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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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What is going on in Springfield, Ohio? 20,000 Haitian arrivals into a town of 60,000 seems insane, but the New York Times seems to back it up. I definitely don’t trust the NYT to give an honest portrayal of what the situation is like on the ground, but I don’t really trust a lot of the rumors going around Twitter either. I am seeing reports of Haitians killing the ducks at the park and eating them. There are even secondhand reports of Haitians eating pet cats.

What I am not seeing however is geolocated footage or images. How hard can it be to send a guy to the park to see if there are any ducks left? I am legitimately confused. None of this seems to make sense.

None of this seems to make sense.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. It seems perfectly sensible: anti-immigration activists are repeating a rumor that supports their preferences. It might be true, it might be exaggerated, it might be a complete lie. Why bother checking? After all, even if it's not true, the fact that I could believe it really says something about society.

  • -17

After all, even if it's not true, the fact that I could believe it really says something about society.

Several people lately have decided it's clever to do a bit where they say something they imagine their opponents might say, with a straight face, with the intention of saying "Aha, gotcha!" when someone points out how ridiculous what they are saying is.

It's not clever; it's disingenuous and annoying. Make your point reasonably clear and plain.

I think my point is reasonably clear and plain: people are signal boosting rumors with a reckless disregard for the truth because they don't care about whether the particulars are true. Given the context of the rest of the not-very-long post, I'm not sure how someone would read some other meaning into that sentence.

Alternatively, they could “not care” whether the story is true because they believe that mainstream sources would never bother to check the story. Thus there’s no way to fact check the story at all from sources of record. So if the people telling those stories believe that the story is too political to deal with honestly, why “care” if it’s true. The media dug its grave a long time ago and is only worth reading if you want to know what the elites want you to think.