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

[torbee]

One of the best articles I read all of 2022:

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

It’s not just a phase.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[joelbc1]

Pretty simple……the rise of the fringe right…the rise of Trumpism and his brand of “populism”…the rise of “the news right” and all their false completely unverified bullshit conspiracies….and the dumbing down of the American people over time.

 

[torbee]

Pretty simple……the rise of the fringe right…the rise of Trumpism and his brand of “populism”…the rise of “the news right” and all their false completely unverified bullshit conspiracies….and the dumbing down of the American people over time.

Those are symptoms, not causes, according to the author's premise.

 

[onlyTheObvious]

Cell phones is the problem. Gives way too many very fringe people a feeling of community and a voice.

Fact is their numbers are so small they don’t deserve shit but their amplified rage is distorting the other 99.99999% of the population.

It will get worse before it gets better, IMO.

 

[torbee]

Pretty simple……the rise of the fringe right…the rise of Trumpism and his brand of “populism”…the rise of “the news right” and all their false completely unverified bullshit conspiracies….and the dumbing down of the American people over time.

FTA:

I think we can date the fall of the tower to the years between 2011 (Gurri’s focal year of “nihilistic” protests) and 2015, a year marked by the “great awokening” on the left and the ascendancy of Donald Trump on the right. Trump did not destroy the tower; he merely exploited its fall. He was the first politician to master the new dynamics of the post-Babel era, in which outrage is the key to virality, stage performance crushes competence, Twitter can overpower all the newspapers in the country, and stories cannot be shared (or at least trusted) across more than a few adjacent fragments—so truth cannot achieve widespread adherence.

The many analysts, including me, who had argued that Trump could not win the general election were relying on pre-Babel intuitions, which said that scandals such as the Access Hollywood tape (in which Trump boasted about committing sexual assault) are fatal to a presidential campaign. But after Babel, nothing really means anything anymore––at least not in a way that is durable and on which people widely agree.

 

[torbee]

Cell phones is the problem. Gives way too many very fringe people a feeling of community and a voice.

Fact is their numbers are so small they don’t deserve shit but their amplified rage is distorting the other 99.99999% of the population.

It will get worse before it gets better, IMO.

Not the hardware, the social media platforms that are on them (which I presume is what you were driving at).

FTA:

The tech companies that enhanced virality from 2009 to 2012 brought us deep into Madison’s nightmare. Many authors quote his comments in “Federalist No. 10” on the innate human proclivity toward “faction,” by which he meant our tendency to divide ourselves into teams or parties that are so inflamed with “mutual animosity” that they are “much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to cooperate for their common good.”

But that essay continues on to a less quoted yet equally important insight, about democracy’s vulnerability to triviality. Madison notes that people are so prone to factionalism that “where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.”

Social media has both magnified and weaponized the frivolous. Is our democracy any healthier now that we’ve had Twitter brawls over Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tax the rich dress at the annual Met Gala, and Melania Trump’s dress at a 9/11 memorial event, which had stitching that kind of looked like a skyscraper? How about Senator Ted Cruz’s tweet criticizing Big Bird for tweeting about getting his COVID vaccine?

It’s not just the waste of time and scarce attention that matters; it’s the continual chipping-away of trust. An autocracy can deploy propaganda or use fear to motivate the behaviors it desires, but a democracy depends on widely internalized acceptance of the legitimacy of rules, norms, and institutions. Blind and irrevocable trust in any particular individual or organization is never warranted. But when citizens lose trust in elected leaders, health authorities, the courts, the police, universities, and the integrity of elections, then every decision becomes contested; every election becomes a life-and-death struggle to save the country from the other side. The most recent Edelman Trust Barometer (an international measure of citizens’ trust in government, business, media, and nongovernmental organizations) showed stable and competent autocracies (China and the United Arab Emirates) at the top of the list, while contentious democracies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, and South Korea scored near the bottom (albeit above Russia).

 

[gonegolfing]

The only cure to the degradation of American society is the end of the complete control and editorializing of information from the left through media and high tech communication platforms. Until that happens, we have no chance at saving this country from the path that the left is hoping to send us down.

 

[torbee]

The only cure to the degradation of American society is the end of the complete control and editorializing of information from the left through media and high tech communication platforms. Until that happens, we have no chance at saving this country from the path that the left is hoping to send us down.

Derp

Perfectly programmed response authored by your digital overlords and mindlessly (perhaps even unwittingly) repeated. You are - literally - a tool.

 

[ConvenientParking]

RIP Michael Brooks

 

[torbee]

This is also a very interesting observation --- it isn't that social media is making people more aggressive and hostile - it's that aggressive and hostile people are much better at weaponizing social media. As with so many societal problems, it is a story of the toxic few having more bandwidth and ability to create chaos than the moderate majority:

First, the dart guns of social media give more power to trolls and provocateurs while silencing good citizens. Research by the political scientists Alexander Bor and Michael Bang Petersen found that a small subset of people on social-media platforms are highly concerned with gaining status and are willing to use aggression to do so. They admit that in their online discussions they often curse, make fun of their opponents, and get blocked by other users or reported for inappropriate comments. Across eight studies, Bor and Petersen found that being online did not make most people more aggressive or hostile; rather, it allowed a small number of aggressive people to attack a much larger set of victims. Even a small number of jerks were able to dominate discussion forums, Bor and Petersen found, because nonjerks are easily turned off from online discussions of politics. Additional research finds that women and Black people are harassed disproportionately, so the digital public square is less welcoming to their voices.

 

[St. Louis Hawk]

The only cure to the degradation of American society is the end of the complete control and editorializing of information from the left through media and high tech communication platforms. Until that happens, we have no chance at saving this country from the path that the left is hoping to send us down.

Fox
OAN
WSJ
The Blaze
Breitbart
The Sean Hannity Show
Washington Times
NY Post
Epoch Times
The American Spectator
Daily Wire
Federalist
National Review
Newsmax
Washington Free Beacon
Real Clear Politics
Reason
Franklin Graham
Dan Bongino
Ben Shapiro
Charlie Kirk
Red State
RT
Town Hall
Gateway Pundit
Michelle Malkin ...

 

[torbee]

The section on how "elitists" --- from both the radical right and radical left --- are responsible for the vast majority of toxic social media content was also super eye-opening to me:

The dart guns of social media give more power and voice to the political extremes while reducing the power and voice of the moderate majority. The “Hidden Tribes” study, by the pro-democracy group More in Common, surveyed 8,000 Americans in 2017 and 2018 and identified seven groups that shared beliefs and behaviors. The one furthest to the right, known as the “devoted conservatives,” comprised 6 percent of the U.S. population. The group furthest to the left, the “progressive activists,” comprised 8 percent of the population. The progressive activists were by far the most prolific group on social media: 70 percent had shared political content over the previous year. The devoted conservatives followed, at 56 percent.

These two extreme groups are similar in surprising ways. They are the whitest and richest of the seven groups, which suggests that America is being torn apart by a battle between two subsets of the elite who are not representative of the broader society. What’s more, they are the two groups that show the greatest homogeneity in their moral and political attitudes. This uniformity of opinion, the study’s authors speculate, is likely a result of thought-policing on social media: “Those who express sympathy for the views of opposing groups may experience backlash from their own cohort.” In other words, political extremists don’t just shoot darts at their enemies; they spend a lot of their ammunition targeting dissenters or nuanced thinkers on their own team. In this way, social media makes a political system based on compromise grind to a halt.

 

[tumorboy]

The section on how "elitists" --- from both the radical right and radical left --- are responsible for the vast majority of toxic social media content was also super eye-opening to me:

The dart guns of social media give more power and voice to the political extremes while reducing the power and voice of the moderate majority. The “Hidden Tribes” study, by the pro-democracy group More in Common, surveyed 8,000 Americans in 2017 and 2018 and identified seven groups that shared beliefs and behaviors. The one furthest to the right, known as the “devoted conservatives,” comprised 6 percent of the U.S. population. The group furthest to the left, the “progressive activists,” comprised 8 percent of the population. The progressive activists were by far the most prolific group on social media: 70 percent had shared political content over the previous year. The devoted conservatives followed, at 56 percent.

These two extreme groups are similar in surprising ways. They are the whitest and richest of the seven groups, which suggests that America is being torn apart by a battle between two subsets of the elite who are not representative of the broader society. What’s more, they are the two groups that show the greatest homogeneity in their moral and political attitudes. This uniformity of opinion, the study’s authors speculate, is likely a result of thought-policing on social media: “Those who express sympathy for the views of opposing groups may experience backlash from their own cohort.” In other words, political extremists don’t just shoot darts at their enemies; they spend a lot of their ammunition targeting dissenters or nuanced thinkers on their own team. In this way, social media makes a political system based on compromise grind to a halt.

Rich white people ruin everything.

 

[torbee]

Rich white people ruin everything.

 

[JMNSHO]

I love every single thing @torbee posts from The Atlantic.

 

[Colonoscopy]

One of the best articles I read all of 2022:

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

It’s not just a phase.

www.theatlantic.com

Agreed. I really enjoy the pieces that take the 30k foot view and try to put it all together. Really tough stuff, and not many people can do a good job at that sort of thing. The Atlantic seems to find them, though.

 

[Colonoscopy]

The section on how "elitists" --- from both the radical right and radical left --- are responsible for the vast majority of toxic social media content was also super eye-opening to me:

The dart guns of social media give more power and voice to the political extremes while reducing the power and voice of the moderate majority. The “Hidden Tribes” study, by the pro-democracy group More in Common, surveyed 8,000 Americans in 2017 and 2018 and identified seven groups that shared beliefs and behaviors. The one furthest to the right, known as the “devoted conservatives,” comprised 6 percent of the U.S. population. The group furthest to the left, the “progressive activists,” comprised 8 percent of the population. The progressive activists were by far the most prolific group on social media: 70 percent had shared political content over the previous year. The devoted conservatives followed, at 56 percent.

These two extreme groups are similar in surprising ways. They are the whitest and richest of the seven groups, which suggests that America is being torn apart by a battle between two subsets of the elite who are not representative of the broader society. What’s more, they are the two groups that show the greatest homogeneity in their moral and political attitudes. This uniformity of opinion, the study’s authors speculate, is likely a result of thought-policing on social media: “Those who express sympathy for the views of opposing groups may experience backlash from their own cohort.” In other words, political extremists don’t just shoot darts at their enemies; they spend a lot of their ammunition targeting dissenters or nuanced thinkers on their own team. In this way, social media makes a political system based on compromise grind to a halt.

What surprised me there is that it was that it was the most affluent on the right that were the loudest. You'd have thought it would be the sort of crowd that goes to Trump rallies.

 

[C/Seahawk]

The only cure to the degradation of American society is the end of the complete control and editorializing of information from the left through media and high tech communication platforms. Until that happens, we have no chance at saving this country from the path that the left is hoping to send us down.

You’ve once again taken stupidity to levels never thought possible.

 

[tumorboy]

What surprised me there is that it was that it was the most affluent on the right that were the loudest. You'd have thought it would be the sort of crowd that goes to Trump rallies.

These particular affluent people are the ones who have the most financially/emotionally vested in politics. They're are the ones our Congressional Representatives spend a minimum of 1/3 of their time talking with at call centers.
Has to be a huge ego stroke to have a congressman on speed dial.

 

[joelbc1]

Those are symptoms, not causes, according to the author's premise.

Always had trouble with tactics and strategies and which is which.....probably the reason I was never drafted....

 

[CoachJaxKnows]

The only thing that's really changed is that the majority of Democrats came down with TDS and lost their minds.

 

[ConvenientParking]

The only thing that's really changed is that the majority of Democrats came down with TDS and lost their minds.

Well, it is true that Trump supporters were racist garbage before Trump ran for office, so I supposed the only thing that changed there is they became politically active.

 

[torbee]

The only thing that's really changed is that the majority of Democrats came down with TDS and lost their minds.

Getting to work early on 2023 WPOTY NC? 🙄

Fuggin loser.

 

[lucas80]

This is also a very interesting observation --- it isn't that social media is making people more aggressive and hostile - it's that aggressive and hostile people are much better at weaponizing social media. As with so many societal problems, it is a story of the toxic few having more bandwidth and ability to create chaos than the moderate majority:

First, the dart guns of social media give more power to trolls and provocateurs while silencing good citizens. Research by the political scientists Alexander Bor and Michael Bang Petersen found that a small subset of people on social-media platforms are highly concerned with gaining status and are willing to use aggression to do so. They admit that in their online discussions they often curse, make fun of their opponents, and get blocked by other users or reported for inappropriate comments. Across eight studies, Bor and Petersen found that being online did not make most people more aggressive or hostile; rather, it allowed a small number of aggressive people to attack a much larger set of victims. Even a small number of jerks were able to dominate discussion forums, Bor and Petersen found, because nonjerks are easily turned off from online discussions of politics. Additional research finds that women and Black people are harassed disproportionately, so the digital public square is less welcoming to their voices.

10 years ago Andrew Tate would be a loser nobody would have heard of. Now he's a loser that everyone but me and a few other posters knew about.

 

[4ohs]

The only thing that's really changed is that the majority of Democrats came down with TDS and lost their minds.

Otherwise known as…”this guy is an abomination towards every single moral and ethical ideal of descent humanity”

Not to be confused with “ we should never let this kind of individual near public office”

Ever. But I guess that’s all good with many folk these days.

 

[alaskanseminole]

One of the best articles I read all of 2022:

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

It’s not just a phase.

www.theatlantic.com

While I obviously agree, Torb, I'm still VERY hurt by your insensitive Pepsi!

WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID

Another good one from the Atlantic. WHY THE PAST 10 YEARS OF AMERICAN LIFE HAVE BEEN UNIQUELY STUPID It’s not just a phase. By Jonathan Haidt Illustrations by Nicolás Ortega ...but gradually, social-media users became more comfortable sharing intimate details of their lives with strangers...

iowa.forums.rivals.com

 

[Chuck C]

Pretty simple……the rise of the fringe right…the rise of Trumpism and his brand of “populism”…the rise of “the news right” and all their false completely unverified bullshit conspiracies….and the dumbing down of the American people over time.

Oldmanyellingatcloud.gif

 

[Tom Paris]

The only cure to the degradation of American society is the end of the complete control and editorializing of information from the left through media and high tech communication platforms. Until that happens, we have no chance at saving this country from the path that the left is hoping to send us down.

Every single post of yours reminds me how dumb you are.

 

[nu2u]

The accelerating shift in demographics is the psychological backdrop to the upheaval, I believe. America is barreling towards becoming a permanent minority-majority country in the not too distant future. To many this is a welcome or accepted inevitability.. For conservatives, the change represents an intolerable threat to their "values" ......and they are angry, resisting, freaking out.

 

[Hawk_82]

Every single post of yours reminds me how dumb you are.

Pot calling the kettle black.

 

[Colonoscopy]

The only cure to the degradation of American society is the end of the complete control and editorializing of information from the left through media and high tech communication platforms. Until that happens, we have no chance at saving this country from the path that the left is hoping to send us down.

I think what undergirds a lot of the conservative antipathy towards the the left displayed by someone like gonegolfing is that Saturday Night Live would make fun of conservative foibles but not liberal.

What I still don't think a lot on the left understand is that they're operating from a position of cultural hegemony. They're the powerful ones nowdays.

They're the establishment in business, entertainment and education. (which means it's harder to get traction calling out their weaknesses)

And this is probably why I spend more time criticizing the left on here than the right; punching up is a lot more fun than punching down. Taking the piss out of a Yale grad writing for the NYT is only about 100x more enjoyable than making fun of some rube at a Trump rally. It's just better intellectual sport.

 

[General Tso]

Rich white people ruin everything.

This. Too much power in the hands of too few, which seems counter to what this country was (or should be) built on

 

[ihhawk]

10 years ago Andrew Tate would be a loser nobody would have heard of. Now he's a loser that everyone but me and a few other posters knew about.

I need to google who that is. I saw a tweet about him getting arrested and that he was found because of pizza boxes. He was arrested for human trafficking….which instantly made me question who the guy is

 

[SoonerBeAHawk]

Well, it is true that Trump supporters were racist garbage before Trump ran for office, so I supposed the only thing that changed there is they became politically active.

FTA:

But when the newly viralized social-media platforms gave everyone a dart gun, it was younger progressive activists who did the most shooting, and they aimed a disproportionate number of their darts at these older liberal leaders ...

The universal charge against people who disagree with this narrative is not “traitor”; it is “racist,” “transphobe,” “Karen,” or some related scarlet letter marking the perpetrator as one who hates or harms a marginalized group.

Pretty easy then to aim the shiny, new dart gun at not just mere dissenters within the tribe, but at a different tribe altogether, huh?
.

 

[millah_22]

The only cure to the degradation of American society is the end of the complete control and editorializing of information from the left through media and high tech communication platforms. Until that happens, we have no chance at saving this country from the path that the left is hoping to send us down.

This is amazing. Saying this in a thread called "Why The Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid" is so ****ing good.

 

[SoonerBeAHawk]

The only cure to the degradation of American society is the end of the complete control and editorializing of information from the left through media and high tech communication platforms. Until that happens, we have no chance at saving this country from the path that the left is hoping to send us down.

This is amazing. Saying this in a thread called "Why The Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid" is so ****ing good.

Sure about that?

While I think gonegolfing's post is a gross oversimplification, the article references, in an almost matter-of-fact way, what his post claimed.

FTA:

The problem is that the left controls the commanding heights of the culture: universities, news organizations, Hollywood, art museums, advertising, much of Silicon Valley, and the teachers’ unions and teaching colleges that shape K–12 education. And in many of those institutions, dissent has been stifled: When everyone was issued a dart gun in the early 2010s, many left-leaning institutions began shooting themselves in the brain. And unfortunately, those were the brains that inform, instruct, and entertain most of the country.

Yep, that is so ****ing good.

And c'mon HORT. I just skimmed the article and can see the contradictions between it and what many of y'all think it must say, perhaps because @torbee posted it.

 

[ConvenientParking]

FTA:

But when the newly viralized social-media platforms gave everyone a dart gun, it was younger progressive activists who did the most shooting, and they aimed a disproportionate number of their darts at these older liberal leaders ...

The universal charge against people who disagree with this narrative is not “traitor”; it is “racist,” “transphobe,” “Karen,” or some related scarlet letter marking the perpetrator as one who hates or harms a marginalized group.

Pretty easy then to aim the shiny, new dart gun at not just mere dissenters within the tribe, but at a different tribe altogether, huh?
.

I hadn't realized this Atlantic piece was the fifth gospel and the whole Trump and alt right thing was just a figment of my imagination.

 

[ConvenientParking]

I think what undergirds a lot of the conservative antipathy towards the the left displayed by someone like gonegolfing is that Saturday Night Live would make fun of conservative foibles but not liberal.

What I still don't think a lot on the left understand is that they're operating from a position of cultural hegemony. They're the powerful ones nowdays.

They're the establishment in business, entertainment and education. (which means it's harder to get traction calling out their weaknesses)

And this is probably why I spend more time criticizing the left on here than the right; punching up is a lot more fun than punching down. Taking the piss out of a Yale grad writing for the NYT is only about 100x more enjoyable than making fun of some rube at a Trump rally. It's just better intellectual sport.

We barely have a left in this country. Secularism is not left wing.

 

[torbee]

Sure about that?

While I think gonegolfing's post is a gross oversimplification, the article references, in an almost matter-of-fact way, what his post claimed.

FTA:

The problem is that the left controls the commanding heights of the culture: universities, news organizations, Hollywood, art museums, advertising, much of Silicon Valley, and the teachers’ unions and teaching colleges that shape K–12 education. And in many of those institutions, dissent has been stifled: When everyone was issued a dart gun in the early 2010s, many left-leaning institutions began shooting themselves in the brain. And unfortunately, those were the brains that inform, instruct, and entertain most of the country.

Yep, that is so ****ing good.

And c'mon HORT. I just skimmed the article and can see the contradictions between it and what many of y'all think it must say, perhaps because @torbee posted it.

The issue with Gonegolfing is that he laid the ENTIRE blame on the imaginary notion that there is some monolithic “left” that controls all media and culture. That is bullshit and the article details how that’s bullshit. Yes, the fact there is a sliver of the radical left that has far too much of an outsized voice that often steamrolls moderates IS also a problem, but one of a myriad and also more a reflection of the issues with social media allowing a megaphone and bludgeon for the most voiceferous and radical - which the article points out is a problem on the left AND right.

 

[SoonerBeAHawk]

I hadn't realized this Atlantic piece was the fifth gospel and the whole Trump and alt right thing was just a figment of my imagination.

I would turn and question the merits of this article too if it so squarely called me out.

Now please call me a "racist" ...