this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 day ago (5 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 23 hours ago

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.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

It's by design.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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"

[–] [email protected] 27 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

You’re doing god’s work in the hellish trenches

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 20 hours ago

Omg. We’ve come full circle now that smart people are telling idiots to do your own research…

[–] [email protected] 186 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Or, we can hold the fucking media accountable for telling blatant lies about the impacts of tariffs.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fox News got around that by claiming they're entertainment, not news.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Per their own arguments in court, no reasonable person would consider Fox News to be factual.

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[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 day ago

Ignorance is not an excuse. Fire all MAGAs for taxifs.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 20 hours ago

Plot twist: the person writing this is President Musk and the employee he's referring to is Trump.

[–] [email protected] 117 points 1 day ago (7 children)

The OP is battling against what Faux Newz, Dipshit Donnie, and other right-wing propagandist shitrags are telling his employee, all which the employee takes as indesputable truth. If he can override that much brainwashing he can convince anyone of anything.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 day ago (1 children)

"The Big Lie" is what Sanders is calling it.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

How many "big lies" are we up to now?

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Man, this isn't even "doing your research" it's just knowing what very basic words mean.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

That’s actually a huge problem I’ve had with a right winger.

Even though he was relatively reasonable, we got stuck because we could not agree on what fascism means.

I was good to use a dictionary or better yet Wikipedia. He said it can only mean what Mussolini meant when he came up with the term.

What was annoying is that all I wanted to do was say, group X does Y things, Y things are fascism and fascism is bad.

It’s just mental gymnastics because it doesn’t matter what we call it, group X is still doing bad things, but instead we got stuck on details.

Imo this is pretty much all right wing’s only play, dismantle the tools of logic so the conversation doesn’t even happen in the first place.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 day ago (12 children)

I bet a coworker $20 that "tariff" and "tax" were synonyms. Motherfucker refused to pay up, calling merriam-webster.com, thesauraus.com, wikipedia etc. "fake news".

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago

Your mistake was referencing a woketionary.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 21 hours ago

A tariff is a tax or custom duty on an imported good.
Tariffs can lead to a reduction and higher prices on foreign imported goods.[1] Like the corporate income tax, domestic consumers ultimately pay the tax in higher prices.

https://www.conservapedia.com/Tariff

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

literally googling tariffs, brings you to a government page that lists tariffs, duties, and taxes under the same fucking definition.

How people like this DO NOT understand this shit, is beyond me. I can respect the humility in changing your position after being that stupid though, please, due your due diligence before mindlessly repeating the shit other people tell you, so you don't look stupid.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

What, visit a website, read it, then comprehend it? What, like a book?! May as well ask them to make a phone call.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

yeah, otherwise you're a dumbass, and will look like one to everyone around you, unfortunately.

This is normal behavior. Ironically they would probably be more than willing to make a phone call.

[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 day ago (2 children)

and every one of the millions who ~~were~~are just as dumb, will forget the lessons learned well before the next election and vote for it all over again.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 10 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 20 hours ago

And the people who voted for the orangetard will still be shafted by him and his mafia yet will continue to blame "obiden" for their economic woes. 🥱

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