I totally agree about literacy being huge, and would actually extend it to going beyond literacy.

The literacy crash is alarming, and is no doubt agitating this situation in a major way. However, I think what we are experiencing is something like a kind of siloing of private realities. Not the pearl-clutching 'echo chamber' discourse from 2019. But an increasing lack of social competency amongst younger people that is disallowing them to be present others in the world itself.

This is why I still think it is a power problem. Government, however incompetent, still has the monopoly on control and policy. They have experts yelling at them everyday about these problems. But their answer does seem to be more censorship and surveillance, rather than addressing the causes of these problems. As I mentioned, this only exacerbates the problem and makes it more socially dangerous.

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JumpCrisscross 13 hours ago | parent [-]

> their answer does seem to be more censorship and surveillance, rather than addressing the causes of these problems

The power hypothesis doesn’t explain Flat Eartherism. That’s just stupid people believing what I cannot imagine started as anything but a tantrum.

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CamperBob2 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The fact that Flat Earthers believe the earth is flat isn't the problem. The fact that people of such low intellectual quality have so much power over the rest of us is the problem.

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l33tbro 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes but a flat-earther is a useful idiot for precisely zero dangerous social movements. They are irrationally angry at nature, not the establishment.

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krapp 12 hours ago | parent [-]

>Yes but a flat-earther is a useful idiot for precisely zero dangerous social movements.

Incorrect. As with most if not all conspiracy theories, flat-earthism incorporates anger at "the establishment" because "the establishment" is hiding the truth. And this is the hook. If you can be convinced that a secret cabal is manipulating all science, controlling all governments, censoring all media and filtering all information in order to keep the basic nature of reality hidden from humanity - which flat earthers do believe - then you're susceptible to someone suggesting who that cabal might be. You know who.

	▲	l33tbro 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		True. I was being hyperbolic, but I hoped it was clear that I meant that flat-earthers are nowhere near the threat-level of something like a qanon or antivax movement, who are far more politically-activated, willing to take matters into their own hands, and likely to incite actual physical harm through ideological-driven behavior.