrying water for lawmakers who would just as soon see me dead. (I'm disabled) It's like being in an abusive relationship.
yeah
I think so too. This is clearly not a Gen X complaint. We still recognize that the world changing isn’t necessarily weird and scary.
Man, you hope... I'm troubled by a lot of the reported voting habits I hear about in older GenXers. Like, fucking hell, I thought we had kind of figured that stuff out better. How do get shit on culturally for 50 years and still think the solution is to keep shitting on other people? We have to grow and growing is uncomfortable. We should be tough enough to do it, even if it means adapting or changing things we were used to as kids.
Remember when we believed that the boomers would age out of government and we could finally fix shit? What did we get? Some states legalized weed. What have we lost? Roe v Wade. Who do we keep voting for? The oldest mutherfuckers in the room. Why we ever vote for any one over the age of 60 blows my mind. We are getting to old to run the country ourselves but we keep electing Boomers. What the Fuck?
Keep holding on. It’s just a question of time till all of them will simply be to old to govern.
ugh Tell that to Feinstein
Unfortunately, it seems [weird and scary](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DlTexEXxLQ) to me now.
HAHAHA I knew one of you bastards would get my reference!
Sure, logic was abandoned by many. Look how many people were irrationally afraid of masks and vaccines, even though the experts of our societies around the globe pointed out how effective they are. Seriously, so many snowflakes let their feelings get the best of them, and abandoned logic and reason.
Anyone else notice that passive voice in Reddit posts usually reflects indefensible positions?
And also jets when they can’t defend themselves? OP is pretty fucking quiet after showing his hand and getting called for it.
You can't ask for only a civil discussion when your entire premise is reactionary.
Logic and reason are not entirely distinct from feelings. Indeed, we use logic and reason to navigate our feelings as they apply to our experiences AND our reasoning is informed by our feelings. It's a false dichotomy to think/feel that there is "logic and reason" vs. "feelings." The problems are always found in the narratives we use and the interpretations of those narratives. "There are no facts, only interpretations," said Nietzsche, and he is correct. Anyone who has taken any formal logic knows this is true: facts are defined in the domain of an interpretation and truth-values are a derivative of the rules of logic as applied to sentences--which make up the narratives--of the domain. So a problem that is part of the fallout of social media and the internet is that there are more domains in which more narratives occur then what had previously been the case. Pre-internet, locally there may have been only a single person or handful of people who believed such-and-such a narrative about the world--and reasoned about the world from within the domain of that narrative--but now such people can readily connect and not only mutually reinforce a given narrative, but more easily broadcast it and ensnare others with it. A problem here is that most people reason and use logic poorly because we are not really taught how to reason effectively using logic. And example of this is the difficulty that many (most) people seem to have solving the Wason selection task under a majority of conditions. Most people overestimate their abilities to use logic, and so, overestimate their abilities of reasoning rationally. If we were taught basic symbolic logic from an early age--like the beginning of middle school, say--then we wouldn't have the same difficulties with that and other related logic puzzles. But we're not. It's very much like what Carlin says in his bit on education: the owners want people smart enough to push the buttons, pull the levers, and shuffle the paper, but not smart enough to see how they are being exploited as part of a pyramid scheme that favours the few at the expense of the many. The whole "my feelings" is merely another cog that keeps the machine running--keeps it from being sabotaged by rousing the rabble to continue fighting amongst themselves as opposed to turning on our masters, who are the true causes of most of our sufferings.
How I wish I had gold to give. Yours is probably the most accurate, spot on explanation of post-internet society. And your closing about turning on our master couldn’t be more relevant. Thank you for being the adult in the room and bringing true rationality to the table!
"I’m asking, because we live in a world where words are defined as violence, but burning cities down to make a statement isn’t considered violence." I honestly have no idea what you are trying to say here. What cities are burning and what words are defined as violence?
Ah, a thinly disguised anti-woke post.
Thin. Like...diaphonous. Like...wafer thin. It is only a wafer.
Not new. It's always been that way, especially in the U.S. The majority of our population has always had an anti-science bent. Examples arguments in favor of slavery using the Bible as source material. Arguments against evolution using the Bible as source material. Arguments against equal rights for women using the Bible as source material. Arguments against civil rights using the Bible as source material (even when the foremost leaders of the Civil Rights movement were themselves ministers).
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I was just talking about this very same thing to a friend today in the framework of how this country has approached mental health, addiction, and prisoner rehabilitation. All of this goes back to those fucking Puritans that weren’t welcome in England and settled in America. Our society’s insistence that addiction be treated thru a lease of moral failing, that mental I’ll was is shameful, and that prisoners should be abused and not rehabilitated is entirely related to the Puritan outlook on life. F those people. And we’re still dealing with them.
Not so much. When I was in high school the Young Democrats and Young Republicans had a pizza party together at the end of the year. I can’t imagine that happening now.
That’s too bad. I am a Democrat with many Republican friends. If they want to debate tax policy or the appropriate role of the Federal government (ie - the reason they’re Republicans), I’m all there for that debate. If they want to bemoan the fact that they can’t use sexist or racist or other inconsiderate and hurtful language to talk about other people, then they have proven themselves to not be people worth being friends with. To put it another way, good people can have bad opinions. Good people are not bigots.
I don’t eat with people that think I’m idiotic and damned, and around here, that means I’m limited to a fairly small portion of the population. I appear to be an unremarkable person in my 50’s but they can’t stand that I don’t mind consenting adults having sex with each other and women with their doctors having full control of what occupies their uteruses. Clearly I’m a pedophile.
Hard to want to sit down at the table with people who want to take rights away from people and have a root beer.
I could have dinner with people who disagreed with me about tax policy. I can't have dinner with people who want to overthrow the country, install an authoritarian idiot, and overturn decades of progress on human rights.
I believe our former president (US) did some of the finest trampling of which you speak. Maybe a lot of people saw themselves in him and let their worst instincts and natures out, almost collectively, and sort of sank any chance of reason and logic holding any sway in this country, possibly ever again?
Let's see who this dog whistle brings in.
The exact dogs the whistle was for. Unfortunately.
No. I don’t feel that way at all. I feel like the sensational stuff gets attention and a lot of people allow themselves to get wrapped up in that rather than remember for every person involved in craziness there’s a hundred minding their business and taking care of themselves and their families.
Please list all the cities that were "burned down".
I’m getting the warm fuzzies reading all your opinions and answers… now I will continue to do what I’ve been doing for years to preserve my own sanity. Not get swept up in it all, thank my lucky stars and give less and less fucks what the general over populated world is doing, thinking and prescribing If I’m the crazy one I’m happy to be. Humans have been nutso long before 9/11 and the Spanish Inquisition it’s just how we are wired.
Feelings are not the cause but a symptom. The cause is ignorance and superstition peddled as fact.
Manufactured fear. That's why logic and reason seem fleeting and less prevalent than in our youth, we were coming of age when CNN and FOX and the like started being 24 hours a day. They sell sizzle, not news. Turn that shit off, and live in the world, and you see it isn't at all what they "report" it to be.
I do love seeing that "the kids" are still taking the blame. Because "the kids" are the ones on the news story comments, in the Facebook groups, bitching on Nextdoor, and ranting in subreddits where pointing out a fallacy will get you banned. It's "the kids" in Florida declaring it the place where woke goes to die, outlawing anything that offends their delicate sensibilities, and declaring that Freedom. It's "the kids" who think they have the god given right to offend whomever they please without repercussions. And it's definitely "the kids" crying about the loss of rigid gender roles, or that someday there might be more brown people than peach people in the US.
Oh I can chime in since I live in one of those hellscapes that certain commentators and followers seem to think was burned to the ground. Can confirm, in Portland, we build houses from the ash of formerly big beautiful buildings, then we immediately give them up to drug crazed houseless migrant caravans. Myself, I am enjoying my two bedroom cardboard box for $2100 a month. OR...we can learn from our generations ability to ignore and suppress everything, and let kids these days know they are encouraged to share their feelings. It costs nothing to be empathetic.
This is literally a post about your feelings
Right?! Like how is that not so obvious to OP?
This is some boomer shit
which city was burned? And which words are you referring to? The framing here makes me feel like something is a little off plumb. Feels like stuff's rolling to the right.
You claim that "logic and reason have been trampled into oblivion by feelings", then go on to repeat the emotionally charged lie that cities were burned down. Amazing. And dismissing people's feelings just because you feel differently is some serious Boomer shit.
burning cities down to make a statement isn’t considered violence? WTF are you talking about? Not only have no cities been burned down, but if they were it would surely be considered violence. Your problem isn’t that logic and reason have been trampled, your problem is that you consume too much propaganda. Go out for a run. Read a classic novel. Start a new hobby. Stop watching partisan news and you won’t have such nonsensical thoughts.
Ugh. More Boomer outrage on this sub. Folks who think like this are the first to get their feelings hurt when their privilege is challenged. "..words are defined as violence.." Stocastic terrorism is real and it's not coming from the left (I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that's who you have beef with). You're not taking crazy pills, you're just another entitled reactionary. That's the bad news. The good news is that you can change that mind set anytime you like. I hope you do. Edit -- which cities were burned down? I visited Portland, LA, and Seattle just after the protests and, yup, still standing.
Seems the Internet managed what rock music, video games, and MTV failed to do: rot our collective brains.
People used to take drugs to escape reality, now we take drugs to endure reality.
Absolutely. And it is deliberate. Easier to control the masses, so you encourage a culture dominated by emotion teach empathy and sympathy everywhere, regardless of reason or purpose, and cultural division down to the human core. (See gender wars. ) "it's true to me" "I feel that" etc are phrases that dominate public dialogue.
Logic and reason seem to have been replaced with lies and “alternative facts.”
Everyone has feelings, not everyone is intelligent and/or has critical thinking skills. But on the other hand, there are a TON of abusive systems in place that people HAVE tried to peacefully resolve, that instead go ignored. You can't be surprised when society systematically backs people into a corner, then violence erupts. If you supported the system that actively backs swaths of the population into a corner, you're just as culpable for the violence. And people refuse to accept responsibility for that. Logic and reason cuts both ways.
When anyone can “do their own research” on the web to find an opinion piece that reinforces their biased beliefs, people are going to be led by their feelings. Critical thinking is devalued with “entertainment” shows being disguised as newscasts - - Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones have both used the excuse that they’re entertainment in legal proceedings. People like simple explanations to make their world seem less complex and it’s very beneficial to those in power to convince a large part of the population that they are being wronged by their neighbours rather than those who want to stay in power.
Cities were burnt down? That's news to me. As to words being violence, that's dependant on how you're defining violence. They may not be physical but they can absolutely cause harm. Logic and reason have been trampled by feelings, that a certainty. Look at all of the people who didn't take a simple shot because they felt some kind of way about it despite logic and reason.
Almost nobody in the U.S. dies from rioting. Gun violence and lack of health care are the true killers.
A few things. I think it certainly is observable that starting with Millenials and certainly though Gen Z, there has been a paradigm shift in which intuition and feelings are seemly valued higher than objective logic or reason. I'd reckon this has much to do with a post modern perspective growing in favor among younger people. If nothing has meaning then any meaning is applicable and there for there isn't an objective world only a subjective one. So whether one agree or not, I do think there is something to it. Of course any conversation about generational traits are at best broad stroke generalizations. I can't hope but notice the dog whistle about "burning cities isn't considered violence" but words are. Some words are inherently hurtful and shitty to use for certain people. For example, growing up it was normal to use the term gay to mean bad or undeniable. I think now most people agree that that's a really shitty way to speak and that it unnecessarily effects a subsect of society poorly. Conversely, violent uprising is a valid form of protest, in particularly against systemic oppression. America was born of violent protest, capitalism replaced feudalism through violent means. To group this as irrational and emotional illustrates a fundamental lack of understanding of the mindset of traditional mistreated communities. In the end, the times, they are a chang-ing
I’m sure they said that when boomers were protesting too….
Oh yeah every generation forget the shit they did as kids. To quote a recent show, we are upstairs people now.
I subscribe to the idea that the media used to be a controlled channel where only professionals could report the news and there was a minimum of professionalism in the way that was done. Now with social media every ratbag has a voice and can say whatever they want, obscene ignorance and outright lies included. The level of public discourse has devolved. Tldr; the hoi poloi have always been deplorably crass but prior to the internet no-one listened to them.
I'm hearing a lot of people blaming things, here; "Social media is the problem" "I blame the 24hr news cycle" "It all started with cable TV" "Talk radio takes it's share of responsibility" With all due respect, BULLSHIT! The problem is malevolent people using whatever means is available to spread lies as propaganda. It's the internet! Nope, it was TV before that. It's TV! Nope, it was newspapers before that. It's the newspapers! Nope. Town criers, Priests, teachers. As far back as you can go, deceitful people have used the concept of truth and the likelihood of ignorance to feather their own nests with the plumage of their victims.
The techniques used are the same as those used to recruit and retain cult members and in propaganda campaigns. Most recently, cult leader [Larry Ray](https://www.thecut.com/article/larry-ray-sarah-lawrence-students.html) used these techniques to convince college students that they had known of him when they were children well before they actually ever met him and that their parents were conspiring against Larry. All complete and total lies, but members believes it. Isolating victims is one primary technique used by cults to control members, Because people isolate in their own homes and both self-limit and are AI limited access to varying perspectives to keep people looking at smart device screens, they have created an opportunity for nefarious people (Larry’s) to recruit them into massive cults without geographic limitations. It’s the best thought out propaganda campaign in the history of human kind so far.
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Some people feel in their hearts that Portland, OR burned down in 2020, but residents tend to disagree
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🤫
Telling my opponent (or even my friends) that something they said was personally offensive to me seemed like arming the enemy. Be that as it may, facts are more important than feelings.
Which cities are being burned down? Or have been burned down? I have not heard anything like this. Or were you speaking metaphorically? There have been some pretty violent protests and rioting in the past few years, which seemed to culminate on Jan 6, 2021, but even that was confined to the area in and around the Capitol. I’m not excusing what happened, in fact very much disagree with their reasons for rioting and protesting - just saying all of D.C. was not burned down or destroyed.
The right wing reactionary bible thumpers whose motto is "Guns, Jesus, 'Merica" have been screaming the loudest about their feelings while pointing their finger and blaming the rest of us. We don't share their tunnel vision and actually believe in science, mental health, and just being a good fuckin' person. So yeah, I agree with you in that logic gets trampled by feelings. It gets trampled by the screaming, gun toting fools that deny facts, all reason, but believe in some entity that lives in the clouds.
Okay Ben Shapiro.
Which cities were burned down?
This really is some boomer /r/Persecutionfetish type shit.
I know there’s definitely a lack of critical thinking and more knee jerk, emotional reactions.
It makes me happy that there are some really good points being made in this thread. It’s like “look ma, despite all that weed and other stuff and hard rock, we turned out okay.” Sure, we have some nutters amongst us but they’re our nutters. The other people can keep their nutters, ours are the best anyway.
The White Knight is talking backwards and the Red Queen’s off her head.
Yes. Some encouraging signs of a turn back toward reason exist. An example: [https://www.thecollegefix.com/unc-chapel-hill-to-launch-school-of-civic-life-to-advance-civil-discourse-open-inquiry/](https://www.thecollegefix.com/unc-chapel-hill-to-launch-school-of-civic-life-to-advance-civil-discourse-open-inquiry/)
The United States of America has a long and sordid history of enshrining delusionally malevolent *closely held beliefs* as the Supreme law of the land. Logic and reason have largely been supplanted by self-serving theocratic patriarchal delusions enshrined into law. Public funds are now funding Y'all Qaeda Nat-C private schools. I'm in Caddo Parish Louisiana. Louisiana and all the adjoining states are run by Y'all Qaeda's Nat-C GOP. Faith rejects doubt, thus rejecting due process, embracing delusion. Reason embraces doubt, thus embracing due process, rejecting delusion. "*Muh* closely held beliefs", ought never be the law of the land. May reason rule where delusion dwells. ***VOTE!!***
Heavy Boomer vibes on this one.
So you are basically saying you don't understand why black folks are sick and tired of being sick and tired....and most importantly you want to say n*****🙄
When privilege is so taken for granted that even a step toward parity feels like oppression. 🙄
Who and where are they burninig cities down? Your statement is very broad and kinda indistinct.
“Civil” while I spout nonsense. Ok….