Scientology Goes After Planters Icon Mr. Peanut For Critiquing Its Super Bowl Ad
https://www.dailywire.com/news/43096/sci...ly-zanotti
EXCERPT: This year's Super Bowl left something to be desired and the commercials were no exception. But when the well-known legume decided to become a Twitter critic of the Church of Scientology's creepy 30-second spot on Sunday, he found himself in more trouble than he anticipated. Planters had its own commercial featuring Alex Rodriguez and Charlie Sheen, but the company's spokes-peanut also appeared on Twitter, and when Scientology aired its ad, Mr. Peanut responded directly.
[...] Honestly, the idea of "Fair Game-ing" a cartoon peanut sounds farfetched, right. It turns out, it wasn't far off the mark. Within minutes of Planters' tweet, prominent Scientologists, including some heavily involved in the Church's "Stand League," which operates as something of a "digital rapid response" operation, were tweeting that Planters was exhibiting "anti-religious bigotry."
MORE: https://www.dailywire.com/news/43096/sci...ly-zanotti
RELATED: Scientology Front Groups
What Drives the Flat-Earthers?
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...-earthers/
EXCERPT: I am still stunned that there are seemingly average people walking around today with the firm belief that the world is actually flat. The numbers, while still small, are also surprisingly high. In a recent survey only 84% of those surveyed were confident that the Earth is “round”. The rest expressed some doubt, were confident the Earth is flat, or were unsure. For those 18-24 only 66% were confident the world is round. (The survey was presented as a dichotomy between round and flat – it’s hard to say if this had any effect on the responses, but we’ll put that aside.) Belief in a flat Earth correlated with being young, religious, and poor.
Wrapping your head around this fact, for anyone with a modicum of scientific literacy and general sense, is not easy. But I am trying not to settle for any simplistic explanation of this phenomenon. Certainly any fringe movement like this is going to attract those with mental illness or an otherwise tenuous grip on reality. It also attracts dedicated conspiracy theorists. There are also the Sherri Shepherds of the world who simply can’t be bothered to clutter their mind with extraneous facts, such as the shape of the world on which they live.
But there seems to be still more going on, especially with the recent increase in this phenomenon. [....] When confronted with direct evidence that they are profoundly wrong, they typically give a handwaving explanation such as, “It’s an optical illusion.” They can’t really explain what they mean by that, or they try and hopelessly fail, but that is apparently good enough for them. ... There is an intimate relationship between belief in a flat earth and conspiracy thinking. It seems that some flat-earthers start out as dedicated conspiracy theorists first, and for them the flat earth is the ultimate conspiracy....
[...] A recent documentary video by The Guardian takes a look at a subset of flat Earth believers – those who are activists. ... One ... feature that comes to the fore is that the activists were often confronted by some mid-life type crisis. ... It seems clear that for them the flat Earth movement is a profound source of meaning, identity, and purpose. They are now part of a small fringe group, misunderstood and ridiculed, but ... seem proud to be in front of the cameras, but they are just immortalizing their own pathology.
It’s also pretty clear from listening to them that they have fallen victim to confirmation bias. [...] For that reason it is probably also near-impossible to get through to someone once they are a dedicated flat-earther. The self-deception is constructed to immunize itself from refutation – that is part of the same process that gets them into the belief in the first place. At that point it is a religious belief, a cult even. It is a lesson and cautionary tale in the frailty of human cognition and emotion....
MORE (details): https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...-earthers/
https://www.dailywire.com/news/43096/sci...ly-zanotti
EXCERPT: This year's Super Bowl left something to be desired and the commercials were no exception. But when the well-known legume decided to become a Twitter critic of the Church of Scientology's creepy 30-second spot on Sunday, he found himself in more trouble than he anticipated. Planters had its own commercial featuring Alex Rodriguez and Charlie Sheen, but the company's spokes-peanut also appeared on Twitter, and when Scientology aired its ad, Mr. Peanut responded directly.
Watching the @Scientology ad like... pic.twitter.com/iCnkfmTS8l
— Mr. Peanut (@MrPeanut) February 4, 2019
[...] Honestly, the idea of "Fair Game-ing" a cartoon peanut sounds farfetched, right. It turns out, it wasn't far off the mark. Within minutes of Planters' tweet, prominent Scientologists, including some heavily involved in the Church's "Stand League," which operates as something of a "digital rapid response" operation, were tweeting that Planters was exhibiting "anti-religious bigotry."
MORE: https://www.dailywire.com/news/43096/sci...ly-zanotti
RELATED: Scientology Front Groups
What Drives the Flat-Earthers?
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...-earthers/
EXCERPT: I am still stunned that there are seemingly average people walking around today with the firm belief that the world is actually flat. The numbers, while still small, are also surprisingly high. In a recent survey only 84% of those surveyed were confident that the Earth is “round”. The rest expressed some doubt, were confident the Earth is flat, or were unsure. For those 18-24 only 66% were confident the world is round. (The survey was presented as a dichotomy between round and flat – it’s hard to say if this had any effect on the responses, but we’ll put that aside.) Belief in a flat Earth correlated with being young, religious, and poor.
Wrapping your head around this fact, for anyone with a modicum of scientific literacy and general sense, is not easy. But I am trying not to settle for any simplistic explanation of this phenomenon. Certainly any fringe movement like this is going to attract those with mental illness or an otherwise tenuous grip on reality. It also attracts dedicated conspiracy theorists. There are also the Sherri Shepherds of the world who simply can’t be bothered to clutter their mind with extraneous facts, such as the shape of the world on which they live.
But there seems to be still more going on, especially with the recent increase in this phenomenon. [....] When confronted with direct evidence that they are profoundly wrong, they typically give a handwaving explanation such as, “It’s an optical illusion.” They can’t really explain what they mean by that, or they try and hopelessly fail, but that is apparently good enough for them. ... There is an intimate relationship between belief in a flat earth and conspiracy thinking. It seems that some flat-earthers start out as dedicated conspiracy theorists first, and for them the flat earth is the ultimate conspiracy....
[...] A recent documentary video by The Guardian takes a look at a subset of flat Earth believers – those who are activists. ... One ... feature that comes to the fore is that the activists were often confronted by some mid-life type crisis. ... It seems clear that for them the flat Earth movement is a profound source of meaning, identity, and purpose. They are now part of a small fringe group, misunderstood and ridiculed, but ... seem proud to be in front of the cameras, but they are just immortalizing their own pathology.
It’s also pretty clear from listening to them that they have fallen victim to confirmation bias. [...] For that reason it is probably also near-impossible to get through to someone once they are a dedicated flat-earther. The self-deception is constructed to immunize itself from refutation – that is part of the same process that gets them into the belief in the first place. At that point it is a religious belief, a cult even. It is a lesson and cautionary tale in the frailty of human cognition and emotion....
MORE (details): https://theness.com/neurologicablog/inde...-earthers/