bramling
Veteran Member
Yes, the art of reasoned debate has been completely lost. Instead of trying to change peoples' views with facts and figures, the term 'anti vaxxer' is used, as if that's meant to win an argument. To me it just shows a lack of knowledge, research or any kind of critical thinking. It was the same with the Brexit debate - if you even questioned the EU or its motives, you were called a Brexiteer, even if you on balance voted remain.
As you say, it's a horrid indictment of the nation's IQ.
We can possibly blame social media for this. Somewhere like this forum exposes people to a range of views, but Facebook and Twitter in particular tends to be like a wedding cake where people simply pile more of the same on top.
Same with the Facebook generation, where when two people bust up the whole thing is played out on social media in the form of each half putting pointed messages on their public Facebook page for the other to see. It’s ghastly.
The whole Covid thing is certainly a cautionary tale for our country.
I'd agree with all that. Behaviour on the network seems to be far, far worse than it was pre Covid.
On Monday, I was on a GWR train and the guard was aggressively threatened with violence at two consecutive stops by two separate fare evades who were then promptly removed from the train. For context, this was a lightly loaded Castle HST in Cornwall in the middle of the day. The conductor though was excellent. Wasn't phased by it at all and was more concerned about apologising to passengers who'd had to hear it. Which in itself is quite revealing really given some of the things heard.
People are a lot more aggressive. I put it down to the lack of structured interactions with others over the last 18 months. The hospitality sector have certainly been getting it in the neck too.
More reasons to get back to 2019 normal ASAP and be done with this now.