It's exactly as good as your opinion, which is to say both completely unimportant and extremely important at the same time.

Its all opinions, IDK what you want me to say. We could argue about it forever or stop talking right now and it would never be a settled fact either way.

But really, what does that even mean? I can only have opinions about things I regularly observe specifically when not on a screen? I hope you would hold yourself to that same standard about things you don't see in your day to day life.

Which means seeing it that often is average just for people who live in your state. Personally I can't even be certain the last time I saw one that wasn't on a screen. Maybe a few weeks ago on the back of a truck with some trump flags and stuff? All I can think of.

You obviously have your own bias if you encounter it multiple times daily. That isn't average.

I don't know what you mean by "the media" but I'd like to see a clearer description. I'm not talking about what I see in the news or on tv shows and movies, I'm talking about what I see in real life and occasionally places like facebook or something.

And it isn't just the proud boys tarnishing it. I saw it used by a lot of antivaxxers during the height of the pandemic side by side with their science denial and misinformation, as another example.

the "true meaning" of things like symbols is always opinion. you seem to be arguing, for the sake of the gadsden flag, that symbols only ever mean what they were originally intended to mean, and that just isn't the case.

In my opinion, the gadsden flag belongs in the past. Hateful modern use of the flag has tainted and ruined any positive association it could have brought. Now it means antisemitism, homophobia and transphobia, sexism, political extremism, anti-intellectualism, and more, a symbol of the values of the people who use it most often.

Positive thought: maybe thats the first step to become a godlike computer brain species

Negative thought: if that is how it works I doubt it is just kids that it would do that to. If that happens I would guess it could happen to anyone who has one "installed" long enough

Existential dread is the correct emotional response to inevitable, existential danger.

Feeling safe for the sake of feeling safe is just a comfortable delusion.

Not what I would call debunked. They pointed out the nothingburger of the lot as a nothingburger, and then for the hard to explain ones they just had possible guesses, and only commented on the videos themselves and accounted for none of the reported contexts of the videos. They basically contributed by talking about lenses and then saying they don't know what is in the videos.