It's not just the inaction, I despise the subtler shenanigans, which is the tremendous influence of using humor to establish truth or falsehood. "Well it's funny and I'm hilariously entertained, so their message must be true!"
Humor is a great wrapper for the sour pill of deception. At first our conscience might reflect on the acidity, but given enough exposure, eventually the mind will heartily consume the sour pill as if it was the sweet truth all along.
We're firmly at a point in society where truth is not often established by a hard and uncomfortable examination of facts, but whether or not we feel comfortable and entertained by whatever thoughts are presented before our minds. Feelings rule supreme over facts in this country, by far.
Does it make me feel good? / Does it make me feel bad? / Do what makes you happy. -- Just a few of the feeling-oriented mantras society uses for decision making.
Some years ago I wrote up a pretty lengthy piece about how emotional manipulation is the core of all television programming -- I think it was on Kuro5hin.. but I can't seem to find it any more....
Humans who are (intentionally) not taught how to think critically are easily manipulated via their emotions.
Anyone who thinks that there is not a war on your conscious, fought through your pavlovian emotional responses has not been paying close enough attention to the world around them.
Humans ... are easily manipulated via their emotions.
Definitely agree, probably easier to shorten it to that. We all have our blindspots where we're easily influenced, there's just too much daily data and information we vacuum up to even consciously process it all. Hopefully I didn't make myself out as somehow excluded from that aforementioned "society"
Our own personal "McDonald's of the Soul" as Jim Gaffigan says in his stand up.
Humor is a great wrapper for the sour pill of deception. At first our conscience might reflect on the acidity, but given enough exposure, eventually the mind will heartily consume the sour pill as if it was the sweet truth all along.
We're firmly at a point in society where truth is not often established by a hard and uncomfortable examination of facts, but whether or not we feel comfortable and entertained by whatever thoughts are presented before our minds. Feelings rule supreme over facts in this country, by far.
Does it make me feel good? / Does it make me feel bad? / Do what makes you happy. -- Just a few of the feeling-oriented mantras society uses for decision making.