Iranian authorities have confirmed their deaths: https://www.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/raisi-iran-president-helicopter-crash-05-20-24/index.html
Oh it was certainly a maintenance issue. The US sanctions on Iran prevented from getting aircraft parts. Who says sanctions don't work?
I don't think state media has confirmed a cause, and yeah...it's most likely not foul play, but that depends on who stands to gain and how well they convince Iran's populace. Also, who better to provide a clear, unbiased opinion as a result of an aircraft investigation than....Iranian uh...experts? Christ
Well, with one of the shittiest aircraft safety records of all time, they DO have a ton of experience investigating such incidents.
Spoiler: Spoiler bc huge I think this is going to continue to play out in some wild ways in the next few years. It's one thing driving the polarization of our politics. It's also going to have wild implications for our economy. I see this playing out like Boomer's not understanding, fundamentally, how the choices are different for younger folks. Things that aren't straightforward like social isolation increasing because jobs young people can have do not afford them things like cars (gas, insurance, maintenance and the price of the vehicle itself: 2-3 of those must be subsidized for a young person within 50% of minimum wage) and supporting policy that reflects that misunderstanding. Similarly, I see a more profound backlash based on this. The pendulum swing when the older folks do lose interest in an issue will be more severe. Also, the demand for mental health services will be skewed, making it an outlier in terms of other health services tracking age.
What the youth see are a bunch of ancient Congress people looking out for the interests of their fellow AARP members, they see the silver tsunami incoming, and their future mortgaged to pay the cost. And they're supposed to be ok with this because of "the great wealth transfer", like there'll be anything left to pass down after the nursing homes and the casinos are done with it.
The Earth is not flat...and yet MANY real people ACTUALLY believe it. They aren't trolling, either, and this documentary is a deep dive into the world of the Flat Earth theory, exposing the deception, dishonesty, and disgusting underpinnings of their worldview, one we knew was wrong a thousand years ago. So far i am 4 hours into the 8 hour flat earth documentary.
I’ve been active on r/flatearth, which is not run by flat earthers. It’s fun at first and then it’s just sad, because it’s not about believing anything, it’s about being against some vague “THEM.” It’s the lowest elevation point of the conspiracy theorist mind.
I know a guy who is into shit like this. And while I don’t know if he’s a flat-earther per se, the guy questions everything including what the earth is made up of. Mention something, anything, and he’ll start rambling of “It’s never really been proven… that’s what they want you to think… I just question everything…” I kid him about “the Lemur People,” but honestly it’s fucking exhausting. Eight hours? I’m opening an artery.
Every time I hear this kind of stuff, it turns into "I'm not smart, but I want to appear smart, so I'll mis-apply skepticism and bask in the attention. Also, I suck at actual school, but consider myself 'internet smart.'" I cannot with these fuckwits.
Exactly. It’s the appeal of “I know something you don’t know, and I’m so smart that you can’t even see that you don’t know it” mindset. It’s for dumbasses. It’s also a glut of the “arguing from personal incredulity” logical fallacy. “If it were true, I would believe it! I don’t believe it, therefore it’s not true.” Or “You expect me to believe…” Seriously, this is one of their experts. I’ve been trying to figure out this guy’s real name for a while. Just to see if he’s serious about it or simply a grifter.
I was chatting with my partner about this - she has a PhD, I don't have anywhere near that education but have a couple professional certs that take years to acquire. It's probably a parallel to the Dunning Kruger effect, but less specific - essentially, I think that a lot of people who have never acquired expert-level knowledge about anything, simply do not understand what it takes to be an expert. I just wonder if someone whose entire educational experience is a couple hours/week worth of classes taught by a public school teacher, may genuinely believe that you can become an expert in a topic by watching a few YouTube videos.
That's a great point. I deal with this with elected City / County officials a lot. They need to deal with a whole bunch of issues for their jurisdiction, and they are typically not experts in whatever it may be: vaccines, health care, water, sewer, solid waste, vehicle inspections, and so on, across County services. Sometimes they want to be a good representative for their constituents, and sometimes they're just grandstanding for votes. But, they'll watch a YouTube video or read one conspiracy article and suddenly they have a "gotcha" question. And, they'll wait and ask it in a public forum, instead of the closed door meeting they had with the expert they're paying to advise them. One time, in a Commission meeting a Commissioner brought up a point, and the Chairman's mouth fell open, stunned into silence. He finally turned to the idiot Commissioner and said in the public meeting "We just talked about this 30 minutes ago." And, the Commissioner said (to me), "yeah, but I wanted him to explain it to the people gathered here." So, the whole meeting took longer, unnecessarily, and all the citizens gathered kind of just shrugged their shoulders, like, makes sense to me, and they just moved on to the next agenda item.
Just to be clear - there are a ton of contrary shitheads who approach these topics with bad faith and deliberately try to undermine or flout authority. Fuck those people. But it's always been very clear to me how little a lot of people understand about how much work goes into serious, expert-level knowledge in STEM fields. How much research has been done, how many hours were put in, how much trial and error there was to get there. My partner will read an immunology paper that relates directly to the type of immunological cells that she worked with - the field where she literally has more education than the overwhelming majority of humans on the planet, with 4 years of college, 6 years of graduate school, and 2 years of post-doc, leaving aside the actual work experience - and tell me, "this looks okay but I'm not an expert in the protein structure of this little ancillary cell over here so it's hard to tell." A lot of these people don't seem to get that half of a lifetime of experience and education often isn't even enough to second guess.
I kind of wish a university could revoke a degree for someone saying shit like "the Earth is flat" in certain media. Like...ok, you can be an idiot, but you can't be a loud idiot and mention your alma mater as a reason your idiocy should be taken seriously. The lack of consequences for this shit is part of the problem. I also wonder how flat earther content gets paid for. Like...who's associating a brand with that? Garmin for trolling, but seriously? Skepticism is a key part of anyone getting THAT deep in a given subject, and we're seeing it in your example: idiots are certain, experts make room for contradicting information that they render an opinion on. The other issue is when someone talks WAY out of their expertise, but the pundit cunts only say "Harvard PhD" disregarding said PhD was focused on studying 19th century Lithuanian erotic wood carvings or some shit.