And you think we have crazies in this country... dear God, what the heck is going on in England

[Peacetrain]

We get SKY news now, and for those who do not use a Samsung TV or apps.. it is British news.. like the BBC.. well they had a special on about the growing groups of conspiracy theorists in Great Britain. Now the reporter went to one of their festivals.. yes you read that right "festivals".. and what these people who have met on social media during covid have morphed into is just unbelievable. Among the many goofy beliefs is that alien creatures have become our overlords..

I wish I was making this up.. I have a cousin who got locked into chem trails conspiracy theories .. But the nuttiness is just not here.. it is world wide.. and you can almost take this one to the bank... lots of the people these believers are meeting on line are sitting in Russia China and other fan clubs of Democracy

[Sneederbunk]

1. It's easy for alien creatures to land on a flat earth.

[Arne]

2. What!!

I learned they come from within the Earth.

[GreenWave]

11. What? I learned they came from the hollow moon.

[Arne]

13. Crab people Crab people...

[lindysalsagal]

3. The hard part is not falling over the edge..

[RobinA]

46. No, No, No

there's an ice wall around the pancake Earth! You would think by now someone would have climbed it and looked down, but they don't seem to talk about that.

[chowder66]

4. They've existed for a long time. David Icke leads the pack.

[keep_left]

7. You beat me to it! I was just going to mention him.

That "alien overlord" thing is right up Icke's alley. Though his conspiracy theories also often involve "lizard people" and the like.

Don't forget that in England (or "TERF Island" as the kids call it), people were burning down 5G cell towers during the pandemic because of some conspiracy theory involving vaccines and 5G microwave signals...I forget all the details now.

[chowder66]

10. Yep. Lizard People but his stuff led to so much more. I didn't know about the 5G cell towers.

I used to listen to Art Bell until what's-his-head took over and started bringing up all the super crazy shit. At least Bell had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.

[wnylib]

38. Yup. George Noory's listeners on overnight AM radio

right here in the US believe in alien overlords, hybrid alien-humans, and that aliens taught humans how to establish ancient civilizations and build ancient monuments.

Noory is also a RW extremist, supporter of Trump, friend of Alex Jones, and promoter of RW political conspiracy theories. Sometimes I listen to hear what the extreme right is up to, but the craziness is too much to take for very long at a time.

[ilovegamers43]

5. Jesus was a illegal alien btw

Wink wink

[PatSeg]

6. Yes, we do not have a monopoly on nuttiness

It appears to be part of the human condition and it seems to run in cycles.

Still in this day and age, it is hard to comprehend how so many could buy into these extreme theories being most people have information at their fingertips 24/7. Apparently having information is not enough if you don't also possess the brain to evaluate and process it.

Sadly, I know some intelligent well-read people who have embraced some bizarre conspiracy theories in recent years. I'm still trying to figure out how on earth that happened. Possibly some major defect in our species or alien brain worms.

[Silent3]

16. For most people it isn't reasoning that makes something feel true or not, it's social support

The internet allows people to form communities around crazy beliefs.

There were plenty of nutty cults before the internet that worked the same way, but those cults were harder to find and fall into than the equivalent on the internet.

I'd like to hope that we can educate people to be more resistant to conspiracies and disinformation, but as far as I know, wide-spread teaching of critical thinking skills has never been tried. Because those skills would seem threatening to many religious and political beliefs, there would be a lot of resistance to even trying.

[PatSeg]

17. Oh yes, the best solution would be

a major focus on critical thinking throughout a person's education, but as you said, that could be construed as threatening to people's beliefs systems, especially religious ones. Today we see it more and more with political beliefs as if politics WAS a religion for many people.

I agree that it is usually social support that draws people to these crazy ideas. It is like belonging to a club though actually it is more of a cult. The one person that I know who surprised us with his tendency to embrace some whacky ideas is actually a total recluse and very well read. I suppose that the combination of being alone most of the time AND the Internet has had a profound effect on him.

I've also noticed that family and/or friends who started down this path usually did so at a time when they were going through some major personal problems. Invariably, they had the TV tuned to Fox News most of the day. Add social media to the mix and you have a perfect storm.

Still perplexing, however, as I remember them they way they used to be.

[shrike3]

18. It IS a religion with some people.

It's just my experience, but the people who believe in crazy things are the same people who think religion is responsible for the ills of the earth. In that one category, they'd fit in perfectly on DU. But the other things they believe -- yikes.

I think some of it comes from the belief that the system is rotten, and nothing is to be trusted. Into the void comes all these crazy things that explain WHY.

[PatSeg]

22. Well, I suppose the fact that people are looking for the

WHY could be seen as a positive thing, but then you see WHERE they are looking and it is pretty alarming.

I am fortunate in that I was taught critical thinking from a young age and I had a few very remarkable teachers, who often asked more questions than they answered. They made us think, which a lot of students found very uncomfortable. I remember being taught syllogisms in more than one class and the lesson stuck.

In a perfect world, I can envision an educational system that puts more stress on critical thinking, logic, and creativity than on most traditional subjects. The most important thing that I taught my children was to think for themselves, even if that thinking led them away from own beliefs. I was always proud when they used logic and reason to come to a conclusion. If the conclusion was faulty, I knew they would eventually figure that out.


Edit to add quote: “The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write. It will be those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” - Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler

[shrike3]

23. I'd be on board with that kind of educational system. n/t

[PatSeg]

31. I try to do the same things with my grandchildren

as I did with my own children. When they ask me a question, I ask them what THEY think and usually, they already had an idea forming. It is amazing to watch the thoughts just flow from their minds. That can be shut down so quickly by adults when they give a very definitive, precise answer.

When my daughter was four, she asked me if Santa Claus was real. I asked her what she thought and damn if she didn't tell me! She'd analyzed the whole thing quite thoroughly and came up with the conclusion that Mom and Dad were Santa Claus. She even noticed that Santa Claus used the same wrapping paper that I did.

[shrike3]

32. Funny, my dad did that with me.

But not with Santa Claus. Though I never asked about Santa Claus. When I got a little older, he'd ask me to explain why I had the opinion that I did. Sort of the Socratic method, though I didn't realize it at the time.

[PatSeg]

33. That is great

So much better than cutting a person down and dismissing their ideas as "wrong". If a parent or teacher does that enough, a child could just stop thinking and become extremely vulnerable to authoritarian figures, which brings us back to the cult mentality. It can be prevented, but it starts very young.

[shrike3]

37. It also encourages critical thinking.

Dad knew what he was doing.

[PatSeg]

39. You are very fortunate

[Aristus]

27. Thus, the popular saying "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers."

n/t

[CrispyQ]

30. A middle-aged nurse who was prepping me for a minor procedure told me she got all her news on TikTok

& that "They have really good sources on there." A week later I saw a segment about how many young people get their news from TikTok & they interviewed some of them & they were so misinformed it was shocking. One young women heard that Joe Biden was Catholic & therefore anti-choice so she was going to vote for Trump. WTF?

[hunter]

8. Some kind of environmental toxin, perhaps?

Or maybe it's just social media.

[RobinA]

47. Chemtrails

"they" are spraying us so we will remain docile and follow "their" orders.

[canetoad]

9. Sky news is NOTHING like the BBC

If anything, it's the UK version of Fox. Their way of operating is to stir discontent and very much in the same way as the Daily Mail, they want to fire up the ordinary people and make them angry.

Sound familiar?

[muriel_volestrangler]

24. Remember, Sky in Australia is owned by Murdoch; Sky in the UK is not

Sky in the UK has always been subject to balanced broadcasting restrictions, and is pretty much neutral. For a comparison, look at Wikipedia's "Reliable Sources" entry for each:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources
Sky News Australia (overall category "No consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply" ) "In the 2022 RfC, there is a consensus that additional considerations apply to Sky News Australia, and that it should not be used to substantiate any exceptional claims. The talk shows for Sky News Australia engage in disinformation and should be considered generally unreliable. The majority of articles labeled as "news" contain short blurbs and video segments, which should similarly be considered unreliable. For articles with significant written content, caution is advised. Sky News Australia is not to be confused with the UK Sky News; the two are presently unaffiliated. "

Sky News (UK) (overall category "Generally reliable in its areas of expertise" ) "Sky News (UK) is considered an ordinary WP:NEWSORG and is thus presumed generally reliable. Sky News UK is unaffiliated with Sky News Australia. Sky News UK has partial ownership of Sky News Arabia."

BBC is in the same category as Sky News (UK); Fox News (news excluding politics and science) as Sky News Australia; Fox News (politics, science and talk shows) are "Generally unreliable", as are the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday , one down from "No consensus ...".

[Aristus]

28. My only memory of Sky UK, which I would watch while stationed in Germany.

was a news anchor named Penny something. She was just about as cute as a human being can get. I used to watch the news report just for her.

Of course, this is why FOX News employs such spectacularly unqualified, non-journalist, newsreaders who are blonde and good-looking.

I’m glad my political discernment has improved since those days.

[canetoad]

34. That's good to know Muriel

Thanks for the info.

[GreenWave]

12. I blame this on England growing detached from Europe, lonely, isolated...

If only someone could invent a union in Europe for England to join and gain friends.

[CloudWatcher]

14. The English ...

I heard a rumor that once the English considered themselves better than anyone else on the planet. There was some mention about an Empire where the sun never set! What a load of batshit crazies!

But seriously ... Putin has been very busy stirring up nonsense world-wide. Sadly the US news doesn't consider it important enough to cover.

[eShirl]

15. I think it's one of those Rupert Murdoch things

[shrike3]

19. Britain is considered irreligious, I'll point out.

One of the most secularized countries in the world. So, what's to be done? I don't know.

[NanaCat]

44. It's not one of the most secularized

It was relatively late to that game compared to Scandinavia, Germany and even France.

[shrike3]

49. Irreligious is irreligious. Doesn't matter when it happened.

https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/33540-how-religious-are-british-people?redirect_from=%2Ftopics%2Fsociety%2Farticles-reports%2F2020%2F12%2F29%2Fhow-religious-are-british-people

[ismnotwasm]

20. Apophenia.

I think it starts with this, then develops into delusional thinking. Because of the internet, the delusional people find and support each other

Types of apophenia

Apophenia is a general term that includes several different types of phenomena.

Pareidolia: This type involves seeing an image or sound from random visual or auditory stimuli. A common form is face pareidolia, where elements of an object can make them resemble a face.
Clustering illusion: This illusion involves seeing patterns in events and data when there is, in fact, no connection between data points.
Confirmation bias: This bias is the tendency to only accept information that confirms prior beliefs.
Gambler’s fallacy: This type involves believing that a prior series of events affects a future event, even though the two are unrelated.
Some of these types of apophenia are hard to avoid. Many people, for example, experience seeing a face in a natural feature, cloud, or collection of lines.

https://psychcentral.com/health/apophenia-overview#causes

[NanaCat]

45. I'm not so sure that pareidolia is all that outside of the norm.

Our brains are literally wired to extract patterns from visual information, and with good reason. It's our ability to find the pattern of a frog in the seemingly random midst of similar shapes and colours of leaves in a bush that let us see him as a unique thing at all. Without pattern recognition, everything would be random lines and colours before our eyes.

Visual artists seem quite prone to a heightened state of pattern recognition similar to Pareidolia, else they wouldn't be able to 'see' what others don't and then transfer that to another visual form. So maybe Pareidolia is more like a hyperactive form of pattern recognition, more than it is a genuine anomaly.

[edhopper]

21. Been that way for a while

They have always had the Loony Party.

&t=67s

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. So you haven't heard of QAnon, then?

There are some crazies in the UK. But they don't have political influence, whereas the American counterparts do. David Icke may be British, but his audience is basically American - that's where the money is.

[vapor2]

26. Is it something in the water?

[Initech]

41. No, but it is on the air.

It's the putrid stench of Fox / Sky rotting minds watching every TV screen and computer monitor it touches. It is a virus that must be eradicated.

[Bev54]

29. I would be very careful casting aspersions on the UK.

I am pretty sure there are groups in the US that are doing the same but we are hearing less about it because Trump is taking up all the oxygen. The entire republican party is coming pretty close to these nutjobs.

[BannonsLiver]

35. This country is a 100 times nuttier and it's not even close

The volume of violent crime alone…

Do you travel much?

[GenThePerservering]

36. England INVENTED crazy

there have always been nutty theories, roiling mobs, viral conspiracies, etc. etc.

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. Sky News UK is not owned by Murdoch. See #24.

It's owned by Comcast, same as NBC.

FWIW, the Sky reporter was called "lefty, pressy scum" at the rather pathetic festival, by the one well-known person there - Katie Hopkins, an infamous far right wanker, sacked from even right wing media outlets many times, when she went too far for them: https://news.sky.com/story/katie-hopkins-looked-at-me-during-a-weekend-truth-festival-and-said-i-smell-a-virgin-13145544

[NanaCat]

43. Sky News

Is the British Fox. It's a Murdoch-created news channel that isn't above tabloid-level nonsense like alien abductions, Bigfoot and whatever other kook topic out there.

[muriel_volestrangler]

48. OK, he "created" it - 36 years ago. It's always been regulated, and he hasn't owned it for some years.

How much have you watched it? Can you actually show that it has more about alien abductions and Bigfoot than, say, NBC? I think not.

Have you watched this particular report? There's a link to the write-up just above your post - did you read that? It has an excerpt. But I think you need to watch the full 15 minutes, to get an idea of what Sky News does, which is straightforward TV journalism. As I have already pointed out, Wikipedia rates it as such.

So, here's the full thing:

And then tell me if you are going to complain "tabloid!!!" every time you see the words "Sky News", without addressing the actual topic of the thread.