The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Topic started by: ABX on April 08, 2019, 09:14:29 pm
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The internet, as we are all patently aware by this point, is awash with some incredible nonsense. In recent years, some of that nonsense has managed to gain a disturbing amount of traction: the anti-vaxxer movement, a religious belief in alternative medicine, the flat Earth theory, and even astrology have all experienced a tremendous surge of interest and support in online spheres.
Inevitably, this means that these belief systems have become all the more apparent in our real-world social interactions and sometimes it takes the good grace of social intelligence to resignedly agree with co-workers that perhaps a tumultuous month is, in fact, largely due to Pisces Season....
.....There are existential, epistemic and social reasons that appear to drive people to conspiratorial belief, and in a seemingly chaotic post-truth world where loneliness has become a major health concern, are we really shocked that these untruths are thriving?....
....When we feel so fundamentally disenfranchised, it’s comforting to concoct a fictional universe that systemically denies you the right cards. It gives you something to fight against and makes you self-deterministic.
It provides an “us and them†narrative that allows you to conceive of yourself as a little David raging against a rather haughty, intellectual establishment Goliath......
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/05/why-people-believe-the-earth-is-flat-and-we-should-listen-to-anti-vaxxers?fbclid=IwAR1EE06qBx_SwpQ0v75sgc-Rk5Drho1ScQXmxhXnrMQXKAS_bzovZUhSCQw (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/05/why-people-believe-the-earth-is-flat-and-we-should-listen-to-anti-vaxxers?fbclid=IwAR1EE06qBx_SwpQ0v75sgc-Rk5Drho1ScQXmxhXnrMQXKAS_bzovZUhSCQw)
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I read sci-fi for an escape, but I very clearly understand the difference between life and fiction.