Neutrality

Lyrics

First, I want to acknowledge that your emphasis on media literacy and skepticism is both needed and valuable in today's world. Challenging dominant narratives and questioning the motives behind media stories is an essential exercise in critical thinking. And eve though called three times and have the call log to prove that, I will believe that maybe it was just a glitch in our phone connection.

I don't actually necessarily disagree with you but I wanted to challenge you or assumptions on the soundness of the reasoning here. One thing that stood out to me was being labeled as having "mind AIDS" for challenging your framework. Let’s unpack that. This was not only an ad hominem attack but a rather revealing reaction. I was accused of being blindly attached to “the screen” or mainstream narratives, even though I openly agreed with some of your conclusions. It seemed more important to frame me as part of the problem than to actually address any critique. I already know what psychological operations are. I don't even reject all hoax belief. There was the auto assumption that I did.

This defensiveness undermines the claim of being a skeptic. If the response is rarely a genuine consideration of all points raised, but an insistence on the superiority of worldview that often feels circular and self-reinforcing, wheres the skepticism?
One of the key issues is the standard of evidence applied. Its claimed that the media bears the burden of proof to demonstrate the truth of its narratives. While that is true to an extent, it is also true that anyone making a positive claim bears the same burden. Automatically assuming something is a hoax, as opposed to approaching it with real, objective skepticism is not critical thinking, it’s confirmation bias. It's not simply waiting for more evidence to objectively form a conclusion; its starting with the conclusion (fake until proven real) and working backwards from it.
Also there's a tendency to conflate skepticism with superiority. There’s a recurring tone of “I know, while others merely believe,” in which conspiracy theorists, like those who believe in chemtrails, are called out for being naive or alarmist. But the theory that nearly everything is staged, is itself a massive conspiracy theory. The only difference is the reframe of it as media skepticism. And if nothing could persuade otherwise, it’s an unfalsifiable belief system.

Moreover, the insistence that this approach is “subtracting” rather than “adding” doesn’t hold up. The claim is it strips away assumptions and illusions, but the reality is that it's adding a massive, overarching conspiracy theory to the narrative: that nearly every major event or tragedy is staged or fake.
But again, since its starting with an assumption, it will carry a burden of proof. Something being fake until proven real is a positive claim. The default position is not to believe or disbelieve a big event story, it's neutrality.