"It is not a mild infection, it is not a mild virus; it is a severe illness. And they kept on telling me they wish they'd known beforehand how bad measles was, so that they could have protected their family," she said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 124 points 7 months ago (14 children)

Algorithmic engagement prioritized this shit over established medical science. Big Tech undermined all the pillars of society. What a fucking mess.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 14 child comments
  • [–] 50 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Capitalism. Capitalism caused this. Big Tech is just a vessel that is used by capitalists to further their agenda.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 39 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Big Tech is a force multiplier. It amplifies the scale and scope of the damage. To make an analogy, it's like replacing muskets with machine guns. Capitalism was headed this direction long before tech came along, but with tools like these in their pocket, the scale of the disinformation went from "a serious problem" to "an existential crisis", and the tools we have to resist it are simply incapable of holding the line against the firehose of BS.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 7 months ago (9 children)

    At the end of the day those people chose to believe some random blog over medical journals, university publications, and the advice of doctors. There is no other word for that than stupidity, algorithms or no.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 17 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    Blaming stupidity itself fails to address those who seek to exploit it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago (7 children)

    No matter the cause or effect, stupidity is the root of the problem. You can't exploit a weakness that doesn't exist.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

    Unfortunately, I was reading somewhere recently (I think it might have been a t-shirt?) that, "you can't fix stupid."

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments