Panama Papers Mega Thread

No longer will people make fun of our "foil hats"

TLDR: Don't get your hopes up.

Sorry to burst bubbles here but people who point out truths that threaten any power structure will forever be painted as nut-jobs. And contrary to popular belief, a large percentage of our society's lack of adherence to any kind of provable reality means this tactic continues to work well enough regardless of facts.

For example: Many people still believe we found WMD's in Iraq (half of republicans who watch fox). Probably even more important is how many don't really know but could believe it if the alternative would result in one seeming a little "out there" in the eyes of their social contemporaries. Public discourse isn't rational and the proverbial turd in the punchbowl is belligerent and blind allegiance to the status quo (often mistakenly referred to as "patriotism").

Yet even more powerful a motivator than peer influence is our (all humanity's) discomfort with reconciling within ourselves that we have ever been supremely wrong on something central to our understanding of how the world works. We never want to admit that we're the fucking idiots, ESPECIALLY when we are actually, incontrovertibly, THE idiots. The idiot is always "they" at all costs. The quick fix: never admit you could be wrong so you never have to learn anything that might result in you finding out you were wrong yourself. But what to do when someone makes a cogent argument against your reality with easily verifiable facts as the cornerstone to their statement? Insinuate they're insane, unless you want to admit you're a fucking idiot and were wrong, of course.

It's not just WMD's. The same thing happens with finance, only the well-informed are fewer and farther between due to the murky nature of financial structures, transactions, business titles etc. If you can find a room in America in which you'd be labeled a nutter for saying WMD's weren't in Iraq, trust me, you can find many forums in which more or less complex financial corruption recounting will get you labeled a conspiracy theorist.

Try not to get too frustrated if less impact comes from these leaks than you hope. And remember -- RE: those who employ tin hat pejoratives -- the people you don't get approval from are not the kind of people you want approval from.

/r/SandersForPresident Thread Parent