What? I just don’t think my fellow people are that stupid. Saying they are prevents us from finding common ground and creating a new coallation.
Edit: Also I didn’t follow your argument at all. You said would this example imply Americans are being manipulated, I said yes, then you said they are being manipulated, which doesn’t follow from my original point that the articles are flawed by implying people are dumb/manipulated.
I don’t think it’s stupid to be swayed by the hundreds of millions of dollars being used to control the conversation and steer us in the direction they want. Media sources are increasingly centralized, candidate choices are tightly controlled, “scandals” are only published when it’s time to get people angry and emotional and push them to make a rash decision in an upcoming election; otherwise they’re covered up. The people who are aware of how rigged everything is—and I think that’s a lot of them—are still stuck in the mindset of voting for the lesser evil, because that’s the best you can do in an electoral system where the people don’t decide the candidate. I think pretending that elections are some sort of fair fight prevents us from finding common ground.
Where we differ is the idea that you have to be dumb to be manipulated. I don’t think so. I think some people are; I think some people bury their head in the sand; but being manipulated comes from being social. It’s natural to believe in other people. It would be very hard to form connections with other people if you couldn’t trust them. And we’re in an arms race with advertisers, politicians, newsrooms and PR firms where they keep coming up with new ways to pretend to be a trustworthy voice in our lives while our actual connections with our neighbors become more and more distant.
Well, then they are. The point of both articles is that people are being manipulated. It is hard not to be manipulated.
What? I just don’t think my fellow people are that stupid. Saying they are prevents us from finding common ground and creating a new coallation.
Edit: Also I didn’t follow your argument at all. You said would this example imply Americans are being manipulated, I said yes, then you said they are being manipulated, which doesn’t follow from my original point that the articles are flawed by implying people are dumb/manipulated.
I don’t think it’s stupid to be swayed by the hundreds of millions of dollars being used to control the conversation and steer us in the direction they want. Media sources are increasingly centralized, candidate choices are tightly controlled, “scandals” are only published when it’s time to get people angry and emotional and push them to make a rash decision in an upcoming election; otherwise they’re covered up. The people who are aware of how rigged everything is—and I think that’s a lot of them—are still stuck in the mindset of voting for the lesser evil, because that’s the best you can do in an electoral system where the people don’t decide the candidate. I think pretending that elections are some sort of fair fight prevents us from finding common ground.
Where we differ is the idea that you have to be dumb to be manipulated. I don’t think so. I think some people are; I think some people bury their head in the sand; but being manipulated comes from being social. It’s natural to believe in other people. It would be very hard to form connections with other people if you couldn’t trust them. And we’re in an arms race with advertisers, politicians, newsrooms and PR firms where they keep coming up with new ways to pretend to be a trustworthy voice in our lives while our actual connections with our neighbors become more and more distant.
Okay? Great soapbox speech, A+. You had a misunderstanding earlier, when I said “yes.” What was I agreeing to?