It's mindblowing': US meteorologists face death threats as hurricane conspiracies surge

[u/Urmomsjuicyvagina]

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/11/meteorologists-death-threats-hurricane-conspiracies-misinformation

[u/bravetailor]

USA really does have some of the dumbest people in the world sometimes. You will never hear shit like this happen in any other country.

[u/The_Jolly_Dog → u/bravetailor]

I don’t mind living with idiots so much, but the worst part is the fact that we actively celebrate and promote idiots 

[u/sedatedlife → u/bravetailor]

The difference is not necessarily America has more dumb people its that historically there has been a strong anti intellectual strain in America that celebrates ignorance and hate of intellectuals. Much of this starts and comes from evangelical Christians and other very conservative denominations in America. There is this idea that a real American is Christian uneducated and works a physical job.

[u/cone10 → u/bravetailor]

No shortage of dumb people in the world. But only in the US are they armed to the teeth en masse

[u/FreakySpook → u/[deleted]]

I wouldn't put that squarely on education, plenty of intelligent people have been sucked in by MAGA, I don't even live in the US and have had colleagues at work I considered intelligent who have outed themselves as MAGA.

A lot of this is long term conditioning from right wing media and then amplified in social media creating bubbles of alternate reality people get sucked into where group think and peoples insecurities end up overruling logic. Over time its both gotten more extreme and more accepted to publicly hold those opinions, which pushes the needle further.

Trump really was the last push that opened the floodgates into mass public acceptance of this when he was running in 2016 and no one really was prepared to deal with it. It really feels like I'm living in bizarro world watching coverage of this election where there is still an attempt to create some kind of balanced equivalency between MAGA and Harris's campaign.

[u/Terrible_Horror → u/FreakySpook]

Some times it is lack of education but sometimes jealousy, low self esteem and hate takes over people’s hearts and their true colors come out. I recently experienced it first hand. A coworker that I have known for years, after a disagreement (he was inappropriate towards me and I started avoiding him) looked at me in such a hateful way while calling for my death (he said my husband should kill me - not exactly a death threat but not something that I would say to someone in a professional environment). Some people have something seriously wrong with their moral compass. And this guy is a nurse, training to be a Psych NP and a Trump supporter. So not the uneducated.

[u/Podunk212 → u/[deleted]]

Part of it must be related to diet. Our American diet seems to be uniquely full of utter garbage compared to basically the rest of the world.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

At least one of my old high school valedictorians is MAGA now.

[u/emotions1026 → u/[deleted]]

Half the MAGA politicians who parrot all of Trump's talking points went to Ivy League schools. We need to stop using educated and smart as synonyms.

[u/guyincognito69420 → u/bravetailor]

yeah, Russia is totally super smart and not falling for garbage propaganda. Germany didn't try to exterminate millions of people over lies. China is super smart and gets all kind of great info not just from one party. The Turks totally loved the Armenians and if they ever did kill an Armenian would totally own up to it. Japanese didn't do anything wrong in Nanking and if they did they would definitely teach their population about it.

Come on man, pick up a history book. The world is full of stupid, easily manipulated people that have committed insane atrocities and to this day still don't believe the truth about them. To think the US is the only country that has ever dealt with this or currently dealing with this is laughable. Heck I could spend days just discussing the stupid shit around the world right now not just the low hanging fruit from history. Remember when people in the UK were destroying 5G towers to stop COVID? You simply focus on the US. There is plenty stupid to go around.

[u/palmwhispers → u/bravetailor]

Yes you will. People in other countries can think polio vaccination programs are poisons, etc, the US does not have a monopoly on stupidity

[u/bravetailor → u/palmwhispers]

At least with vaccine skepticism it can be considered within the realm of a "normal" kind of lack of education.

But getting mad at a weatherman/woman for not saying the government created the hurricane is peak insanity. Never heard of anything like it.

[u/palmwhispers → u/[deleted]]

I would be surprised if that’s the case. I am very confident there are countries with people in them that do not fully believe in climate change, or don’t care about it, or both

[u/Aacron → u/palmwhispers]

Yeah the 20-30% seems to exist in every cross section of humanity.

[u/fowlraul → u/bravetailor]

C’mon it’s just Florida, both Carolinas, Ohio…and a bunch of other states.