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  1. The GuardianCarey Dunne5/22/1720 min
    15 reads11 comments
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    The Guardian
    15 reads
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    • erica6 years ago

      I completely agree with @bhoover that, though we don't want to admit it, we believe what we believe either because someone told us it was a fact or because we feel it in our gut, neither of which is a great way to "know" a thing. For example, the reason 95% of America does not believe in chemtrails is either because geoengineering scientists "roundly reject" the idea, or because our gut reaction is that it's crazy. Why are these reasons for not believing any more legit than Tammi's reasons for believing?

      This was by far the scariest part of the article: "In March, climate scholars gathered in Washington to discuss cooling the planet by shooting aerosols into the stratosphere." What these "nuts" are afraid of may very well become a reality.

      I want to work on a farm in California.

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        6 years ago

        What's keeping you from working on a farm in California? :P

        • bill
          Top reader of all time
          5 years ago

          Still waiting for an answer here. And still going to use the same tongue-out smiley. :P

    • sjwoo6 years ago

      I think we can distill this article with these statements:

      || Tammi isn’t a caricature of a tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracist, and she’s not an idiot.

      “How does someone like me know what’s true and what’s not?”

      “This is something I truly believe: the news only broadcasts what they want the public to know,” Rob says. “They’re not gonna broadcast the full truth about anything, ever.” ||

      Maybe Tammi is not an idiot, but somebody who is unable (and unwilling, from what it seems) to distinguish between truth and fiction is pretty close to being one. And Rob is a classic conspiracy theorist.

      I hadn't even heard of chemtrails until reading this. Sounds like a variant of anti-vaxxers. Lots of them out there. This is the world we live in, folks...better get used to it.

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        6 years ago

        "How does someone like me know what's true and what's not?"

        Answer: Read.

        • adww896 years ago

          Or, if you're Rob, just get news from the people you trust.....

    • ericadu6 years ago

      Her comment about knowingly believing possibly alternative/false facts but not reacting to it much beyond that is so boggling to me.

      The comment about the chem trails being an allegory for all impending doom (kind of like a scape goat for day-to-day fears and frustrations) made more sense to me.

    • bill
      Top reader of all time
      6 years ago

      5 star read. This is a story about the relationship between a journalist and her subject.

      Rob shouldn't have been cut out of the story with a link to the backfire effect. That seemed weak.

      Tammi's monologue is an absolute highlight:

      "How does someone like me know what’s true and what’s not?” she says. “I’m 54 years old. I don’t watch the news. I don’t listen to the news on the radio. Then when I’m on the internet, and I see something where I’m like, ‘Holy shit, really?,’ I’m led down this path of believing it. I don’t have the knowledge that a journalist has about how verifiable is the source. When you’re just a standard person, you can really be led to believe anything. Because of the internet, anybody can put news out there. How do I know if it’s the truth or not? It makes it hard when you’re trying to choose a president. People chose Donald Trump because [they thought] he tweeted he was gonna stop chemtrails – you know what I mean?"

      • bhoover6 years ago

        "Then when I’m on the internet, and I see something where I’m like, ‘Holy shit, really?,’ I’m led down this path of believing it. I don’t have the knowledge that a journalist has about how verifiable is the source. When you’re just a standard person, you can really be led to believe anything." --- A big part of me wants to think this isn't true, but I fear that it's more correct than I want to believe. I wonder if older generations are particularly susceptible to digesting modern day web-based news differently because they were used to trusting traditional print journalism (the Times, WSJ), or debunking clearly fake news (tabloids), and have a hard time figuring out how things they read on the internet fit into that spectrum.

        Also, the sentence "Facebook made a believer out of Tammi." is fucking terrifying.

    • jamie6 years ago

      Jeesh.... double Jeesh! We are doomed as a society, its not just the chemtrailers or the anti- vaxxers or the birthers or the anti-911ers or the science deniers or the crazy NRA-ers or the Paul Jones followers.... individually they are basically good, hard working, citizens who just feel disenfranchised and unheard. (Or maybe they are just nuts! But if they are just nuts than thats alot of nuts!) Hillary called the Trump voters 'The Basket of Deplorables' I believe that was a huge miscalculation and incorrect. Some Trump voters feel socially abandon and may have been stifled for years. Trump gave all these people a voice, and collectively they have become an army of the 'scared and angry' and they swung an election. Quoting Trump: Sad, very sad.

    • joanne6 years ago

      It's hard not to believe that this could be entirely possible...the government doing harmful and clandestine chemical spraying experiments, playing God with the weather. After reading about the asthma, insects dying and hair falling out, I was totally convinced this is true. I'm likely to believe a grandmother with dream catchers hanging from her ceiling. Alex Jones reporting it and Trump campaigning on stopping it... no way, probably just another conspiracy theory.