this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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[–] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is a good example of how certain people come to believe in conspiracy theories.

They are faced with a seemingly overwhelming argument that destroys some fictional narrative they chose in their head, probably because they misremember or misunderstood some basic fact behind that narrative in the past (like not listening to a thing during math and sciences classes).

Re-evaluation of all the facts in light of new information would be too taxing, and probably lead to an undesirable outcome even if completed successfully (like realising they were wrong, and possibly start questioning themselves), so a different strategy is employed.

This consists of cherry picking a very minute aspect of a bigger picture (here, that trump puts the medal in his pocket) and spin a whole narrative around it.

This works surprisingly well, at least for them, since their brain has either forgotten the conflicting facts, or outright fails to recognise their glaring ignorance about all other possibilities to explain that minute aspect differently (like the fact that the guy handing over the medal to trump is talking to him, in what looks very much like the act of gifting him the medal).

Where this unfortunately breaks down is when other people, not so reality-impared, challenge them by pointing out the glaring factual omissions.

This is usually seen as a personal attack, like they're being called out individually and being called unpleasant things (which can be usually the case), and will respond by questioning the other person's character, intelligence and/or intentions.

Oh, and downvoting.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

So what do you think was the order of events here? You think the plan was...

"Mr President, we're going to do the ceremony, and while we're doing it, we want you to slyly slip this gift we're giving to you into your pocket. Make sure most of the people in the stands can't see what you did until they read about it the next day. That's how we honor people at FIFA"

I'm genuinely curious what you think happened. Truly.

I have no idea what you're referring to about personal attacks and down voting. I posted that comment and hadn't returned to this thread until just now. Really could not care less.