Liberal Forum

I've been wondering why and how MAGATs could possibly be this retarded (while technically passing a threshold that would have cemented their categorization as "legally" retarded)...and part of the key to solving this puzzle is to understand the ingrained desire to partake in ambush culture pioneered by Fox News / other MAGAT propaganda factories with an inception date approximating 35 years ago.

Quick rundown is corporate / J-u-u media (which was wrongfully labelled as "the LIBRUL MEDIA" for decades) was very boring, predictable, and hackneyed (*Some journalist reads off a teleprompter*), and there was sufficient "market demand" for Thunderdome / Rumble Arena type fighting between or among people of divergent viewpoints that enabled new "market entrants" to carve out their share of the pie and appeal to these base elements of the general public...anyone remember Jerry Springer? Judge Judy?

This style of so-called "debate" heavily favors the side that masters the art of cheap shots or "gotcha" moments...my understanding is that < 2 SD trash typically assumes the side that expresses themselves with greater vociferousness and lambency is the winner...when usually they are just trying to talk over other people and prevent the other side from making their argument or case known.

(Bill O'Reilly anyone? How many MAGATs here religiously watched his show 20 years ago?)

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"Oh, you don't support corporations and Wall Street running amok? You're a SOSHALIZT!"

"Oh, you don't support IzRaeL killing tens of thousands of people incl. children who had nothing to do with the Hamas attacks? You're an ANTISEMITE and MOOSELIMB sympathizer!"

"Oh, you don't support spending $1T in the Middle East so the Taliban can take back their country some 20 odd years later [and funneling money to / wasting billions on military contractor boondoggles]? You're a TRAITOR!!"

etc.

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As I mentioned in another thread (here - viewtopic.php?p=2926498#p2926498), the side that initiates the lie / fabrication has the first strike (first mover's) advantage. By my estimates it is about 10x easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they've been had, which would explain the vacuous content within MAGATs' skulls and the inability to convince them of anything even if the evidence (contrary to whatever **** is stewing in their heads) is overwhelming.

Likewise, when it comes to Thunderdome style politics, the side that starts off with some kind of "gotcha" will have the upper hand, and no amount of data or analysis (by >= 130 people) will convince them otherwise. The >= 2 SD analysis is typically reserved for others who are in the same caliber...which is (unfortunately) a very small fraction of the population and not enough to sway the general opinion - not to mention >= 2 SD people will generally identify all sorts of fallacies and shut them down before the opposition can even begin to rattle off their stupidity (buzzkills don't make for good entertainment...)

I surmise this feedback loop, having had approximately 3 decades to play itself out, has recursively sized itself up to the extent that pretty much nothing...besides maybe some kind of physical catastrophe (e.g. dropping a nuke on Iran results in retaliation by another world power taking the Eastern half of the country's electric grid offline with an EMP blast)...could shake them out of this stupor - and even then I have my doubts as MAGATs will likely call for full scale war instead of de-escalation.

Thoughts?