This is 100% theory, and there is zero chance of anyone ever proving evidence supporting this thought. If that bothers you, please move on, I'm not here to convince you of anything. I'm here to talk theory, not advance that theory to fact.
After reddit spilled over into voat, there has been an obvious shift in both websites. Reddit got strangely tolerant of free thinking (which I assume is the puppets trying to save their own game) and voat got really big on posting videos with zero evidence supporting the claim mad in the title.
It seems pretty clear to me that there is a psy-op going on to make voat look like a haven for extremism, and appear as if supporting evidence is optional in our definition of a "quality post." We can not let this happen, or we as a website will quickly be as credible to the outside world as buzzfeed style blogspam is.
When I first came to this site from reddit, I loved how reluctant people were to use downvotes. Now I realize this could be a problem at the opposite extreme from reddit. I had originally planned to keep my account at 0 total downvotes, but I have shifted this opinion after observing the drivel that is being posted. I will admit it is perfectly plausible that the crappy submissions are just vote-farming, but the functional effect is the same, whether it is sock-puppets or 14 year old kids bored in class.
So, a few questions for those of you that have been here longer than a month:
1 Outside of this sub, would you guys say there has been a spike in shit-tier conspiracy submissions? (/v/videos seems to be a hotspot for this)
2 Do you feel that theories without direct evidence (like this one ironically enough) are harmful to our credibility? Is an unsupported theory more or less dangerous if it regards real world events as opposed to psychological and meta-topics?
3 If you feel this is the case, what should be done to preserve our reputation?
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Sciency ago
I'd like to apologize for calling you heartless and brainless. I still don't think we quite see eye to eye with how we define certain words (like brainwashed), but I misjudged your intentions in saying what you initially commented. However advocating apathy (even unintentionally) is dangerous.
When you said:
I think you hit the nail on the head with this. You lost me again with:
On this, could not disagree more. Never in history has there been such a high quality of life, but at such great expense to the average person. One might argue this is a symptom of bureaucracy, others would argue it's a problem of leaders not doing their jobs well, and I think both those lines of thinking have merit. However, no mater the cause, the functional effect is present. I would simply like to be part of the first generation I've ever personally seen actually care (about these things).
I rather enjoyed you anecdote about the camping trip gone wrong. People certainly gain back perspective quickly when faced with adversity. This question is mostly rhetorical, but here's my main driving point: What if no one in your group knew how to survive? Well, in this example, you might have died. Without a baseline level of survival training, some people will no be able to revert away from their habits, and the will (metaphorically, and maybe literally) die. If I can help to prevent such an eventuality, shouldn't I work to do so? Or (in line with the metaphor) what if we taught everyone how to fish/forage (think critically) as young adults so there is no risk of death (brainwashing/disinfo) when they actually have to survive in the woods(world) without food (truth).