I swear, I dunno why I get so triggered by certain things sometimes, but this was one of those that just got to me…
There’s this whole informal “truther” movement, that’s supposed to be all about ”seeking truth.” Yet, the more time I interact with many in it, the more I see the same kind of robotic reactivity & programmed responses lacking discernment & critical thinking as in the “mainstream” they frequently judge.
Came across an IG post last night:
And well, if you’re at all familiar with the “truther community,” some of y’all might be able to imagine/predict what came forth in the comments section.
And in all fairness, I was taken aback at first too - whether influenced by the reactivity of the crowd or the same ideas implanted in my mind, like where “3D-printed = lab grown meat = Bill Gates = evil = eugenics, etc, etc.”
But, I didn’t stop there. Something urged me to actually investigate a little before stopping at the same conclusions - to see what the actual ingredients in this stuff are, so as to discern for myself whether it’s as horrible as everyone assumed or not. So, over to the Redefined Meat website I went and looked around to find out. And I was surprised. Not because it is full of chemicals and questionable components never heard of, but cuz it’s actually really just a vegan product - no additives & preservatives, non-GMO, nothing that fairly raises any red flags. (Unless there’s still a question mark around the generic “flavourings.”)
The crowd was tripping over what…?
Seriously.
Here we have “communities” of people supposedly dedicated to researching truth… none of whom have taken even one minute to do any investigation for themselves, jumping to false conclusions, regurgitating predictable responses to faulty assumptions, up in arms over a fucking vegan product that actually looks healthier than Beyond Meat, which is goddamned everywhere. No critical thinking. No pauses to question. Just jumping on a counterculture bandwagon, spewing forth hate towards Bill Gates and paranoia based on programmed beliefs that have absolutely nothing to do with the reality of this company or product.
Why do I give so many fucks here? Why some compulsion to go back to the comments thread as the black sheep of that herd to challenge the stupidity and plant some seeds that might make even one person realize this dynamic?
Maybe I expected too much of humans. Perhaps I overestimated their intelligence. Maybe there’s part of myself distraught with having somewhat identified with such movements/communities that continue to display the same type of unintelligent herd mentality as the masses they commonly judge as “sheep,” semi-resentful for having repeatedly given a portion of my own life force energy to collective egregors that’ve diminished my own capacity for intellectual clarity.
Either way, mannnnnn.
Maybe I need more compassion - seeing & understanding where I, myself, have repeated such errors in judgement and jumped to faulty conclusions too quick. Perhaps I’m not one to judge, still committing certain errors in critical thinking & proper discernment in regards to different matters - holding onto pessimism & cynicism regarding issues commonly discussed in “conspiracy theory” circles, equally under the grip of cognitive biases & logical fallacies when it comes to other topics. (Perhaps I’ve been continuing to make myself look like just as much of an ass when communicating them to others who see those matters with the same clarity I do this one.)
And from here…? I dunno… maybe it’s yet another (of many) lessons that not everything needs a response - or at the least, not a heated one. Guaranteed, nothing I write in that comments thread is gonna make everyone reading it “see the light” - and it isn’t my place to.
Maybe the intensity of response is indicative of there being some truth being spoken - not for the sake of proving anyone wrong or “changing minds,” but merely for the purpose of speaking truth; though I definitely still am working on pacing it, so as to respond from a place of neutrality & clarity rather than frustration & hostility. Though these triggers are a challenge. Part of me wishes I could simply “let go” quick & easy, moving back onto making music or something “productive.” Though I dunno, maybe there’s somereason certain truths need to be spoken/written through me that I can’t consciously know. Blah, blah, blah.
Moral of the story? Be smart. Use your noggin.
In this day & age of decreasing attention spans on social media where it’s super easy to robotically react to short-form content that doesn’t paint accurate pictures of the whole truth, it might be more important than ever to take that extra moment to pause, think critically, be discerning, and question everything before jumping on the bandwagon of any collective opinion.
Or don’t, and just be a self-righteous dumbass. Your choice. 🤷♂️😼
I have a buddy that I ended up having to stop following on Facebook for a similar reason. He would share the stupidest things and I just had to be like "man, did you even think about that before you pushed the share button?". It's one thing that most of the stuff he shares I don't agree with on a fundamental level, but I can look past that as long as he does his due diligence and checks the facts, but most of these people don't. They just want to be part of the "gang", whether it sends them barreling off the edge of a cliff in a burning bus together or not.
I know it’s a struggle but there are a number of things going on here. I think you are probably aware of them!
1 - destruction of organized religion over the last 30-40 years. I am not a fan of the pope or the other pieces of trash at the tops of these but the organization and community that is involved with those groups is what keeps people connected. We are largely devoid of it these days and it’s being replaced with this new-age religion but the underlying habits are the same: absolute dedication to the dogma.
I think a lot of these people are subject to the dogma reactions BUT you also have to remember on those gigantic platforms - it’s a cesspool of bots and provocateur accounts. I don’t trust jack shit in the comments of those and many other platforms to be honest. IG I would say 2 or 3 out of 10 people are not bots in the comments. Divide and conquer.
2 - I agree that it’s important to research it but we also have to know some basics to get started with before we delve into something. For me - if old Billy is investing or pushing a company I immediately get my spidey senses tingling. That eugenics bro doesn’t mess around with doing everything possible that’s as evil as can be. He just recently bought the Bragg apple cider vinegar company and changed the formula, the stuff that so many people have relied on for decades. Sadistic.
Yes we should certainly research a topic before we just jump on the bandwagon but there is so much fucking information out there it’s impossible to be able to do it all. We are naturally wired to find efficient means of doing things. I efficiently know that if Billy is involved, I immediately don’t trust it and can be bothered with details later. It’s time management really. I spend my efforts elsewhere and rest easy knowing that I don’t trust a single fucking thing he is involved in. I think him and Klaus and Soros might be the only ones I don’t feel like I need to spend time digging; if they are involved I don’t like it.
Now that’s obvious to say that a headline could be Billy gets in on a company for 1% of the stock which does technically mean he’s in on it so it could be headline bullshit games too so that’s a possibility.
yep.
I can totally see that group dynamic at play… having felt like an outsider in conventional/mainstream society, only to find similarity with others “waking up” (whether in the “conspiracy” circles, “spiritual” ones, or the overlap) and gaining a sense of comraderie in the shared philosophy, values, etc… yet over time, finding similar immature “us versus them” self-righteousness and fundamentalism/fanaticism creeping in in different forms - different dogma revealing itself over time as observing the patterns.
And yeah… steering clear of what Gates touches isn’t a horrible strategy, LOL. It’s been disillusioning, however, to see the degree of programming/conditioning taken place in these “communities” though that just fosters cognitive bias & logical fallacies rather than actual critical thinking, though - like everyone has just been conditioned like Pavlovian dogs to jump to certain conclusions that may not be accurate/truthful. i.e. there are advancements in food tech that held great promise before Billy got involved and still do… so long as certain conditions are met to ensure it’s actually healthy; yet here we got people just writing off all prospect of evolutionary advancement due to their faulty presumptions, squawking like chicken with heads cut off, not even exercising the most basic of discernment to acknowledge the very tangible, objective difference between lab-grown meat and an entirely plant-based product that’s actually probably healthier than what most of them are eating on a regular basis.
And yeah… surely Gates has a portfolio with thousands of companies in it, in which he has no actual role or influence - yet some latch onto a clickbaity headline taken out of context and are triggered into parroting the same predictable “the sky is falling” rhetoric as the rest of the herd whose leaning towards unconscious conservatism would prefer we resort back to ways of cavemen rather than use our collective intelligence to solve major global challenges and keep moving forward wisely.
Humans. Quite the odd bunch. 😹
I know precisely what of you speak.
In my extended circle of online acquaintances there is an alarming number of QAnon/Truther/Conspiracy types whom I've always felt were reasonably intelligent people, but it's like they lost their ability for critical thinking about the time Covid came along. Or maybe it was sooner, back when Trump first ran for President.
Maybe I lack compassion, as well. I lack compassion for a particular mindset who seem entrenched in what I like to call "studied ignorance," a certain pride in their conviction of belief that supersedes the facts.
I use the "Let me Google that for you" website rather often as a short response to to some forwarded email chain or article filled to the brim with opinions, but devoid of underlying facts.
I’ve always been open-minded to (perhaps a bit too much so) all the “conspiracy” stuff, as there is alot of truth in in… though it’s been humbling this last year to see & admit I definitely crossed the line from ‘red pill’ to ‘black pill’ somewhere along the way. Perhaps needed to dive into the deep end of it all for experience & contrast, though seeing alot more of the biases & distortions at play in much of it the last year;
Indeed, there are many very smart people to be found in those circles/communities… although i think there’s been a blurring of boundaries as more sorta lump it/them altogether - i.e. asserting there is a single “truther community” or overgeneralizing “conspiracy theory/theorist” as a blanket statement encompassing millions of different people who may not accurately be lumped altogether and actually have a wide difference in level of intellect & discernment. The whole Q ‘phenomena/movement’… it’s an immense distortion and fallacy to conclude “Qanon is xyz” as there are so many different groups who each have their own interpretations & relationships with ‘it’ - and “Qanon” itself is merely a propagandized label-construct used to discredit/condemn it all, just as “conspiracy theorist” has been a weaponized term to gaslight the fuck outta anyone going against the grain… and sure enough, it’s effectively all been lumped together, effective “thought-terminating cliches” which kill off the critical thinking ability to even question what within the larger ‘communities’ is shit bias/distortion and what actually has merit;
I’ve found the “problem” to be so many people simply swinging from one extreme of blind faith in mainstream media/authority to that of ‘alternative’ - the “black pill” where everything is then seen through shit-colored glasses of excessive paranoia. Where “question everything” has evolved to “question everything mainstream,” and the critical-thinking stops there, contrary to all preached. Paradoxically, just more regurgitation of others’ ideas & beliefs rather than objective assessment of all sides of an issue.
Though perhaps, one step at a time - can’t realistically expect human psychology to make quantum leaps all at once for everyone, and the recoil from one extreme to another might be necessary - eventually settling and finding balance in the middle ground, so long as one truly is humble enough to surrender to the process. Part of me kinda wants to regret having given so much to the ‘alternative’ paradigms, spending a fair amount of time in the distortions & cynicism, though it was probably necessary to see & understand the full spectrum with greater clarity and activate the capacity of discernment. Probably gonna be a longer period unravelling the effects of the black pill than I’d like, but at least there’s been a refinement of the senses and maturation.
Life, what a trip. Lol.
I just realised that you are not up to date and wanted to help... here is something from the SWR- Kultur Potcast, which is about making salami from DNA of celebrities.
https://www.swr.de/swr2/wissen/gibts-jennifer-lawrence-bald-als-salami-100.html
(If you speak German, you can listen to it yourself.)
Apart from that, most people are so degenerate that they even believe they have to eat human flesh to save the climate. LOOL
Hahaha now that’s a horror I was not imagining I would be reading. Salami from the DNA of celebrities. Can I get some Britney Spears salami please? Sounds horrifying lol
Yes, and it's the same with the German radio stations, you hear completely different things that I don't want to write now, and people don't even ask themselves what kind of rubbish they're actually saying... as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
It's all about dumbing down, immoral stuff and they don't even stop at really intimate topics to exploit it when people drive to work in the morning and are told this crap.
Yes, LOOOL a salami from Britney Spears. Terrible!!!!!
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