Checking in... Anxiety about current events

[kbutton]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I guess I would put the "Old Earth" creationism in a different category, personally. I think believing things that aren't falsifiable ("There is a Creator") doesn't require cognitive dissonance in the same way. My concern is always about things that do require cognitive dissonance.

(I'm an utter atheist but think that religion provides meaning in people's lives and we do give our kids a Jewish education. So make what you will of that.) 

I am responding because you are always interested in people's beliefs, but if you want to continue a discussion, it needs to be a PM. 

I am of the mind that if I'm not actively avoiding teaching my kids about evolution, and they learn about the various scientific theories, it's totally possible to hold those beliefs in mind, connect with them in a way that says I live in this world and know what scientists are working on (not that I follow lots of science stuff, but I watch documentaries, go to museums, etc.). If one of my kids wants to go into a science intense field, I will definitely work hard to be sure they are conversant on evolution. I went to public high school and just never made the leap from things like natural selection/speciation to "this explains the entire universe." I know that sounds terrible to both secular and religious folk. I had professors who had PhD's in their scientific fields who had never been educated anywhere but in secular schools who are young earthers and can articulate other points of view just fine without believing them (I did attend a Christian college). I know someone who was an evolutionist and changed her mind (also very into science, has a strong science background with a PhD in an applied field vs. the hard sciences). I don't think that every scientific theory for every little thing relies deeply on evolution, but I also appreciate the ways in which science strives to integrate and refine evolutionary theory with all the branches of science--perhaps that will eventually sway me another direction. Many people think that if a creationist doesn't believe in evolution as a whole, unifying theory, then he or she must not believe in speciation or other natural processes like it, which is not true. 

I am okay with cognitive dissonance around this subject probably because I don't make any of it a hill to die on. I don't feel like I will have a crisis of faith if I find out that my views are not true. I will recalculate. I have recently been listening to a podcast about the origin and history of the young earth creationist viewpoint, and it's very interesting--it's from a religious POV that is rejects a young earth belief. I would like my children to be tolerant of the entire range of viewpoints and not feel threatened by any of them.

I am, however, having a crisis of faith over the fact that people I know and love that believe the fundamental things I do (whether we agree on creation or not) have decided that they can't possibly know verifiable truth about the election or the coronavirus. I really have no idea where to go for fellowship at this point--locally, I think my options are very limited, and I am not sure what space such people should occupy in my mind. It affects friendships, long acquaintances, and who I hold up as role models for my kids.

I appreciate your parenthetical statement. 😊 

[Not_a_Number]

6 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I am responding because you are always interested in people's beliefs, but if you want to continue a discussion, it needs to be a PM. 

I'm definitely always interested! Thanks for explaining 🙂 . I've seen my dad also have some amount of cognitive dissonance around evolution (he's a physics professor, and also became an Orthodox Jew in his early 30s), so I've seen that perspective before. I personally don't have this issue around it, so for me it's theoretical, but I understand how it feels, I think. 

 

8 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I am, however, having a crisis of faith over the fact that people I know and love that believe the fundamental things I do (whether we agree on creation or not) have decided that they can't possibly know verifiable truth about the election or the coronavirus. I really have no idea where to go for fellowship at this point--locally, I think my options are very limited, and I am not sure what space such people should occupy in my mind. It affects friendships, long acquaintances, and who I hold up as role models for my kids.

I'm really sorry. That sounds like an extremely stressful place to be in 😞 . The problem with these beliefs is they aren't theoretical... 

[TravelingChris]

On 1/29/2021 at 10:22 AM, Pam in CT said:

Gavin Becker's Gift of Fear,

I think that is an excellent book- it does not tell you to fear everyone.  It explains that your mind unconsciously is working to help you identify danger and if you get a sick feeling or very hesitant feeling about someone-trust that feeling.  Because while your conscious  mind isn't realizing some very telling thing that is way off normal in a bad way, your unconscious can tell. 

Thanks for the reminder.  I have to get this book for my kids. Because I know I have made at least two mistakes in my life by not listening to the clues.  One was in choosing a school which was a really bad choice- due to the person I met who was in charge or nearly in charge (can't remember her title) and the other one was in not reporting behavior I thought was off in a chaplain (plagiarizing sermons was the actual big problem but other things that could be innocent also led me to think something was way off)= he turned out to be a sexual predator on his female children about 3 years later. The second one I have decided probably wouldn't have made any difference if I had reported but it just led to lots of anxiety and remorse for a number of years for me.  

[TravelingChris]

On 1/29/2021 at 11:34 AM, katilac said:

I would agree that almost all children who are trafficked are at-risk, but I've never heard that they are almost all foster children. Do you know of a particular person or site that says that? 

https://nfyi.org/issues/sex-trafficking/

And that is not the site I read,  I think I read an article based on the US Marshals rescues last year in Georgia, Ohio, and maybe some other states but I can't remember which site was quoting the US Marshall's report= they did make one.

Edited January 30, 2021 by TravelingChris

[TravelingChris]

On 1/29/2021 at 11:34 AM, katilac said:

the there are sex traffickers in every Walmart parking lot!

 

As to Walmart, a few years ago, my dd1 went to Walmart around 10:30 at night.  She noticed that a creepy guy was following her around the store.  Then when she left, he left too.  She got in her car safely but then he was going the same way.  She sped up and went some way and lost him.  But she then forswore that she wasn't going to be going to Walmart late at night.  But she didn't think he wanted to traffic her, more likely to rape or worse. 

And creepy strangers following you around is not a new thing.  When I was kid, I went about half a mile to the store to buy some candy (back then all the kids would walk to stores, friend's houses, parks, etc).  One the way back, a guy in a pickup decided to follow me.  I was freaked out but thought of a way to escape in a path in between houses and did lose the guy.  Again. no thought of trafficking, more of child sexual abuse or murder.  But in the early 70's, when this happened, no one was thinking that there was some cabal organizing kid or teen abductions to turn them into prostitutes.

[TravelingChris]

23 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

That person got cancer because he smoked. I don't smoke so I don't need to worry about that risk.

I just read an article this last week about how 20% of  male lung cancer patients didn't smoke and 40% of female lung cancer patients didn't smoke and how treatments need to be different for the lung cancer patients based on whether they got it from smoking or from something else.  (That had to do with how many mutations were causing the cancer-- many of the drugs stop the mutations but apparently the non smokers had few or just 1 mutation causing their tumor and those drugs did nothing in that case).  I know that around my area there is a high radon in many places.  We had our house checked before we moved in and it did so we required the previous owners to do remediation.

[TravelingChris]

22 hours ago, Thatboyofmine said:

Re the bolded...  I don't get this (not what you said, but how it happens).    How is it that people can't see that Q is a bunch of baloney?   Is there a personality defect?   A mental health issue?  (I have mental health issues.  I still don't see how this happens, but I know it does.)   Dh is conservative Republican and makes fun of the lone Q guy at work.   So how is it that some people get sucked into this bizarro world where they believe something that defies all common sense??  

Yeah, both dh and I are R and also can't understand the appeal of Q?  But the other day I mentioned that I was going to have to read a book that I really didn't want to for a book club and my issue with the book was how the author was conflating actual science with his personal metaphysical ideas and trying to use the science to back it up and it was just a mess.  He told me about a guy he knows that keeps doing that- using science in some sort of weird spiritual way that really makes no sense.  I am not really sure what makes people believe nutty stuff that is totally illogical and very clearly confused.  I suppose there is probably some type of personality this weird stuff appeals too- because it clearly isn't a purely matter of intelligence since it seems that people who have normal to higher intelligence get caught up in some weirdness.  Look at all the people who get caught up in Scientology.

[TravelingChris]

22 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I don’t think it insulates but it does protect, I’d guess. Because habits of reasoning are protective.

But I have known plenty of well educated people with low reasoning skills. I am talking about MDs, lawyers, PhDs, etc.

[TravelingChris]

19 hours ago, Quill said:

In my life, an accountant (who is also otherwise a really lovely person, but strangely got sucked into this) and a lawyer. 

I think a lot of it comes from wanting to be the person “in the know” about some secret thing that all the regular people are ignorant of. I know people who are low-information voters who consistently characterize others as low-information voters. They think that’s not them because they listen to Rush every day. 

Well I do think there a lot of low information voters but do not listen to Rush.  I am also not into 'secret' things, do not think that stealing Senator's and Rep's laptops, papers, etc or bashing people or kidnapping people, etc was acceptable, do not believe in Q, but do go to alternative media a lot.  My alternate media is not crazy theory people- more like I look more to local media for national stories that are actually local, independent reporters, Reason, specialized journals and webpages based on subjects, etc.  I just find a lot of mass media to be doing poor reporting or non reporting.  And it really isn't just political but medical, scientific, reporting about crime and corruption, reporting about court cases, etc, etc.  Going to sources who do more in depth reporting versus relying on mass media that keeps doing reports based on anonymous sources who keep turning out to be wrong is not crazy.  I am not and have never been an Alex Jones fan, I haven't heard Rush Limbaugh in more than 20 years except in excerpts on something else, don't listen to talk radio, don't follow extremists (or at least not knowingly- I can't keep up with what everyone;'s opinions about everything is).

[Moonhawk]

Adding onto what's been said above, a "Yes, and.." 

When people feel disenfranchised or left behind (regardless of if they HAVE been, this is about feelings), they will spend time looking for a confirmation of this, but also a reason not to change their current view. It's not necessarily about education or economic status, it's about their emotional state. 

Q was so successful because it told people, "Not only are you right!, but you have NO IDEA how bad it ACTUALLY IS!" It builds by confirming an already-held belief and then caboosing more and more ideas onto it. And using fallacies such as if "A is right, and A is like B, then B is right. Also C, because it comes after B."

It allows a ton of gateways into it and so can draw more people faster. Unlike smaller conspiracies that are just about the moon or vaccines, it combines all of them into a web, and so the rabbit hole seems much more convincing and there's always more to "learn." 

It's not just one hole in this reality, it's a whole reality in itself.

[bookbard]

I definitely think it's more about mental flexibility than anything else. People who are cognitively more rigid are more likely to be extremists. They will prefer things to be black and white and don't like shades of grey. Certain kinds of education can increase flexibility (being able to look at different points of view) and certain kinds of education can increase rigidity (right/wrong rote learning). 

I personally feel a more secular society is less likely to have issues than a more religious society with the 'grey areas' of life such as abortion, euthanasia, criminal justice, diversity in general. Sometimes there's not a right answer. Sometimes there's just the least hurtful, that day.

 

[historically accurate]

37 minutes ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Regarding why Q conspiracies are attractive to people, I thought this was a good point. The NYT article is behind a paywall so I can't read it. 

 

 

This part of the article stood out to me. I've been told innumerable times over the past 4 years when I've pushed back on someone's unsubstantiated claims, "Well, it could be true!" even as it is shown not to be true or "All media lies. They just print whatever they want!".

People who tried to talk her out of the conspiracy theories by sending her factual information only made it worse.

“Facts are not facts anymore,” Ms. Perron said. “They are highly powerful, nefarious people putting out messaging to keep us as docile as sheep.”

Edited January 30, 2021 by historically accurate

[Guest]

2 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

Well I do think there a lot of low information voters but do not listen to Rush.  I am also not into 'secret' things, do not think that stealing Senator's and Rep's laptops, papers, etc or bashing people or kidnapping people, etc was acceptable, do not believe in Q, but do go to alternative media a lot.  My alternate media is not crazy theory people- more like I look more to local media for national stories that are actually local, independent reporters, Reason, specialized journals and webpages based on subjects, etc.  I just find a lot of mass media to be doing poor reporting or non reporting.  And it really isn't just political but medical, scientific, reporting about crime and corruption, reporting about court cases, etc, etc.  Going to sources who do more in depth reporting versus relying on mass media that keeps doing reports based on anonymous sources who keep turning out to be wrong is not crazy.  I am not and have never been an Alex Jones fan, I haven't heard Rush Limbaugh in more than 20 years except in excerpts on something else, don't listen to talk radio, don't follow extremists (or at least not knowingly- I can't keep up with what everyone;'s opinions about everything is).

My point is, most often, when I hear someone saying, “...it’s these low-information voters that’s the problem...” the people who are saying that (in my anecdotal experience) are usually not the well-informed person they imagine themselves to be, nor are the people they *think* are the problem actually uninformed. They *think* they are so well-informed because they listen to some echo chamber or participate in Twitter “news”.

[Sneezyone]

2 minutes ago, Quill said:

My point is, most often, when I hear someone saying, “...it’s these low-information voters that’s the problem...” the people who are saying that (in my anecdotal experience) are usually not the well-informed person they imagine themselves to be, nor are the people they *think* are the problem actually uninformed. They *think* they are so well-informed because they listen to some echo chamber or participate in Twitter “news”.

I saw it said recently that we are both overfed and severely malnourished where information is concerned.

[Pawz4me]

42 minutes ago, bookbard said:

I definitely think it's more about mental flexibility than anything else. People who are cognitively more rigid are more likely to be extremists. They will prefer things to be black and white and don't like shades of grey.

 

I don't have links, but over the past few weeks I've read several articles on conspiracy theories that said the same thing--they tend to attract people who are very black or white in their thinking.

Quote

I personally feel a more secular society is less likely to have issues than a more religious society with the 'grey areas' of life such as abortion, euthanasia, criminal justice, diversity in general. Sometimes there's not a right answer. Sometimes there's just the least hurtful, that day.

I tend to agree.

[TravelingChris]

3 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Regarding why Q conspiracies are attractive to people, I thought this was a good point. The NYT article is behind a paywall so I can't read it. 

 

 

I guess I could believe this about Q but over 75 million people voted for Trump and almost all of them are not Q people nor people who voted for Trump because it made them feel morally superior or special or anything like that. More than half of my facebook friends voted for Trump.  I have about 220.  Only one is regularly sending Q stuff out.  One other one was very occasionally (not the Wayfair junk, etc) but would take it down when I said it was Q stuff and brought out the real info on the subject. 

[TravelingChris]

3 hours ago, Quill said:

My point is, most often, when I hear someone saying, “...it’s these low-information voters that’s the problem...” the people who are saying that (in my anecdotal experience) are usually not the well-informed person they imagine themselves to be, nor are the people they *think* are the problem actually uninformed. They *think* they are so well-informed because they listen to some echo chamber or participate in Twitter “news”.

What??? I use Twitter to get news for legitimate news sources- ABC, AP, Foxnews, LA Times, WSJ, The Hill, VOA, Agente France Press, Al.com, NBC, etc, etc, etc,.  What is wrong with that???? This is one way that I am able to keep up with a lot of news.

[TravelingChris]

1 hour ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Sharing because this cracked me up. 

I Am a Disappointed Biden Voter Who Was Told He'd Immediately Implement Communist Rule

 

I guess this is some kind of a joke article- like Babylon or the Onion??

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, TravelingChris said:

I guess this is some kind of a joke article- like Babylon or the Onion??

Yes. It’s a joke.

[teachermom2834]

I know a fair number of people who would not identify themselves as Q followers yet are always pushing all the theories. When pushed for more info or discussion they fall into the “I’m not saying it is 100% true but a lot of people are saying it.” Like if enough people say that a certain politician is a pedophile there must be something to it. That and “girl, do your research” seem to be standard lines of those that follow it without explicitly identifying with it. 
 

I am so curious about what is driving these people but I can’t do more than gentle prodding. It is enough for me to think about moving though. 
 

If you don’t know any of these folks you probably think they are just total nut jobs that never leave their basements. But they are teachers and police officers and nurses and accountants , etc. Apparently they are also middle aged homeschool moms because people seem to automatically assume I am one too. 

[Not_a_Number]

6 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

But I have known plenty of well educated people with low reasoning skills. I am talking about MDs, lawyers, PhDs, etc.

You're telling me 😛 . It's a correlation, but it's nowhere near 1. 

[Shoeless]

37 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

I know a fair number of people who would not identify themselves as Q followers yet are always pushing all the theories. When pushed for more info or discussion they fall into the “I’m not saying it is 100% true but a lot of people are saying it.” Like if enough people say that a certain politician is a pedophile there must be something to it. That and “girl, do your research” seem to be standard lines of those that follow it without explicitly identifying with it. 

I also hear "Well, that's just my opinion!", and then all conversation halts because an opinion is sacrosanct. It's like you can't question their opinion, because then you're threatening their right to free speech or something.  

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

What??? I use Twitter to get news for legitimate news sources- ABC, AP, Foxnews, LA Times, WSJ, The Hill, VOA, Agente France Press, Al.com, NBC, etc, etc, etc,.  What is wrong with that???? This is one way that I am able to keep up with a lot of news.

I feel like you’re seeing something in my posts that is not the point. 

The reason I said Twitter “news” is because I do know people who re-share stuff on SM with no critical thinking in place whatsoever. They *AREN’T* getting information from a wide range of accurate, real news sources. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, MissLemon said:

I also hear "Well, that's just my opinion!", and then all conversation halts because an opinion is sacrosanct. It's like you can't question their opinion, because then you're threatening their right to free speech or something.  

Yes, which is especially annoying when the info being discussed is not an opinion at all...