this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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ShowerThoughts
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Sometimes we have those little epiphanies in the shower.. sometimes they come from other places. This is a home for those epiphanies.
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Don't swing too far in either direction. Doing that is what creates radicals
My advice is to get news and info from all sides. If you're able to identify what the dramatics are and are able to exclude them from news you absorb, then that's where the real truth is
When you are no longer willing to listen to those who disagree with what you hold as truth, you have not found truth, you have stopped looking for it.
I don't really need to listen to people that think there are microchips in the vaccines, for example. Lots of ideas aren't worth considering. There's nothing noble about having no standards.
There is a difference between believing someone is saying nonsense and plugging your ears when they say anything. If someone talks about microchips in the vaccines and certain entertainment producers are pedophiles, you know the vaccines don't have microchips in them because of technological limitations but you can't prove that producers aren't pedophiles.
The boy who cried wolf was right the one time when nobody listened.
Snowden exposed what conspiracy theorists were lambasted for believing because the truth was masked by nonsense.
If I told you that the US government was force sterilizing Native American women for decades, I may sound unhinged until you gave it enough consideration to find out what the reality was in the 60s and 70s.
If I told you the US government was giving unknowing black men STDs, you may not believe me until you looked into Tuskegee.
Those things are true, but I wouldn't go so far as to say because some claims are true that any and all claims have merit.
Also, you should reread the boy who cried wolf. The point isn't that the wolf is real, the point is people won't put up with bullshit.
That's not how proof works. it's not up to you to disprove every claim someone makes or else accept it as true, it's up to them to prove their claims.
The left has their own fascist tendencies that are just as bad as the right. At different times different sides are in power and implement their version which their side supports because it is their side. You have to be willing to be critical of your own side. Make it a point to vote for someone not your sides candidate every election just because choosing that other person is a good exercise. (In my case I've just decided nobody gets more than two terms in office). Note that I didn't say other side, there are always "fringe" parties on your side that you can vote for. the important part is you look for reasons why your own side is evil and take action to prevent it even if that means the opposite side gets power and does things you don't like.
I don't know of elected officials, however, on lemmy, there are a lot of authoritarian left wing groups. There are a lot of anti-authoritarian ones too, but the authoritarians are very loud, and abrasive, because authoritarians operate via force.
neither do I, there really isn't a real left in the US. However the online influence pipeline for the left has a lot of authoritarians, which is similar to the problem the right fash pipeline creates. Whether or not there will be a true left in office with population enough to truly do something, and not just beef up liberal voting, we shall see.
By America do you mean the US, or do you include both continents. Juan Perón comes to mind as a left wing authoritarian, but that is Argentina (and he died in 1974)
Either way, the important part is to not get so arrogant that you support it on your side. There are people who agree with your who are authoritarians and it is easy to fall into the trap of supporting them as plenty of authoritarians over history have proved. (you should have been there killing Caesar and then demanding the return of the republic)
That's a false dichotomy. Centrism isn't inherently noble, either.
When the far right starts questioning arithmetic the way they question climate change will it be noble to doubt 2+2 = 4?
You need to think for yourself rather than expecting the correct answer to be some average of the prevailing ideas.
"How about just a little genocide"
Ironic you're telling me to think for myself
maybe if someone tells you not to think for yourself now you'll think for yourself a bit
I'll think about it
You didn't declare absolute fealty to the ideology, news sources, and goals of the left. Nor did you even spew caustic hate at any other ideologies.
Therefore you are bad.
Downvoted.