Progressive Politics

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TokenBoomer@lemmy.world

We Can Win the War on Misinformation — Here’s How (integ.substack.com)

submitted 1 week ago by Shailu45@lemmy.world to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world

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[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How deliciously naive

'Truth' doesn't have some magical property that makes it special and the vast majority of people will always accept a pretty lie over an ugly truth

This has been the case for most of humanity's existence

You can see this by any social media with a like system, the most liked videos aren't the most truthful or rational, but of emotions and biases

Pretending otherwise is the exact kind of Ivory Tower mindset that the anti-intellectual right wing complains about all the time

Pol Pot killed off all the intellectuals as part of his rise to fascist power, how long before they start doing that here and do you think your post history will keep you safe?

[–] rational_lib@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

the vast majority of people will always accept a pretty lie over an ugly truth

I'd argue this is true temporarily.

A lie is like putting something on a credit card. It can make things look better in the short term, but the debt builds. Maybe you can get lucky and win the lottery (or get a pandemic to use as an excuse) and pay off the debt temporarily, but keep following the same strategy and the debt will build again. And when the debt grows larger than what you can repay, and people figure this out, they start to get pissed.

Maybe Trump can survive the current crisis in his popularity, but eventually he's going to be no more popular that Pol Pot is today.

[–] bacon_pdp@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The only thing that keeps me safe is community and the fact that the community is able to bring sufficient firepower to keep bad actors away (for now at least) we only need to delay them long enough. The same applies to everyone; so build as large communities as possible and take care of everyone you can.