• shikitohno@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    So…when they won’t read articles on the topic and won’t listen to news coverage outside the very media that’s designed to convince them to vote against their own interests, it’s still other peoples’ fault for not educating them, somehow? That is just willful ignorance on their part. That’s like saying nobody has tried to educate young earth creationists on the Earth being older than 6,000 years, because we just have articles in text books and scientific journals they don’t trust, but really, we need to get it into the bible for them to read.

    Also, way to move the goalposts there. We went from

    Blaming the public for voting against their best interest when no one’s telling them that’s what they’re doing is a little silly.

    to, “Well, yeah, someone asked them to read, and people they don’t like tell them, but you need to get the media empire that convinces them to vote against their interests in the first place to tell them that’s what’s happening, or else it doesn’t count.” At what point are good faith efforts enough for you, when these people aren’t interested in them to begin with? Do we need to strap them into one of the rapid-learning machines from Battlefield Earth and just shoot the knowledge straight into their brain?

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      5 months ago

      Yes, it is other peoples’ fault for not getting them out of the media bubble they have been put in all their lives, starting with the parents who raised them. You’re expecting the cult member to free will themselves out of the cult. That’s not how it works.

      • shikitohno@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        You cannot endlessly blame other people for failing to undo that indoctrination. They need to be open to at least considering other view points, you cannot enter their mind and flip a switch for them. Either way, that’s an entirely separate matter from your original claim, that nobody has told these people.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          5 months ago

          I don’t think you understand what indoctrination is if you think most people can get themselves out of it.

          • shikitohno@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            I do, you’re just taking an asinine position on the topic. Society should absolutely help these people to the extent they can, but we cannot change someone’s mind against their will. We can’t just go committing people to a mental hospital for being misled into believing stupid stuff, or even actively harmful stuff. They need to be amenable to at least listening to other people with an open mind. Beyond a certain point, the best we could really do would be implementing measures to be able to disregard them, but that’s predictably a rather unpopular idea, given how anti-democratic and open to abuse it would be.

            Answer me two questions. First, what, if anything, could other people do that would be enough in your mind? You’re real quick to shoot down everything and anything as insufficient, so what do you propose would be adequate? Next, at what point does the obligation to help such individuals get outweighed by the harm they do to the rest of us by holding everyone else back?

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              5 months ago

              Canvassing used to be a way to do that, but people don’t want to go door-to-door anymore.

              And how does that hold anyone back?