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"It’s so disappointing that our tinfoil hatters aren’t coming up with their own bogus about our own elite."

Demographically speaking, most of the people who latch on to conspiracy theories feel lost and want to be a part of a group, even when they don't agree on the same level ads the others. So they are not likely to be generating their own movements. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the movements are information warfare targeted primarily at the US.

America has always tolerated enhanced levels of BS. I remember as a small kid finding US comics at the newsagent that had ads for "x-ray glasses". I thought that's amazing, why don't we have those here? We'll we didn't have them because they don't exist and it was illegal to sell stuff that doesn't exist where I lived.

You can't sell fraudulent things in the US either. The x-ray glasses ads have a clarification in them about not actually using x-rays, but being an optical illusion. I would bet that whatever country you are from probably has some novelty item that requires a cultural understanding or fine print to know what it truly is.

Sometimes it feels like a literal monkey's paw wouldn't be able to be acused of fraud in the US.

It is really frustrating as an American Native (as in I was born here not Native American). Caring about being deceived marks you as a conspiricy theorist. If you get frustrated about "made with real milk" not being precise enough to describe if the milk was used to stir the concoction or if it has any milk in it or if its the only milk like thing in it, then you worry too much.

But companies pull that crap all the time. It's because when people do good faith things we don't correct them on their technical loopholes. We don't ask people to cut the loophole off we just presume that they wouldn't use it.

I saw an ad today that said $999 desktops and PCs. Most people think it's fine. That ad is deceiving you though. It's trying to make you feel like they are giving you information. They aren't though. I can go on Amazon and buy a computer at nearly every conceivable price. They don't say it's a good PC or even what that might mean. They are just saying the will take $999 from you and a lawyer probably wouldn't go to court about the definition of a computer over it.

I see this with Oreos

"Made with real cocoa"

There is no such thing as fake cocoa, that's why. I don't give a shit what's "real" I know I'm eating sugar and palm oil

Well it was obviously an ad for "x-ray glasses," not x-ray glasses.

I mean, doesn't that prove the parents point kind of? Americans tolerate/enable a lot of BS. You could argue there are entire industries built around that (most tend to be multilevel marketing).

That's what I was getting at

Here's my hot take: conspiracy theories and outlandish myths are America's version of Old World superstition and folklore.

Study any European culture and how it was Christianized, and how the local culture, folklore, and mythology melded with religion to become a unique tapestry. Look at Ireland for a really pronounced example. Look at the folktales and revered fables that came out of those cultures for a synthesis of what rural folk really believed and talked about over dinner, and by the hearth in the evening times after work was done.

But the United States has none of that. The New World came of age during the Enlightenment era of reason and rationality. Now we're in a post-Christian society, one rooted in science and empiricism, but we're still yearning for the supernatural, and it's manifesting in unique ways for us. Americans don't have faeries or unicorns or goblins, we've got chemtrails and little green men. Furthermore, as the U.S. and other New World cultures progress, we're making our own mythology and legends. Look at how much of the American Revolution and Civil War is already steeped in pious fairy tales, such as young Washington's cherry tree, Betsy Ross, Paul Revere, or that utterly fictional, feminist chick who supposedly rode horseback like Revere.

Personally, I believe that this fake stuff that people believe is one of two things: either there are kernels of truth and allegory to them, that they're masking a deeper truth that's too dangerous to discuss openly or brazenly reveal; or that they're utter distractions and designed to keep people busy and concerned about utterly irrelevant things. Panem et circenses.

There is tons of American folklore, and even more if you include native Americans. Hell "witchcraft" was more of prominent in early America than Europe, and fairies/fae like things are littered in native american histories.

Conspiracy theories are a 20th century coping mechanism for an oversized, seemingly-omnipotent federal government.

People were indeed afraid of stuff they did not understand and they imagined them to be quite different than what they really were.

Like Greeks inventing Zeus as a coping mechanism for the malevolent, all powerful and vengeful nature.

Hope it will not be another 2000 years until some of today's inexact beliefs get forgotten.

No, that is a profoundly ignorant perspective on the truths and pragmatism of ancient wisdom.

The pagan religions were not merely created to explain the unexplainable. Pagan myths and legends imparted greater truths and wisdom, they encoded history and science, and they explained psychological human behavior and interactions with nature. These truths were conveyed very precisely, intricately, exactly as they were, from the cultural perspective, but they are nonsensical to you who will always be outsiders to that tribe, space, and time. The ancients, even illiterate peasants and slaves, had a marvelous grasp of metaphor, allegory, and allusions even to the "pop-culture" of their day! Some of us still do!

Pagan religion was a unifying force for any tribe or nation. The reason it was supplanted with monotheism was because those tribes were unable to unite, or even interact, trade, and communicate efficiently, while still worshiping multiple pagan gods. Therefore, Abrahamic religions became an even grander unifying force on global scales, while still serving the purposes of those ancient myths and legends. As popular piety and local legend was permitted and absorbed, those monotheistic religions were able to flourish and intertwine with those cultures.

To repeat the tired old canard that religion was perpetuated by ignorant benighted dullards, in order to cope or merely survive, is scurrilious, anthropologically ignorant, and shockingly arrogant. The hierarchies and rulers of the ancient world knew exactly what they were doing in every respect. YOU are afraid of spiritualities and the supernatural which you do not understand, and so you denigrate them. Likewise do President Trump and the wisdom of Qanon know what works. Just because they don't think or act the way you expect, doesn't make them stupid or inferior to your atheism/scientim.

So the part where if you don't make an offer to the (priest) of some god it will strike you with thunder was correct, and I am not understanding the hidden meaning? Maybe I was too optimistic with the 2000 years.

I never claimed religion did not fulfill sometimes good purposes. But it perpetuated many bad, incorrect beliefs based on fear that slowed progress. For example not doing to your peer something that you don't like yourself seems something positive for society. Going to hell if you try to understand astronomy seems quite negative for society.

What a simplistic and reductionist ad absurdum strawman argument you've constructed! Congratulations! Also, congratulations on twisting the Golden Rule into a colloquial and negative formulation! Innovative!

If we obstinately persist in willfully misunderstanding how religion, obedience, and sacrifice operate, then we will always reach the same conclusions and be met with a cold shoulder from people who get it.

As we discussed very recently in another thread, priests and priest-scientists were the original scholars and intellectuals, and they knew astronomy intimately well. The astronomers indeed worked out among themselves how the heavens operated. The reason that ordinary laypersons should not learn this was because it was (1) useless to them, (2) quite complex and error-prone without collaboration and a solid background, and (3) extraordinarily perilous to their own well-being, and to the social order, if they should acquire skills and notoriety with it -- "knowledge is power -- absolute power corrupts absolutely". It was treason to be a heretic or usurp the power of clerics.

Galileo and his ilk weren't condemned for "trying to learn" it. Far from that. That's another red herring and canard that's perpetuated by scientism.

> we still absolutely ridicule people who’d believe in most of the nonsense so that keeps it down

I think that's a major source of the problem here in the US. We have gotten away from outright calling stupid people stupid. The morons spouting the conspiracy theories, the emotionally charged stories, and the anti-intellectual nonsense do not deserve time or consideration. Yet we continue to be sensitive to their screeching about censorship and bias. Let them screech all they want. Their opinions don't matter.

We do have the advantage of being a very small country by comparison. Social Media made it worse because the village idiots suddenly had a place to form communities with other village idiots. None of us live far from each other though, you can drive from one end of our country to the other in around 5 hours. So it’s almost impossible to not be mixed up with all sorts of people. I think the “ghettos” we have that are the most isolated are actually the rich people. The rest of us are all mixed in together.

We don’t really have a “rural” area as such. In the way you will have in huge countries like America. We obviously the the same urbanisation everyone else has, and the issues which comes with it. Even if you live in the parts of the country which are “left behind” or however it’s described you’re still very likely to have neighbours who work in a large city that just wanted a “country side” home. Which is possible because 95% of our rural non island areas are typically less than an hour in car from one of our major cities.

All Humans believe the bogus, doing otherwise is not possible.

I've yet to meet a Human for whom down the curve of their position is not ~idiocy, and up the curve is not ~pedantry (or something invalidating of a more absolute view on things).

As long as the only serious problem is those other people, I think we remain trapped in this local maxima.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but maybe when you see someone trying simplify you confuse it for idiocy and when you see someone trying to be specific you confuse it for 'pedantry'.

> the people who are already believing the bogus

This encompasses 100% of people so you would have been better of leaving it off as it downplays the severity of the situation we are in.

> and when you see someone trying to be specific you confuse it for 'pedantry'.

This is what ~smart people typically go for if one includes too much detail or accuracy in the context.

> the people who are already believing the bogus

This encompasses 100% of people so you would have been better of leaving it off as it downplays the severity of the situation we are in.

I didn't say that.

This is what ~smart people typically go for if one includes too much detail or accuracy in the context.

I lost track of what you are trying to say and why, sorry.

> I didn't say that.

That's why I'm complaining.

> I lost track of what you are trying to say and why, sorry.

Well I interpreted your comment as saying that I would accuse someone of pedantry, but it was me who accuses others of doing that (explicitly or implicitly), when someone points out technical errors in their reasoning that are beyond the culturally conditioned thresholds of acceptability.

Extreme detail and attention to correctness when discussing science or computers or software = Good.

Extreme detail and attention to correctness when discussing, say, geopolitics = Bad.

We are taught to think this way, pay attention when reading the newspaper or Internet forums, you can see it everywhere.

I would accuse someone of pedantry, but it was me who accuses others of doing that

Isn't this the same thing?

Ah sorry, it is usually me who gets accused of it. I would be very surprised if I've ever made the accusation in the last 5+ years.

And so the point isn't lost: I believe this cultural norm to be a substantial cause of the initial complaint.

Haha they should follow the French music streaming model of taxing foreign stupidity in order to support domestic stupidity.

You joke, but we don’t have to support it. Most of it is already paid for by the Russians. I just think it’s silly how they can get away with recycling the content they created for the US and still be successful with it even though a lot of it makes absolutely no sense in a Danish context.

Sorry what does this have to do with the linked article?

The article does not mention a specific location for this "culture" war, and not being specific can lead to inexact ideas (is this restricted to the anglophone sphere?...). Similar to when I see studies like "doing X results in Y" only to read in the actual study that it was made on Australians (or something far away from me with different environment/society/etc.), which means it might not apply at all to my surroundings.

The genius of America is finding the lowest common denominator, and commercializing it. The world hates everything we produce -- our food, our movies, our culture -- but they end up consuming it in droves. They complain that it has no taste, and they're right. But they underestimate how much everyone wants stuff that is plentiful, vapid, and cheap.

It's no surprise that we similarly export our politics. Conspiracy theories are fast food. They come cheap, are accessible with no effort, and make you feel like you've gotten a lot. We didn't invent any of this but we've got a national genius for optimizing it.

> The world hates everything we produce -- our food, our movies, our culture -- but they end up consuming it in droves.

How can you honestly believe this with a straight face?

People consume American culture abroad because they enjoy it. It’s not like they are colonies.

They do indeed enjoy it. And yet they also decide it as being classless, flavorless, and otherwise gross.

The contrast between what they say they like, and what they actually seem to want, is striking.

> The world hates everything we produce -- our food, our movies, our culture -- but they end up consuming it in droves.

The US has for the most part produced the best movies since... The beginning of movies I'd assume.

I don't know about the best movies, but certainly the most popular ones. Worldwide box office is dominated by American films.

The “world” doesn’t consume US-produced media “in droves” anymore, there are still some locations where that probably still happens (like Denmark, probably, I’ve never been there so maybe I’m wrong), but at the same time there are also places where US media used to dominate but it doesn’t anymore. For example in Romania, where I live, the Spotify year-end charts for 2023 had the first US artist (not Taylor Swift, mind you) in about 15th or 16th place, and Spotify is a platform generally used by the more Westernized cohort, /trending on YT is absolutely dominated by Romanian-only songs and media.

I’d go even further and say that (some) Americans’ mistaken belief that their culture/media still dominates stuff at the global level, unencumbered, is a good explanation for many of the US’s geo-political missteps from the last 10-15 years or so. The age of Rocky/Rambo and Michael Jackson is long gone.

Glad to hear you've got a great music scene. Americans still dominate the box office:

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2023/?area=RO&sort=rank&s...

Though it looks like there were a few extremely popular Romanian films in the top ten.

Thing is, nobody goes to the movies anymore, it’s like saying the Americans still dominate the bingo scene, technically true but inconsequential. It’s all TikTok and YT now for the younger people. And sports betting, had forgotten about that.

> The world hates everything we produce -- our food, our movies, our culture -- but they end up consuming it in droves. They complain that it has no taste, and they're right

I think it is even worse for people who live in US.

"American" food is different outside of US. For example there are norms in most countries for meat, so the "beef" burger has more meat. We have less limitations on allergens, so we can add peanuts for a taste. Also foreign Coca-Cola has proper sugar, not corn based fructose (Mexicoke). I can never eat in US, even chocolate tastes like vomit!

As for cinema, only good stuff is released outside of US. There is no oligopoly in cinema, you get way more diversity in movies. Some countries have censorship that removes some type of scenes. And garbage TV shows, are never released on foreign markets.

Those are all complaints about bottom-tier American food. A good cheeseburger from a local place is mindblowing. I had one with peanut butter on it last week; we still eat allergens but they have to be labeled. Mexican Coke is way better, true. You're talking about Hershey's chocolate bars which no one considers to be "the good stuff".

If you're looking at McDonald's and saying American food sucks, you're missing a whole hell of a lot.

Yup, like complaining about Budweiser and Lipton tea. The 70s/80s called and want their argument back.

Solid analogy. Yes, we know there are better options and we use them. Also yes, the cheap and “good enough” options will always be popular for good reason. That doesn’t mean they’re the only ones.

And therefore, we need censorship. Right?

Where we'll be told the "correct" way to think. I'd rather see it all and decide for myself. And end up watching PBS but never, never pledging in their interminable pledge drives. Somehow, they still manage to stay on the air.

By the way, in Hell they have PBS pledge drivers on the TV, 24x7, for all eternity. You can't mute the sound.