Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for November 25, 2024

Bingo

I remember once seeing coffee mugs, T-shirts, etc, that read, “If idiots could fly, this place would be an airport.”

They also had the phrase with an A-word instead of “idiots.”

Before social media and cable news, people had opinions, but you didn’t hear them.

Problem is not that peoples has opinions. Problem is peoples trying to forcing one’s own opinions on another as if it is facts.

Dunning Kruger syndrome.

I believe this. Too many times people with no brains get elected because people who have no brains vote for the same kind of people. This is a problem on the left and the right, although moderates also have this problem.

Thank you, Rat.

During the Nixon administration someone said (forget who), “Opinions are like a*sholes – everybody’s got one”. “And they are probably on Yelp!” – my opinion. :)

Why are Americans on Reddit different from Americans on Youtube and Twitter?

Most Americans on Reddit are pro-illegal immigration, pro-feminist and pro-Islam.

however many Americans on Youtube and Twitter are anti-illegal immigration, anti-feminist and anti-Islam

My latest hypothesis is that all people are absolutely stupid. The problem is that some of them think they are relatively less stupid. Especially bad when they think so because they have extra money from winning some business lottery (or scam).

Can’t I have both opinions and a brain? There are facts which you cannot have an opinion about but you can simply know or deny them, while you can have e.g. an opinion how to deal with those facts appropriately.

Opinions are like butt holes. Everyone has one, and they all stink.

Back in the Cronkite Era the Big Three networks’ news shows were losing money, but they were a showcase for how good the networks were. The 1968 Bill Buckley/Gore Vidal debates came about because thrid place ABC couldn’t afford the coverage that the other guys were giving the political conventions.

Also, at that time every town had an independent newspaper and no one entity could own more than one TV station and two radio stations in a city.

Ronald Reagan made the Fairness Doctrine one of his first targets.

“Yeah? Well, you know, that’s just like your opinion, man.”

People have always had opinions, and most of them were always stupid. The internet makes it easier for the dumb ones to drown out the smart ones.

Too bad we can’t graph the rise in social media along side the scale change in the cartoon.

It’s when opinions are not grounded in fact but instead are grounded in partisan BS that it becomes a problem.

It’s an internet thing

I need new glasses it seems, I read “People with Onions”!! >.<

Good thing we’re all on the ”brains” side of the scale

Maybe the scales should read “people that have been taught HOW to think” and “people that have been taught WHAT to think”, or more simply “educated” and “indoctrinated”.

A few years ago “we can agree that we disagree” was a grudgingly accepted solution. We’ve kind of blown past that one. Our ancestors settled such things with wars. We seem to have settled on trying to find the most hurtful insult (and running before we get hurt).

So that’s your opinion, eh Rat?

He’s done his own research.

Only dummies have opinions?

The Rise of Social Media.

Opinions without facts. E.g. , if you think vaccines cause autism, your opinion on the subject is worthless.

Some people just don’t find facts as entertaining as unfounded opinions. But that’s just my opinion. ;-)

1974-two years earlier Nixon won reelection, carried 49 states, 60% of vote.

That’s my opinion, feel free to make it yours

The person who can’t explain why he holds a given opinion (usually saying “it’s an opinion; I don’t have to explain it”) is in fact stating either a prejudice or someone else’s opinion rather than his own. Examine your own “opinions” on that basis.

So much for freedom of speech.

If I remember 1974 right, people weren’t any smarter. They were politer and didn’t have the ability to broadcast their ignorance like they do today.

I disagree with the premise. The problem isn’t that people don’t have brains. The problem is that people don’t seek out accurate information before forming an opinion.

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds have opinions.” – Eleanor Roosevelt [kinda, sorta].

This one, sadly is too close to the reality to be finny.

MY opinion is: this is a good comic.

So, one has to be stupid to have an opinion??? Just the opposite, Pastis.

With respect to the people with opinions, I think the problem is less that they have an opinion, and more that they don’t engage the brain before they form the opinion.

It’s not the ratio that’s unbalanced, it’s the ratio of how loud those people with opinions are compared to the people with brains.

The news media fills the opinion bowl. I don’t think they know the difference between facts and opinion.

A failure of our educational system to teach how to evaluate sources of information.