Unpopular Opinion
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
6. Defend your opinion
This is a bit of a mix of rules 4 and 5 to help foster higher quality posts. You are expected to defend your unpopular opinion in the post body. We don't expect a whole manifesto (please, no manifestos), but you should at least provide some details as to why you hold the position you do.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
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The Internet has arguably saved now lives than it's taken. You have to remember the Internet is also the backbone that hospitals and researchers use to share data and research. social media and bad/malicious journalism has had a terribly negative effect, but that's a subset of the entire Internet. It's like saying electricity is bad because it provides am infrastructure for bad things to happen, placing the blame on the infrastructure rather the individuals (or corporations) that are doing the bad thing.
Juuuuust wait for measles and get back to us. Or. Remember covid. You couldn't be more wrong. You could also say "More" instead of now. Still wholly incorrect.
Measles and Covid were spread by the Internet? I remember hearing a bunch of misinformation spread in TV broadcasts. I remember RFK changing the vaccination recommendations. I remember reading far more factual information online than false on both of those topics. The nature of pandemics is they kill people. Shitty people can't be bothered to listen to reason, even though they were told and showed the facts. The Internet is just one medium that information is disseminated, but the bigger factors are the likes of FOX news and other 24/7 news stations.
So you agree. Vaccines saved people, not the internet, but the web leads people into echo chambers and rabbit holes, doing the exact opposite. Thanks.
It's one medium that can lead people to misinformation, but the pros far outweigh the cons. Education, sharing of vital information in real time, communication, and connections before unavailable with friends and relatives exist because of the Internet. It's rapidly being policies down a dark rabbit hole of shit policies. Blaming bad journalism and bad actors on the Internet is like blaming the roads when someone is killed by a drunk driver.
If only there were things like education, books, etc.
They do exist but they're not as easily accessible. I remember reading through the dated information of encyclopedias doing projects in school. Information on the Internet is readily available and updated in a timely manner as new information is gathered.
There are also plenty of books and other education resources that are full of bad information. There are many things taught in schools that aren't true.
The source of information is the problem, not the medium it lives on.