Bobby. wrote on Jul 28
th, 2020 at 1:17pm:
greggerypeccary wrote on Jul 28
th, 2020 at 12:28pm:
"I almost feel sorry for her, but given how dangerous her misinformation is I'm more concerned about that than her mental health."
That's exactly how I feel.
You have to feel genuinely sorry for people like her, and just hope that she gets some professional help.
But yes, at this stage her extremely dangerous misinformation needs to stop.
There are too many insane people around.
Maybe it's the junk food?
It's not fair to call them all insane, even her.
She is human after all. Our defining feature is our curiosity and our yearning for answers.
Where she and so many like her have gone wrong is that desire for answers and understanding is so strong that they'll settle for any answers that they can understand.
We've done that through the ages.
What is the Sun? It's a god looking down on us.
Why does it rise? A god did it.
What goes it mean when it goes out in the middle of the day? God is angry.
These were all early humans attempts at explaining the world around them and when that became religious texts, like it or not, they were our first attempts at science and understanding the world around us.
Eventually, we learnt more. The Sun was a small ball that revolved around the earth.
Then we discovered the earth's rotation thanks to the stars, therefore the Sun wasn't rising, it was the earth rotating.
The solar system was then unlocked and our understanding kept improving.
We have to keep asking questions because this leads to discovery.
But something happened, something has changed to make these errors of the past so mainstream once again.
We have this terrible combination now of so many people let down by their various education systems and until pre-Internet era ended, getting information out required it to be published which cost money so it wasn't worth spreading and sharing information that was likely untrue, now it's as easy as pressing "Share" and before you know it you've cross-posted it to Twitter, Insta, Facebook etc with one click.
It's a terrible combination.
When these answers involve conspiracy theories crafted to make the reader believe they are now special for knowing the secret truth behind the curtain they're especially insidious.
Sometimes these theories are crafted to troll, sometimes it's to boast that those already believe are special because of what they know and must share it.
I want people to never stop asking questions and searching for answers, but being lazy about it and thinking an 8 minute YouTube video now makes them an expert on something is dangerous, especially in our high-risk times.