When this happens on a topic with which you have expert level knowledge, it is so blindingly obvious and eye opening just how wrong every other conversation may be. It strongly suggests having a highly critical eye on any topic.
On social media we have these huge conversations where nobody involved has any actual experience. They're just repeating what other people said. Isn't that literally insane?
Submitted 8 months ago by Dr_Satan@lemm.ee to [deleted]
Comments
hightrix@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Dr_Satan@lemm.ee 8 months ago
The popular criteria for sane conversation appear to be
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logically consistent more or less
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sounds like something that I already agree with
There you go. Stick to those rules and you can have a conversation about goddamn vulcan brain surgery. And everybody involved will wisely nod their heads.
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glimse@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Is the “stupid question” if it’s literally insane? If so then no, that’s not what insanity means. But I think this is a thinly-veiled vent more than a question…
Dr_Satan@lemm.ee 8 months ago
When reality goes north and opinion goes south, getting further apart every day, then yes, I call that insanity.
And that’s more than just the present state of opinions. That’s arguably the core function of the present system. (not necessarily by design of course. That would probably be just paranoid).
Imagine a game of telephone. Where, a hundred exchanges down the chain, the chain twists upon itself, looping, conversation feeding upon recycled conversation, recursively. That’s where we are.
ElJefe@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Lol no. That’s not at all where the current state of things is. Yes, you do have localized echo chambers where people repeat their insane little opinions about whatever bullshit alex Jones or musk or Jordan Peterson or whomever says. But that represents a minimal number compared to the amount of people out there who are vastly knowledgeable and studied and experienced in the things they do. Your hyperbolic hot take is not only wrong, but is also reductive and neglects to acknowledge that there are a lot of intelligent people out there doing good things for society.
glimse@lemmy.world 8 months ago
If that’s insanity then humans have been insane for thousands of years. People talking out their asses isn’t new at all
EmoDuck@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
PSA: The antagonist of FarCry 3 is not a credible source for what does or doesn’t constitute “literally insane”
Dr_Satan@lemm.ee 8 months ago
When somebody’s ideas about reality, and reality itself, are really different, we say that person is fantasizing or hallucinating or suffering a fugue state. Insanity, in other words.
What I describe could be a personal insanity. Or a social kind of insanity, where society is insane.
teft@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Do you think people only talk about things online that they haven’t experienced irl?
Personally I tend to only talk about things I’m sure about or have first hand experience in.
orcrist@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Your explanation is wrong, though. People might have experience, but you don’t know who, because they can lie. And if you think about it, a lot of what we learn is stuff we haven’t experienced directly, for a variety of practical reasons.
Dkarma@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Doesn’t matter . I had an anti vaxx lady wave a meme in my face and tell me doctors can’t be trusted.
They not only have experience they have proof. Confirmation bias is a bitch I guess.
tygerprints@kbin.social 8 months ago
Antivaxxers tend to be uneducated people with agendas. They are actually wanting to see more people get sick and die, because they think it "eliminates" undesirable (ie, educated liberal good people) from the world. When it fact, it only eliminates their own ignorant breed. That's why I don't argue with them, I let them go ahead and exhaust themselves on their cross of ignorance.
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Remember, reddit didn’t do it.
hiramfromthechi@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Source: trust me bro
sugarfree@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s insane, but I love it.
tygerprints@kbin.social 8 months ago
Oh Dr. Satan. I wouldn't call it insanity so much as willful ignorance. People only want to hear what they want to hear. So they tend to reject anything that's a new idea or that challenges their world view and it's easier just to repeat the things they've been brainwashed to believe.
As an LGBTQ plus a bunch of other letters person, trust me when I say I've come against this wall many times. People who are relatively young with little world experience trying to tackle huge issues without much wisdom to back it up. The result IS a kind of mass insanity, where people are more willing to trust misinformation and silliness. That truly is a horrible consequence of not being open minded and willing to be educated.
key@lemmy.keychat.org 8 months ago
The ability to learn from other people without needing the same first hand experience is a hallmark of intelligence. It’s one of the things about our species that allowed us to develop past just being yet another animal in the wild. Education is largely based on that principle; your history teacher didn’t experience the horrors of trench warfare firsthand.
So I wouldn’t call social media insanity so much as potentially addictive, which can cause you to overindulge in those behaviours. Admittedly addiction can feel like insanity when you’re in the throes of it.
Dr_Satan@lemm.ee 8 months ago
It is not the obvious function of knowledge that’s at issue, it is its quality. When the observation and the knowledge get too far apart, the words cease to refer to the observation and begin to refer only to themselves.
And then the quality becomes poopoo. A solipsistic black hole.