Quote:
Originally Posted by jyl
Were people this stupid when we were younger?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jyl
Social media lets the idiots find each other and self-reinforce.
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Stupid people are one of the greatest threats the U.S. faces today. Back when we were young, stupid people were harmless. Generally, they kept themselves and had zero impact on society and culture. They were invisible.
The Internet changed that. The effect of the web, specifically online forums and social media in general, allows stupid people to have a voice, one with near unlimited volume. And they can build communities of like-minded stupid people that self-reinforce lunacy through conspiracy theory mythology, pretty much the same as early Man creating myths to explain things they didn't understand like the sun rising every day. Their "facts" are authenticated by sheer volume alone. This allows them to be easily controlled and exploited.
The Internet has become a welfare state for stupid people applies in the same way a government handout does for lazy people. It makes you feel intelligent and your voice/opinion valued without ever having to do the work/research/reading to earn those qualities. In the process, truth is marginalized in favor of artificial self-esteem, so you have a positive reinforcement complex for negative qualities. I think that’s a critical element to my thesis: the creation and nurturing of artificial self-esteem.
Opinion media has turbocharged this effect, exploiting stupid people with no critical thinking skills for massive profits. Talking heads create entire soap opera style narratives and storylines that lures stupid people into a distinct Us vs. Them community and culture, especially enticing because it elevates stupid people up to the level of those that may have taunted them in their youth and adulthood, intelligent, successful people, at least in their eyes. It mixes reality TV with soap opera with news creating a groupthink culture where like-minded people fit in and feel comfortable in their echo chamber. It's more participatory, which is a key attribute, than as portrayed in the movie Idiocracy relying on a continuous cycle of peer reinforcement that makes a group think it is one thing (intelligent with a significant depth and breadth of knowledge matched with critical thinking abilities) that it clearly is not.