The whole Beirut was a nuke idiot fest: We live in an era where unlimited info and learning potential is at one's fingertips, but also totally unsubstantiated & implausible rumors & sensational claims can rule the day. Like the entire world is now a middle school gossip circle...
The internet can make smart people way smarter and stupid people way stupider. It's an amazing albeit startling nexus of human nature.
People are so lonely and desperate for conversation, they comment all day on articles on complex subjects they didn't even skim. They just want to give an opinion regardless of it is absolutely worthless or even outright misleading. It's an amazingly low standard to exist within.
I know complaining about the internet is a fool's errand, but every damn day I am baffled with what I see. The whole mainstreaming of conspiracy theory has just poured gasoline onto an already smoldering fire. It's hip to believe what isn't true is true in ever-growing circles.
"It's a mushroom cloud! It's a nuke!" This shit was coming from people with influence who have no clue what they are looking at. Ever seen an ammo dump blow up? Or a chem plant? Yeah, mushroom clouds don't solely exist in the atomic weapons universe! You can learn that in seconds
But instead, "fuck it, this will get retweets!" is the name of the game and people eat it up. It's not commenting on a football play, you are saying a nuclear weapon just detonated in a major city with reckless abandon. Fucking insanity.
