What's dangerous is often stupid

[Nevilledog]

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Jared Holt
@jaredlholt
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The things threatening our society/democracy currently are sometimes painfully stupid. As silly as it seems, winning battles against the dumb stuff is important. If we're struggling there, a smidge of extra competence could flatten us

What’s dangerous is often stupid
'When you can’t decide between laughing and screaming, you’re effectively paralyzed'
shtpost.substack.com
12:20 PM · Jun 11, 2021

https://shtpost.substack.com/p/whats-dangerous-is-often-stupid

Author Naomi Wolf, now better known as a leading COVID-19 conspiracy theorist, was banned from Twitter last week. Prior to her digital ejection, the content she shared on the platform was a mix of genuinely toxic misinformation and absurdist claims. Despite readily apparent issues with her credibility, she was manufactured into an “expert” voice in right-wing media. She was repeatedly booked on Fox News and hyper-partisan media sites like Breitbart News wrote about her statements as if she possessed authority on matters of fact surrounding a global pandemic. People were told to trust her falsehoods, and those who did received information that jeopardized their health.

In addition to the torrent misinformation she has spread, Wolf is also a plainly ridiculous person. She has suggested that vaccines are delivered with technology capable of facilitating time travel and floated the idea of filtering vaccinated people’s shit and piss out of the general sewage system. She performed outrage over a photo of a teddy bear at a vaccination clinic and peddled various conspiracy theories about 5G wireless technology. She was easily duped into sharing an anti-vax quote falsely attributed to a pornographic film star and a book she wrote was pulled after it became clear it was premised on fundamental misunderstandings of legal jargon.

@DawnHFoster described Wolf as “the first recorded person to be banned from Twitter for being too stupid.” Honestly, I don’t think that’s too far off from the truth.

So much of what’s dangerous nowadays is also stupid. Donald Trump led a wannabe proto-fascist movement to relevance in the United States while his supporters cheered him for drinking water on stage with one hand. QAnon has convinced thousands, if not millions, of people of a false reality but it only works because people placed faith in some idiot on a forum who was like, “No dude, trust me. I am a secret agent.”

*snip*

[czarjak]

1. Seventy four million bullshit believers only have themselves to blame.