A reminder: many people are out to mislead you and profit from it.
I don't want to give any named or relations, but there is someone I know who is always listening to contentious podcasts and YouTube videos. I'm not speaking of someone I interact with on Hive, this person is from real life, so don't worry I'm not talking about you ;)
This person is always talking to be about these terrible things he hears. Just recently, it was about Apple.
Did you know that Apple gives any company that wants full access to all your files?
Uhm... no they don't.
But this podcast said they do and this is a very trustworthy person.
I don't care who it is—he's wrong or mistaken. Not only does Apple not give any access to companies unless you explicitly give permission by hitting "yes" to a popup after you install the app and run it for the first time, but many companies including Google and Facebook are still angry at Apple for this and they beg users to give them access, claiming in their permissions popups that their apps won't work unless you give them access, which is a complete lie designed to trick you into giving them access to your more of your phone.
But Apple is a closed operating system, so we have to trust them, while Android is open-source so we can see exactly what they are doing.
There are a lot of lines of code in Android. Even programming experts can't possible audit it all to check everything. There are entire security companies who try to audit the Android code. Also, that open-source potential works against Android sometimes: for example, apps are always figuring out ways around security that Google implements. Due to this most security companies place Android as less secure than iOS.
But it's open!
Do you want freedom or security? These are two ends of a scale, so you can't have both at 100%. You pick what you want, but know that this podcast you listened to lied to you in an attempt to influence your judgement. Why did they lie to you? Well... after trying to push you to switching to Android by slandering Apple, did they suggest you buy their app?
Yes. But it sounds like a great app!
I'm sure it is. But there you go. "Switch to Android because Apple is evil. And by the way, give us money."
I'm not an Apple shill and am the first to agree some of the things they do are maddening, but I don't like when people use these straw man arguments to try to mislead people with the sole purpose of tricking them into buying something, or just to be angry. There is enough to be upset about in the world, why add to it by getting angry about nothing?
He listens to a lot of political podcasts too.
Biden is such a scumbag. I mean, I don't like Trump either, he should be in jail, but Biden is a bigger criminal than any of them!
And I'll ask him what was said, and just as above we'll go back and back just like the above, and it turns out the podcast he was listening to charges a shitload of money for a membership where they reveal the real secrets of "how evil Democrats really are".
I don't know about you, but I'd say the only evil ones here are the podcast snake oil salesmen who are using fear and partisanship to try to cheat people out of their money. Whether Biden is good or bad is immaterial; podcasts like this are using peoples' bias in order to make money from them, and that is immoral and disgusting.
Not to mention podcasts like this are not helping our current political environment. As long as it's my team vs your team and the other side is evil regardless of what they do, we are never going to solve anything. I miss the days when politicians actually worked together instead of vowing to defeat anything the other side does regardless of what it is and just calling each other names.
Anyway, the point is on the internet today people are out to mislead you, take advantage of you, and profit from you in some way. When anyone you read or listen to gives an extreme position, it might be worth stepping back and asking why. The moderate position is almost always the best one. When people take to the extremes they are usually being misled or are out to mislead others. I don't care what you think, but I do hope you think for yourself and always ask why when people try to push you to an extreme point of view.
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon. |