Why The Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid
- Thread starter torbee
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I haven't seen anything from to suggest you're racist. I do think you're foolish enough to take seriously the idea the secularism is left wing cultural hegemony
Honestly the problem with the supposed left that runs social media. Is the primary driver is profit. The endomorphine rush they use is no different than drugs, gambling, etc. Society still struggles with the limits we place on those activities.
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@bladel came up with a great analogy for that - he calls it the outrage nipple. It feels so, so good to keep teasing it, flicking it, pinching it that you don’t stop even after it’s tender and sore. You are compelled to keep going back to it.
The article doesn't qualify "left," it just says the left controls controls the news, universities ... And your contention is the article then labors to apparently contradict itself by saying this comment is "imaginary" and "bullshit?"
Please show me and if it does I'll kindly excuse myself as that would be one bi-polar article.
It qualifies "left" the way centrists and right wingers do. Secular culture. Nothing about unions/labor, nothing about class, nothing about disagreements about whether or not America should be spreading peace and democracy and freedom with bombs and humvees. The article is mostly about Twitter. Which I guess is all we have for politics now.
That's pretty good. I think it's similar to heroin or manic behavior. The first time is always a blast. And u have to keep pushing more of it in amount or behavior in order to get that same high. But the insidious thing about social media is u trick yourself into believe it's a good behavior.
Well, there is the overdone paranoid response on the right to some of this. I don't follow gonegolfing close enough. Maybe he's in there.
But for example... if you look at the culture war, something like BLM. BLM was a lot more than just complaints about policing. Plenty of its loudest proponents hated the police, championed ideas like defunding or abolishing the police. Wrapped a bunch of ideas and politics into it that would be disagreeable with the right traditionally.
At any rate, what absolutely set off the right is that you'd have corporate America tossing a highly politicized group like BLM money and support; the Universities were also involved. Lots of entertainment as well.
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Gee, thanks I guess.
Honestly, I'm not sure why you're introducing secularism into the discussion of this article as I don't believe it references it directly or otherwise.
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It is more finely parsed than that in the article. It notes that ultra progressives in those areas OFTEN but not ALWAYS stifle moderates, while also noting that moderates are the vast majority.
It also heaps plenty of vitriol on the media messengers of the right. To wit:
The stupidity on the right is most visible in the many conspiracy theories spreading across right-wing media and now into Congress. “Pizzagate,” QAnon, the belief that vaccines contain microchips, the conviction that Donald Trump won reelection—it’s hard to imagine any of these ideas or belief systems reaching the levels that they have without Facebook and Twitter.
The article also points out that the rhetoric on the right tends to cause more actual real world violence, while the rhetoric on the left is more inclined to silence or cancel people. I’ll let you decide for yourself which outcome is more troubling.
Well what does Haidt mean by left if not secular culture expanding and less pandering to the mores of Protestants? He's talking about Twitter activists and TV. Thinking of "woke" ADVERTISING as "left" because it enrages right wingers is a bigger problem in politics than social media. In this author's opinion
Really thoughtful, thanks for posting. It's nearly perfect that within the first handful of posts we've got joel blaming the right and gonegolfing blaming the left... on a message board, where there is a "like" feature.
Neither likely read the story, but both help illustrate the themes from it.
Neither likely read the story, but both help illustrate the themes from it.
Fine.
But let me repost again the relevant part of your article:
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 ...
Hardly the same in degree or tone to what your quote references, as it mentions right-wing media and Facebook and Twitter. Yeah, that behemoth right-wing media/internet triumvirate.
What does Haidt mean by "the left" there? Does he mean Democrats who support hardly any left wing policies outside of the appearance of inclusion of minority groups?
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More Americans get their “news” from Facebook than any other source.
Facebook is the #1 pathway to news, but majority say social media is making the news experience worse: Pew Research | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News
Pew Research Center has just released a report on the role of social media sites in delivering the news. According to Pew, getting news from social media sites is an increasingly common experience. More than half of U.S. adults get news from social media often or sometimes (55%), up from 47% in...
whatsnewinpublishing.com
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Have Facebook and Twitter (lol) been particularly right-wing?More Americans get their “news” from Facebook than any other source.
Facebook is the #1 pathway to news, but majority say social media is making the news experience worse: Pew Research | What’s New in Publishing | Digital Publishing News
Pew Research Center has just released a report on the role of social media sites in delivering the news. According to Pew, getting news from social media sites is an increasingly common experience. More than half of U.S. adults get news from social media often or sometimes (55%), up from 47% in...
The top viewed posts on Facebook are regularly vlogs from right wing commentators. Not George Will. Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro/Daily Wire, Steven Crowder, previously Steve Bannon entities
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Absolutely. They are the main conduit for radical right disinformation to the masses.
In big tech about the only thing I can think of is Twitter (as it used to be) where content moderation was concerned.
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And yes, the content moderation push was coming from the left, but it was reactionary because so much of the content was being created by right wing bots, foreign intelligent services seeking to cause discord and conspiracy theorists. Saying twitter was “leftists” because progressives wanted to clean out right wing sludge is disingenuous at best.
And Facebook has ALWAYS been a playground for right wing disinformation. I spent 4 years as a digital content manager for an ABC affiliate and can tell you the vast majority of comments and DMs and shares on articles were from right wingers.
You know, in hindsight, if you would have asked me before thr article "facebook" or "social media" would have been in my top 3 off the top 100% of the time. I agree.
Go outside people. Meet your neighbors.
Go outside people. Meet your neighbors.
I just wanted to add that IMO The Atlantic has distinguished itself among all periodicals with some of the most thought provoking cultural and political opinion pieces over the past decade or so. I've found that, for the most part, the writing is consistently good/excellent.
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My neighbor flew a “Get Aboard the Trump Train” flag from the pole on his front wall through February of 2021. I’ll pass
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And though it likely has a slight left lean due to the educational backgrounds of its main writers, I find it is nearly devoid of political hackery and confirmation bias. The vast majority of articles are well-sourced, researched and thoughtfully balanced. Including this one.
And from the link torbee just posted:
The report notes that the largest social media platforms control the content on their feeds using computer algorithms that rank and prioritize posts and other content tailored to the interests of each user. While social media companies say these efforts are meant to make the news experience on their sites better for everyone, most Americans think they just make things worse.
Not to mention de-platforming and some just good old fashioned censorship of the right.
I think I'm done. The article isn't the slam-dunk left-wing affirmation that many of you still seem to think it is. It points out the unintended consequences and foibles enabled by social media made on both the left and the right. That was largely my point.
Torbs, you should know as well as anyone that often times people who seem to offer the least can offer the most. You don't have to be best friends with him.
Believe it or not that crazy, gun nut, red in the blood, any immigration that happend after 1930 was bullshit, guy might have some thought provoking beliefs and might just be able to show you a thing or 2.
And for my right wing brethren:
Go meet that lefty next door, they might just have weed.
For the record, I don't think it's left wing affirmation. I think it's centrist fluff. Oh social media is polarizing. Got it. And people with political beliefs are to blame for annoying normal people who think they're apolitical.
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Was mostly joking but the dude was a tool in other ways too. Revved his Harley for 20 minutes every time he took it somewhere. Let his lawn turn to shit. Threw snow from his portion of the driveway apron onto ours, etc.
Thankfully they moved to Florida (he’ll fit right in!) and the house is for sale. Of course it’s listed for about $70K more than any rational person would pay, so it has sat empty for about 3 months now, lol.
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Uh, that’s what I’ve been saying all along. I pushed back on your white knighting of Gonegolfing’s asinine post.
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Anytime you want to stop by my humidor is open pal.
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I do like shooting guns. And driving terrible gas mileage cars. And using the word “gay” as a pejorative in a non-sexual way.
(And you are welcome to burn through my ammo any time!)
I’m a terrible leftist! 😉
Well, welcome to the club, pard!
I pushed back on gonegolfing's post noting it was a "gross oversimplification" in my very first post. I guess the one you claim I white knighted for him.
Since we are sharing. I have to submit double the gun validation to the right wing crew because I don't give a **** who marries who.
Social media will lead u to crazy stuff on the left or right. It's about keeping your attention. The CEO being a left leaner or right leaner doesn't matter. They want profit. As I've said before it's simply a drug dealer feeding an addict.
Your Facebook feed will push whatever political narrative or farout things that keep u coming back for more.
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I think we are more in agreement than disagreement.
I do think the right wing is currently more destructive than the left in this country. This hasn’t always been the case, and may not be again someday, but right now it is.
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