It’s not just men. My mother was pushed down the FaceTube YouBook weaponized disinformation rabbit hole.
It’s outrage porn… They LOVE being angry at ‘the system’ or ‘corporations’ or ‘the WHO’ etc. etc.
Yes, there’s a lot of stupid corrupt shit going on, but posting on social media is the most impotent thing a person could do to make a difference. (Yes, I appreciate the irony.)
It’s not just being angry at the system, but getting to feel morally superior to everyone else who isn’t clued into their “secret” knowledge. That’s the main allure of conspiracy culture. You always get to be right, and the people you hate will always be wrong. Conspiracies melt brains.
Oh yeah, phonecalls with my mother would start pleasant and turn into her bullshit about ‘the great reset’ or ‘the great barrington declaration’, and when I expressed doubt in the accuracy of her information, she’d go full-on smug asshole and say shit like “Well, I guess we’ll know which one of us is right soon enough.” or “Don’t come crawling back to me when your investments all go to zero.”. It was 100% ‘escape to the future’ fallacy, all day every day.
I eventually got tired of the bullshit and went zero-contact, filtered her eMails to the spam folder, blocked her number, etc.
I anticipate that I’ll get the call one day that she’s in the hospital and nobody will come pick her up, but until then, my sanity remains intact.
Rip. My mom decided that the internet is entirely vacant and the only humans that actually exist on the internet are her friends and she only acknowledges anyone online as sentient or a human if she knows them or has seen them. I.e. she gets to decide whenever she wants when someone is alive or not.
I thought for years she meant “your online friends arent real because you havent met them and really tested your friendship” but no she literally doesnt think people online exist. I dont know how she mental gymnastics the math out of the way cuz she has maybe 200 facebook friends and there are over several billion users on the internet. So to her only those 200 people are real. The other billions are all bots.
I will never get over the fact that my entire genetic lineage is just conspiracy nuts. I am grateful that i am not so far gone but i also refuse to continue my genetics and cause more craziness in the world. I will be the last of my conspiracy-laden family. My grandparents are not happy about it to my understanding. Apparently i am ungrateful for life or something.
I could tell you some crazy stories from all sides of my family. Theyre all crazy. My grandparents are right wing anti lgbtq (am trans and ace) peeps who think barack obama stole the election and is a foreign citizen. Which would have been the most significant crime in history until now where trump has outweighed such a crime or at least put it up in the air. 70 indictments and counting. Absolute insanity.
oh and much like your mother. My own mother sometimes calls people i live with an harasses them hasnt done it in a few years but it was super annoying shed star 69 the call so that nobody could do anything about it and we couldnt prove it was her. She hasnt called or harassed roommates in like 5 years so maybe she finally gave up???
Yup, we had a disagreement about the electrical grid, and she insisted that green power would result in province-wide blackouts every night or whenever the wind stopped blowing. I sent her the power generation mix from the Electricity System Operator, showing that renewables accounted for a single-digit percentage point of the generating capacity of the province… Nope, “Why can’t you just respect what I believe?” “Because you’re full of shit?” click
It’s not just men. My mother was pushed down the FaceTube YouBook weaponized disinformation rabbit hole.
It’s outrage porn… They LOVE being angry at ‘the system’ or ‘corporations’ or ‘the WHO’ etc. etc.
Yes, there’s a lot of stupid corrupt shit going on, but posting on social media is the most impotent thing a person could do to make a difference. (Yes, I appreciate the irony.)
It’s not just being angry at the system, but getting to feel morally superior to everyone else who isn’t clued into their “secret” knowledge. That’s the main allure of conspiracy culture. You always get to be right, and the people you hate will always be wrong. Conspiracies melt brains.
Oh yeah, phonecalls with my mother would start pleasant and turn into her bullshit about ‘the great reset’ or ‘the great barrington declaration’, and when I expressed doubt in the accuracy of her information, she’d go full-on smug asshole and say shit like “Well, I guess we’ll know which one of us is right soon enough.” or “Don’t come crawling back to me when your investments all go to zero.”. It was 100% ‘escape to the future’ fallacy, all day every day.
I eventually got tired of the bullshit and went zero-contact, filtered her eMails to the spam folder, blocked her number, etc.
I anticipate that I’ll get the call one day that she’s in the hospital and nobody will come pick her up, but until then, my sanity remains intact.
Rip. My mom decided that the internet is entirely vacant and the only humans that actually exist on the internet are her friends and she only acknowledges anyone online as sentient or a human if she knows them or has seen them. I.e. she gets to decide whenever she wants when someone is alive or not.
I thought for years she meant “your online friends arent real because you havent met them and really tested your friendship” but no she literally doesnt think people online exist. I dont know how she mental gymnastics the math out of the way cuz she has maybe 200 facebook friends and there are over several billion users on the internet. So to her only those 200 people are real. The other billions are all bots.
I will never get over the fact that my entire genetic lineage is just conspiracy nuts. I am grateful that i am not so far gone but i also refuse to continue my genetics and cause more craziness in the world. I will be the last of my conspiracy-laden family. My grandparents are not happy about it to my understanding. Apparently i am ungrateful for life or something.
I could tell you some crazy stories from all sides of my family. Theyre all crazy. My grandparents are right wing anti lgbtq (am trans and ace) peeps who think barack obama stole the election and is a foreign citizen. Which would have been the most significant crime in history until now where trump has outweighed such a crime or at least put it up in the air. 70 indictments and counting. Absolute insanity.
oh and much like your mother. My own mother sometimes calls people i live with an harasses them hasnt done it in a few years but it was super annoying shed star 69 the call so that nobody could do anything about it and we couldnt prove it was her. She hasnt called or harassed roommates in like 5 years so maybe she finally gave up???
Classic comic that describes this by ‘Poorly Drawn Lines’
https://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/mad/
Yup, we had a disagreement about the electrical grid, and she insisted that green power would result in province-wide blackouts every night or whenever the wind stopped blowing. I sent her the power generation mix from the Electricity System Operator, showing that renewables accounted for a single-digit percentage point of the generating capacity of the province… Nope, “Why can’t you just respect what I believe?” “Because you’re full of shit?” click
Ontario has a lot higher percentage than that, and we don’t have nightly blackouts
…just in case you want another data point :P
https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html
“single digit” means “under 10%” But yes, the point still stands, and that website was super interesting. +1! :)
Frankly, I don’t trust anyone who’s not angry at corporations, but otherwise I tale your point.
Posting on Facebook don’t change shit though… It’s just impotent outrage.