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Comment by pdimitar | Hacker News Reader

> We are never going to know what is real anymore.

Yeah, except for all those aliens who actually go outside and see for themselves, or ask people who have been there. You know, like most of humanity would do. :D

I get the article's premise but it sounds like a non-issue midterm. A lot of people go through increased financial hardship currently, and their interest in news is waning so the whole thing kind of balances itself out: more manipulated online material, less engagement from people. I'd think the latter factor will prevail because the manipulated material is put online to achieve a goal (usually a financial one) and if that goal is not achieved then the manipulators will start losing interest -- eventually.

Though I am really curious to see how will the whole thing unfold in reality. Obviously I am not claiming I can predict the future.

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> actually go outside and see for themselves, or ask people who have been there

Ya sure, only way forward to know what’s going on between Israel and Gaza is to go there myself and ask around. Same with every other conflict. No problem

At least in urban parts of the US, I can go outside and learn Jews are not evil masterminds all planning in conjunction to take over the world, and that Muslims/Palestinians are not all brutal terrorists. What saddens me is that so many fail to make the logical leap that 99% of people you know just wanting to live their lives in peace also applies to 99% of people on the planet.

Unfortunately, that's not exactly true or even relevant. I wish it were.

It's not relevant because it's often the actions of governments, whether elected or not, that actually dictate so much of what happens in the world. It could be the case that e.g. most Russians just want peace - that won't stop a world war from happening if the Russian government decides to start one.

It's also not true either. It's not true because it really is the case that some people don't just want peace - they want to achieve specific goals, some of which are incompatible with other people's goals, and they want this more than they want peace. The Palestinians want various things - e.g. right of return. Israel doesn't want to grant it to them. It's more complicated, there's lots of nuances, but it's not just an issue of "oh why can't they realize that they just want to leave peacefully"

I wish it were.

And where did I say you can do that for everything?

Also you should not care what happens there unless it starts personally and directly affecting you -- just my opinion.

And before you say that it affects you... I seriously doubt it.

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