There are moments in time where i wonder if this fight is worthwhile....? is the human race worth saving...? its not often, but it does happen. Usually this starts with a trip to trollville on facebook where i see something ridiculous posted by people i know, then when i look at the comments i realize that.... they think its real.
Case in point, the story above was considerably prominent in my feed the other day, with various reiterations of the same data. Now the simple understanding here would be.... do the math. convert weeks to months blah blah etc. This is clearly a shit stirr, its a troll fest....
But then we dive into the comments and what we see in there is shocking, so many people taking the bait. now i didnt do the stats crunch on it but at a glance i would estimate that about 70% of people were completely oblivious, 25% were calling for fact checks and fake news, and only about 5% were stating the obvious discrepancies of the situation.
Among those fighting the not so good fight were some of those on my friends list, talking about political parties, the left and right, blah blah blah.... and it dawned on me, hit me like a tonne of bricks is probably more accurate.... people dumb yo !!!!!
We are so eager to express our disdain for those in the outgroup that we will ignore all the facts of the situation to "stick it" to the"other side". The only thing necessary to get us to turn on each other is a misrepresentation to draw the people in and then our EGOs take care of the rest. The trolls get to sit back and watch the chaos unfold right before their eyes, all the while laughing at what they have created, at how they have managed to get the puppets to dance for them, for no other reason than they can.
Heaven forbid that the 5% or 25% attempt to intervene and speak logically of the situation, as the both sides of the remaining 70% turn and burn all those who would consider bringing any kind of sense into the equation. that would make things far to easy and civil , lolz.
There are a number of constructs involved in this particular situation, but the most prominent is social identity theory. this the divide between the two "sides" of these kinds of arguments. There is an in group and out group, each exaggerates the flaws of the other group and also exaggerates the good of those within the their own group.... it quite an interesting psychological construct.
However, this is the kind of behavior what we need to recognize within ourselves if we are to overcome the "trolls" benefiting from the conflicts they cause between us. There are those who like to watch us bicker, in this case it may be for the pleasure of watching it go down, the emotional drives which enhance the conflict. but im sure that we could find better applications of this construct in other areas of our lives.
Unfortunately my patience for my "friends" who continue to be hoodwinked and bamboozled by the charade is wearing incredibly thin. I have made some considerable culls to my groups and this is the kind of thing which is a deciding factor for this action. There is only so much time and effort that we can invest in trying to help the same people not willing to help themselves, not willing to understand that they are being manipulated. Seems like a new wave of culling is incoming.... hold on to ya seats, lolz