For those who aren't familiar with the term, it means believing something that probably shouldn't be believed, or being influenced to believe something that's not necessarily in your best interests.

There was a time I actually thought that Elon Musk wanted to help save the planet by making electric cars mainstream to displace fossil fuel vehicles, and by helping humanity return to space simply for the science and exploration value.

Musk's "some kind of pedo guy" comment about the diver that dismissed Musk's efforts with the cave children was the first WTF moment, but I wrote that off has him just having a bad day as he apologized later. Musk fighting the COVID lockdown was also more evidence that concerned me. This was all before Elon's embrace of trump and GOP Nazism, and long before Elon's double Nazi salute on national television.

You couldn't tell he was a maniac grifter? The fact that his money comes from family mines in South Africa and he didn't renounce it but built upon it didn't let you know he was a villain?

PS: Weird post to downdoot. Explain yourselves, you cowards, lol.

PS: Weird post to downdoot. Explain yourselves, you cowards, lol.

You're not wrong, you're just being a dick about it in a thread that is literally about the time one drank the Kool Aid.

Criticising people that have reflected their previous choices/views and are acting different now is unnecessary.

Where's the criticism? Stop having an emotional reaction to my actual bewilderment ("you couldn't tell...") and just explain it to me (or don't!).

Had I said something like "lol you fucking incompetent moron, you smoothbrain fucks", I'd get it, certainly. But I didn't.

You asked people to explain. People explained that you're coming across as a dick, in a thread explicitly about regrettable, gullible moments. I don't know what you're having a problem with here but it seems like you're the one having an emotional reaction, calling people cowards and refusing to hear people's explanations.

I think the reason your initial comment comes across hostile is because of the way it's written (chaining questions), and the way you're asking things that have an obvious answer.

However, you didn't write anything explicitly hostile. It's a question that could come across either way, and if you genuinely had no mocking or hostile intent I would have suggested rereading and rewording your comment to make that clearer, as it's tough to interpret that kind of thing through text. I've totally left comments that read hostile when I didn't intend it to, it just happens sometimes! ‍️

Now this is a proper reply. Fair enough. I wasn't being hostile, more like , certainly not too positive. It's annoying that people can be this blind, it's a big reason why the world is so shit and why the West cranks and exports villains who are loved locally... it's triggering, for lack of a better word.