Why does the general public have such excruciatingly bad judgment?

Remember that story about the little girl with the facial scars being allegedly thrown out of KFC because her injuries were upsetting the other customers: FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE FAKE
 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-claim-kfc-kicked-3-year-old-disfigured-granddaughter-hoax-report-article-1.1841151
 
I mean I don't want to bang my own drum here, primarily because it was so obvious a 6 year old child could have seen through it, but I knew this crap was a hoax from the start. Why? Because EVERY SINGLE TIME one of these stories spreads like wildfire on social media and everyone's rushing to their keyboards to express their most righteous outrage, it turns out that the person who made the claim fabricated the whole thing for attention. Waitress writes offensive note on customers receipt condemning their "lifestyle" or their skin color or some such thing. Customer posts photo of receipt or otherwise recounts their experience on Facebook. Facebook users issue stark condemnations in their thousands. Mass media picks up the story. Goes viral. Millions of people vow never to shop at store X or eat at restaurant Y every again. Stories continue for about a week. And then it's all exposed as a big con. 
 
When this KFC story came out, I made a comment on a news site along the lines of "here we go again, I wonder how long before it's exposed as a hoax." Downvoted something like 600 times. Roundly condemned over and over again in comment replies for being a "hater." People telling me "of course it's true, why would she make up something like that? KFC is a corporation and all corporations are evil." 
 
Why does the general public have such awful, awful judgment? How are they so utterly terrible at seeing patterns? It kind of freaks me out that these people can vote and serve on juries etc. 

To be honest with you, when I read the news, I didn't know what shocked me most - that a parent would feed their children KFC or the amount of rubbish and disinformation going around about pitbulls.

Experiments in mind control.

Loneliness plain and simple. The kind of thing people who need people used to discuss with their flesh and blood friends over coffee, stupid meaningless misplaced outrage, unimaginative useless advice, envy disguised as admiration, etc. Now it finds an outlet in text and picture on the internet for everyone to admire.
 
 

Yep, more and more of these every day. Noticed a story yesterday about a Primark customer buying a garment with a label sewn inside reading 'forced to work exhausting hours'. It'll be de-bunked.

What planet did dear Courtney think the plane was on? 

Somebody must have said it or they wouldn't print it......
 
 

I sometimes miss the days of no internet and no cell phones. I wonder, do we have more access to information now or more access to misinformation? Are we being helped or hurt? Propaganda has been around forever, but now it is much easier to use.
I guess there is still, nothing new under the sun but sometimes it seems like there is. All the junk being pumped into our homes these days ... I don't know, I don't see how good can come from it.
 
In the 1930s someone like Hitler could lead a country astray... with todays technology, the whole world can be (and IMO, will be) led astray.
 
Sharke, that one got by me. I can spot a lot of fake stories but outrageous stories are becoming more and more believable.
 
When I started typing this there was a woman on TV extolling the virtues of democracy, saying that democracy is the only hope for some troubled countries... we used to know that democracy is a truly evil form of government, it is why our founders created a constitutional republic, to protect the minority from the will of the majority. Pure democracy is simply two wolves and a sheep deciding on what's for dinner. The "general public" is much more ignorant than it used to be. Not stupid, just ignorant. There is hope. Perhaps people will learn from being fooled by stories like this KFC story, maybe they will develop an "eye" for deceit. Maybe..
 
BTW, when I mention democracy, I don't mean to imply anything about party politics. Don't mean to cross the TOS line.
 
J

sharke

jamesg1213
Yep, more and more of these every day. Noticed a story yesterday about a Primark customer buying a garment with a label sewn inside reading 'forced to work exhausting hours'. It'll be de-bunked.

I need to get that on a t-shirt.

Me too...

Better they make up sad stories for attention, than go out with a gun to get attention.

I am unoffended.

craigb

jbow
I am unoffended.

Is that the same as being onended? 

I will have to unanswer that question...

No doubt they have families they have to support. The family excuse as well as many others are used by some people.
 
 

Rain
Stumbled upon this gem: "Bapu is a world-class poster with an atrocity to his name called FSF, his loops matter not to MusicMan100, in fact they PI$$ him off."

 
Yup, there is no hope.

spacealf
No doubt they have families they have to support. The family excuse as well as many others are used by some people.

 
It's people with families that cause most of the problems.