Been watching this. Yes, the whole world…nowhere to run
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Do you think it’s internet culture? Do you think we’ve bred a generation of people who think they can just delete this stuff when the killings come to their front door? Do they think the news is like the faantasies they see on YouTube?
There was a time when you had to prove that you were a solid and reliable citizen before you were allowed to vote. Of course, over time, that came to mean “wealthy” - which wasn’t right - but still, maybe we’re heading into an era where more than just your age should be taken into account.
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I think a where’s wally/waldo type captcha would be good. It just says “circle the bad stuff” and if you fail you don’t get to enter the voting booth.
Some sort of barrier of entry that doesn’t require a college education is needed. But even my wally captcha could be worked around by someone just posting the answers online…
It would also have to be obtuse. And would be delayed by years of people arguing what is good and what is bad and getting bogged down in philosophy.
It’s weird because my parents have been child minders for the last two decades and I’ve seen many kids come through the place and they all seem to be bright and have their head screwed on straight. So I’m hopeful for the future. But then you look online and eegads.
The thing about online discourse is you have no idea if you’re arguing your point to an uneducated adult or an edgy teen, and I think in some cases people have accidentally given weight to the opinion of a crouching tiger hidden teenager and allowed it to sway the course of ideas etc.
Not that there aren’t teens with good ideas out there just, by and large they are angry bitter trolls who aren’t happy in the environment they find themselves in and don’t know how to properly direct it into something positive, so they just seem to want to cause pain to strangers to make themselves feel better.
This is all anecdotal from my own experiences and theories so I could be way off the mark.
What’s been done to education in a lot of places certainly has a lot to do with it, if it’s not down to budget cuts it’s a vocal minority being scared of something they don’t understand and stamping their feet until it’s removed from the curriculum. Or in some cases it was a Moral panic of something that wasnt even on the curriculum (e.g just teaching basic history is now considered “Critical Race Theory” in America and words like critical are scary sounding oooooh).
I also see people posting militantly about supporting “the Dems” and if you even criticise them, you are blocked. E.g you can’t even say you don’t support the Biden administration because of their stance on Palestine, without suddenly making an enemy of someone you thought might be an ally. Things have gotten very divisive with that two party, black and white, system and it’s almost having a knock on effect in other countries for people who are terminally online, absorb way too much of another cultures ethos and then think it applies to their own countries experience.
It feels like it’s just a big ol’ mess of a bunch of different things coming together and stanking up the place.
r/Ireland for example, is constantly under attack by “plastic paddies” that usually turn out to be bots or actual people that are funded by evangelical think tanks. And it’s not restricted to just Reddit of course. Our government knows it’s an issue and have brought it up a few times but don’t seem to know what to even do about it, they’re too busy paying out the nose for bike shelters outside their offices.
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I’ve read that computing devices, especially mobile, are a factor in a decrease in critical thinking.
AI, while it’s (future) ability to (correctly) summarize data is a boon, I think that over reliance on it could also reduce the ability to use critical thinking.
Another factor is social media. Studies show that people gravitate to those who espouse opinions that they want to be true. When you isolate yourself from other ideas, you can be easily led astray.
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It’s not as such devices. The issue is that we’re seeing a shift from guilt culture to shame culture (sometimes also called internalised vs externalised conscience). It’s a concept from cultural anthropology the overwhelming majority of people have never heard of, but one of the first critical cultural distinctions you learn when doing intercultural work. The whole thing is a simplification, obviously. There’s no such thing as a purely guilt or purely shame based culture, rather it describes a dominant factor in what determines individual decision and expression.
Guilt-based cultures (which the west has predominantly been for at least the past century-and-a-half) tend to be much more effective at critical thinking, because internal conviction rather than acceptance by society are more dominant in an individuals motivation, as opposed to shame-based cultures, where a lot of what the mind might consider “right” or “wrong” is determined by the reaction of the peer group. Note that we are not talking about something as simple as opportunistic calculation. We’re talking about fundamental functions of how the mind determines right and wrong, which happen largely on the unconscious level.
The strong shift to guilt culture has mostly been enabled by the economic independence of individuals or small groups in recent times, but the roots possiblygo back to as far as the roman legal system (which we are largely still using today. The laws have changed, but the basic system and the underlying concepts have not).
Social media brings the effects of societal ostracisation back to the table even in a world of economically highly independent individuals, and introduced a significant shift back to a shame-based culture that is currently in full momentum, though by far not at its conclusion (in my opinion).
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I see this already here. If you didn’t support me, you will pay the tariffs. Companies that did support me will not pay the tariffs.
If you don’t work with me, shame on you.
If you didn’t support this cause it will be so bad for you and it could have been so good.
I actually had a nightmare a few nights ago where Trump acolytes drug me into an arena and he worked the crowd into a frenzy and then he swirled around and around me with a large group of people pressing in like they were going to crush me and he got in my face and said, if you didn’t vote for me, it’s going to go so badly for you, so badly.
I actually started shaking my head yes and caught myself and shout No! Get away from me!
I won’t tell the rest of the dream but, yeah, this is how I see things heading. Shame on you if you are not rich. Shame on you if you are an immigrant. Shame on you if you are anything other than what fits their idea of the ‘right’ kind of person
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It’s disappointing to see it grip so much of the world.
It’s basically the kind of place my country found itself after our civil war in the 20s and the church funded side won out.
Caught deep in the grip of the Catholic church and the aftermath of a civil war (those alive to tell the tale, still do not want to discuss it, very hard to get anyone to talk about it) shame ravaged this country.
It led to things like sending homosexuals to the priesthood to be “fixed” (because a son being sent to jail for the crime of “sodomy” would shame the whole family) and mother and baby homes, a massive increase in sexual abuse across the board, not to mention many mass graves of infants etc.
The horrors hiding under our recent history are still being uncovered to this day and it all came from a shame based culture that we only truly escaped in the 90s but of course those people are still around, I have to catch my dad a lot of the time beating himself up over nothing, very hard to undo.
I’m told that the movie Little Things like this covers some of the fallout of this in the 80s but I have aunts and relatives who were genuinely effected by this culture and so I actually can’t watch films about it, I’ve heard enough stories.
But definitely check it out cos Cillian Murphy 
I might be remembering the name of the movie wrong, but it’s something like that.
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Socialist totalitarianism. That’s what they say we are likely headed for here. With the 10 commandments already hanging in classrooms with the Speaker of the House depicted next to Moses in Louisiana, a Bible in every classroom with a mandate every teacher teach from it in Oklahoma, and now a new curriculum for kindergarten thru 5th grade which is ‘based’ on the Bible in Texas, and school library shelves being emptied in several states, it is only just beginning.
People have no idea what they have unleashed but they will find out.
I completely expect that everyone will be required to have a ‘loyalty’ pass to avoid tariffs and extra tax before it is all over.
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I’m not sure if that’s a typo on your part. If the US right ends up with a socialist system, the irony would be so heavy the earth might collapse into a black hole.
I would not consider it impossible given the massive contradictions they entangle themselves in, but I’m really not sure if that’s truly what you meant.
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Just repeating what historians and geo-political analyst have said. I scratched my head over that too. Not sure where they pulled the socialist part from but the totalitarianism is geared up and ready to go.
Maybe because he is focused on tariffs and buying US made goods and moving manufacturing back to the US and with immigrants all deported, it would require massive effort to get Americans to work in factories. I don’t know.
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The Nazis considered themselves socialist - that’s what the name means - “National Socialist”. The Iranian regime, which is behind the trouble in Palestine and Lebanon, was established as “Islamic Socialism”. Granted, when Khomeni took over, they dropped that - but that’s how the fundamentalists came to power.
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Socialist in name only. Germany was very progressive at the time and they basically wore the skin of socialists and quickly shed it once in power.
The nationalist part should have been a give away.
Both parties in America seem to have made a great effort to engineer Socialism as a dirty or scary word in America. Socialism is a fantastic thing for a society to aim for it’s just unfortunately, at extreme odds with capitalism and can never truly flourish under it. You could have a great social health care system , but it’s always going to lose out when there’s private care offering doctors better pay for less hours living alongside it, or better opportunities abroad.
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One thing I am learning, there are varying degrees of most governments. Different types of socialism. Different types of democracy.
With Trump calling on all Americans to work with him and Musk declaring many Americans will suffer, I can easily see all who have not, being told they are sharing the wealth with their less fortunate neighbors and it is a worthy sacrifice, while the rich will vacation at mar al lago and eat KFC off golden plates.
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Beware. Socialism comes in many flavours, and is not the same thing as Marxism. Although the term “Socialism” only goes back to the 19th century, the principles behind it - collectivism, co-operatives, state ownership et al go back thousands of years. The early Christian communities can meaningfully be described as “socialist”, and the ideas go back a lot further.
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Why did a production company decide to massage this mans ego by giving him a reality show 
I imagine he thinks it’ll be good propaganda for him but reading about it just makes me feel even more ill will towards him.
For those unfamiliar, journalists and photographers have sort of made a game out of framing him in such a way that he resembles Hitler 
Id watch a documentary that is just about that meta game.
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Just seeing the footage coming out of Georgia. Mass protests in every city as people stand up to Russia.
Came to share this particular one of a complete bad ass treating the water hose with pepper spray like it’s a morning shower 
Here’s a birds eye view of the people’s protest, the footage on the ground is pretty intense
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Well that was close.
It’s funny to see how quickly he loses his patience, says it all really. Known for a quick temper, he bailed before it came out
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