Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

Thank goodness Elon is going to take us to mars

 

Each miracle or modern marvel that drops every three months is designed to make life easier. Comfort doesn't mean happiness or self fulfillment, and we've somewhat used the extra time from machines to worry about things that aren't really necessary or do much about problems we're now aware of. I don't think capitalism rewards that on an end user level either,

Maybe dependence to tech and the digital world has really made us dumber, more selfish, and less resilient.

 

Man eventually destroys the planet


@J.R.
@AroundTheWorld

 

the like button destroyed America

 

I guess these modern miracles give us more time to read indulgently long navel-gazing articles in The Atlantic.

 

Good read. Thanks.

I like the term “Structural Stupidity”.

 

Interesting read, but I think it's much more simple than a metaphysical study of our species' relationship with technology, etc.

I personally think it comes down to the 2010 decision to overturn Citizens United which completely changed our political ecosystem, and it's as simple as money & the power that money now achieves that is driving the rifts between us via media/technology/propaganda. Facebook/tech is a vessel that blew up in our world at that same time, giving a platform for weaponizing those political motives.

The dark money has funded such a powerful weapon that it can convince nearly half of America and to an extent other Western countries like France, etc. that simple advances in governing policy (something that was normal and mostly accepted for decades. Even Nixon advanced governing policy that made sense for both sides) is an existential threat that is worth going to jail for or dying for. These fractions of our population are lied to that they must become an activist version of themselves (see tea party, Qanon, Proud Boys, etc.) and take measures themselves that are designed to do one thing and one thing only.... STOP GOVERNING POLICY THAT'LL COST BILLIONAIRES MONEY.

It's pretty freaking simple actually. It's about money, and the haves & the have nots. The haves are manipulating us all to fight with each other so they can avoid contributing to societies advances for EVERYONE.

 

Social media has eviscerated the truth

 

maybe humans have always been this stupid and social media has helped expose that...*shrugs

 

This is my take.

 

Social media empowered the stupid by using confirmation bias - people found other morons who believed the same thing (flat earth) and said...AHA, we are right.....even if it is a small STUPID minority, there are enough to where they feel emboldened.

What NEEDS to happen is Social media is held accountable for truth, if you post lies, and propaganda you are kicked out, and your posts are labeled as such.

We need laws to protect our society, because the algorithms don't care they are meant to generate revenue, and don't care about truth.

Laws need to be enacted that protect society from grouping of stupidity.

DD

 

Even Obama gets that "misinformation" is now a social media weapon

https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/0...ormation-is-now-a-social-media-weapon-n461777

 

I enjoyed the article and I think it offered up a lot of good insight. I also think dobro hit the nail on the head that the flood of dark money starting in 2010 has also been a big factor in the "two sides living in two different worlds". The fact that social media and dark money blew up at the same time created somewhat of a perfect storm that's clearly been disastrous for political discourse and educated voting.

But (and yes, I'm clearly biased here) I think the article's arguments fall apart when discussing the structural stupidity of the left.

First, he admits in the first paragraph that "In the Democratic Party, the struggle between the progressive wing and the more moderate factions is open and ongoing, and often the moderates win." To some extent, that neutralizes the rest of his argument that follows - you can't claim that the left is overcome by structural stupidity caused by the progressives if the moderates are the ones winning the battles. Sure there are cases of overzealous young progressives shouting down older, wiser (wiser being implied by the author) moderates, but has it truly transformed the party and society (and if so, for the worse)?

I don't see it - the party as a whole isn't supporting drastic far-left ideas (nobody for example is talking about nationalizing oil/fuel production to combat high gas prices) and in fact, the ideas actually being promoting (increasing minimum wage for example) are often popular at the polls when voted as referendums (see Florida in the last election). Similarly, I think the author overstates the use of "racist" as a catch-all insult - my observations are that it is used when the person under scrutiny is arguing or acting based on racially-prejudicial assumptions (same goes for homophobe or fascist). So this whole line of argument feel very much like an attempt to "both sides" when there is truly no comparison between conservative structural stupidity and liberal structural stupidity (in terms of severity and caustic effects).

Id also like to add a note about the psychology of online political discussions. One of the reasons progressives seem to go after moderates is because that is the only range of viewpoints where discussion is possible. For example, I've probably had the most direct arguments with jiggyfly even though we are aligned on more issues than not. But as irritated as we get with one another, I think jiggyfly and I are genuinely interested in hashing the issue out rather than just scoring points.

Meanwhile, we have only one or two conservatives (StupidMoniker is the main one who comes to my mind) who are interested in and capable of good faith political discussion. The rest are either trolls, fools or just plain absent from political discussions. That's not to say there aren't trolls and fools on the left here - there definitely are - they just don't dominate the liberal side of discussions. I suspect you'd see similar dynamics on other message boards, and I think the issue is more a reflection of the self-segregation that is driven by confirmation bias than a unique characteristic of the left wanting to eat its own.

 

Exactly 10 years and 1 month ago the Encyclopedia Britannica ceased print publication after 246 years. Coincidence?

 

I would argue that social media actually reduced the influence of dark money. Whereas in the past, you needed money to get your message out, most campaigns now rely on free media - Trump mastered this by posting things and getting his people to retweet and also getting regular media to discuss it. All for free.

Seeding disinformation campaigns on twitter and such is ridiculously cheap compared to buying media airtime or campaigning on the ground or things like that.

 

Social media is just a means to an end though. The end result is political and governing power. These tech platforms are just tools exploited to deceive and divide humans to serve the rich and powerful. You are less a person now than an algorithm that can be manipulated into believing whatever they want you to believe, or buying what they want you to buy. I'm not a big believer in the big bad illuminati or pick your conspiracy theory, and think this happened more organically. Seeking truth and justice only serves those who want a true and just world.

Most obvious example is climate science denial. Is it really in the interest of my 60 year old mother to believe that climate science is liberal fake news to fund the pockets of greedy scientists? No... she does not benefit from believing a lie that could literally destroy the planet her grandkids who she loves will inherit. There are numerous other examples too like the Tea Party movement, and now QAnon which is self defeating lies that serve the interests of the few.

And before everyone thinks I'm just being partisan believe me, if there was a governing policy that the Democrats or the Labor party or whomever was running on that benefited the rich and powerful, those at the top would easily flip flop on an issue that served them. It just so happens that all the rich powerful have in common is that they love money, and hate paying taxes... and the Democrats, Labor party, etc. want to make them pay their fair share so there you have it. It isn't a both sides issue because of the single issue of taxes.

 

In fairness, his solutions do provide a course of action despite a lengthy Rome is Burning setup. Much better discourse than reading YT comments from a 15 minute conspiracy theory.

I listened at 2x in order to procrastinate doing focus work.

:: pats myself on the back for saving humanity ::