this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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This is my unironic assumption of how flat earthers happened, honestly. Before the pandemic I'd have said antivaxers, too.
Also exactly how Qanon started, it was just trolls trolling trolls until a non-troll found it and ate the onion (or chan) hardcore
Yeah, the online-style thing where you're only ironically into a thing, unless we both agree it's not ironic. But we don't do we? Or do we? We don't, of course we don't. I never did.
It's a bit nuts that we nuked the entire political system by weaponizing the way middle aged couples propose having a threesome.
Your last sentence is the most insightful thing I’ve read here in a while!
I'm very, very confused by that sentence. Please help
The idea that politicians will say terrible things and get away with it by pretending they didn’t mean it, unless it gets positive reception from people who also think that terrible things, in which case they totally weren’t pretending about it.
Problem is with today's world, no matter what wild assumption you put out (e.g. smurfs are real!) you'll find people who believe and support you.
Still waiting for the "birds aren't real" gang to be taken over by actual whackjobs.
And it is your moral obligation to part these ~~fools~~ believers from their money.
Supposedly, flat earthers started as a thought experiment for scientific skepticism; acknowledging assumptions your knowledge is based on, even the most basic things.
Yeah, and how did that work out, then?
For the record, I have no idea if that's true and a quick search doesn't provide any sources, so I feel if you have one, sharing it would be in the spirit of the conversation.
If i had one, I'd give it. Unfortunately, it's a claim I found a source for once and now lives in the back of my mind, which is why I can't commit more than a "supposedly". Amusingly enough, that's exactly the kind of casual acceptance the organization was supposedly designed to combat. So it goes.
Ah, live with the endless itch of not knowing if this has something to it or going down a rabbit hole of researching the origins of a dumb modern conspiracy theory. The choices that keep life interesting.
I mean the positive of a thought experiment is almost anyone can do it.
The negative is that most people don't have the scientific rigor to draw proper conclusions from their hypothesis, and may leave out very important data because it's outside their perspective to even consider.
Easily tainted, and not reproducible.
It's a good first step, and in the right setting can be very valuable.
Jim Bob musing on the nature of the universe is fine, until we start basing real world action on simple musings without actionable data.
A few times I've seen it claimed that this was how "bronies" happened (when My Little Pony suddenly got very popular with childless grown men).
As a former brony (there, I said it): The show is fine, it's a tiny bit of escapism with decent writing, funny characters, neurotic "girly girls" (even if they come in pony-form) and used to be nothing but a guilty pleasure in the same way people watch Adventure Time or Gravity Falls.
The fandom only started to take a darker turn when some outside criticism and trolls started to imply an underlying sexual aspect that absolutely wasn't there before. MLP was about escaping a lonely and at the same time sexualized world into a world of innocence. But like with all things obsessively online, part of the brony fandom ran with it and new people arrived in the fandom drawn explicitly by those rule34 aspects and they brought a very 4chan-and-furries-vibe that absolutely caused me to leave the fandom behind.
Most of the OG bronies retreated into safe spaces like closed servers or just watching the show without gushing over it on the net as to not look like those new icky bronies and that largely spelled the end to a formerly very innocent, colorful and accepting fandom.
I'm not sure I can be on board with that one because that show was actually pretty smart and funny. I think the performative semi-ironic macho rabid fandom, maybe, but if you ask me that was just extremely postmodern shielding of insecurities.