Mastodawn

Kee Hinckley Jan 9, 2023

I keep seeing articles, about people trying to violently overturn election results, that use phrases like “motivated by election lies”.

They aren’t motivated by lies, they are motivated by not liking the result. Repeating the lies just makes them feel powerful because it makes them part of the grift. They think they’re fooling people.

Blaming the lies lulls us into thinking that this is an education/disinformation problem which, if addressed, will eliminate the violence.

These folks aren’t deluded. They’ve learned from their leaders that violence and lying are the route to power.

For most of my life I thought these problems could be solved by education. I no longer do. As far as I can tell, about 30% of the population believes that getting away with grifts and bullying people is proof of power and leadership that should be respected, worshiped, and emulated.

We can’t educate these folks. We can only build a society that ensures that they cannot gain control. Unfortunately, the entire human race has largely failed to do so, and we’re suffering the consequences on a planetary scale.

Every day we act as though they don’t *know* that the elections were valid, is a day we risk losing the fight for democracy, equality, and a stable environment.

#brazil #JAN6

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MudMan Jan 9, 2023

@nazgul I don't think I agree. Even if the people are complicit in the lies, that's a cultural vector that can be impacted by changing the culture.

I mean, I'm not sure what other alternative there is, but the fact that these things come and go in waves shows that it's not a constant and can be affected by the surrounding culture.

The problem is that changing culture through education takes a generation, at best. You need short term mitigations, too.

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Laces Jan 9, 2023

@MudMan @nazgul They're anti education though. College is woke indoctrination centers. Public schools are evil communism. Information is Fake News. It's pretty clear that they know they are in the wrong- they simply don't care.

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MudMan

@Laces @nazgul

Absolutely.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for laissez-faire here, you absolutely have to stand up to these behaviours. As you say, in order to change the culture through education you at least need to take education out of the table as being debatable or based on indoctrination.

But not educating upcoming generations against irrational totalitarianism is not a better path forward, and not an option at all, frankly.