For crying out loud, information is so accessible. The inability to find and discern at least some level of truth (or at least gather multiple contrasting perspectives) is laziness, AND stupidity.
I'm all for better schools, a better information ecosystem, and more tolerance, but why are we bending over backwards to tell malignantly underinformed people it's not their fault? It is! It is their fault.
I asked Google to "explain tariffs in simple terms" and it sure did. A sixth grader would easily get it. Here's the response (and now I'm wondering whether a GenAI system could create a short animated video or slide deck that could become a TikTok):
Tariffs in simple terms
A tariff is like a special tax that a country places on goods it buys from other countries.
Imagine this
You're buying a toy made in another country.
The government of your country might add a tariff to that toy's price when it enters the country.
This makes the imported toy more expensive than a similar toy made in your own country.
The company importing the toy pays this tax to the government.
However, they might then pass some or all of that cost onto you, the customer, by raising the price of the toy.
AND stupidity is you being intentionally ignorant.
People have much better things to do than look up words, look for dissenting opinions one something the face on their TV tells them. There's taking the kids to _______ practice. There's TV shows to keep up with. There's an infinite feed of content to scroll through. There's plenty of other things that they would prefer to do themselves than whatever it is you would prefer them to do. That does not qualify as stupid. To me, what is stupid, is everyone here calling others that have differing view points than their own stupid. You are willingly using that term in the same way you say they are willfully not looking things up.
If you’re too busy to find out what tariffs are, fine. I get it. But then don’t have an opinion on the matter. Don’t vote for an absolute shithead because you think these things, which you’re too busy to find out about, will be great for the country.
Having an opinion is a constitutional right. You can't tell people not to have an opinion. That is stupid. People vote for many reasons while a lot of those vote on a single issue. If the person receiving their single issue vote means there's baggage to get their one hot button item then so be it. I voted for someone not for what they represented so much as it was a vote not for the other person. The person receiving my vote definitely didn't make me all smiley and thinking panacea was on the way. In fact, my last 3 votes were this way.
To paraphrase Randall Munroe, “it’s not literally illegal to do this” is the weakest possible defense of something.
I sure as hell can tell people not to have an opinion. That is my constitutional right. If someone has strong beliefs about something and votes accordingly, and they don’t put in the effort needed to find out the basic facts about the matter, then they are stupid and that’s bad.
Man, I really feel like people are deliberately obtuse in this thread. You can have a single issue while that issue is not tariffs, yet everyone is harping on you about why you voted for someone so in favor of tariffs. That's not why you voted for him. Just look at the polling. MAGA world is not a fan. That's the die hard base. Some of these people's single issue was Epstein and now they're really pissed. They know everything about their one single issue. You're the one that can't keep it straight
Talk about deliberately obtuse! We’re not criticizing these people for voting for someone in favor of tariffs for other reasons. We’re criticizing them for voting for that person because they’re in favor of tariffs despite not knowing what tariffs actually are. Your response of “maybe people voted for other reasons” is completely missing the point here.
The original post was painting anyone that voted for the current admin as stupid. The conversation also assumed that anyone that voted for POTUS did so because of tariffs. That's clearly not true. Are there people that voted for POTUS while also having no clue about tariffs, yes and this is not in dispute. What is in dispute is that anyone that voted for the cheeto-in-chief is automatically stupid. It helps to keep up with the thread. This assumption that everyone that voted opposite of how you did is automatically stupid is what is actually stupid.
For crying out loud, information is so accessible. The inability to find and discern at least some level of truth (or at least gather multiple contrasting perspectives) is laziness, AND stupidity.
I'm all for better schools, a better information ecosystem, and more tolerance, but why are we bending over backwards to tell malignantly underinformed people it's not their fault? It is! It is their fault.