• aesthelete@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Mass media has been pivotal in expanding and inflating the reputations of larger-than-life individuals (real and imagined).

    I mean people belong to cults. I don’t think they joined because of the news (which doesn’t even cover them). People are idiots.

      • aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I put myself as a top plop on the pile, friendo.

        I’m convinced I’m pretty immune to being sucked into a cult, but aside from that I consider myself about as stupid as your average people.

        EDIT: I also don’t think of us as “sheep” or “glassy-eyed automatons”. I think we, as a species, are a different type of stupid. We spend most of our lives deluding ourselves into thinking that we’re somehow above (or the winners of) the natural order. We spend enough time in denial to buy a second home there. Our true nature isn’t all that much different from a monkey picking flies off of its shoulders in the jungle…just with more zoom calls.