Most of the really, really stupid (or at least willfully ignorant) people I have run into have been adults my age. The younger people I interact with are often uneducated, but they aren’t the ones circulating the crap on Snopes - it’s the old fogies who do.
Whoa. Well, should that all transpire feel free to send me a " Told Ya So" email or PM.
This was probably derived from a statement made by the former governor of Colorado, Richard Lamm, in 1984. Speaking about terminally ill old folk, he said:
But there’s pictures of them …
well they are coffin liners that some company stockpiles. Rather than say, hand making to order.
Now I know my Dad must be adopted. His brother just sent me one of those “this is so important you must pass it around” emails.
[QUOTE=]
Corps Belief
Claim: The ACLU objected to a U.S. Marine prayer session because it constituted “federal employees praying on federal property and on federal time.”
[/QUOTE]
My parents send this shit to me all the time. It’s always the ‘OMG Obama is cooking and eating kids!’ kinda stuff that a simple web search can disprove easily. The first time I showed that one of their emails was bogus, and I gave easily verifiable proof that it was, the response I got was ‘Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.’ The subsequent discussion about the difference between opinion and fact didn’t exactly smooth things out.
When you have people who can’t tell the difference between their opinions and actual reality this is what you get. It goes past gullibility, past ignorance, they are actively holding onto demonstrably wrong ideas.
Another trend is the proliferation of fake news sites that make their articles appear to be legitimate news stories but bury in the disclaimer page that their stories are satire and it is the reader’s obligation to second source everything they read. If I see a story shared on Facebook, I look at the link first. Anything from “The National Report” or some other illegitimate source I don’t even read the title.
Most of the “What’s New” snopes articles are debunking articles from these types of stupidity spreading sites.
I think you’ve got it. A friend of my wife’s posted on Facebook that she heard the “Halloween is on Friday the 13th!” UL and had this thought sequence:
“Halloween is on Friday the 13th? Whoaa! Spooky!”
(Beat)
“Wait a sec…”
“And that is your opinion, Shelly”
Some are reused, unless Amadeushas lied to me.
The common left-wing ULs are stuff that Snopes apparently thinks is too complex for them to touch. For example, this is the only relevant result that comes up when I google ‘snopes vaccines autism’ without quotes: No discussion of Wakefield’s most famous (now-withdrawn) paper or the larger issue, just a very narrowly-focused article on one claim that the CDC said one specific thing. Snopes also doesn’t do very much with the idea that nuclear energy is literally The Devil, which has long been a left-wing talking point. They address a few specific nuclear-related issues and ignore the main topic.
They do a better job debunking the idea that GMOs are evil, another left-wing UL, but even there it’s an examination and refutation of a specific claim.
Cite? Quote of email? Quote of glurgy anti-nuclear email that Snopes ignores?
LOL. They don’t discuss monetary policy either, except as it pertains to folklore.
Yeah, all that demanding documentation that actual pieces of folklore exists, rather than ranting about their vague impressions: what a bunch of liberals!
Believe or not, as you see fit. But the point is that the very people who believe that a young virgin once became pregnant with the Son of God are the ones who have the least grounds for believing it will happen again.
Considering all the mass and repeatedly forwarded emails I used to get when I was new to the interwebs, I find it easy to believe there are people who do believe the most ridiculous stories. After all, you can’t put it on the internet if it isn’t true, can you?
I used to be that way, sort of. When I was but a wee teenager, way before the internet, even before Jan Brunvand wrote his first book, I was told in all seriousness about someone getting a rat in a Coke can. Happened to a friend of a friend, IIRC.
While I doubted the story (it seemed to fantastic even then) I thought it could be true, After all, why would people lie? How can newspapers print things that aren’t true?
I wised up pretty quick. My folks raised me not to believe everything I hear. But at the time, I could see believing them. Until, that is, something like Snopes or the old alt.folklore pages, or The Vanishing Hitchhiker came along and set you straight.
When I was in high school, there was a rumor about gang members hiding in the parking lot at the local mall. It was the old story about how new gang members would have to hide under peoples’ cars, and then, when you’d go to get in your car, they’d go and slash your ankle. And when you’d reach down and grab your ankle, they’d cut your finger off and take it in for initiation. And someone always said it happened to their cousin’s friend’s boyfriend’s neighbor, etc. It’s so stupid, but we totally believed it.
Yep, Snopes mentions it. Apparently it was circulating around here in 1994.
“Liberal” doesn’t mean “exclusively liberal”. Nice try, though.
That’s part of my point, LOL.
My point is, they could go more of the Skeptoid route and debunk stuff that doesn’t fit in a glurgy email or FOAF tale. If they did that, they could have a post on “Loose Change”, a post on “Zeitgeist”, and a lot of other posts they don’t have, which would draw them more towards debunking the worst of the Chomsky-crowd’s cherished legends. But they don’t, so they stick to the crap the AM talk radio/glurgy email crowd sends around, which skews more Glenn Beck.