It’s the right idea, but too narrow of a demographic. It’s not the old people that seem to be the problem. At least not only them. It’s the uneducated or intellect impaired that should be reined in. The ones that are just smart enough to use Facebook, but would struggle to understand the concept of the Dunning–Kruger effect
The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.
It’s like they decided that reality didn’t work for them, so let’s just ignore it in favour of “insert discriminatory slogan or catchphrase here”.
It’s bonkers.
The amount of younger people that are sucked in hook, line, sinker, rod, boat, trailer and truck is staggering.
That demographic is a whole other problem that requires a whole other solution. Conservatives have spent a decade building the online right-wing pipeline with podcast bro’s and streamers aiming their content at young teenage boys. Now all those kids are of voting age, and a big chunk of them have spent half their lives being raised on manosphere bullshit that taught them that they are owed the world on a silver platter.
I will hand it to conservatives; they are frighteningly good at organizing and staying on message in ways that the Left can only dream of. If we could get half as organized as them, they’d never win another election.
Yeah, there’s a reason the orange overlord is targeting universities now. He knows that election wins come from the uneducated and poor. They either truly don’t know, or don’t care enough since they have no investments worth mentioning.
You give him too much credit. He doesn’t know any of this. But the right-wing think tanks that have been waiting for this moment do, and he’s easily manipulated into following their agenda.
I feel like we are glossing over the fact that I doesn’t matter that fact if someone is young or old, we can all have good ideas! But the fact of the matter is we need teem limits in congress and SUPREME COURT. We have a problem with stale ideas.
I feel like we are glossing over the fact that I doesn’t matter that fact if someone is young or old,
Actually if you’re talking about congress and the supreme court, I think age limits would make a lot of sense. After all, the people in these positions are deciding how the rest of us get to live. If they don’t represent the generations they’re governing over, it’s inherently unfair. I think anybody who isn’t of working age shouldn’t be allowed to govern, as that’s always the most important demographic for the country.
I can’t speak for everyone but I raised my mom right and kept her away from that trash.
I recently thanked my dad for not going all crazy. He fixes up old cars and takes pictures of birds.
I’m jealous. Mine watches far-right extremist content on tiktok and youtube. What’s an affordable hobby that wouldn’t make an insecure man-child feel emasculated?
My mom mentioned that my dad has been watching some concerning (in her words, “annoying”) YouTube content lately. Last time she said that it was America’s Got Talent, but this time it’s white men arguing with cops. I visited and asked if he would show me. He jokingly said “are you gonna violate my rights?” And I very seriously said “yes. I need to make sure it’s not Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan or someone even worse”. He got a little bit offended and said “you know me better than that, I’m smarter than that”. But the thing is, you start by watching something innocuous like some idiot sovcit arguing with cops and the algorithm pipeline feeds you nazi shit from there and you don’t even know it.
For context, my parents are the kind of leftists that don’t know what leftists are. My mom calls herself a bleeding heart liberal, and my dad sees the media say things like “radical liberals” and jumps up off the couch screaming “you bet your ass im a radical liberal!” But they’re left of liberal, they just don’t have the language for it.
I’m not worried that my dad is gonna seek out nazi propaganda, im worried it’s gonna find him anyway and I want to throw his phone in a lake.
Maybe shower thoughts wasn’t the right community for me to have my existential crisis. But I wish i could block “sovcit” on my dad’s phone and “trad-anything” on my mom’s phone, not because I think they’re dumb (okay maybe a little) but because this shit is so toxic and intrinsic and scary and my parents are so dumb.
Take care of yourself and your loved ones xx
Why do you stigmatize Joe Rogan and others? There’s nothing wrong with watching people who you diagree with.
My wife stayed at an Airbnb last week, I tried to convince her to turn the parental controls on and block OAN and Fox.
What’s OAN? Never heard of that.
One America News. They used to be a fringe right-wing conspiracy website. Now they have a “news” broadcast on cable TV and a presidential administration that boosts them. It’s basically your drunk Qanon uncle rambling about lizard people, but with professional production.
Farther right than Fox. Yes, it’s possible.
I’m so tired of this rampant paternalism across society. It’s exhausting.
paternalism
Whenever I see someone complaining about this on the internet, I imagine they’re an angsty teenager mad that their mom doesn’t let them get a face tattoo.
Yeah, you’re aware of the definition of paternalism then. That’s the whole point of authoritarianism. The leadership does not believe the people can trusted to run their own lives, and treats the entire population as disobedient teenagers.
That’s the whole point of authoritarianism.
Lol no. You could say paternalism is authoritarian, but not the other way around. Authoritarianism is just about power.
But as an aside, would you mind sharing your age? You don’t need to be specific, just say if you’re over or under 18. I have a… theory about people who obsess over the concept of “paternalism”.
All paternalism is authoritarian. Not all authoritarianism is paternal.
Middle aged. Your theory sounds bunk.
How do you propose to counteract the spread of facism through the internet?
The same way we fight it in the physical world. With debate and education and engagement.
Wild that you would express concern with spreading of fascism while advocating for technocracy. You don’t oppose fascism- you just have a preferred flavor of it.
Debate, education and engagement take time.
The algorithm is instantaneously ready with the next easily digestible bit of content to send you further down the rabbit hole into radicalization.
I worry that we need a more instantaneous cure in our current information environment.
“Instantaneous cure” sounds like you’re suggesting something super fucked up.
I’m not, really. I just don’t think we have the luxury of taking the amount of time that we would need to educate people thoroughly enough to counteract the algorithm.
Probably what we need is a limitation on free speech where blatant misinformation is involved. In the same way that shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theatre is harmful, so is repeating false claims to stir political discord.
The eagerness to censor people, and not the companies pushing the shit, is such peak fascist bootlicking behavior.
With debate and education and engagement.
the algorithms will not show them to nearly as many consumers as it does with fascist content
Yes, we need more regulation of companies, and what they push. Not people.
This I agree with. However, I disagree with debating fascists. They don’t debate in good faith. Their aim in any debate is to wear you down by spewing more lies than you have the time or energy to debunk.
The point isn’t to convert the fascist. It’s to humiliate them and expose them in front of everyone else.
You can’t humiliate someone who has no shame. And with their firehose of falsehoods, you’ll only expose a small portion of their lies by the time they’ve already moved on. Nothing productive comes from waging a war of words with people who don’t believe in the words that come out of their own mouth.
Simpler still: disenfranchise senile boomers. Of course you don’t target boomers specifically, any old person with very little time left to live and severe disconnect from reality shouldn’t be allowed to vote on what affects the rest of the world long after they are dead.
severe disconnect from reality
Something about that doesn’t sit right with me. Seeing how far the definition of an “illegal alien” is being stretched for deportation, I have a feeling people with autism, ADHD, depression, etc, would all be added to the list of people who are “disconnected from reality”
Not to mention some people are dumb enough to argue being trans is a mental illness aswell. (
dysphoria isNVM it’s a diagnosis, being trans is not)The better solution imo is to inform people about what’s going on around them and how to watch out for pipelines.
Any time you hear Republicans argue 18 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote, and they want to increase the age to 21/25, tell them “OK - then anybody over 65 isn’t allowed to vote either.”
I would settle for no one can be elected if their age is younger or older than 30 and 60.
Same maximum retirement age for everyone. Politicians included.
If you’re old enough to draw your full Social Security payment, you’re too old to hold public office.
Sorry, Bernie. You’re one of the good ones, but you’ll have to make sacrifices for the common good.
Not being eligible doesn’t mean not doing campaigns for other people.
I just keep their Facebook accounts logged in on my phone. Every few months, I will go onto their profiles and unlike pages like “Wear your poppy with pride” and deradicalize their algorithm. Poppies for British boomers on Facebook are like Elsa and Spiderman on YouTube for babies.
Very good idea there. I’m starting to have to keep track of my parents passwords (because they don’t) and removing spam/disinformation from their Facebook/email/YouTube regularly might resolve many issues.
Like someone mentioned, shoveling the shit. Can’t stopped it from getting there, but I can remove it.
I constantly refer to my parents and in-laws as children. Why? Because they behave exactly like my 11 year old. They have no critical reasoning skills, no emotional intelligence, are easily offended, and can not be reliability left on their own without screwing something up.
At some point around retirement age, humans seem to cognitively revert back to children and those of us in middle adulthood are left to parent our actual children and our childish parents.
Unfortunately I think that’s just our parents and not all old people. My parents are the same way, but it seems to me more that maturing is a choice and active process that requires effort, and many people are unwilling to put in the work and vigilance required and it leads to the above
I don’t think they’re children, I think they’re selfish lazy assholes, but the result that they need to be treated like children is the same
If you set up parental controls on your parent’s devices I can guarantee they won’t find a way around it.
my grandpa with dementia installed OVER 40 solitaire apps because he would go to the app store and install one every time instead of opening the ones he “couldn’t find”
now he has parental controls blocking app downloading
I’m glad he has you/y’all Toadski
<3
They will, usually by accident. Source: my father in law.
