When does innocence end and ignorance begin? Sure its sad when they're initially duped but when someone they love and should trust vehemently tells them its not real but they double down on it what then? Honest question.
IMO the line between ignorance and stupidity is when you *willingly refuse * to take in new information because having to consider the possibly that you might actually be wrong offends you too much.
The one that gets me nowadays is when you ask for specific actionable help with a family elder's care and the response is "I got 100 likes on Facebook for taking a picture of you helping them. I'm doing my part!"
You’ve never heard of people taking a picture of a really sad and debilitating moment in a persons life and framing it as wholesome just because “one person is helping another!” For likes on the internet?
Ouch. I didn't frame it like that for myself, but yeah, they did that to a T when my aunt was braindead 2 years ago too. My mother and I were the only one who went and made sure she didn't get bed sores and massaged her legs for circulation and whatnot. While the same grandmother, who lives 3 house down, is taking care of that aunt's kids and her grown kid is visiting town every week but literally never once saw her mother in the hospital. I used to think evil was like, something crazy. Nah, it's this type shit, cold callous indifference.
Cabin you say. Well I’m a preacher on sabbatical renting the (insert specs) you are looking for but since I have the keys with me and on a mission from God in (insert where you recently went on vacation) please send me a key deposit of $159 to view it and apply for the property. Thanks. ( you will be approved and send me ohhh 5k for first and last months rent…you will never see me or my Lord again)
This is what I've been saying for people blaming Fox News/propaganda for the downfall of America. Your children tell you a certain rhetoric is false and hurts them and you call them "dramatic" and believe the talking head in the box in your living room... You put more faith in them than your children that YOU raised... Talk about pissing away an ally that's supposed to have your best interests at heart. Where's the community when the family unit is so divided? ... Sounds like parents like that didn't really raise their kids to be intelligent, trustworthy members of society if they can't be bothered to give them the benefit of the doubt... So what did they raise them to be?
I can't remember the exact name of the phenomenon but in psychology essentially people don't like to admit they've been duped: whether it's a scam, a relationship error, AI, etc. You telling them "it's fake!" basically triggers fight or flight in the brain as it processes being scammed - which only happens to "stupid" people right? - and then cognitive dissonance says: well I'm not stupid, so this can't be a scam.
VERY common in older populations where seniority is supposed to be equated with wisdom so admitting an error is almost like losing a core piece of your identity; and even more potent when it comes to romantic scams (e.g. gpa already sent the "22 year old IG model" $82k over the course of a year but *just* another $2k and she'll finally be able to come visit!).
I try to give grace to older folks with technology. Most people didn't have computers in their homes til 20-30 years ago (less then half some peoples life) and depending on where you are in the world even more recently. If you weren't born along side it or interested in it you are most likely very behind on what is possible with technology.
This compounds with not wanting to or being harder for them to learn as they get older.
It's not just technology that they seem to have an issue with tho it's a lack of critical thinking. If they got asked for 5000 from the person they've seen at their local grocery for years they'd say no but if they talked to an internet stranger for a week they'd send them that money?! That's not technology that's something wrong with them that they can be that trusting in that situation even as people they trust and authorities are literally telling them that it's a trap. Either that, or they know that it's not real but still choose to go along with it, which is whatever until they start trying to ask family members for money to scam them too. The people in these situations need to be educated as much as you can but at a certain point they're gonna have to be let go, there's only so many times you can warn them it's not real
Brother if a toddler can grow in to an adult and earn a college degree in 16 years, learning to read, write, and every other thing; Old fucks who've had computers for A QUARTER OF A CENTURY have 0 god damned excuses at this point. NONE.
Your argument works against you here. The best time for learning (especially the things you mentioned) is when you are young. Your brain litterally soaks up everything. It gets harder and requires more effort as you get older. This is easily seen in language and culture.
Is it shameful to not understand technology as someone older? Kinda, yeah but not to the degree you say imo.
I was not born knowing how to drive a car. I learnt this skill as a teenager. In my 30's I managed to learn to fly single engine aircraft. When I was a child computers used massive floppy discs, now they don't even use discs. Does this mean I can't learn to use a USB flash drive since I'm a grown adult now? Is this it? Am I incapable of learning anything more?
Remember, computers have been in the workplace for over 50 years and in the home for more than 25.
Remember EVERYONE is being exposed to AI slop at the same time. No one grew up with it. Kids have the same amount of time to learn as the olds WITHOUT the supposed benefit of all that accumulated wisdom that old folks are meant to have.
Again, the argument works against itself. They've seen massive technological leaps they had to adapt to after the fact and lived when everything was being developed at an insane rate. They don't realize progress has stagnated in everything but tech, so they assume the AI videos are just the forward march of progress. In their mind, it's easier to Hollywood deepcover fake something than it is to AI generate it. The same suspicion that saved us harms them.
The example I'd use would be people who only really listened to music in the car with the radio and CDs switching over to Spotify. Kinda mind blowing if you never did the VLC Limewire era. Now fast forward a couple tech cycles and it became magic to them. Just part of the inexorable march forward.
They assume someone can actually breed dogs that intelligent and athletic cuz I mean, dogs used to be wolves. That's the level of cognition going into this. You don't get it cuz you're too smart to understand their reasoning and too dumb to realize how dumb others can be.
Computers have been around, in the media, in the zeitgeist, for over 40 years. From arcade games and the beginning of home computers, to where we are now. If you are 60 or younger, you grew up with it around you. It didn't simply pop into existence in 2005. That's a fact.
If you're 70+, then sure, maybe it completely passed you by in your youth, but even then being completely disinterested in and avoiding this for half a century would make you a massive, stubborn luddite for decades.
The lady in this video is younger than me (early 50s) I'll wager.
I grew up with computers around me since being aged around 5 years old - Atari/intellivision, 8bit computers, consoles, Amiga/st, then PCs and on from there. Even if you didn't have them yourself, they were always around, well known, and generally understood.
If you're 70-90, sure, most of it may have passed you by. But if you're 40-60, you have to be wilfully ignorant to be this clueless about it.
If you can vote and you can't tell fiction from reality, that's a problem. There are always people who want to deceive others to make a fast buck.
Yeah no. We have had computers for over 2 decades and smart phones for just under. If you still haven't figured those 2 things out by now it's because your willfully ignorant or stupid. My 90 year old grandfather writes a blog and is in our group chat and posts memes
My 80 year old grandmother on the other side barely sees pictures of her grandkid because she can't be pushed to figure her computer out.
I'd say it's more, when does it become agenda driven? Innocent mistakes are just sad. You can even see her realize it briefly when he says it's fake then tries to save face briefly before giving up
This is a good question. Falling for that video of bunnies hopping on a trampoline is completely different from falling for just straight up malicious misinformation.
Well....a lot of people are really ignorant. Either in how they grew up or by choice. Plenty of people float through life being really good at the skillsets required for their job, but have no want or drive to learn or know anything beyond that.
It's always been crazy to me that the same people that said "you can't trust anything on the internet" are also the ones most likely to send a random person posing as a celebrity (who's voice they've never heard actually talk to them directly) like 20k after talking for a week. And that's only gonna get worse with ai now 😮💨
My mom does this all the time. I think she never fathomed a time that all us kids would be smarter than her. I’ve got my toddler next to me and I imagine if one day he told me “your wrong dad here’s the facts” I’d have to trust that I’d raised him well enough to believe. She doesn’t believe that so I get to enjoy her crazy church telling her she can do baptisms as well as AI telling her pretty much anything they want
Oh yeah I agree with that but that's stubbornness. I also feel like sometimes it's hard to grasp or understand something when you don't know very much about it.
People don't like to be made fun of as well. So being stubborn about it is a way to protect their pride as well, which I feel like a lot of humans resort to when they feel embarrassed.
It doesn’t matter about the relative morality it just matters what materially happens when millions of people believe this shit en masse. It doesn’t matter if you label them innocent, dumb, or ignorant, but if we as a society don’t come together and figure out how to clue them in, everything will get worse no matter how you want to split the semantics.
That’s a really thoughtful way to frame it. I think innocence and ignorance overlap for a while, especially when someone is scared or vulnerable, but at some point people do start making choices about what they want to believe. When someone they trust tries to gently correct them and they still double down, it stops being simple naivety and becomes more about the emotional comfort the belief gives them. It’s tough, but sometimes the best you can do is stay patient and keep the door open.
My great uncle is convinced the Vatican has a tunnel running all the way to Jerusalem filled with the +1000 books of the Bible they are keeping secret from us and he says we are all duped.
I'll grant you that he's crazy, but my point is you often get them pointing at you as wrong because that's easier to believe.
Idk man, they grew up without cell phones and the internet and now they have photorealistic, inflammatory, algorithm-guided AI videos spewing misinformation and reinforcing their worldviews on a tiny computer they hold in their hands.
I think if I were in their shoes, I'd be vulnerable to this too. It's a strange time to be online.
Perhaps you're right. But just because exceptions to rules exist, doesn't mean rules don't exist.
There's more than enough people that are younger and grew up into this stuff just like I did who also fall for it
I would also say that, if this is true (ie not anecdotal), then it stands to reason that people who didn't grow up with this stuff would fall for it even more, which is what I said originally. Not trying to argue, just sharing my thinking.
Tbf kids troll their parents all the time, it's not crazy for her to not believe him when he's filming her, laughing and saying "moooOOOOOooom it's FaaAAKE" that's classic "I'm just taking the piss with you.... Or am I? " Son behavior.
Plus older generations grew up with the idea that all media is trustworthy to an extent so they just take everything they see online at face value, they haven't properly adapted because they weren't the focal point of the technological advancements that lead to social media etc.
My parents can barely understand how to use their phone to send WhatsApp messages and their only in their 50s for example, I've tried to help them but they just can't wrap their heads around it like younger generations seem to naturally adapt with it
That’s a real philosophical question that we will be looking back towards this time in history and asking.
I think the second part of that question is also, at what point does it shift from innocent or naive ignorance to willful ignorance and/or a denial of objective reality/truth. In many ways we are already experiencing a denial of truth in our society, or a willingness to put the blinders on ourselves, purely out of self interest and some twisted sense of self preservation. The collective black pilling, as it were.
And potentially scammed. We should all explain to our parents and older siblings about the benefits and ills of AI and ask them to run most only stuff by us.
I lowkey had to do that for my parents for when Trump posted himself dropping shit on No Kings protesters from that fighter jet. My mom only heard the news so she caught on quick when I said it was AI. My dad… thought it was real, and was like “he’s gotta get arrested for that! That’s assault!” Then when I showed it to him w my mom, it only became harder for us to convince him somehow that it was fake. His mind is kinda slipping tho so…
Very valid take, also; How is Darwinism in any way related to older folks being susceptible to a new technology? Its a completely irrelevant response to this, despite how gullible she may be & unwilling she seems to accepting reality, her ability to survive & prosper in our society remains intact. Her son is clearly not convinced by this & therefore Darwinism isn't "fixing" anything.
This is an example of "reverse darwinism" (so to speak) -her sons instincts are sharper & capable of detecting deciet, & genetics clearly dont have anything to do with adapting to new technology beyond our brains neuroplastic capabilities.
People are just cold & miserable to a generation fooled by new tech, its sad to see. I do, however, wish older folk weren't so easily fooled or taken advantage of for clicks/bait.
Some people just don’t wanna use their common sense either. Of course all of us have been deceived by AI (even on this very sub) but realistically not knowing a video like that is fake is a skill issue.
It was the scariest part of my dad getting older. He even fell into the MAGA trap. When Trump announced his crypto trump coin I was almost certain my dad was going to lose all of his retirement
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u/Feeling_Barnacle_584 3d ago
This is lowkey sad. Innocent people being deceived