I've been too busy to post today but on the way home from work, I received a text message, supposedly from Telefonica in the U.K. The message indicated that I had won 418,000 pounds. That is a substantial sum of cash.
Too bad it's a scam. A simple internet search reveals a number of people have received the exact message. Curiously most of them outside of the U.K. But it got me thinking. Anyone with half a brain would check it out before sending in the requested email address. Wouldn't they? Well apparently not or the scam would die. The lesson in this is twofold.
Firstly, people believe what they read or hear. That's how the Democrats win elections. They say the right things. People hear those things and respond instinctively. Democrats rely on it just as the scammers claiming you won a prize do. It's gullibility that helps the predators (for voters or money). They rely on an instinctive trust of the message.
Which leads to the second point. Those who surf the internet are less passive than those absorbing by TV viewing. How do I know? I googled the text message on my blackberry. It is easy and I am skeptical. I needed to research before replying. If it were on TV then I might have believed it. What's more, the TV isn't interactive. If I wanted to question it I would have had to switch my medium to the internet to find out. The mainstream media is not out there proclaiming this is a fraud.
Even if they wanted to, they cannot compete with the internet for sheer volume of information. The pajamas media types have an inherent advantage - skepticism and resources.
The problem is that there are still more passive receptors than avid questioners. That's how the Democrats do it - the rely on your passive acceptance of the message they propagate, and the fact that those who will passively accept it (a) greatly outnumber questioners and (b) the accepters are inherently suspicious of questioners. Which makes waking up blind followers that much harder.
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