People who exclusively get their news from FOX News and other right wing sources have chosen an alternate reality, and should be understood as such.
I've determined this about people who've chosen to occupy alternate realities:
We can try to change their minds, if we like.
But it's not our moral duty to change their minds.
Our moral duty is to get to the work of living in this reality, and working to create a better one.
We can try to change their minds, if we like.
But it's not our moral duty to change their minds.
Our moral duty is to get to the work of living in this reality, and working to create a better one.
It may be necessary to confront people who live in an alternate reality, for the sake of those they endanger. It may be necessary to temporarily put yourself, ethically, ideologically, even physically, between them and marginalized people.
It's not necessary to argue.
It's not necessary to argue.
To engage with somebody, to invest yourself in convincing them of truth, takes part of your energy, expends a bit of the day's hope you have to give.
I think wasting that energy is why people who've chosen an alternate reality so eagerly seek debate.
I think wasting that energy is why people who've chosen an alternate reality so eagerly seek debate.
I think there do exist people who are genuinely curious and open.
I think there are people who have already selected the reality they want, and just want to waste your time and energy and hope.
I think you can quickly tell the difference.
I think there are people who have already selected the reality they want, and just want to waste your time and energy and hope.
I think you can quickly tell the difference.
I think wasting your time and wearing you out is very much the point of occupying a false reality.
They've made their worldview a very heavy dumbbell, which they've secretly bolted to the floor.
Now they want you to try to lift it.
You don't have to. You have a race to run.
They've made their worldview a very heavy dumbbell, which they've secretly bolted to the floor.
Now they want you to try to lift it.
You don't have to. You have a race to run.
Make note of the people who behave as if you are shirking a responsibility, when you decline their offer to try to move their bad opinion.
You don't owe anybody a debate.
It's not your job to convince.
Run your race.
You don't owe anybody a debate.
It's not your job to convince.
Run your race.
Postscript: The bad opinion of those who mean harm is, however, useful for dissection. Publish it. Use it to name what is true. Use it to pull apart the lie.
Don't involve the liar in the surgery.
A liar hates that. Another good reason to do it.
Don't involve the liar in the surgery.
A liar hates that. Another good reason to do it.
But FOX couldn't have told him that, because they edited the laughter out.
So they edited it out to conceal the FACT that apparently the world was just joining Trump in a laugh? At his own ... joke? So when he's said his administration is the most accomplished, it's been a joke?
So they edited it out to conceal the FACT that apparently the world was just joining Trump in a laugh? At his own ... joke? So when he's said his administration is the most accomplished, it's been a joke?
This has been a demonstration of how choosing to live in an alternate reality leads one to hold momentary and structurally untenable positions, which don't bear even the slightest consistency with one's previous positions, thank you for attending my TED talk.
And to demonstrate what I mean by refusing the debate, and the telling reaction when you refuse the bait:
lol dilbert guy commented so I'm going to get a lot of opportunity to practice what I preach when it comes to refusing debate with bad-faith actors
luckily this baby is praying to give me strength
luckily this baby is praying to give me strength
I’ll check the tape again but I’m pretty sure “most of humanity” just laughed at the president right in his dumb face.
(Yep. They did.)
Actually in the case of Trayvon Martin a young man *was* lynched.
Unless you live in an alternate reality, in which the shooter is the victim.
Unless you live in an alternate reality, in which the shooter is the victim.
The misleading edit of the Zimmerman tape would be an apt comparison to Fox News if NBC had never addressed it or issued a correction and apology, and if everyone who watches NBC still insisted the edited version was the real thing.
I never expected Dilbert Guy to amuse me, but here we are.
Understanding that laughing at a statement delivered with serious intent represents spontaneous rejection and likely scorn for the underlying idea = red flag
Speaking for most of humanity as aligned with FOX Ness = zero problemo.
Speaking for most of humanity as aligned with FOX Ness = zero problemo.
I should say I *think* DG is speaking for most of humanity as aligned with FOX News, but unfortunately his writing is very unclear, so it's hard to say.
Anyway, for me a 'red flag' would be this:
If your online persona trailed with it an army of hate nerds w/pepe frog & OK signs & red Xs and all the other shibboleths used to trigger people who fear/hate Nazis by 'pretending' to be Nazis, like a poisoned tail on a wounded kite.
If your online persona trailed with it an army of hate nerds w/pepe frog & OK signs & red Xs and all the other shibboleths used to trigger people who fear/hate Nazis by 'pretending' to be Nazis, like a poisoned tail on a wounded kite.
Just a recent sample of what you get when the DG decides to move into your mentions for a minute.
In interest of fairness, I always get a bit of this sort of thing. I got a lot more B.D.G. than A.D.G.
Probably a coincidence. My noticing the correlation is probably a red flag.
In interest of fairness, I always get a bit of this sort of thing. I got a lot more B.D.G. than A.D.G.
Probably a coincidence. My noticing the correlation is probably a red flag.
Anyway it has not escaped my notice that a bunch of people who love bad-faith debate have really taken exception to my thread about how we should all reject bad-faith debate.
Some truth to this but I disagree.
FOX News fills a market that was already there, as does Trump.
Those who choose it are not the weak, but those who know they hold an unjust societal advantage, and would like a self-justifying framework to maintain it.
FOX News fills a market that was already there, as does Trump.
Those who choose it are not the weak, but those who know they hold an unjust societal advantage, and would like a self-justifying framework to maintain it.
So yes, Fox News *is* predatory, but those who succumb to it choose it, for they are also predatory, yet wish to think of themselves otherwise.
FN and other far-right propaganda is a scrap of wool the wolf pulls over his own eyes, to make himself believe he is a sheep.
FN and other far-right propaganda is a scrap of wool the wolf pulls over his own eyes, to make himself believe he is a sheep.
