He thought, "Oh my gosh! Some people don't think Black Lives Matter!" So he picked up a sign and began protesting alongside them.
Then someone with an "All Lives Matter," sign came along.
"All Lives Matter? Of course all lives matter," naive-hyper-literal-alien-bot thought before he crossed out the "black" of his sign and wrote "all" to replace it.
Then the different protesters started arguing and that made Naive-hyper-literal-alien-bot confused. After all, "all lives matter"and "black lives matter" aren't mutually exclusive claims.
So he left his "all lives matter sign" but added "including black lives" to the end of it just to make clear what his position was.
Then he heard one protester say, "ALL LIVES MATTER IS A NAKED DECLARATION OF WHITE SUPREMACY THAT IGNORES, DENIES, AND DISMISSES RACISM!"
Then the other one said, "BLACK LIVES MATTER IS AN ORGANIZATION THAT PUSHES MARXIST IDEOLOGY AND FUNNELS MONEY TO DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS!"
Then Naive-hyper-literal-alien-bot put down his "All Lives Matter Including Black Lives" sign so he could add, "But Not In A White Supremacist Way," to the end. But unfortunately, he only got up to "white" because of space constraints.
Then he remembered that time when an anti-abortion protester had a sign that said, "Stop Murdering Babies", but seemed to have very specific views about counts as a baby.
And another time when a feminist had a sign that said, "Equal Rights", but seemed to have very specific views about what those rights are.
And the pro-Trump person who had a sign that said, "Make America Great Again", but seemed to have very specific views about what used to make America great.
And the pro-Obama person who had a sign that said, "Hope And Change", but seemed to have very specific views about what to hope for and what to change.
It was almost as if these slogans were umbrella terms that covered many different belief sets, and they could only see the most controversial belief sets in the other side, and the least controversial belief sets in their own side.
It was almost as if internet algorithms had curated completely different feeds of information that reaffirms the narrative that they're the righteous protagonist, who's not perfect but doing their best, against a big well-funded organized evil who has manipulated legions of stupid people to do their bidding.
It was almost as if human beings are ultra-social mammals who do tribalism to feel a sense of purpose in their otherwise purposeless lives. And it's not so much about utilizing the problem-solving parts of their brains to come together and make world a better place, but using the tribal parts of their brains to rationalize for why the noises that we make are totally just and true, but the noises that they make are hateful and ignorant.
On that day, naive-hyper-literal-alien-bot became a little less naive.
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