Well, people are now voting for the next president. But (some or most) people of this year still thinks that this Election is far by the worst in American politics....

Yeah it's been crazy but not that crazy if you remember the other questionable moments in past elections. Such as the 1826 Anti-Freemasons, 1939 American Nazis in New York, 1939 Communists in Chicago, 1924 Democratic "Klanbake", 1968 Chicago riots, and some others.

Now compare those moments with this year's presidential race, it makes this election look tame in comparison.

But why did people overreacted during this years election? Blame the Media.

5590051
Heh, another Weekly Thread.

This is also something I've tried to convince people on.

5590070

Yeah, mostly this is gonna be about certain things that everyone takes too seriously and blow out proportions. Sadly and fortunately, there's few of them.

5590074
Aye, I suspect that they want things to be worse than they actually are as popular media has fetishized post-apocalyptic and dystopian environments.

And some of them think they could survive in those conditions.

5590085

Sorry, I didn't back to you I was on a road trip and been helping my Grandmother moving things to her new place.

Yeah, it's the same thing with people (mostly teens) who thinks war is just like in video games. As a brother of a former marine and a soon to be firefighter, it's stupid for teens to think like that and say they want out, but it's to late, they're in until the job is done or they're done with their service.

5597538
Ah, that explains why you dropped off the map. Hope it was a safe trip.

That's something I've noticed about how a lot of people view... well almost everything political. It's the power of the stories we consume. Someone grows up on war games without it being moderated by knowledge of the horrors of war, that person will likely believe on a subconscious level that war is like the game. Relatively clean.

Same thing with other forms of media going back centuries. Colonialism was partially fueled by romanticization of colonizing new territories and how the natives were portrayed.

Hell, that's probably why we have what seems to be more doomsday fetishists than normal; During the 80s, 90s, and 00s a good number movies romanticized the (easy to film on a budget) post-apocalyptic and dystopian settings.

Now before anyone gets starts typing out hopefully well thought out replies, I'm not going to argue that these movies, books, and games a bad thing. Quite the contrary, most of them are quite fun. The issue is with people that don't temper their world views
Those that take the story at face value and thing 'Hey, The Purge sounds like a good idea, we should do that' (this actually happened) without the proper knowledge or understanding of what if often a very complex subject matter, be it historical or scientific.

Basically what I'm saying is, much like with your body, your mind is what you consume. Fiction is great for the mind, but it needs to be paired with nonfiction for the mind to be healthy.

5597600

Wonders of telling the difference between fantasy and reality, People should do that more often.

5597610
Indeed.