Day: October 24, 2024

Why Do We Believe?

That is the question that avoids a good answer….although many have tried….

For instance a couple of stories from just the last couple of weeks….

Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating people’s pets! The U.S. government directed Hurricane Helene to hit North Carolina to chase people off their property so the government can seize land in a secret effort to mine and control lithium! The government is taking FEMA money away from Americans hit by hurricanes and giving it to illegal immigrants! This is the worst economy in history. ALL of the aforementioned stories are outright lies with zero evidence to back them up, but yet, many Americans believe the lies to the point of condemning anyone who does not accept them, and they are promoting these lies as the truth.

Let’s not forget the ever popular, for now, the Dems are controlling the weather and directing hurricanes to punish Red States.  (If this one does not make you laugh then you have a serious problem).

But why do so many latch on the these ‘theories’ and run with them?

Did NASA fake the moon landing? Is the government hiding Martians in Area 51? Is global warming a hoax? The answer to these questions is, “No,” yet a committed subculture of conspiracy theorists vigorously argues the opposite.

Many scholars dismiss conspiracy theorists as paranoid and delusional. Psychological data bolster their case: people who harbor conspiracist thoughts are also more inclined to paranoid ideation and schizotypy, a mild form of schizophrenia. As conspiracy theory expert Timothy Melley of Miami University has put it, these beliefs are often dismissed as “the implausible visions of a lunatic fringe.”

Yet these antiestablishment ideas are surprisingly widely held. According to a national poll released last April by Public Policy Polling, 37 percent of Americans believe that global warming is a hoax, 21 percent think that the U.S. government is covering up evidence of the existence of space aliens and 28 percent suspect a secret elite power is plotting to take over the world. Only hours after the bombing at the Boston Marathon, people suggested, in YouTube videos and elsewhere on the Web, that the attack might have been an inside job and even that the entire event was a hoax.

With so many people ascribing to weakly supported explanations for news events, belief in conspiracy theories cannot be a mere symptom of pathology. The questioning of officialdom is critical to a functioning democracy, as the recent revelations of the National Security Agency’s electronic surveillance efforts illustrate. Yet new data suggest that conspiracy theories can diminish public engagement, eroding interest in issues of great political importance. Attaining a better understanding of why these ideas persist can help us devise new ways to combat misinformation.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories/

I will go with the delusional thing.

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The 2024 ‘No’ Vote

I have read several reports telling me that younger voters will stay away from the polls….even some of the older voters are not all that thrill and are considering not voting in this election.

If that is true why do they consider not voting?

The last time Richard Brown voted was in 2008. He had caught a couple of presidential debates on TV, and found himself liking what the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, had to say. And as a Black man, he was excited by the idea of voting for the country’s first Black president.

Then in 2012, he decided not to bother casting a second ballot for Obama. It wasn’t that he had soured on the president — he just didn’t think it was necessary. “He’s already in office … [so] I kinda figured he didn’t need my help,” Brown said. He was willing to take the time out of his day to cast his vote, but he didn’t think it would have an impact on the outcome. “I know it’s kind of a stupid thought, but I feel like one missed vote isn’t going to change anything.”

Twelve years later, though, he’s planning to vote again. It’s not because Brown, who is now 53 and lives in the Midwest, is newly hopeful that his vote will matter. In fact, he’s not at all confident that the candidate he’s supporting, Joe Biden, will win. But the stakes of this election feel personal. Over the past four years, some of his friends have changed the way they act and talk, saying hateful things about Obama or sharing racist memes on Facebook.

“I’m not even really keen on Biden,” Brown said. “It’s more so that Trump is bringing racist rhetoric out of a lot of people.” Those kinds of comments are “really hurtful to me, disrespectful to me,” he said. So he’s decided to vote again this year: “This way, if [Biden] does lose the election, I can’t say that it was my fault because I didn’t vote.”

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/non-voters-poll-2020-election/

I can understand for I find myself not at all thrilled with the two major candidates and any independents are not going to have a shot at the big chair….so not voting is an option, just not for me, but an option nonetheless.

Beyond that there are about 5 reasons some people will not vote….

Voting is a right that allows citizens to make their voices heard, but the reality is that as many as half of eligible voters in the US still don’t participate in the election process. 

The US lags far behind most other developed countries when it comes to voter turnout. Only 55.7% of Americans voted in the 2016 presidential election, and even less of the population, 36.4%, voted in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center. 

People’s motivations for voting vary. They might believe voting is their civic duty and that their ballot has the power to make a difference. Others just want to fit in with their peers, or their anger about a certain issue drives them to the polls. 

The reasons people don’t vote are just as complex. While full voter participation helps maintain a fair and functioning democracy, everything from logistics to socioeconomic status can get in the way.

Here’s a list of five things stopping Americans from voting. 

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/why-people-dont-vote/

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”