Martin NuttyWriting almost 30 years ago #CarlSagan worried about a country poorly educated in #science
Has has foreboding been realized?
Badger AF (he/him) DEMOCRACY"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
—Isaac Asimov
Laure@Badger_AF @mnutty really this era is marked by the seizure of social channels, the proliferation of websites, tv and radio shows often fronted by powerful interests and their lackeys in what has been a full throttled far right media revolution since 2015. That’s what’s happening.
If we’re talking of #SocialMedia channels, they were always owned by corporations. #Twitter and #Facebook were created to make money. Serving the public good was a tangential public relations exercise
I totally agree that we have seen extraordinary roll ups of other media properties by large corps, however that has made a space for the not for profits, many of whom carry a more benign message. So I watch #PBS, listen to #NPR and post on #Mastodon for that very reason
@mnutty @Badger_AF what I’m saying is that what we’re experiencing, this far right media revolution is due to mass propaganda and mass agitprop click bait spread across a proliferation of channels and on your mom’s and children’s social platforms in a very opaque and inauthentic way. that’s why we are having issues re covid conspiracy, electoral conspiracy, #qanon etc. Not just anti intellectualism.
@LaureM @mnutty We've always had conspiracy theories and urban legends, but the advent of social media has allowed them to spread exponentially.
I'm always fascinated as to why people believe these things. Some of it is due to some sort of unified theory of everything that's wrong with the world; others want to feel smarter than everyone else - like they're in on something.
@Badger_AF @mnutty agree but they are not passively spreading, they are actively pushed by small groups of every conceivable click bait scammer and political operatives interlaced in huge networks pumping this junk for profit or distracting and muddying up information spaces to eff with policies.