Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathgod
Simply put, they have an ideology that they devote their lives to. So any time they hear or read something that conveniently aligns with their ideology, they immediately believe it to be true, regardless of whether or not it actually is. Whenever they are presented with information that conflicts with their ideology, the instantly disregard it as "fake news" or a "woke leftist conspiracy".
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It’s the new religion. There’s starting to be research into how secularism plays a role in extreme polemics. It’s not just a right phenomenon though. There are plenty of people on the left that are immovable regardless of what facts you present them with.
In fact I would say that the erosion of trust in experts started on the left.
Overall though, it’s amazing how people are evacuating the centre for extreme positions.
I don’t think there is any grand conspiracy. But I do think that there are efforts underway by state actors we once would have identified as enemies or at a minimum iffy regimes, to brew up fights and discord. At a minimum to keep us distracted, but over the last 10-15 years the goal may have changed because of how effective a small army or trolls and bots is at pulling our societies apart.
You get way more bang for your buck fomenting civil war via social media, special interest groups, pundits and media buys than you can buying stealth fighters.