…whether it was by a cult, by propaganda, by an algorithm, etc…
And did the person ever recover from it?
Well, one day I walked around outside in America… and that’s the story
Oh edgy, got any new material?
Wow condescending, got any new tones?
Geez light hearted, got any new gems?
Geez duck, got any grapes?
Hey bartender , got any nails?
Any religion.
What about that one that’s real
Every religion claims to be the sole guardian of a revealed truth and they are all, without exception, liars and charlatans. Every. Single. One.
Religion makes them feel better for being so shitty to others.
Humans haven’t found it yet, that happens in 2115.
You’re not supposed to reveal that until 2025.
“Well, that’s just how it is”
Person attempting to justify an injustice they also suffer, without even a thought about whether it being “how it is” might actually be connected to all the people saying dumb stuff like “Well, that’s just how it is.”
Uggghhh, nothing is more infuriating than hearing “life’s not fair” from people in a position to make a situation more fair.
I just respond “if that wasn’t how it is there’d be nothing to talk about.”
I learned recently that there’s a word for this, which is “thought-terminating cliche”
Its all good, man
It Is What It Is
And it ain’t what it ain’t.
This is one of the few acceptable ones IMO. Sometimes, something is bullshit, you know it’s bullshit, everyone else knows it’s bullshit, but you have no ability to fix or avoid said bullshit, so… it is what it is.
Ok Yogi
Fuckin way she goes.
And now you’re going to notice them all over the internet.
Not anyone I know, or even the most brainwashed, but I did watch this video last night on YouTube that was pretty disturbing and although the events are now 15 years ago they ended not long ago and the court case only ended last year.
Guy who is extremely good at manipulating people ends up manipulating like 6 or more of his daughters college friends into somehow dropping out and living with him and forced to do all the requests he has.
Guy who is extremely good at manipulating people ends up manipulating like 6 or more … to do all the requests he has.
That reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_search_phone_call_scam, which is so fucked up on so many levels.
Best episode of Law and Order as well. Robin Williams was a fantastic actor.
Wait, what? I’ve seen the movie, but didn’t know about this. Will have to look it up.
E: ok so saw Williams plays the caller in it, think I’ll pass, I don’t need that memory of him in my brain lol but good to know it made the show either way.
Yeah it’s essentially a cable tv episode of Compliance. Definitely dark Robin Williams. He’s really good at it. I would also recommend One Hour Photo if you want to see the best creepy Robin Williams.
Yeah, I’ve seen One Hour Photo a few times (also Insomnia and The Final Cut), it’s how I know he did creepy so well and probably why I know to avoid that episode lol
What a terrible day to be literate.
Idk if it’s hindsight bias or what, but I feel like if some guy called my place of work claiming to be a cop and told me to rape my 14-18 year old coworker I would suspect something is up
Also, that caller must’ve had OJs lawyer.
Idk if it’s hindsight bias or what, but I feel like if some guy called my place of work claiming to be a cop and told me to rape my 14-18 year old coworker I would suspect something is up
I do too, but then you look at society, and the individual and mass abuses and atrocities that have been and still are committed (or even just not objected to) under the influence of one or a small group of manipulative exploiters (some with little other power, but some who control the very systems that govern our lives), and you realise that if nothing else, you have to be constantly aware and vigilant to their manipulations, and even then, no one is immune.
What did I just read! Wow that was a wild ride, thanks for sharing. Someone could write a PhD thesis on how this worked
I think the worst thing about it is that it works every day, in so many different ways. Appeal to authority (not the fallacy, just the act of) is an enforced value in most societies, and it will drive people to do the most horrific shit. Always question authority.
The Goebbels speech for total war:
That shit is so scary. Those people were ready to exterminate others out of pure hate and brain washing. It made me think about how the more extreme MAGA people today refer to liberals/Democrats. It’s like they’re heading down the same path. It’s insane that that many people can fall into that type of mentality with the freedom of information we have today. They’ve been trained to only believe a certain narrative, but instinctively disbelieve and see as enemy anything that goes against it. Freedom of thought is not an option for them. Crazy af.
In all fairness I went there to see what the issue is, the top post was about ants and most things that popped up were good memes. Which communities are you referring to? I’m guessing not c/earth or something…
Threads like this, with highly upvoted comments like
americans are more propagandized than they think citizens of the DPRK are
They also use sarcasm try to push the narrative that North Korea is actually just fine, OK?
Guys you don’t understand; the West has spoken; we MUST hate North Korea, our governments have already decreed it so.
Many of them are also seemingly physically incapable of communicating without hexbear’s custom reaction images, which is a weird behavior common to many cults. Makes it harder to communicate with the outgroup.
I think LW is defederated from them (or vice versa) so you can’t post over there, but for further examples, try making an account over there and saying that maybe, just maybe, Putin did a bad thing by invading Ukraine, and they’re defending an imperialist.
Yeah these things sound awful. Thanks for the pointers.
Covid. People are still pretending there’s no pandemic in 2024.
I meaaan, there is no pandemic in 2024. We fucked the whole thing up and it’s just a regular ol’ endemic disease killing people every year that could have been prevented. Weeeeee!
Jehovah’s Witnesses, who rejoice in the deaths of children. The whole thing is utterly bizarre.
Worked with one a while back. She was trying to get out. Her whole family abandoned her. She finally went back and agreed to the arranged marriage temple leadership was demanding. Was immediately pregnant after the wedding. Forced to quit her job to be a stay at home mom.
Firmly believe such behavior should be in our modern concept of slavery.
This shit should be documented for court and the temple leadership can lead the jailhouse from inside from then on.
MAGA.
Came here to say this. Well I would’ve said Trump, but same idea.
Maybe not the worst but the most recent one is my father in law. You know the type: baby boomer who had every advantage growing up but didn’t avail himself but still managed to eke out a comfortable life while working at the business his dad started and he inherited. He doesn’t take in the bucks but it allows him and my mil to own a comfortable home in an area that is only going up in value. Anyway…
As you can imagine super religious, super right wing, trump loving, gay hating (has a gay brother that he’s estranged from), you know… the usual. What gets me is remember trump did an interview a week or two ago where he said that all federal employees are “crooked and dishonest and must be held accountable”? He couldn’t agree more! Guess who my wife (his daughter) and I work for? Yeah…
Have you tried being less of a crooked, dishonest Deep State?
5G tracking chip?
Well my mother said that she would forgive me for rejecting her religion (JWs) if I came back to the church. I was 18. I threw that letter out and haven’t heard from her in the 27ish years since.
Pro tip kids: conditional love is not love - it’s control.
You are very wise. Thanks for the tip.
US Democratic voters unwilling to recognize systemic faults, perceive how they apply to their chosen politicians, or reason their way to incremental action beyond voting and virtue signaling. They’re the third of the country that watches while one third kills another third.
US Conservative voters unwilling to recognize systemic faults, perceive how they apply to their chosen politicians, or reason their way to incremental action beyond voting and virtue signaling. They’re the third of the country that kills one third while another another third watches
What’s your point by repeating this for conservatives?
its not repeated.
I’m asking seriously
im telling you seriously its not the same statement. whil it demonstrates that the entire country is at fault, but with a nod to those who are pulling the majority of the triggers in the human killing devices.
I think it was clear what I meant: what is the point of repeating the exact same phrase. Your explanation was quite halfassed. Anyway I was asking so to understand American politics better as a non-American. You have not brought me any closer.
How did the original comment enlighten you?
The initial post says Democrats are the third that watch while one third kills the other third. The Conservatives are the third that does the killing.
There is no point here as very few conservatives are reading this. It is likely that most of them are enlightened enough to see the faults in their own side. As opposed to the large number of democrat voters here who cannot see the flaws in their own side. There are of course democrat voters here who can see the flaws in their own side, but lemmy is in general an echo chamber of “left wing” and a large number cannot see their own flaws.
Seems counterintuitive, but I’ve had more productive arguments with conservative vs. liberal friends. By productive I mean to say, the conservative often changed his view, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, sometimes a complete reversal. In any case, they listened to my points and would reason with me. They would often shift my thoughts or, at worst, I came away understanding, if not agreeing. If one’s only experience arguing a political point is online, well, your mileage will vary.
Liberals, on the other hand, often won’t engage in real life arguments, at all. “This doesn’t bear discussion. I’m right, you’re an idiot, I’m out.” Try arguing a conservative take in a room full of liberals. You’re getting shouted down, and you’re not getting invited back. Winning hearts and minds here guys?
Both sides are religious in their online echo chambers, ears firmly plugged, “You will toe the party line, comrade!”. (Point goes to the online liberal, they’re a bit more lenient.) The echo is so strong around here, posts get down voted for having the impertinence to ask a clarifying question or so much as explaining a conservative view, even if not holding it. Fuck me, I’ve seen dozens of buried posts, posts that only stated a single, inconvenient fact. Hell, I check the negative posts because I often find an interesting take or new thought. Watch the down votes roll on this post merely because I related positive personal experiences with conservatives. No value judgements, just stating what I’ve seen in real life.
(Here I’m going to ramble around a bit, hoping I can get back on track at the end…)
Funny story, I was at a house party and wandered upstairs to find my dad moderating a debate (I forget the topic) in a room full of drunk college kids. After a few minutes he called a halt. Pointing to the debaters, he said, “You’re going to argue his view and you’re going to take his. Switch sides.” Momentarily taken aback, they wholeheartedly jumped into their new roles. I suspect dad timed that to teach me a lesson, he often said, “If you can’t argue both sides, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Pre-Obama, I used to be fairly conservative, thought I was anyway, listened to talk radio while delivering or eating lunch. One afternoon I realized dad would be ashamed to hear that I got all my views from one side. So I started reading CCN, that hotbed of radical-left boogeyman I had heard so much about. Let’s see what these liberals have to say. Well, CNN was anything but a hotbed of whacky liberalism, even back then. Terrible journalism, yes, opinions rampant in every “news” story, but nothing like the bias I had been listening to. (And here we are, back to experiences differing in real-life arguments vs. online, or on-air as the case may be.)
About the same time, Limbaugh turned me off like a light switch, never listened to another word after snapping off my radio. A caller was relating his experience with purchasing and installing a wind turbine at his home. Rush laughed, on cue, at the silly liberal notions of clean energy. OK, that sucks, but to be expected. The caller starts talking about the expense and hassle of hooking it to the grid. Limbaugh went off, over and over again, “You mean to tell me the windmill needs power to function?! Har, har, har!” The man was only trying to explain that he wished to pump excess back into the grid, get paid, but all in all, the system was a loss for him. Rush was a very intelligent man, knew exactly what the caller was trying to say, knew if would be construed as a benefit, cut him off every time he opened his mouth to explain. Fuck you Rush.
That last anecdote seems to contradict earlier statements. I guess what I’m getting at it that conservatives are close-minded when they’re in their echo chambers. Confronted with a live human being, they’re mostly pleasant to argue with. Bet money that, one-on-one, Rush would have argued in good faith. When contradicted, liberals come with “tell it to the hand”.
/rambling-nonsense
The Democrats are not left wing.
i put left wing in quotes for that reason. when you have two sides - republicans and democrats - then in the us the democrats are the left. However there are a large number of different issues and it is safe to say no two people agree on 100% and so dividing into two sides is wrong. Still calling the democrats left wing is often a useful simplfication even if not very insightful.
Pandemic.
Person who I used to consider a friend was relentlessly posting anti-vax and anti-lock down stuff constantly. I would continually refute what he posted, with references and data etc but he wouldn’t listen.
Highlight was when he posted pictures of an anti lock down protest in “Lisbon” and I went to the lengths of finding the pictures that had been stolen and they were of a dance music festival he attended.
Even though I cross referenced his own photos with those that had been posted, including one that showed him next to someone who was in on of the pictures from the supposed protest, he still wouldn’t listen to reason.
He is no longer a friend or even an aquaintence.
I’m so sorry.
Magats
Does dehumanizing them help?
Edit: From the downvotes it seems that most people here think “yes!”
I don’t think so, because dehumanization is kind of their whole mantra, and I’d rather not stoop so low.
They’re people, just not very bright people.
They don’t care. They are so deep in their cult, nothing can pull them out. If tomorrow, Trump came out, completely lucid, and admitted everything was a hoax, his supporters would just shift to another cult leader.
Also, at one point, they referred to themselves as Centipedes. They probably got tricked into it, but they still did it proudly. Calling them Magats isn’t much different.
Can you tell me how to say that differently? If people from America are Americans, people who believe in Catholicism are Catholics, people who believe in MAGA are what exactly? It isn’t Republican, because they are a subgroup, like Jacobites. It isn’t to dehumanize them, it is just what they would be called from what I would expect.
Maggots has a different spelling, which is what i know you are referring to, but maybe they should have choose a different name/slogan to go under
Maga is mainstream Republican now
I met a guy who believes the government wants to turn the country communist, ban meat, and make everyone eat insects. He seemed to have fallen for every Facebook boomer conspiracy theory, but these were the highlights. He just talked and the conspiracy theories kept coming out. He couldn’t think of much to say that didn’t tie into a bizarre narrative.
