I often encounter people who reject everything that the "mainstream" is telling them. They do this because humans are partly pattern machines. We see a pattern and extrapolate it. So if the "mainstream" lies over and over, it's tempting to just believe everything they say is a lie.

But the reason all you hear from mainstream are the lies and the evil is primarily that your input feed is curated to bias for such things. You are being focused onto things that are not representative. Making statistical inferences like "it's all lies" is actually a bad inference because it is only your feed that is all lies.

Sure, there is enough data to day that Biden is probably guilty of corruption. But you should also leave room for doubt. Maybe Ray Epps wasn't an FBI agent.

Case in point is global warming. IIn fact, that is my litmus test. People who say the whole thing is a scam to have an excuse for world government socialism... they have this thinking problem. They are the ones who cannot actually find truth because they are relying on simple statistical patterns that don't represent reality, rather than going and looking for themselves at actual evidence. They are also the most confident and comfortable in their ignorance, which makes total sense. If they weren't comfortable in their ignorance, they might have discovered the truth. This is probably the underlying cause of the Dunning-Krueger effect.

The world is complex. Simple answers are probably wrong. Epstein might have killed himself. Steel does soften and lose structural holding ability well below it's melting point. The UFO pictures are probably reflections or other artifacts. Most people are not malicious. But many people are highly deluded. And the global mean temperature is increasing primarily due to more CO2 being in the atmosphere than ever before.

Feel free to disagree but this is not a thread I want to have arguments in. This is just a thought I wanted to put out there. And agree or disagree, I'll keep working to make gossip the best nostr client I can make it.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

correction: s/ever before/has been for a very long time/

global warming is not a good example... so many groups of scientists explaining it is fake, for decades...

decades of "the world is going to end in 10 years" just to move the goalposts again. First, it would freeze, then warm, then "change", now, "boil"

a few centuries ago the world was cooler. a few centuries back, warmer, then cooler, then warmer again. And not as in "the average was 0.5 deg more or less", but as in "crops that did grow do not grow anymore", "we used to walk over the frozen Thames", "we have to abandon Groenland, it was much 'Groen' before". CO2 as cause of global warming never was consensus, on the contrary...

the golden rule of the 21th century:

if the solution makes you a miserable slave, the problem is fake.

I have for decades collected evidence on both sides, and analyzed it continually. I have read many books, mostly books arguing against the catastrophizing like "apocalypse never", but also books on the other side like Bill Gates book, and also books down the middle like Gareth Morgan's Poles Apart. And the net result of all of that research is that you are wrong on this. And even that some people are maliciously misleading such as Tony Heller. Listen to court proceedings with Tony Heller and you'll see who the man really is.

We are all susceptible to biases. It helps to study these as much as possible: https://i.nostr.build/oV0R.webp

Great image.

One on cognitive dissonance:

Funny, how this image actually is based on cognitive dissonance by the authors.

Nowadays, modern propaganda does not have to lie or fake, it has to choose the right topics & drop the dangerous ones.

This way, it can use actual facts, but it's always crammed & twisted in a way to make you think in the way that you are manipulated into.

I had that image posted on my office wall a few years back.

Two things can be true at the same time. Global warming can and likely is real. (Human factors aside)

I think it is catastrophized to a large extent for control and power consolidation, much like the pandemic was. I think the dangers posed by that are greater than the data itself.

Yes I think there is catastrophizing, and that some political moves due to that catastrophizing are very bad.

For example, the fight against farmers.The root cause of global warming is that sequestered CO2 from underground is being pumped into the atmosphere, and vegetation cannot draw it back down fast enough. CO2 and methane from farm animals came out of the atmosphere in the first place, and if they counted that farming would be net-zero. But they don't count it because either they are idiots, or vegan activists, or hate farmers due to them being right wing, or something else I dunno. But it is clearly horrible policy and will cause poor people to suffer as food gets a lot more expensive.

All things being equal, is far better for humans and lots of plant and animal life for Earth to be getting warmer than it would be if we were getting colder. Warmer is even likely better than present. The idea that we can hold Earth in stasis is silly. What is the "right" temperature? CO2 is a factor but in my estimation somewhere between the 6th and 20th most significant driver. To focus on it in exclusion is irrational. This all said, yes, I tend to leave nuance aside because no one cares. Joke about global government socialism -- ha ha only serious -- it gets to the point and makes the story human. Yes the only proposed "solutions" to this "problem" involve massive coordinated policies that in just 20 years have gone from "let's recycle and be more efficient" to "you must emit zero carbon by 2030/50/whatever". Yes, you are the carbon they want to reduce.

your point is true. the mindset "it is all lies" is biased by definition. But how much? Isn't it better to simply ditch TV altogether? I did and I only get surprised by new narratives...

there are many more lies than we imagine, there are just too many subjects we dont have any clue to discern what is happening.

real example from Brazil:

manager from construction company asks TV manager:

- we are building many walled neighboorhoods, we need to sell those houses. How much for national advertisements in main night time TV news?

- If you want, we charge X millions.. But, if you pay more.... For months, all TV news, from the morning to the night, will increase their focus on urban crime. And we will make an special program about walled neighboorhood communities in Brazil and in the USA... Selling them as true paradises of safety...

The bastards do not sell only the news, their whole range of topic choice is on sale.

dont get me started about how they hide big industrial scale crime by showing "small Joe" crime.

I don't mean to defend mainstream news media. I think there is overwhelming evidence that modern mainstream news media is bad, even evil. If you have the evidence, that's very different than jumping to conclusions based on pattern alone.

I find it hilarious that even Bitcoin and Nostr devs still hold on to little bits of their programming like this.

You have been trained well.

UN wants 5 trillion a year for “climate work”

The earth is getting warmer, but Co2 is not the main factor.

More Co2 = More plants

Wow. This. So much. Thank you. You described the situation perfectly.

THANK YOU!

I am mostly ok with it.. I would rather see people believe nothing than believe anything. Spent too long watching them believe anything and I welcome this change.

There is no climate crisis and the data supports my statement.

oke, lets put it this way: everything that really matters is a bunch of lies. I used to be the guy who produced those lies. and the distractions as well. specially the distractions — not lies tho, ye, so you got a point.

"more CO2 than ever before", wut?

COVID came from a wet market. The COVID vaccine is safe and effective.

The problem I have with "climate change" is the same as I had with "covid".

The science is neither here nor there because the action taken in response is anchored in politics and totally disconnected from the scientific method.

Everyday, natural and social order is dynamically moving towards homeostasis ☯️

Those people are GenXers, and we act that way because the mainstream gave us a key and then told us not to burn the house down until mom and dad got home at 6:00 to make a crappy dinner if at all. The mainstream is group think spouting the programming. Without those of us with biases, we'd all march off the cliffs like lemmings. 🤯💥

this is a great note. People who are convinced of one thing can be very triggered and angry when they are shown a possibility of a different perspective. It's actually really scary.

Its easier to divide people than to bring them together

can you elaborate a bit on the "statistical patterns that don't represent reality" that man-made climate change skeptics are relying upon ?

The pattern that people prematurely conclude from is just that it came from mainstream. And mainstream is not trustable. Therefore it must be lies. That is a terribly weak argument.

If you have stronger arguments against the man-made climate change theory, I respect those, and I respect dissident voices, and we need dissident voices.

huh ? but you said "statistical patterns" , as if they are going on actual data that you dispute ...

anyhow just want to ask if you happen to have looked at this:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/D2It6oMNsG6s/

or read this?:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55882360-climate-change

Look, I could be wrong. It is hard to tell in this day and age when governments are using psyops brigades to foist mind control on their own citizens.

is that a "no" ?

the issue is less that there have or have not been periods of time with more CO2 in atmosphere, the issue is current rate of change in CO2 and rate of change in global average temps. humans have never existed during a period of such rapid change.

two things can both be true at the same time. rate of change in global average temps can be a problem, and our systems of governance and communication can be corrupt both at same time.

I find it hilarious that you claim "simple answers are probably wrong" when all the examples you give are of the harder to accept answers. The publicly scorned, more difficult to accept answers. Each & every case.

What you see as simple I see as battle-hardened, guantlet-run.

Would you call Assange and Snowden simple?

so then whats going on with stuff like this ?

"On 24 September 2019, the 17-year-old activist Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations Climate Action Summit saying, "People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction." A day earlier, however, the climate policy foundation Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) sent the UN their World Climate Declaration, signed by 800 prominent scientists including Nobel Laureate Professor Ivar Giaever and Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore, stating that there is no climate emergency: "You’re tired of alarmism and failed predictions of climate models that can’t predict the past, let alone the future. You distrust the business leaders, politicians and scientists of the climate industrial complex – you just want The Facts." "

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55882360-climate-change

This is a refreshing post. Thank you for writing this out.

Definitely true, and an easy trap to fall into.

Assuming most don’t have the time to properly delve in deep enough to really get close to the truth, I do believe that the best heuristic is to mostly ignore the mainstream and that if the information carries enough signal it will reach you the old fashioned way - p2p.

It’s just pareto principle. Automatically disbelieving everything in mass media is the 20% of the work you need to do to get 80% of the right answers

You are the one who doesn't know the real arguments and thinking of people who believe in each of these things. They may be wrong, but they all have sound arguments.

You choose to just say they are "pattern machines" without examining their claims and you stay comfortable in your ignorance.

The particular examples I gave were not the point. BUT your comment intrigues me as it reflects the ideas of John Stewart Mill. I want to fully understand the arguments presented by people who actually believe them, not strawman imitations. If you want to present an argument, please do so as a new thread and tag me, and I'll weigh in where I can.

I don't subscribe to all the theses you present above, some I think are false (UFOs), others I think are true (Jeffrey Epstein had a pedophile ring that involved high rank politicians, even though maybe he did kill himself), others I really don't know but am open to both sides (9/11 attacks).

But even for those that I am pretty convinced about I wouldn't be able to put forward arguments better than what you can find in random YouTube videos on the topic.

I also wanted to say that people often don't know anything with 100% certainty, so they use heuristics. Trusting scientific consensus, trusting your own gut backed by your own life experience and automatically distrusting corporate media are all equally valid heuristics, for example.