Everyone has the right to speak we always had it. Just now all the ones who think they are the next Einstein but really they are Bevis and Butthead have the ability to be heard.
It is like if you are a thousand miles away from a chicken farm you can't hear them but you know they are there just clucking their heads off. But if you live right next door to the chicken farm all you hear is those damn chickens. They tuned out the crickets in the tall grass and wind chimes on your back porch. All the beautiful sounds of the day are still there just the damn chickens drowned them out.
It isn’t so much that “idiots” have a platform- it’s that they can now find their people and link across great distances. If a million people all cut off their thumbs tomorrow because they believed that grants immunity to trans fats- I’m keeping my thumbs. You can’t move a man to foolishness or ignorance if he has none to start- so we are all ignorant and foolish in our own ways, and of certain things, and to varying degrees. The lone town clown is bolstered though when it is t just them in a bar yelling about the lizard government, but they can see many thousands of lone town clowns who agree and suddenly can say: “oh? So we are ALL wrong then? I don’t think so.”
But is that so bad? In the old days- no “average” person had the reach for their ideas that the famous, wealthy, or powerful did. Men like Hearst or like Murdoch controlled all the news- so whatever was happening you only saw what THEY wanted you to see in the light they wanted to show it- unless it was happening next door. But who could you tell if the news and the truth weren’t the same? So “idiots” could reach the masses- rich idiots and powerful idiots and famous idiots. Nobel prize winners? In 1950 who do you think had more exposure and sway and ability to impact the public? A sports star like a Major League Baseball player (in America) or Albert Einstein? The school books and papers and television were controlled and cultivated by a small group who decided what you know.
On the flip side- it’s not just the “idiots,” the queer teen alone in a small repressive town can reach out, be heard, and see that hey- they aren so isolated. There are multiple millions like them and just because they don’t see or hear those voices in their little corner of the world doesn’t mean they aren’t out there. The marginalized or victimized or abused also now have that power, and you don’t have to be rich or famous or powerful to be able to be heard of you have a valuable and legitimate message.
So it’s 50/50 right? Didn’t the internet just collectively applaud Ricky Gervais for telling the famous to shut up? Haven’t guys like Niel deGrasse Tyson or even Bill bye catch heat for being scientists making political or other statements well outside their expertise? And if you look at some of the past Nobel prize winners.... many have used their platforms for- or advocated/held some very questionable or problematic ends. So all in all....
The more people have a voice and the reach to put their message to the world- the more it is on US each of us as individuals- to use our own brains. To think critically and to question and research and verify things and not just take whatever we hear at face value. You think letting “idiots” talk to the world is so bad? These are the same idiots who we’ve let have votes for centuries- the same people who get to shape our world. You’re just seeing what they look like and getting a taste of what goes on in their heads is all.
It is like if you are a thousand miles away from a chicken farm you can't hear them but you know they are there just clucking their heads off. But if you live right next door to the chicken farm all you hear is those damn chickens. They tuned out the crickets in the tall grass and wind chimes on your back porch. All the beautiful sounds of the day are still there just the damn chickens drowned them out.
My landlord got her self 20 chickens and one fucking asshole of a rooster. lol