People are addicted to fear.
@aven Do you mean "the masses" or everyone?
@okabe_rintarou everyone, though in the exaggerated sort of way. In the same way that everyone is addicted to drama.
I guess I was lamenting fear-mongering and fear-porn, similar to drama-mongering and drama-porn.
I guess I was lamenting fear-mongering and fear-porn, similar to drama-mongering and drama-porn.
@aven >I guess I was lamenting fear-mongering and fear-porn
I’ve seen you mentioning this in the past, but I don’t really have an understanding of what you’re referring to. Do you have any specific examples?
@okabe_rintarou "I want you to feel the fear I feel every day... and then I want you to act... I want you to act as if you would in a crisis. I want you to act like the house is on fire... because it is." - Greta Thunberg
All the predictions that climate change will go past a "point of no return" in 5 years (15 years ago), imagery of cities falling into the sea, imagery of hurricanes emerging from smoke stacks (cover of "An Inconvenient Truth"), etc, etc, etc....
Here's a bunch more: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-were-made-around-the-time-of-the-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year/
But the point is that people, not just "the masses", but otherwise smart people, particularly frequently in "the elites", want to believe terrible things that are not true.
I think the psychology is that we've been taught a trope of "pleasant lies and unpleasant truths", and developed a heuristic to think that if an idea presented is unpleasant, then it is more likely to be true.
Another element may be that people want to believe they are living end-times because it lends a sense of meaning and importance that they otherwise lack. It has an allure of grandiosity. People like to believe that they're on a crusade to save the world. People also like to be given an outgroup ("greedy polluters") that they can feel righteous while doing sadistic and evil things toward: https://www.mediaite.com/news/beltway-climate-protest-backfires-as-video-of-parolee-pleading-he-needs-to-get-to-work-goes-viral/
All the predictions that climate change will go past a "point of no return" in 5 years (15 years ago), imagery of cities falling into the sea, imagery of hurricanes emerging from smoke stacks (cover of "An Inconvenient Truth"), etc, etc, etc....
Here's a bunch more: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-were-made-around-the-time-of-the-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year/
But the point is that people, not just "the masses", but otherwise smart people, particularly frequently in "the elites", want to believe terrible things that are not true.
I think the psychology is that we've been taught a trope of "pleasant lies and unpleasant truths", and developed a heuristic to think that if an idea presented is unpleasant, then it is more likely to be true.
Another element may be that people want to believe they are living end-times because it lends a sense of meaning and importance that they otherwise lack. It has an allure of grandiosity. People like to believe that they're on a crusade to save the world. People also like to be given an outgroup ("greedy polluters") that they can feel righteous while doing sadistic and evil things toward: https://www.mediaite.com/news/beltway-climate-protest-backfires-as-video-of-parolee-pleading-he-needs-to-get-to-work-goes-viral/
@aven I see. Yes, I understand what you mean now. But I honestly believe that it appears only like that because of the media, who blow it out of proportion on purpose. The media desperately wants climate activists to be taken seriously. I once believed a few of the things they propagated myself when I was little.
Nowadays, I think most people don't really care about anything outside of their own circle and just go along with whatever is dictated at a given time, wanting to be left alone and don't engage in deeper thoughts or discussions about these topics.
Nowadays, I think most people don't really care about anything outside of their own circle and just go along with whatever is dictated at a given time, wanting to be left alone and don't engage in deeper thoughts or discussions about these topics.
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@okabe_rintarou @aven
> The media desperately wants climate activists to be taken seriously.
That would be easier if the media manipulators learned to shut the fuck up once per decade.
