Episode 25
25: The Opinion Card
No, you don't have the right to your own opinion.
(00:00) Intro
(02:59) News Segment: HHS Science Advisor Paul Alexander recommended intentionally spreading Covid to achieve "herd immunity." Rand Paul’s admission that he doesn’t want black people to vote. Cyberwarfare update: Hundreds of US government departments and private companies have been hacked by a foreign government, almost certainly Russia. The completely unhinged attempts by republicans to submit “alternate” electors to change last Monday’s electoral college vote. Trump supporters are now threatening legal action because bookies are paying off election bets. The Dodge City, Kansas Mayor who resigned over death threats because she supported a mask mandate. People leaving the Republican Party, and Bill Barr resigns.
(47:57) The Opinion Card: America’s crisis of truth and democracy, and how we got here. We’ve touched on this before in our segments on free speech and libertarianism, and also when we discussed the film The Social Dilemma. But we’ve reached yet another milestone in reality distortion, with Trump’s post-election autocoup attempt, and the full complicity of the Republican party.
So we’re going to really drill down into the damage caused by this lurch in the past two decades toward the elevation of opinion over facts and expertise. This phenomenon parallels the rise of social media, but isn’t entirely defined or caused by it. The Opinion Card is a broader interpersonal dynamic, one that’s also been co-opted by our political system and even by algorithms. Opinions have become weapons of mass destruction. The way people are choosing to use their freedom of conscience to either employ or fight back against these weapons of mass destruction, and the systemic impact of those collective decisions, is changing our world as never before.
(02:13:57) Outro
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Show Notes:
"America, We Have a Problem" The rise of “political sectarianism” is putting us all in danger.
"Homo/Hetero: The Struggle for Sexual Identity" Joseph Epstein, Harper's Magazine, September 1970 (Reactionary, self-loathing, homophobic garbage alert!)
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