_portrait.jpg){kind=link}
Some people genuinely are fucking dumber than a rock
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
1562 points (98.9% liked)
Leopards Ate My Face
5695 readers
696 users here now
Rules:
- If you don't already have some understanding of what this is, try reading this post. Off-topic posts will be removed.
- Please use a high-quality source to explain why your post fits if you think it might not be common knowledge and isn't explained within the post itself.
- Links to articles should be high-quality sources – for example, not the Daily Mail, the New York Post, Newsweek, etc. For a rough idea, check out this list. If it's marked in red, it probably isn't allowed; if it's yellow, exercise caution.
- The mods are fallible; if you've been banned or had a comment removed, you're encouraged to appeal it.
- For accessibility reasons, an image of text must either have alt text or a transcription in the comments.
- All Lemmy.World Terms of Service apply.
Also feel free to check out [email protected] (also active).
Icon credit C. BrĂĽck on Wikimedia Commons.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
"Doing your own research" means watching one or two YouTube videos or Facebook posts as far as these people are concerned. No thought for themselves, just parrot what you hear.
load more comments
(8 replies)
didn't understand why he was told the other countries pay the tariffs
that's easy: you were willing to vote for a guy who lied over 30 thousand times in his first term so he realized you're a fucking idiot and he could say anything without you thinking even half a second about it.
WHAT'S THE POINT OF EXPORTING SHIT YOU IDIOT WHY WOULD A COUNTRY DO IT IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR IT
They willing pay the extra funbucks tariff monies for the privilege and honor of shipping it to America (at cost) on a chance some red-hatted half-wit will waste it.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I would like to ask them what happens when taffis are increased to 100%? Does that mean producers are giving stuff for free?
And then what happen when the tarris are at 200%? Do they have to send stuff for free and pay on top of that?
One more thing - don't tell them they are wrong. Tell them they were lied to
Doing your own research or, you know, trust the experts? There's no way I will get deep enough into virology to get a proper grasp if I need a vaccination. But I for sure won't trust a random space Karen or brainworm Jimmy.
Real answer is in the last line there. If 60% of people we're capable of doing their own research (and arriving at the correct answer) then we wouldn't have anti-vaxers, flat-earthers and non-billionaire/non-bigot/non-christian nationalist republicans.
The problem lies where they "find" their "research" when they see the answer they want to see on social media rather than an actual study or any factual references.
load more comments
(2 replies)
The whole thing was very purposefully talked about using the word "tariff" and never ever its synonym "import tax" exactly so that the traditional Fascist technique of redefining the meaning of words could be easily used: if all the Fascists' speech had been about "import taxes" they would not have been able to leverage most people's ignorance anywhere near this level because the very words "import" and "tax" were already reasonably well understood by most - unlike "tariff" - so the opinion makers would not have been able to miseducate their targets anywhere as easily.
I'm not saying that the people who fell for this are to be excused - if there is something important enough for you to put the effort into educating yourself, it's Politics - I'm saying it's understandable how so many were so easy to swindle.
"He was told the other countries pay the tariffs", by a bunch of liars and he believed the liars.
The real hard part is it's a partial truth.
The sellers do pay the tariffs, they just don't talk about what that does to the prices.
The other problem is it cuts both ways, and a number of the idiots will say as long as you're hurting them too, fine.
And then we have retaliatory tariffs, which also cut both ways.
IMHO, our biggest issue is we've been using cheap Chinese products and labor as a crutch instead of increasing wages. They've been able to cut down wages because Amazon, Temu and Shein have been providing products WAY WAY under marketable US made prices.
Where was this posted?
Oh, Reddit! Thanks.
No problem. I remembered seeing the self.[subredditname] sometimes in the reddit is fun app, before they killed it.
I recently learned that almost 1 in 5 Americans are illiterate.
How many Americans do you think are reasonably well educated, so that they would understand somewhat complex issues like tariffs? Or could seek out information if they didn't understand?
"Are you saying 1 fouth of Americans are removed?" "Yeah at least 1 fourth."
Im still surprised by that , the quality of education in my country is low but holly fuck im stunned by the lack of education in the states
It is highly regional, too.
Despite the existence of the Department of Education (which Trump is trying to dismantle), there is no national standard for education in the US. In general, each state is free to decide upon its own policies and standards.
Some states, such as those in the northeast, have very high-performing school systems. So when that "1 in 5 are illiterate" statistic is mentioned (I actually have not verified that number, just quoting the prior claim as an example), it would be caused by low-performing states where the situation is much more dire dragging down the national average.
Here's a general look at quality of education in the US by state, though recommend folks look up their own numbers because I haven't validated the numbers pulled in the article I grabbed this from.
It's not a perfect divide between red states and blue states (Florida appears good, California less so, as an example), but in general we see the lower performing states located mainly in the South where the Republicans have more support. Basically, a less educated populace is easier to manipulate.
For extra fun, look into where school districts allocate their funding and how it relates to their rankings. Some of the worst performing public schools spend a lot more on athletics than they spend on anything else. It's like they want to be professional athlete mills instead of functioning adult mills.
I was reading into this recently and the reason Florida is so high on these lists is because post-secondary education is very cheap. Their K-12 education is on the garbage end of the spectrum.
It's by design.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I wrote a comment explaining Tariffs on a Fox News YouTube video a few weeks back, and the entire reply chain was people arguing with eachother about how tariffs work because "Trump said it's a tax on other countries, so that's how they work"
It’s the problem that reality is more complicated than the simplified version trump gives his followers.
If you don’t know how something works and someone very confidently tells you how it works and it sorta maps onto familiar concepts, boy is that catnip.
Maybe all the countries are just sitting around like people and Canada is like a guy buying our stuff and we are just making that guy pay a tax. I’m a guy, I pay taxes, sucks to be that guy but probably rules to be the guy getting the tax revenue, and now trump made that us, awesome!!!
Transmitting this wrong idea is fast because it maps onto their lived experiences. It’s easy for them to conceptualize Canada as a single monolithic entity that is buying shit and having to pay a tax. So in one stroke they get a double dopamine hit.
- I’m not dumb, I get how this all works, and it was pretty easy!
- we get to collect these taxes instead of having to pay them, awesome!!!
So here you come to explain, “that’s not how any of this works” Canada isn’t one entity, it’s many. Sure the tariff is on their stuff, but it’s paid by the person buying it, us. And you can go on about all the ways they are wrong but you are threatening the fact that they are not dumb and they already understand this and their understanding means they are winning. So you want them to admit they are dumb and getting fucked and that’s a hard sale.
This is the real danger of hypernormalization, it allows people like trump to replace the complexity of reality with a fake but simpler version. And it’s so dangerous because the people that buy in to that fake but simpler version have this weird insane incentive to defend it.
You’re doing god’s work in the hellish trenches
That's front line in "Trench Crusade" level of trenches.