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Comment by moviewatcher333 | Hacker News Reader

The story was huge news when it broke. There wasn’t a conspiracy by journalists to hide it.

The problem was people as a whole didn’t care. I think it’s only very recently that more than a small minority of Americans became aware of the reality that the police and justice system aren’t always people out there doing good—they’re normal people, for better or worse. Up until we got daily police videos of cops killing innocent people, it was assumed that arrested=guilty, throw them away. Even in the face of video evidence lots of people won’t budge from the idea that the justice system had a good reason for doing heinous things.

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These people believe that there is corruption in politics and politics in the workplace.

But for some reason they think that corruption in the justice system is impossible. Usually they think the same about assosiated organisations like FBI

That's during a conflict with Russia, a country where all power was seized by internal security services

The motivation of holding these beliefs is very simple, if bad things are done by the justice system to innocent (or not particularly criminal people), then there's a chance that one day the justice system does the same to you through no fault of your own. That's an unsettling idea hence rejected.

I think this is another "just world fallacy"[1] adjacent idea running rampant in our society. You see this fallacy it pop up in a lot of "woo" self-help ideas like "manifesting" or "sending out positive vibrations" as well as things like faith or spiritual healing. The basic idea being that people get what they deserve so people who experience hardship - whether legal, medical, or social - deserve it. While people who do and think good things are safe from these forces.

IMHO, this is a kind of pathological extension of "internal locus of control"[2]. Internal locus of control is good for mental health and achievement, but once you start to project it onto other people without sufficient consideration of their circumstances things quickly get problematic.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_of_control

>> The problem was people as a whole didn’t care.

People dont care about the economics of free messaging apps or "tech monopolies", but plaster it enough across enough articles across many years of publication and suddenly it becomes an issue.

I'd argue that the NY Times and other media are the ones who dont care. They get to decide what people care about.

I didn't say there was any conspiracy to hide it.

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