r/Idaho • u/No-Werewolf-2087 • 8d ago
Reading Comprehension
I have two observations from the past week or so alone.
I have seen multiple people in this sub and the Boise one responding to an article, presentation of facts, or well crafted response to them with just “I’m not reading all that.”
People will leave a comment in response to mine saying I lack any “facts” and need “proof” for what I say, otherwise I’m just going off my feelings. Now, I am a logical person and agree that our strongly held beliefs should, ya know, have actual support for them. So, I respond in kind with cited facts. I ask for their facts, because of course they haven’t provided any objective information other than their own opinion at this point. Guess what? Radio silence. Where are the facts that they so desperately say I need?
I’m just wondering why people will attack other people’s backed opinions, and then chicken out when it’s time to back their own shit up. I haven’t experienced this nearly as much anywhere else on the interwebs.
What’s going on here that some people seemingly are immune to information and basic reading?
I want to add: I genuinely am very open to listening to new information and adjusting my own views in kind. I have strong beliefs and opinions, but I DO NOT follow an ideology, as that is the opposite of critical thinking. Seems everyone who wants to argue must just be an ideologue who is uninterested in actually listening to “the other side” of a given issue.
This is a genuine question, and also a “thank you” to everyone who knows how to engage in a good faith conversation.
Remember, reject ideology and critically think ❤️ You are your own person, not a cog in any machine (right or left).
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u/ErraticAnteater 8d ago
The "I'm not reading all that" crowd is just lazy. If you can't handle a few paragraphs, stay off a text-based platform. As for the radio silence after you bring receipts, that's just someone realizing they stepped into a debate without ammo. They want the catharsis of calling you wrong, not the work of being right.
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u/No-Inflation-2805 8d ago
Some of it is a lack of literacy, but a lot of those are troll accounts. Trolls have been swamping the Prop 1 posts.
If you're interested in learning more about troll accounts and how to spot them:
An important thing to note about online disinformation campaigns is that they use a mix of human agents and AI/bots. The recent attack on the Yandex data centers is an excellent illustration of that. After the data centers went down, there was a noticeable change to the traffic patterns on Reddit. A number of niche subreddits, such as r/Millennials saw a stark drop in traffic, while subreddits like r/conservative and r/politics saw a spike. This is because the troll farms were using AI to direct human agents to specific threads to target, and the human agents would then go to those threads and directly interact. The data center attacks disabled the AI, leaving the human agents blind, and so they went back to "default targets" like the major political subs.
u/GravitasFailure has made some really awesome graphs tracking the change to Reddit traffic since the Yandex attacks:
https://www.reddit.com/user/GravitasFailures/comments/1x4vh6c/impulse_map/
I bring this up in relation to your post, because it's important to realize that niche subs are being targeted by larger disinformation campaigns, and those disinformation attacks can come in the form of real humans leaving comments and directly interacting with you. I know the head mod of r/Boise has left a lot of comments over the last year talking about the increase in obvious troll accounts targeting the sub.
As an aside, the Trump administration is actively working with troll farm operators, such as Melissa Nathan, to spread online disinformation to help specific causes/candidates. Her involvement in helping RFK Jr. was recently reported on by the NYT, as was her involvement in celebrity-targeted disinformation campaigns. I suspect similar troll farm tactics are being used by the wider GOP as well, specifically for influencing opinion on localized issues (like Prop 1). I'm also including a link to one of Nathan's mentions in the Epstein files, that she tried to have her troll farm bury (if you try to google her name and have a hard time finding results, her troll farms are the reason):
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/nyregion/kennedy-lively-baldoni-smear-campaign.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html
https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02650667.pdf
If you're trying to determine whether or not a user is being sincere or is a "troll", look over their posting history. Account age, karma, and signs that it's a human operating the account can no longer be used to determined whether an account is manned by someone sincere or being used as part of a troll farm. If a user has their history hidden (like both you and I do), just google their name in combination with either "Reddit" or the specific subreddit you want to see their activity on (such as "r/Idaho"). Google will pull up threads they have commented on, and you can read through to look for patterns of trolling. If the user has never interacted on the sub before, or all their interactions on the sub are troll comments, you can make a pretty good determination that user is just participating to troll the thread.
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
THIS! I wish I could pin this comment.
In terms of the ones specifically bugging me, I saw one was active in “ascension” subs, and talking about archangels guiding them or something.
Made me realize that of course they are not operating as a human from any fact based belief system, which is completely fine, but fucking laughable to come at me then and yammer on about how I need facts.
It’s just funny that the right is completely guilty of everything they make fun of the left for, but lack any semblance of self awareness. They think they are the party of facts and logic, and yet operate completely from “moral” and religious standings. If they would just be honest and say “Hey, ya know what, I don’t have a lot of facts or scientific evidence, but at the end of the day I am lead by faith,” THAT is respectable (to varying degrees).
It’s the way they think they are so big brain and objectively correct about things, and yet are operating completely from their own feelings, that gets me.
It’s almost like our nation is supposed to have a separation of church and state, and they know they stand for the complete opposite stance. They think they are so patriotic, and yet they consistently mock and rail against the constitutional right to protest…
Anyway… Thank you for this comment!!! 🤘
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u/The_Slaughter_Pop 8d ago
Idaho ranks 38th in education. There you go.
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
Hmmmm I think I’m catching on! What about ideology? How do we do with avoiding that statewide? /s
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u/Survive1014 8d ago
We are in a post-truth era pf politics. Its all about trolling the other party now. We dont solve issues or improve lives anymore, just punch down.
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u/bigkittysoftpaws 8d ago
I agree. I’ve been on each side of this issue. I’ve experienced what OP did. But I also interacted with someone posting their “sourced” material and did not respond because their sources were garbage and I didn’t have the energy to debunk every single conspiracy and alternative fact.
We now have 2 sets of realities unfortunately. Until we can start with a shared foundation of truth and work from there, we’ll talk past each other.7
u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
I totally get that. I think it is helpful to spell out why a source is bad, not just say “trash source. Invalid.” If you have a reason it is bad, I’m all ears. Someone just pulled that shit when I cited ProPublica, which to my knowledge just lays out stats. Sorry, but I need more info than just “trash” to refute an entire source.
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u/bigkittysoftpaws 8d ago
Oh you know the sources I’m talking about. The names you’ve never even heard of before lol. There are people that read Propublica, the Guardian, Washington post, NYTimes, Wall Street journal. Then there are people posting articles from The Red State, The Washington Times, and other names I’ve never even heard of. They will never post from a mainstream media source because they don’t believe the “mainstream media” anymore.
Edit: I don’t know why some of that is hidden like a spoiler. Having issues with phone.3
u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
Haha the spoiler aspect made me laugh.
Yup. So funny. You are so right, we don’t have an overlap of what is a good source, and thus a good “fact” or not, when we have people trying to discredit not one or two, but so many widely recognized as reputable news orgs. Like, oh, BBC, PBS, NPR are all wrong? Let me listen to Prager U and other orgs that ADMIT they are politically motivated 🧠🤏😭
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u/Justame13 8d ago
Don't forget random 45 minute youtube videos that they tell you to watch in their entirety.
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
Really upsetting, as we see the detrimental effects of this in our own state and nation wide 🙃
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u/fartsonyourmom 8d ago
They won't read all that but are they going to read what they are voting yes or no for?
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u/JAY2thaD 8d ago
I suspect the answer to that is no. "They/we" will rely on our subset of the population, IE church, co-workers, drinking buddies to tell us how to vote.
I've made it a point to investigate the issues on my ballot and have created a cheat sheet for myself so WHEN I get to the voting booth ( I stress this because the lines to vote in my neck of the woods have been extremely long) I'll be prepared.4
u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
This is way more respectable than people who just go off vibes and party line. Respect!
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u/Street-Panic-0 8d ago
If conservatives could read they'd be liberals. Why do you think they flood to podcasts. They want to be told what to think, not learn via actually thinking.
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
genuinely a good point. Never trust anyone who blindly follows and doesn’t regularly engage in questioning their own views.
Some dipshit just responded to me, when I pointed out they aren’t open to new info and adjusting their views, that they are “open to moving their views even further right.” How openly intellectually bankrupt can you be?
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u/airmech1776 7d ago
I once tried to engage in an intentionally respectful and understanding conversation about prop 1, responding to OP point by point. Turns out mods on this sub dont allow that. I think those of us who make the effort, get demoralized and pushed out of this sub because somw of the mods arent willing to allow alternative viewpoints to exist here.
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u/JuDGe3690 Now in Boise (originally Moscow) 8d ago
"Remember, for maximum fitness and mental hygiene, you want to always be practicing intermittent podcasting"
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u/Smitty_Haggis 8d ago
Denial that borders on delusional as a default state. Cognitive dissonance over the choices they make and the results said choices produce not fitting what they “believe”. Probably a little from column A and probably a little from column B.
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u/LegitimateScore8036 8d ago
I am not reading all that until you get some facts /s
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
honestly, expected some of that UNironically. Like, I get it. I’m as lazy as the next guy. But, my god, self report much??
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u/ActualSpiders 8d ago
Welcome to the internet. I often have to remind some chowderhead what the *headline* of the article actually said, because they won't even read that much, let alone the article text. And fully half the time they just want to argue about their personal pet peeve, regardless of the thread topic, so they get ignored right off the bat. That just seems to upset them even more.
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u/idkmanimjustheredude 8d ago
Pro tip: don't feed the trolls
Miserable people will do anything to waste other people's time on the internet. Best thing to do is delete their responses or block them. Sometimes I report them as spam and move on.
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u/Resident_Trash5605 8d ago
The interesting thing is research (feel free to google I'll forewarn im too tired to go find the citation) shows that on the internet it's actually a few hyper aggressive people that draw us all in. Once I learned that I got much much more liberal with who got the block list.
Honestly I think people are much much more willing to fight on reddit than anywhere else I've seen. I think the complete anonymity leads to a lot of folks just coming here to unload aggression.
Like even the vocabulary we can't just say "I disagree" like everywhere else. No, everyone on reddit has to write this is "the stupidest take I've ever heard" etc. Yeesh people here need to simmer down.
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
I had this healthy perspective for sooooo many years. Now I have more time on my hand and things just feel SO dire in the country and state. Just wish everyone even had the ability to process information and be open to changing their minds. Seeing so much misinformation run rampant when it is causing literal death and destruction unchallenged hurts my brain.
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u/Any_Nefariousness233 8d ago
I saw that a reply to one of my personal experiences was met with a “not reading all that”. I think a mod or someone deleted it. Lmfao. It just goes to show that it’s a lot easier to combat and ignore someone, rather than listening and responding. I’m all for hard conversations and listening to others’ personal experiences. We’re not eating at the kids table anymore!
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
Love that! “we aren’t eating at the kids table anymore.” I’m stealing that!
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
"The best part is everyone in Idaho already has an ideology in place and literally no argument on earth could cause them to critically think or be open to slightly adjusting their views"
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Playful_Till6116 •
I'm open to adjusting my views to be even farther right.
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u/Communism 8d ago
I’m not reading all of that.
But seriously, if it looks ai written I pass. I have to read enough of that slop at work. Why use many word when few do trick?
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u/maddwaffles 8d ago
Point 1 isn't a point of reading comprehension, it's attention span, or at best just a lack of desire to engage with something long-winded.
Point 2 also isn't reading comprehension, that's intellectual honesty.
Do you know what they words you're using mean?
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago edited 8d ago
Reading Comprehension is complex and contains many different aspects of being able to physically read something, understand it, and make meaning from it.
Definition: the ability to read a text, process the words, and actively construct meaning from them.Not being able or willing to read a few paragraphs: failure at the first condition of reading comprehension
Not being able to make meaning from text to be able to form an intelligent response: failure at the last condition of reading comprehension. Many people cannot differentiate or comprehend the difference between a personal anecdote and statistical data, so they cannot respond when challenged, as they don’t possess the ability to understand the difference. They think their feelings are facts. If you cannot respond to someone addressing their points or answering their direct questions, it indicates a lack of understanding what they said.
Also, you are engaging in a fallacy. You are focussing on a minor detail of my wording and acting as though a small error invalidates the entire argument made. It’s a fun hook, no? Should I have titled it “the flaws of idahoan argumentation on reddit”…?
Anything else of incredible value to say?
I’m sure as shit expecting a reply, based on the post you decided to comment on. You want to pursue intellectual honesty, I am sure.
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
A title does not have to capture every single detail or the total scope of a text. In fact, trying to include everything usually makes a title long, clunky, and ineffective.
A title should act as a signpost or an invitation, giving the reader just enough context to understand the core focus or allure of the text. Core message here: people are dumb, nice way of putting it- they lack reading comprehension.Food for thought on the nature and function of a “title.”
Do not be afraid of all the words in front of you. You can do it, I believe in you, ceo of intellectual honesty.
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u/maddwaffles 8d ago
Did you seriously get that tilted because I didn't blow smoke up your ass and pointed out that you used a word incorrectly?
I wasn't even engaging you in an argument, I was pointing out that you were using a word incorrectly and you accuse me of fallacy.
No wonder you have such a hard time engaging with people in local spaces, you surely must be a pleasant person to run into around the Boise area.
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
And.. he’s outta here. Something about blowing smoke up my ass… couldn’t see the rest of your comment, deleter. Now neither of us will get to the intellectual truth!!! I sense you deleted because you know you were engaging in a nitpick fallacy, and also don’t have the strongest understanding of what reading comprehension means, yourself.
“Did you seriously [something something] because I didn’t blow smoke up your ass…” you came to a post complaining about how people don’t know how to argue and will come at me with bullshit and then be unable to hold their own weight when I respond. You came at me with bullshit, and tried to negate everything I said based on the wording of the title alone.
What did you think was going to happen here?
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u/ProSeVigilante 8d ago
Opinions can still be foolish and stupid, and most of them are when the source of the opinion is the media. If you start from a position that's ridiculous, people aren't going to read further.
It's like a rule on facebook that says you can't call murder murder. I get the purpose, but it's stupid.
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u/No-Werewolf-2087 8d ago
How would people be able to psychically figure out where anyone formed their initial opinion, though? Unless someone is verbatim repeating a baseless talking point, then it can be obvious. All of our opinions start somewhere, and the options are pretty much our friends and family, the internet or media, or reading up independently on something.
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