The truth is, it’s getting harder to describe the extent to which a meaningful percentage of Americans have dissociated from reality. As Hurricane Milton churned across the Gulf of Mexico last night, I saw an onslaught of outright conspiracy theorizing and utter nonsense racking up millions of views across the internet. The posts would be laughable if they weren’t taken by many people as gospel. Among them: Infowars’ Alex Jones, who claimed that Hurricanes Milton and Helene were “weather weapons” unleashed on the East Coast by the U.S. government, and “truth seeker” accounts on X that posted photos of condensation trails in the sky to baselessly allege that the government was “spraying Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton” in order to ensure maximum rainfall, “just like they did over Asheville!”
As Milton made landfall, causing a series of tornados, a verified account on X reposted a TikTok video of a massive funnel cloud with the caption “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO FLORIDA?!” The clip, which was eventually removed but had been viewed 662,000 times as of yesterday evening, turned out to be from a video of a CGI tornado that was originally published months ago. Scrolling through these platforms, watching them fill with false information, harebrained theories, and doctored images—all while panicked residents boarded up their houses, struggled to evacuate, and prayed that their worldly possessions wouldn’t be obliterated overnight—offered a portrait of American discourse almost too bleak to reckon with head-on.
Even in a decade marred by online grifters, shameless politicians, and an alternative right-wing-media complex pushing anti-science fringe theories, the events of the past few weeks stand out for their depravity and nihilism. As two catastrophic storms upended American cities, a patchwork network of influencers and fake-news peddlers have done their best to sow distrust, stoke resentment, and interfere with relief efforts. But this is more than just a misinformation crisis. To watch as real information is overwhelmed by crank theories and public servants battle death threats is to confront two alarming facts: first, that a durable ecosystem exists to ensconce citizens in an alternate reality, and second, that the people consuming and amplifying those lies are not helpless dupes but willing participants…
… “The primary use of ‘misinformation’ is not to change the beliefs of other people at all. Instead, the vast majority of misinformation is offered as a service for people to maintain their beliefs in face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary”…
… As one dispirited meteorologist wrote on X this week, “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes.” She followed with: “I can’t believe I just had to type that”…
Yes. It’s like gatekeeping the term cancer because I think people who don’t have cancer shouldn’t claim they have cancer because they sorta maybe feel like they do. They have problems, to be sure, but not that problem.
I had “”““addictions””“” aplenty to all sorts of things and negative habits of all kinds, it is simply an entirely different thing and should not be labeled as addiction because it is just not the same thing, and words have meanings outside of the psychology world.
Most of the psychology world has nothing to do with addiction (a societal and physical problem) and is a pseudo-scientific scam invented by the medical complex operating under the premise of capitalist realism and that if you just deluded yourself into believing things are okay, they will be okay, but they are not, and in reality most unhappiness is due to poor material circumstances.
Yes, but you’re claiming people who have medically diagnosed addictions that aren’t chemical don’t have addictions. You’re flying in the face of medical science. It’s just like saying you have cancer when you don’t. You’re ignoring an entire field based on Behavioral Addictions and acting like they’re just bad habits…
Psychology is literally the scientific study of the mind and behavior. That’s right where addiction lands…
Whoa ok, I think we’ve gotten to the heart of the issue. You don’t believe in science.
I wasn’t going to entertain your comment with a response but you sure baited me good with that last one.
Yeah you’re right, I don’t “believe in science”, because I’m not a religious dipshit who swapped one worship for another, I believe that the scientific method is the best we have for determining truth, but it is not set in stone, and it is a method - not a bible of things that definitely exist, only what can be demonstrated, which tends to change. There is no god, prophet, or a holy book in research.
At present, the evidence seems to demonstrate a vast number of foundational papers of the entire field of psychology are blatantly unreproducible to any satisfactory standard where their results could be taken as assumptions for further research.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis
I’m not an expert by any means, this is not my field of research, nor am I going to take the time to cite primary sources because frankly I don’t care that much about this subject matter for a Lemmy comment, but you need to re-examine your relationship with the scientific method, because it will not give you the religious comfort of “belief” that you imply you seek.
No, it does not, because addiction defined by it’s purely physical, observable effects is a real and definite thing, not only do we have empirical evidence of specific effects but a theory with predictive power as to the mechanics of specific chemical imbalances in the body created by specific substances.
Addiction as defined by the field of psychology is as broad as any hack-fraud wants it to be because the whole field has extremely dodgy foundations that allow for ever-broader definitions that no longer make sense and much worse yet - they harm people who are actually suffering if not also the people who seek answers from it such as yourself.
It’s no different than teenagers cosplaying disability or neurodivergence for attention.
Have some fucking shame.
There is nothing wrong with therapy. There is nothing wrong with feng-shui either. It’s not exactly scientific, but that’s okay, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone. You want to roleplay an addict? Go for it.
But don’t claim your experiences are anything like actual addiction.
Of course I’m flying in the face of medical science. And if you swap “addiction” as defined by “psychology” for “hysteria” or “Social Darwinism” or any other idea proven false, I would do so as well.
Lol so you can’t tell the difference between religion and objective science Jesus. Yeah, we found the core problem. As you enjoy all the benefits of science lol.
Yeah, a fantasy group built off an old book with magic in it is the same as testable, definable, repeatable science.
You talk about definitions a lot, and who makes medical definitions? It’s not what you feel, it’s a medical term from medical science that you want to just commandeered. You also got the definition of addiction wrong again, you’re just making up meaning for words that have defined meanings.
Someone who thinks religion is science doesn’t know what religion or science is. Let alone faith and evidence. You’re either trolling or we don’t live in the same reality, which makes a convo impossible.
Also, literally just look up the definition of psychology. Read the words lol.