“Why The Past 10 Years of American Life have been uniquely Stupid.”

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

Widespread agreement on that item isn't going to help anything!

I would figure most people would not believe the number in agreement on the subject of racism is so high precisely because discourse is so polarized and people have self-sorted into bubbles that make them believe untrue things about those not in the same bubble.

I think there are a whole lot of people who are "passively" polarized by simply being nudged along in a fascile bubble, but a lot fewer are actively polarizized/polarizing. Popping the bubbles of those who have just swum along with the currents of polarization without realizing it is probably going to be a good thing, and to a degree that's what Haidt speaks to as he talks about methods to try and reduce the influence of the extremes.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

I think there are a whole lot of people who are "passively" polarized by simply being nudged along in a fascile bubble, but a lot fewer are actively polarizized/polarizing. Popping the bubbles of those who have just swum along with the currents of polarization without realizing it is probably going to be a good thing, and to a degree that's what Haidt speaks to as he talks about methods to try and reduce the influence of the extremes.

As I said, I only read a few paragraphs of the Haidt piece, but yeah I gather that was what he was getting at with the Tower of Babel reference.  Let's just say I'm not optimistic about "popping the bubbles," and more importantly I think the direction of causality is wrong.  Social media did not create these bubbles, which in turn created polarization.  Rather, polarization reinforced these bubbles which social media exacerbated.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

As I said, I only read a few paragraphs of the Haidt piece, but yeah I gather that was what he was getting at with the Tower of Babel reference.  Let's just say I'm not optimistic about "popping the bubbles," and more importantly I think the direction of causality is wrong.  Social media did not create these bubbles, which in turn created polarization.  Rather, polarization reinforced these bubbles which social media exacerbated.

But social media has amplified the worst of the bubbles giving greater voice to those who say the craziest things.  That’s Haidt’s point.  His further point is that influence can, and should be, curbed.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

But social media has amplified the worst of the bubbles giving greater voice to those who say the craziest things.  That’s Haidt’s point.  His further point is that influence can, and should be, curbed.

I mean, obviously if people want to try to curb that I'm all for it.  I don't think it's going to change much, but sure.

My problem with "centrists" like Haidt and Fiorina is they refuse to acknowledge (or simply ignore) two very basic empirical facts about polarization in the US - (1) that polarization is affective, not ideological and (2) polarization is asymmetrical - which invariably leads to (3) the conclusion that the Republican Party is an existential threat to the polity.  Their emphasis on "improving discourse" as a solution is both magical thinking and elides this clear and present danger, encouraging "bothsidesism" in an area where we need to be clear it's not.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

I mean, obviously if people want to try to curb that I'm all for it.  I don't think it's going to change much, but sure.

My problem with "centrists" like Haidt and Fiorina is they refuse to acknowledge (or simply ignore) two very basic empirical facts about polarization in the US - (1) that polarization is affective, not ideological and (2) polarization is asymmetrical - which invariably leads to (3) the conclusion that the Republican Party is an existential threat to the polity.  Their emphasis on "improving discourse" as a solution is both magical thinking and elides this clear and present danger, encouraging "bothsidesism" in an area where we need to be clear it's not.

How can the Republican voice and voter, much as I now disagree with it, be quieted and opposed?  He’s talking about ways to mitigate the impact of the hair on fire crazies.

[DMC]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

He’s talking about ways to mitigate the impact of the hair on fire crazies.

Again, my problem was not with the article (which I barely read), but with studies (like the one Wilbur linked to) pointing out Americans agree on some things and generally like compromise - and therefore we're not really polarized if we just talked to each other or "elevated discourse" or whatever.  Those studies aren't helpful and those aren't useful suggestions.

[Zorral]

Those bubbles are made of reinforced anti-aircraft missile defense materials.  Nobody's popping any of them because the outright criminals outright laugh at laws, refuse to obey and get off scot free, even when they commit treason and literally stage a coup to take out the government.

[Zorral]

These bubbles cannot be popped, due to whom inhabits these bubbles, particularly since the inhabitants provide such lucre for the immoral greedy, and attention for the power hungry grifters, who have glommed onto them for profit, glory and funsies.  Instead more bubbles keep getting pumped out, joining as duplexex and tenaments for the souless.

https://www.vox.com/23037390/alex-jones-sandy-hook-elizabeth-williamson-book

Quote

 

Sandy Hook was a foundational moment in the world of misinformation and disinformation that we now live in,” Williamson says. During the Trump era, conspiracy theories that might have once existed at the margins of American political life became a central feature. Conspiracy theorists also seemed more emboldened to act on their beliefs. “I traced a throughline: from Sandy Hook to Pizzagate to QAnon to Charlottesville and the coronavirus myths to the election lie that brought violence to the Capitol on January 6th,” she says. “I started to understand how individuals, for reasons of ideology or social status, tribalism, or for profit, were willing to reject established truths, and how once they’d done that, it was incredibly difficult to persuade them otherwise.”

One thing that has been a throughline is that the audience for this has never really changed. The genius of Alex Jones, like Donald Trump, is that they have identified a segment of the American population that is deeply distrustful of all government narratives, of all sources of “official” quote-unquote information like the mainstream media, and they have turned them into a constituency.

It’s a target market for Jones’s products: diet supplements and alternative cures for people distrustful of traditional medicine, untraceable ghost gun parts, doomsday prepper merchandise, and so on. Roger Stone made the connection for Trump to go on Alex Jones’s show because he’d identified his audience as deeply distrustful, paranoid, or suspicious of outsiders. They were so distrustful and looking for someone to back. That person became Donald Trump.

Like with Sandy Hook, the people who coalesced around the 2020 election lie were people that were really impervious to outside challenges. Anyone who came to them with outside facts, those people weren’t only villains in the plot, they were actually threats to this worldview and this social group they’d formed around this idea. They’d defend it with confrontation, or even violence.

It’s less about politics than psychology and a need for social connection and status. Many of the people that I interviewed for the book who are conspiratorially-minded started out being on the political left and then they moved to the far right. What I learned through the psychologists and the political scientists I interviewed for the book, about the motives behind the spread of these conspiracy rumors, is that it can be about fact-finding, it can be about a shared doubt in the official narrative. There’s an element of self-esteem involved — they are possessors of superior knowledge. It’s, as one family member described it to me and psychologists have confirmed, an element of narcissism: You’re the only person who knows. There’s a sort of smugness I noted — “I guess you only understand half the narrative at best” — that kind of thing.

 

 

[Kalbear]

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How can the Republican voice and voter, much as I now disagree with it, be quieted and opposed?  He’s talking about ways to mitigate the impact of the hair on fire crazies.

I think almost everyone here is right (save haidt, who is almost always taking the wrong ideas from his actually good data) and yall are talking about two different things.

Social media didn't create fox. It didn't create the absurd obstruction Obama faced in 2010. It isn't making tucker Carlson a threat. It isn't responsible for republican goals of removing voting rights, women's rights, encouraging gerrymandering or being in general illiberal. Facebook didn't make the Redmap project work.

All of that is simply rich people buying the government in ways they want and systematically removing those obstacles, while using affective polarization, natural gaming of the electoral system and ideologically controlled media to keep people largely aligned. 

Now, where social media has done a good job in is escalating radicalization. Things are in danger of being more violent, as we have seen quite a few times. They'll continue that way. More people are going towards violent white supremacy, violent militias, etc. But that isn't the same thing as how Republicans are pushing for a one party authoritarian state.

[HoodedCrow]

You put that well, Zorral, and the reference is spot on.

[Wilbur]

Nevertheless, the article is correct in saying that social media / Internet 2.0 took the crazy mumblings of the two far ends of the political bell curve and amplified them, drowning out sensible discourse from the larger portion of those participating in social discourse, coarsening it, and raising the temperatures of all the participants.

And political life is definitely stupider, focused on more marginal issues.  Twenty years ago, the Arizona Republic political section for April featured articles on how the legislature would address regulating S&Ls, a long series on the sources of tax revenues, more efficient Motor Voter registration, and changes in water districting and water rights hierarchies.  These stories all had a basis in serious work and adult decisions about how to run the government functions.

This month, the Republic is running stories on how the courts are holding the owner of Cyber Ninjas personally liable to provide evidence from the 2020 election audit, Ted Nugent supporting Paul Gosar's visit to a White Supremacist rally, continuing debate over the 2020 election "steal", and a movement to ban mask-wearing.  To say that things are stupider now than before is a serious understatement, and you will notice that every one of these current items are kooky ideas inflamed by social media.

Twenty years ago, if you suggested that Ted Nugent's political views were important, or that the state senate should hire an entity calling themselves Cyber Ninjas, people would think you were referring to a Dave Chappelle skit.

[thegoldbering]

Wanted to read it but for some reason it didn't let me subscribe .... I kinda get the feeling by reading everyone's comments but I would've liked to read it. Is there someone out there to give me a TL;DR version?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, thegoldbering said:

Wanted to read it but for some reason it didn't let me subscribe .... I kinda get the feeling by reading everyone's comments but I would've liked to read it. Is there someone out there to give me a TL;DR version?

The Atlantic Monthly normally gives three free articles a month… have you already looked up three articles?

[litechick]

On 4/25/2022 at 7:08 PM, Kalibuster said:

That's true only if you're willing to traumatize massive amounts of people who are moderating content.

OK, it's true that I am drunk and not entirely grasping the subject at hand.  Nevertheless, I am suffering large amounts of cognitive dissonance with this sentence.

Kalbear:  62 Warning points--disdains willingness to traumatize moderators...I suppose Kal is only traumatizing about 6 to 8 moderators so maybe that seems reasonable to him and he imagines that he is not a part of the problem at hand.

[DireWolfSpirit]

On 4/27/2022 at 8:14 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The Atlantic Monthly normally gives three free articles a month… have you already looked up three articles?

If you had to guess the answer to your question, what would it be?

 

"Wanted to read it but for some reason it didn't let me subscribe .... I kinda get the feeling by reading everyone's comments but I would've liked to read it. Is there someone out there to give me a TL;DR version?"

Okay since Scott won't tell what the article is about I will-

There's a super humongous asteroid hurtling right at Earth. Impact is imminent within the next 30 days.

However Elon Musk is telling all to stay calm, he has a plan save us. For a special low introductory price of $19.99 a month you can read all about Elons life saving plan on his new Twitter club service.

Suscribe now at 1-800-WER-FUKD to take advantage of Elons special offer.

 

[Zorral]

How in the world did the USA get so stupid?

The New York Times does a three-part report : AMERICAN NATIONALIST:

PART 1 -- How Tucker Carlson Stoked White Fear to Conquer Cable

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-gop-republican-party.html

PART 2 -- How Tucker Carlson Reshaped Fox News — and Became Trump’s Heir

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-fox-news.html

PART 3 --  Look Inside the Apocalyptic Worldview Of Tucker Carlson Tonight -- Audio -- and a great deal of truly visually unpleasant, jerky, splintery graphics.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-tonight.html

 

 

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Religious superstition like "end time's" and revelations nonsense fueled by greedy televangelist have caused untold mental damage to portions of the population that bought into such nonsense. We even had a not too distant past President that told us "Gawd told me to invade".

The same dumbed down administration believed prophecies about a Jerusalem Capitol and felled Walls of Damascus being necessary for a 2nd Jeebus coming. 

Those mind numbing and brain cell destroying beliefs were at work before Twitter or other social networks fueled our current cognitive decline where we see American adults allowing a cable news network to influence them into unsound medical choices like bypassing a potentially life saving vaccine...........in the middle of a frikn pandemic mind you.

[Larry of the Lawn]

18 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Religious superstition like "end time's" and revelations nonsense fueled by greedy televangelist have caused untold mental damage to portions of the population that bought into such nonsense. We even had a not too distant past President that told us "Gawd told me to invade".

The same dumbed down administration believed prophecies about a Jerusalem Capitol and felled Walls of Damascus being necessary for a 2nd Jeebus coming. 

Those mind numbing and brain cell destroying beliefs were at work before Twitter or other social networks fueled our current cognitive decline where we see American adults allowing a cable news network to influence them into unsound medical choices like bypassing a potentially life saving vaccine...........in the middle of a frikn pandemic mind you.

When I was in a kid in the early-mid 90s I remember my mom and her boyfriend subscribing to all these right-wing newsletters.  A lot of the stuff was straight up Ruby Ridge / Waco shit but without any overt religious angle.  A few years ago Triskele posted something here about the 90s RW newsletter schemes.  I remember her mailing out checks every month to all these things.  

They've been cashing in with the fear mongering for a long time, and it's wild how much of it is just a money grab.  Reminds me of the dudes running some FB page in 2015 that's as just milking Trump America for clicks with misleading headlines. 

I don't know that this is something that can be solved, or even much mitigated, with social media controls.  Social media definitely makes this fear mongering easier, but it's not going to stop it.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Larry of the Lake said:

I don't know that this is something that can be solved, or even much mitigated, with social media controls.  Social media definitely makes this fear mongering easier, but it's not going to stop it.

I think the point of the article is that social media amplifies the existing problems significantly.  It push the kooks from the fringes to the fore simply because people like to watch train wrecks and the algorithms used by social media sites give people what they want to see.

[Larry of the Lawn]

11 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I think the point of the article is that social media amplifies the existing problems significantly.  It push the kooks from the fringes to the fore simply because people like to watch train wrecks and the algorithms used by social media sites give people what they want to see.

Totally.  I'm just skeptical that any efforts to curb this on social media are going to be effective.  There are tons of examples out there of hateful speech cruising happily along while condemnation of it gets filtered out.  (And again, not limited to social media--See the entire CRT shit).