I’ve been listening to a lot of Planet Peterson and Deconstruction Zone videos on YouTube, mostly because I’m getting so sick and tired of the political bullshit on Atheist Experience and The Line. Yet one thing that I’ve really noticed is how many really, really, really dumb people call those two shows. I mean, dumb to the point that I’m surprised they can wipe their own asses.
And frankly, I’m having trouble even sitting through it anymore.
I have found myself clicking away from the majority of atheist call-in show calls because the theists are too dumb to be dealt with. That doesn’t mean just stubborn, that means absolutely stupid. For example, I was just listening to an older Planet Peterson call and the theist was so ridiculously clueless that I turned it off about 7 minutes in. All the theist could do was keep repeating “but it’s in the Bible!” like he can’t imagine that the Bible might not be true and there’s no point in having that conversation. They can’t defend their views and they can’t stop pushing blind faith and why bother with them in that case?
I’ve been putting a lot of “this theist is an idiot” comments on Atheist Experience and The Line calls because virtually all of them are. It’s just people making bald assertions and professing blind faith as if that means anything and more often than not, the hosts give up because there’s nothing intelligent to respond to. Nobody cares what you believe. Just because you really like the feeling you get doesn’t mean your beliefs are true.
So why bother at all?
Truth be told, I’ve been thinking long and hard about my own channel because that seems to be what’s going on there. Same old tired, empty claims, repeated ad nauseum, because they really want it to be true. I can respond to it, but really, why bother? It’s all been said before. Nothing is ever going to change. The apologists are still scam artists, lying for the Lord because it makes them money and they couldn’t care less if any of it is true. Like the caller on Planet Peterson, they aren’t remotely interested, they have never thought for 2 seconds about any of it and it’s just got to be true because fee-fees.
I’m just wasting my time responding to it because nothing is ever going to change. The dumb are going to remain dumb forever because they have no interest in growing working brains. I wouldn’t say if I thought I was doing any good but I’m not. So why bother? I don’t know, you tell me.
re: I’m just wasting my time responding to it because nothing is ever going to change. The dumb are going to remain dumb forever because they have no interest in growing working brains.
There is the theory that responding just fuels it, makes it seem valid to argue against. In other words, maybe silence kills it faster? For example, someone making the claim that humans don’t need oxygen. Why even engage that?
The problem with religions is that they can have a certain verisimilitude because of culture, because of people seeking certainty and comfort.
I wonder what studies of ignoring misinformation have shown about it preventing it from spreading? I’ve never found any solid ones.
Silence can sometimes be effective in reducing the visibility of false claims, but it can also allow the more “desirable” to persist unchallenged (“desirable” in the sense that people want the feelings that they get). People think they want/need false comfort, false hope, false security and con artists will always be willing to sell it.
Things change. When I was younger, I thought smoking would never end. Now, in the main, it is gone. Extensive public health campaigns raised awareness about the dangers of smoking and those campaigns targeted young people to prevent them from starting to smoke. The problem is we have no real campaigns targeting young people showing them how to engage in critical thinking, logic, reason and what demonstrable evidence is.
The dumb are running on fee-fees and faith, not facts and evidence because, as you said, they have no vested interest in caring about reality. So long as they can get that dopamine drip in the head, they’ll continue doing whatever provided the impetus in the first place. It’s all very Pavlovian.
Unfortunately, stupidity and ignorance don’t hurt. There wouldn’t be so many dumb people out there if they did. With no negative repercussions for being wrong and lots of positive rewards for believing things that trigger the emotional response, there’s no reason for anyone to change. That many do is a testament to the internal intellectual honesty of those individuals, not the overall betterment of mankind. We’re getting consistently dumber as time goes on because society is willing to protect the stupid instead of letting them get weeded out.
That’s not a good thing.
re: With no negative repercussions for being wrong✅ and lots of positive rewards for believing things that trigger the emotional response,✅ there’s no reason for anyone to change.✅
re: We’re getting consistently dumber as time goes on✅ because society is willing to protect the stupid instead of letting them get weeded out.✅ -So True✔💌💯%
Sadly, that’s why I’m not all that happy with the modern world in at least some significant ways. When people had to work hard to survive, we had a society full of people willing to work. The people who weren’t willing, they got weeded out. Today, all of the people who simply choose to be lazy, they are still taken care of and get to survive and reproduce and pass on both their genes and their philosophy. Those people should not exist in society ideally. The dumb should suffer the consequences of their stupidity. We just don’t let that happen today and that’s made us as bad off as we are.
re: When people had to work hard to survive, we had a society full of people willing to work. -Yes, so many people ARE as lazy as cat dirt.
re: people who simply choose to be lazy,✅ they are still taken care of and get to survive and reproduce and pass on both their genes and their philosophy. . . .Yes, technological advancements, advanced economic systems, social safety nets, make that totally possible. So far, far more destructive than thermonuclear weapons.
At least there aren’t millions of nukes walking the streets every day with no limits on their actions. It’s hard to find people these days willing to put in hard work without being lavishly rewarded for doing so. Maybe that’s why everyone is whining that they can’t afford anything, because they haven’t actually earned anything. These people are really dumb and I, for one, am tired of it.
-Yeah, the value of hard work and the concept of earning one’s way are timeless principles, but people have decided to abnegate these economic realities. We need to encourage/demand a culture that values hard work and personal responsibility.
People complain that they don’t have all the stuff that they see other people having, but they don’t put in the hard work and live responsibly because they don’t want to. They just want to complain. I worked from the time I turned 16 and my employer was waiting for me to turn 18 so I could get into management. Nobody does that today. Nobody wants to work. They all want to play and just get things handed to them on a silver platter. It’s no surprise they fail. I owned my first home before I was 30. People today whine that they can’t just get a house immediately out of college, never having held a serious job in their lives. I really don’t get it. The unrealistic expectations these days is just bizarre. That’s why everyone is trying to make a buck off of YouTube and I don’t care at all because I don’t need to. Why? Because I worked my ass off my entire life and lived responsibly and now, I’m not going to have to eat cat food in my retirement. People honestly get what they deserve and a lot of people deserve absolutely nothing. That’s why they desperately want the government to take care of them, because they’ve proven they can’t take care of themselves. It’s really sad.
People honestly get what they deserve, and a lot of people deserve absolutely nothing.✅ That’s why they desperately want the government to take care of them, because they’ve proven they can’t take care of themselves.✅
. . .yeah and even when they get rescued, then they are totally bitter because they didn’t get rescued well enough.
Or quickly enough, or they weren’t treated like victims enough. It’s just a mess.