31 Surefire Ways To Make Me Lose Interest In Your Thoughts About The World
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
Every day I interact with all sorts of people from all around the world and all across the political spectrum, and I learn a lot from those conversations. Over the years, though, I have learned that there are many people who just aren’t going to have anything worthwhile to say, because their worldviews are too clouded with confusion and bullshit for them to offer a lucid perspective on much of anything.
There are signs I look for to show me whether someone is not worth the time and energy it would take to interact with them, which allows me to use that time and energy more productively. Here they are in no particular order.
Easiest ways to make me lose all interest in everything you have to say:
1. Support Trump and the Republicans
2. Support Democrats
3. Ignore Gaza
4. Talk about “antisemitism” like it’s a major problem that needs to be urgently prioritized
5. Blame the world’s problems on “the Jews”
6. Still buy into the “Hamas uses human shields” narrative in the year 2025
7. Regurgitate empire propaganda about how bad and evil China is
8. Babble about “Russian propaganda” as though it’s a major problem in the west compared to domestic western propaganda
9. Unquestioningly buy into the official narrative about whatever nation or group the empire happens to be targeting on a given day
10. Try to convince me that this time the empire is telling us the truth about the Evil Dictator who needs to be regime changed
11. Parrot Pentagon propaganda about Iran
12. Demonstrate an unwillingness to counter-research against your own biases
13. Regurgitate lies about communism which even a tiny amount of research would quickly debunk
14. Act like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a completely unprovoked act of aggression to which NATO powers were an innocent passive witness
15. Focus primarily on sectarian infighting and social media drama instead of on fighting the empire
16. Pour energy into culture war diversions
17. Shit on trans people
18. Demonstrate an inability to distinguish between smart conspiracy theories and dumb ones
19. Promote dumb conspiracy theories when the culprit is garden variety capitalism
20. Have literally anything whatsoever to do with QAnon
21. Believe Trump is a Russian agent
22. Believe everything the TV told you to believe about North Korea
23. Support US military interventionism anywhere on earth
24. Support any of the obvious US regime change plots in Latin America
25. Automatically assume the mass media are always telling the truth
26. Automatically assume the mass media are always lying
27. Side with the powerful
28. Support and defend any billionaire for any reason
29. Support and defend Israel for any reason
30. Support and defend the western empire for any reason
31. Show signs that you have outsourced your responsibility for understanding the world to any pundit, political party or ideological faction instead of finding out what’s true for yourself.
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I agree with all 31, but personally I’d add a few more (looking from a British perspective):
32) talk about how the Nazis were socialists.
33) defend literally anything about the British empire.
34) support the Tories
35) support Reform/UKIP/the Brexit party/whatever else they’re calling themselves this year.
36) say anything positive about Tommy Robinson
37) quote the Daily Mail, the Sun, or the Express.
38) mention Corbyn being a terrorist supporter.
Much on your list demonstrates your intolerance. We can learn from everyone even if we choose not to take up their beliefs. If you want to understand why people do, say, think what you do not like then listen to them.
Your first two conditions are prejudice. You are dismissing people simply because of their political beliefs and you are demonising a President who was and is no worse than the other motley bag.
Rather than not listen, perhaps treat with scepticism and caution those who hold intolerant beliefs as you list them. Do not become intolerant yourself.