Yes I know, your least-favorite idea goes here. But seriously, someone must have come up with the concept before. Like a bad get-rich-quick scheme could fall into this category, where joining the scheme makes people lose money and become more desperate, so they become more likely to do desperate things like invest more in the scheme. But it can apply to a number of other bad ideas.

  • mindbleach
    1·
    3 months ago

    Trickle-down is both the obvious example and a half-decent description. ‘It’ll go this way, for sure!’ Doesn’t.

    But more generally it’s oppositional denialism. ‘Proving me wrong just makes me believe it harder!’

    This is the weird thing about the 'both sides are the same ’ thing. They have been trained to believe that for every fact there’s a contra-fact. The sky is blue? You’re being conned by people who want to control what you believe, so it’s actually red. We have photographic evidence and every type of scientific imaging confirming the sky is blue? The really smart people understand that homogeneity of thought means you’re missing the truth hidden by other media sources, sky just got ten shades redder.

    They no longer understand how ideas are constructed. They believe that ideas that contradict the established truth that are clearly pulled out of their asses as a reaction to truth should be considered alongside the truth as an equally possible theory. When those ideas are dismissed by other outlets out of hand because of their clear lack of foundation, they take that as proof of bias and steel themselves against reality even further. This isn’t new behavior. Fox is just realizing how little factual basis is required by their viewership and they’re floating these contra-facts faster and looser.

    – Reddit user RanchMeBroTendo, a depressing number of years ago.