discussions like this always bring me back to the Dead Kennedy’s song Stars and Stripes of Corruption

Not only is the music one of their greatest, but the lyrics are Jello Biafra’s best. If you have never heard it, imagine surf guitar, fast pace and a poet that can unleash lyrics at bullet speeds while staying in tone and driving the beat. The end of their career finale and IMO their magnum opus. The lyrics are just so good. Here is one part that I really think about alot…

But what can just one of us do

Against all that money and power trying to crush us into roaches?

We won’t destroy society in a day

Until we change ourselves first from the inside out

We can start by not lying so much and treating other people like dirt

It’s so easy not to base our lives on how much we can scam

And you know it feels good to lift that monkey off our back

They’re a gullible victim.

Im athiest but I have no issue with conversation as long as its polite. I would regularly discuss christianity with a nice old lady who was a jehovas witness. she handed out slips but was not pushy or rude. I would discuss and even said I would for the sake of conversation assume the bible is real. She took my views in stride that you would think would upset someone from such a fundamentalist faith. If people did not want to talk to her though she did not bother them or such.

“If somebody spends the whole day watching fox or religious propaganda, gets worked up and all he can think of is owning a liberal or converting an unbeliever, is this person a victim or just gullible?”

Neither. Such folks (Along with their “enemies” on the opposite end of the sociocultural continuum, who get all of their intell from The Daily Show and Vox)are case studies in the willfull devolution of modern humans. The sooner all of them guzzle down a gallon of Draino each, the saner this planet will be

Oh, for fucks sake, not another one of these “I’m so smart, listen to me” posts.

“Gullible” individuals, huh? You know what’s gullible?

Thinking that anyone on this godforsaken platform is gonna change their mind because of some fancy-pants post with big words and a bunch of notes.

Newsflash, @lemmy.world: people are stupid, and they’re gonna believe what they wanna believe, no matter how many facts you throw at 'em.

You’re just preaching to the choir, sweetheart.

You think you’re so much better than everyone else with your “informative” post and your 19.4k notes?

Please, you’re just another self-congratulatory, circle-jerking, echo-chamber-dwelling, bleeding-heart liberal who thinks they can change the world with a few clever sentences.

Wake up, buttercup, the world don’t work that way.

And by the way, what the fuck is “vestigia.tumblr.com/r/no-stupid-questions”?

Sounds like some hipster nonsense to me.

there a victim as not everyone is the same and there’s always unknown mental disorders some people have or exposed to lead that fucked there brain up, poor childhood, other reasons.

People are not born evil. Nobody just is born and wants others to die. All of it is a learned trait and often times from these organizations is how these evil things spread.

They are gullible because there a victim of The propaganda and what they learned (usually by force without consent) growing up.

Saying people are dumb or need to “grow up” just is another way to put it into aggressive “us vs them” mindsets.

Nobody is born to be evil or cruel. No body. It is learned behavior and we should destroy the organization and practices that create these behaviors regardless of what political side there on. (Although conservative ones have the absolute worst ones though)

Tldr “In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence”

They’re absolutely NOT a victim. A victim is an unwilling participant in an act committed against them.

Stupidity isn’t not a viable excuse to be a victim.

I think the “people are free to believe what they want to believe” is a mistake. This is the very statement that relativitises opinions and belief systems with facts and creates the illusion that they are all equal.

Look at the “facts don’t care about feelings” crowd that believe wholeheartedly that statements pandering to their feelings are facts and disregard any actual facts as fake news. I don’t think it’s because they decided one day to pick and choose what is a fact and what is not, but they actually can’t tell that there is a difference in opinions, beliefs and facts in the first place.

People need to accept that sometimes the truth is painful, that it contradicts what you want it to be, and worst of all - that you may have been wrong.

Edit: that said, I think people are free to believe whatever they want to believe when it comes to unprovable existential esoterica like personal values, afterlife, religion, whatever. As long they accept it is a personal belief and not an universal truth.

They are falling for engagement strategies all news media outlets use. They will say things that pander to a specific group pointing the finger at the other side so you’ll stuck with their station. Both liberal and conservative sites do this. Journalism is dead

“willing victimhood” is certainly a thing.

Don’t know that I’d characterize it as being “victims”, their media outlets have chosen to fuel anxiety and anger that was already there.

The media is culpable for pouring fuel on the fire, but the fire was already there. They are emboldened to be loud since they find such loud agreement from media and online, but they already were thinking the same basic things.

Blame is not a finite resource. Just because 2 people are involved doesn’t mean they’re both 50% to blame — they can both be 100% at fault.

So to answer your question, the person is responsible for their onerous views. They chose to watch that trash and believe it. We can have compassion for them without absolving them of blame. At the same time, they are a victim of the people lying to them. So it’s fine to blame the person consuming the bullshit and the person producing the bullshit, and the fact that there are 2 people to blame doesn’t make either of them any less to blame.

Think that anyone who would find that stuff compelling is not in a good place emotionally or mentally. Now, ideally they should be pulled out of that, and you do occasionally hear stories about people leaving extremist groups like Qanon because they found a healthy hobby or community. On the other hand, I don’t think humans can really be separated cleanly between victim and victimizer, and the people this questions describing often become a danger to other people.

Being abnormally gullible can be a symptom of some types of mental health issues. Extremely gullible people, especially, deserve compassion.