No, it was made more popular because of new technologies - the internet. The decentralization of information meant that idiots could be pastors.

It's not just raw milk - we're seeing this populist phenomena with everything. Anti-vax, moon landing is fake, QAnon, flat earth, crystals, sacred geometry, and on and on.

You tell people "The Establishment" serves one principal that's bad, but THEY serve an opposite principal, and you can get people to believe just about anything.

There's a whole culture and subsection of society who believes things purely because they think it's contrary to what "The Establishment" wants them to think. They reject anything with evidence or backed by institutions - that means medicine, food, policy.

This new-wave populism is fueled by our new communication technologies.

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raxxorraxor 8 months ago | parent | next [-]

I disagree. The phenomenon is reactance and people declaring flat-earthers a serious epidemic only made it far more popular. It is assumed that the same happened with vaccination and other topics as well. And people that like freedoms are especially vulnerable, because some start to demand to ban flat-earthers, which certainly creates an understandable reaction because of a vast horizon of implications.

This is a problem with communication, but the medium is irrelevant. That people tend to dislike smart asses is a factor here.

	▲	consteval 8 months ago \| parent [-]
		RFK, who is backed by our president elect, is an anti-vaxxer. Our soon to be head of the department of energy doesn’t believe in climate change. The medium matters a lot. Any idiot can get on a soapbox now. Decentralized communication to the masses like never before. You can see the spark of populism after each new medium. The printing press, radio, television - all accompanied with a populist movement of their time.

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SketchySeaBeast 8 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The decentralization of information meant that idiots could be pastors.

So you'd blame this on pastorization?

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lupusreal 8 months ago | parent | prev [-]

"The internet" is just a network. What did they say on the internet? "Raw milk is so good, our evil lying disreputable government doesn't want us to have it."

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baseballdork 8 months ago | parent [-]

And the printing press is just a stamp. This is an incredibly disingenuous take. The internet opened up the world. It's been a groundbreaking technology. However, it has also lowered the barrier of entry to spreading stupid ideas to large audiences, and we are seeing the consequences of that.

	▲	psb217 8 months ago \| parent [-]
		The addition of search engines and recommendation algorithms is significant too. It's not just the ability to spread arbitrary information at zero cost, there's also a strong feedback loop where any information a user/rube engages with will become an increasingly large portion of what's presented to them.