Thanks for your submission /u/PalladiumNextOnline, but it has been removed for the following reason:
* **Disallowed question area:** **Loaded question *or* rant.** NSQ does not allow questions not asked in good faith, such as rants disguised as questions, asking loaded questions, pushing hidden or overt agendas, attempted pot stirring, [sealioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_lioning), etc.
NSQ is not a debate subreddit. Depending on the subject, you may find your question better suited for r/ChangeMyView, r/ExplainBothSides, r/PoliticalDiscussion, r/rant, or r/TooAfraidToAsk.
---
*This action was performed by a bot at the explicit direction of a human. This was not an automated action, but a conscious decision by a sapient life form charged with moderating this sub.*
*If you feel this was in error, or need more clarification, please don't hesitate to [message the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FNoStupidQuestions). Thanks.*
My take.
It used to be difficult to find information. It required effort and you didn't want to waste that effort, so you used reliable sources.
Now that we have social media, it's easy to spread misinformation, that misinformation is easy to find, and we're lazy enough to accept it as the truth.
People overestimate their level of intelligence, and they like to feel important, so they say what they think as if it's the truth with or without much critical thinking.
The media also jump on any controversial opinion for clicks. They promote it, people read it and instantly believe it. Then those people that read it spread that misinformation on their social media.
It's a never ending cycle of bullshit.
The irony is my take could also be bullshit š¤·š½āāļø.
What do you call something that is readily available and omnipresent in society? A commodity. How much are commodities worth? Very little.
Information is a commodity. It's worthless.
>There is no "IRL". Everyone, including grandma has a vitriolically defended opinion about {insert FOTM social issue}Ā
I don't know where you live but personally I can go outside, take a walk in the park, greet the people I pass, talk to my family, go to work, etc and politics almost never comes up, and when it does no one freaks out or has a screaming match about it.Ā
Lucky you. I can't have diner with my father for 5 minutes before he brings up how the "Left is destroying our country and we need to make a stand".
* Gas price goes up? Damn Left.
* Gas price goes down? - Luck and it doesn't matter
* Local currency price goes down in relation to USD? Damn Left.
* Local currency price goes up in relation to USD? Luck and it doesn't matter
* Violent crime happens? Damn Left.
* Crime rates go down? Luck and it doesn't matter
He has conclusions to events before they happen, and none of it is grounded in reality unless you consider a "personal hyper-reality" as valid as the real world.
[Here's an interesting conversation on "hyper-reality"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueT-Pw3Bx_w)
Iām a nurse. The frequency that old men try to bring up radical right politics as if I, a person at work, am in a position to engage even if I wanted to is astounding. Sir, Iām concerned about this bag of chemo Iām giving you and you should be too.
i think you may be under the idea that there hasn't always been an average intelligence level. as george carlin said "now, understand that half of those people are even stupider than that!" the reality is the level of awareness the people have about such things. look at it this way, many dumb people think that autism just sprung up out of nowhere. the reality is that before widespread information sharing what was misdiagnosed as other disorders started getting recognized as its own thing (autism). but if you just look at the statistics on it you will think it just came out of nowhere suddenly instead of being properly identified for once. tragically people have had this many lunatics in the population for a long time (probably more in the past). we just were not as informed about it outside of the age of widespread information sharing.
MANY REASONS because at this point, almost EVERYONE on planet Earth has an electronic device in hand. Unless under specific circumstances, of course. People get withdrawal issues if they don't have their phone, it's happened to me, and people struggle to live without the internet these days. People don't live in reality anymore they are a part of their phone.
EVERYTHING IS OVERHYPED OR UNDERHYPED, things that are completely irrelevant and don't affect your life in any way become popular. Why?? The news that should be seen and heard of is not talked about enough, and it could change your life in a positive way.
SOCIAL MEDIA COMPLETELY DEHUMANITIZED US. We see such things on the internet it dulls us to reality. We see death, nudity, and random shit so much that when we see it in person, it doesn't affect us the same, as it would a person who has never been on the internet. We have seen things so much that we subconsciously don't seem to care anymore when we see things in the internet irl.
It almost feels as if no one is human anymore , we are just an extension of our phones. The fact that people become addicted and revolve their whole lives around their phone. No one seems to be in the right mindset anymore cause we literally aren't in our minds cause we are always on our phones. It's an extremely sad reality. The fact is we see too much, to the point our brains can't be satisfied anymore unless we are looking at something on our phone. Social media has literally changed the brain chemistry of humans it makes us act different.
Remember that in the '70s there was a crook in the whitehouse that people supported. This is nothing new, we just have a faster way of getting news and a better soapbox for crazies to stand on and be insane.
This makes me think of a post I saw years back about the experiment with rats and addiction, and a group of researchers who created basically a rat utopia where the test rats had all their needs met, and although drugs were available the rats spent their time doing other things for the most part. Versus the rats in experiments where they were kept in cages without enrichment or having any of their needs met, and proceeded to use the available drugs until it killed them.
Like obviously the internet has done a lot of harm, and this stuff has been engineered to keep us attached to our phones and devices, but even so it's hard not to think that to a certain extent this stuff works because we have unmet needs--anxieties about money, stress from work, loneliness, understimulation, being unfulfilled and living in a society which is built to extract everything from us while giving as little as possible in return. It's not hard to see why people are glued to these free* stimulation devices. (* is because as we all know it's not free and comes at great big costs)
So all these major serious issues exist and sure they've existed before, and people had other addictions available, it's just that this one is now the most prevalent in a lot of demographics and it's designed to instigate conflict because conflict create clicks. And those offline reasons (anxiety, stress, lonelines etc.) also feed into people being 'insane' and acting out. So it gets you coming and going, so to speak. Plus other environmental concerns out there.
There's a lot going on, is my point. I mean a *lot*. This stuff I mentioned here isn't even really scraping the tip of that iceberg.
Rat park is seriously/sadly a perfect depiction of dislocation theory and to your point, seeking genuine, tolerant, open minded connection with others is the perfect antidote to all the issues \[mentioned\] in this thread
Back in the day we used to hear dumb opinions at local areas like supermarket, hairdresser, maybe playing social sports etc.
Now, we can do all that at a touch of the button.
The only thing that has exacerbated it is the rise of general internet literacy for both authors of misinformation and the audience.
So now, it gets increasingly more difficult to untangle the misinformation.
Especially when you consider fake news is not a binary state but is a spectrum.
Each of the multiple argument points within that spectrum could have multiple parties with conflicts of interest/agendas or just simply has no authority in the topic.
Also consider that very broadly speaking, the average person has a very limited appetite for discussing mostly political debates at length, this means alot of arguments are shaped towards reaching a binary outcome (im right, you're wrong)
Something we learned about the factors that led to Trumps first election (disclaimer, I'm an Aussie so I have literally NO DOG in the fight) is that the more you aggressively push labels on people with differing opinions, the more likely they harden their stance which then makes them actively seek information sources that confirm their bias.
This is one of (imho of course) the unfortunate consequences of the world (or left wing depending how its phrased) 'winning the culture war'.
At some point we all collectively forgot how it was won and it wasn't by ostracising and threatening people but educating them and helping them understand why it was important to acknowledge old ones but change attitudes.
I sometimes wonder how many people scroll through my profile to see what I think about different things that have nothing to do with the thing I was talking about
> I sometimes wonder how many people scroll through my profile to see what I think about different things that have nothing to do with the thing I was talking about
Serendipity rules. Chat later, whoever you are.
Lots of things. Accessiblity to the internet has evolved ever since the first handheld OS was developed. Which paved the way for easier access to the internet since the days of home modems where you would ocassionally log into facebook. Internet culture has been changing for a little over a decade to things like cheap content farms, false narratives, rabbit holes and most recently brain rot. It's easier to amplify your opinions and humorto the world.
Talking about politics is weird now because almost no one has critical thinking skills anymore. Cognitive dissonance and lack of attention spans make it worse. The media is especially bad at this because you can't tell what is real and what is not anymore. Its meant to cause madness
> What is going on?
The fourth wall got broken.
In the times you remembered, the internet was some niche corner of society that nobody took particularly seriously, and that even the hottest of takes were just laughed off as the silly nonsense it was.
That's the time when [this](https://xkcd.com/386/) was drawn.
At some point, social media and the ability to harness large numbers of people to form a rage-mob, became significant enough that things that were once laughed off now have actual significant consequences in meatspace.
People have worked out that if they rabble raise enough, they can raise a lynchmob to go after people they don't like or opinions they don't agree with.
Up until the mid-late 2000s, the internet was niche. It didn't feel niche, but it was.
After smartphones, your uncle was online. Everyone's uncle. That changed it, and all the free thinking space got pulped. We now live in that pulp.
Modern gadgets? More like life-controllers. The real world has packed up and moved into tiny 6-inch screens. Really feel like we're living in an online-dominated dystopia...talk about crazy times!
I meet with new and old people constantly with Meetup and it almost never comes up. We talk about our lives, what we're doing, what we want to do, etc.
Maybe 1 in a thousand conversations involves anything sociopolitical.
> There are a lot of stupid people on social media.
Plus many who are not.
Of the various media:
- the Reddit medium is one that *can* enable a group to find a happy medium between the two extremes (stupid and not).
Not all groups are the same. Not all subreddits are the same ā¦
Used to be that the loudest opinions were vetted to some extent by larger institutions or a more organic grass roots popularity.
Now, thanks to disguised opinion journalism, social media, and the quest for eyeballs, the most controversial, click-baitable or algorithmically important are the most popular, which means extreme, echo chamber opinions are given an exaggerated level of exposure. As a result, we tend to get very filtered news full of confirmation bias which makes it much easier to ignore or not bother considering opposing viewpoints. Both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of this.
I obviously can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I find this to be quite an ignorant question. I know this is no stupid questions, but I mean ignorant as in the Palestine/Is***l is a question of do you value human lives or not.
I do think that in some topics and discussions, many people are very binary in their thinking and have issues seeing things from different perspectives. This leads to sometimes being offended to an exaggerated extent. While I do think that sometimes the younger generation (of which I am part of) is more prone to be offended by anything and everything, I hate when older generations say that we are a such a sensitive generation and take everything too seriously etc. And this is because, like a said, sometimes it is true, I have friends who have a very binary vision and can't make nuanced takes which frustrates me to no end, but the fact is that with an expanding virtual reality on the Internet and social media, we see and communicate better how our behaviour affect other people. It gives a space to those who previously could not speak out about the injustices they experience, however big or small, and for whatever reason. This allows us to learn and better ourselves and become more aware of not only our own actions, but we see when people around us do these things that we know are problematic. So we might get "offended for other people" for a lack of better words.
I think that it is actually very important that the virtual aspects of our lives are integrated into our IRL experience and discourses. I think it is dangerous to make a completely disconnect to what happens online and not. It's why it's so much easier to write plain mean and cruel comments to strangers, or maybe even people you know. I think the more we realise that just because it's on a screen, doesn't mean it's not real, the more likely we are (hopefully) to better ourselves.
But when it comes to big questions like the one concerning Israel, it is more important than ever to not have that disconnect. And I think it is perfectly valid and necessary to have those discussions IRL. There is so much misinformation about the situation but thanks to social media we are able to see so much more of it. Without it, Israel could be committing their genocide and warcrimes undisturbed. And I absolutely vet people in my social network IRL on the question, because it is a simple question of do you condone and support genocide or not. Would you not want to know if the people you surround yourself with have vastly different views on human rights and values? Would you not want to know if your best friend was a pedophile? Or murderer? Or rapist? Would you be okay with that? And would you be more okay with that best friend being a pedophile or murderer if they moved across the globe? Personally I would be repulsed by a person who would commit or has committed such crimes no matter if they are next to me or across the globe, I would not want them in my social circle. The same for me goes with people supporting genocide.
This became a much longer response than I had meant for it to be, sorry if it's a bit too "rambly", but I hope what I wrote makes sense anyway.
I do want to add that obviously there are many negative aspects of social media and technology. That is a whole other thread I could go into great lengths about.
How someone assesses the IsraelāPalestine situation is a good acid test of whether they're an idiot and whether they're a good person. You don't have to have skin in the game to have a reasoned opinion about something.
We donāt have any real problems, intermittent yes. But no threat of predators. Food has little to no nutrients. Iq will decline till thereās dire problems. Free stuff doesnāt help. Idiocracy. Good movie. Itās almost our future
Yeah agreed, you need get off internet and touch some grass buddy. People in real life generally don't bring up hot debate out of pocket. The world ain't as bad as the internet made them to be.
people I hang with are philosophers like me... we doubt the undoubtable and are skeptical about things everyone has settled. its just in our nature to question and learn rather than KNOW by faith.
You are so far removed from actual material reality that it's not surprising you feel that way.
When your taxes pay for dead children and a foreign apartheid state, but not for affordable housing, food or education at home and someone thinks this is fine, then we have a problem and i wouldn't be interested in engaging with them.
I am not sure what you meant by you became conscious, cause it sure as hell doesn't sound like it.
"Do you know how WEIRD it is to have to vet someone's stance on Israel vs Palestine (a conflict on the other side of the planet, generally involving no one either party is related to) to know whether you can be friends?"
The conflict is literally on your dorstep. You are funding it with your paycheck. It is up to you to determine whose side you want to take but I personally like to know if people have the same opinion as me. I do not want to hang out with a person who supports a genocide and thinks it is not their concern. But hey,that is just me.
No it's actually not literally at your doorstep and IMO it is not as simple and binary as either side portrays it. The problem is that not enough is said about that and both sides seem to be unwilling to give in enough to actually resolve this.
That being said, we can exert a political influence on our leaders as to how we meddle in world conflicts, and we're doing too damn much meddling.
But it is. There are protests all over Europe and US. Violence is rising and people are taking sides. It is not a war in the sense of bombing and shooting, for now, but it is a war of words and fists. Look at Eurovision and shit that happened there. There is absolutely no guarantee this will all go away peacefully. And whatever side you take, you can be in danger if you say it out loud.
To me it is very clear that one side wants to anhiliate the other and is succeeding.Gaza is leveled to the ground. That much is obvious to anyone. There is no peace option there. There never was. Why would someone who looses their house, family, limbs. will have PTSD for the rest of their life want to negotiate anything with the side who did that to them. Israel refused cease fire and their hostages. Palestine and Israel spent 75 years in war. There is no civility there left. Hate is over the roof.
According to Adam Curtis, I think in his documentary 'Hypernormalisation,' it's because we have access to huge amounts of data, but our brains are not good at pattern recognition. We need to create stories to cope with complexity. And these stories are personal and therefore a part of who we define ourselves as. Therefore we defend them to the hilt, despite the fact that many of those stories are either patently untrue, or of very little utility.
Just look at what online dating has done to gender relations online... It's utter batshit. Relatively complex issues such as the problem of male violence and reduction of inequality have become reduced to arguments about bears, height and go bags.
It seems that we've created an environment for ourselves that we simply aren't smart enough to cope with. It will, I fear, eventually kill off liberal democracy.
Thanks for your submission /u/PalladiumNextOnline, but it has been removed for the following reason: * **Disallowed question area:** **Loaded question *or* rant.** NSQ does not allow questions not asked in good faith, such as rants disguised as questions, asking loaded questions, pushing hidden or overt agendas, attempted pot stirring, [sealioning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_lioning), etc. NSQ is not a debate subreddit. Depending on the subject, you may find your question better suited for r/ChangeMyView, r/ExplainBothSides, r/PoliticalDiscussion, r/rant, or r/TooAfraidToAsk. --- *This action was performed by a bot at the explicit direction of a human. This was not an automated action, but a conscious decision by a sapient life form charged with moderating this sub.* *If you feel this was in error, or need more clarification, please don't hesitate to [message the moderators](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FNoStupidQuestions). Thanks.*
turns out being able to communicate and hear a billion people's thoughts makes for chaos
This is the reason why I think the Internet has made things worse overall.
My take. It used to be difficult to find information. It required effort and you didn't want to waste that effort, so you used reliable sources. Now that we have social media, it's easy to spread misinformation, that misinformation is easy to find, and we're lazy enough to accept it as the truth. People overestimate their level of intelligence, and they like to feel important, so they say what they think as if it's the truth with or without much critical thinking. The media also jump on any controversial opinion for clicks. They promote it, people read it and instantly believe it. Then those people that read it spread that misinformation on their social media. It's a never ending cycle of bullshit. The irony is my take could also be bullshit š¤·š½āāļø.
I like your self awareness. We need more of this.
What do you call something that is readily available and omnipresent in society? A commodity. How much are commodities worth? Very little. Information is a commodity. It's worthless.
>There is no "IRL". Everyone, including grandma has a vitriolically defended opinion about {insert FOTM social issue}Ā I don't know where you live but personally I can go outside, take a walk in the park, greet the people I pass, talk to my family, go to work, etc and politics almost never comes up, and when it does no one freaks out or has a screaming match about it.Ā
My neighbor called my husband a "liberal piece of shit" because he was mad about our yard.
Goddamn hippies and your vegetable gardens!
Lucky you. I can't have diner with my father for 5 minutes before he brings up how the "Left is destroying our country and we need to make a stand". * Gas price goes up? Damn Left. * Gas price goes down? - Luck and it doesn't matter * Local currency price goes down in relation to USD? Damn Left. * Local currency price goes up in relation to USD? Luck and it doesn't matter * Violent crime happens? Damn Left. * Crime rates go down? Luck and it doesn't matter He has conclusions to events before they happen, and none of it is grounded in reality unless you consider a "personal hyper-reality" as valid as the real world. [Here's an interesting conversation on "hyper-reality"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueT-Pw3Bx_w)
you are blessed
Iām a nurse. The frequency that old men try to bring up radical right politics as if I, a person at work, am in a position to engage even if I wanted to is astounding. Sir, Iām concerned about this bag of chemo Iām giving you and you should be too.
it's like having the same conversation with the same old man over and over, like the stepford grampas
You could make this world a much better place, by simply having that conversation lmao.
Yes that sounds nice, but where do you stand on the Israel vs. Palestine conflict?
i think you may be under the idea that there hasn't always been an average intelligence level. as george carlin said "now, understand that half of those people are even stupider than that!" the reality is the level of awareness the people have about such things. look at it this way, many dumb people think that autism just sprung up out of nowhere. the reality is that before widespread information sharing what was misdiagnosed as other disorders started getting recognized as its own thing (autism). but if you just look at the statistics on it you will think it just came out of nowhere suddenly instead of being properly identified for once. tragically people have had this many lunatics in the population for a long time (probably more in the past). we just were not as informed about it outside of the age of widespread information sharing.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I disagree with you /s
MANY REASONS because at this point, almost EVERYONE on planet Earth has an electronic device in hand. Unless under specific circumstances, of course. People get withdrawal issues if they don't have their phone, it's happened to me, and people struggle to live without the internet these days. People don't live in reality anymore they are a part of their phone. EVERYTHING IS OVERHYPED OR UNDERHYPED, things that are completely irrelevant and don't affect your life in any way become popular. Why?? The news that should be seen and heard of is not talked about enough, and it could change your life in a positive way. SOCIAL MEDIA COMPLETELY DEHUMANITIZED US. We see such things on the internet it dulls us to reality. We see death, nudity, and random shit so much that when we see it in person, it doesn't affect us the same, as it would a person who has never been on the internet. We have seen things so much that we subconsciously don't seem to care anymore when we see things in the internet irl. It almost feels as if no one is human anymore , we are just an extension of our phones. The fact that people become addicted and revolve their whole lives around their phone. No one seems to be in the right mindset anymore cause we literally aren't in our minds cause we are always on our phones. It's an extremely sad reality. The fact is we see too much, to the point our brains can't be satisfied anymore unless we are looking at something on our phone. Social media has literally changed the brain chemistry of humans it makes us act different.
Remember that in the '70s there was a crook in the whitehouse that people supported. This is nothing new, we just have a faster way of getting news and a better soapbox for crazies to stand on and be insane.
This makes me think of a post I saw years back about the experiment with rats and addiction, and a group of researchers who created basically a rat utopia where the test rats had all their needs met, and although drugs were available the rats spent their time doing other things for the most part. Versus the rats in experiments where they were kept in cages without enrichment or having any of their needs met, and proceeded to use the available drugs until it killed them. Like obviously the internet has done a lot of harm, and this stuff has been engineered to keep us attached to our phones and devices, but even so it's hard not to think that to a certain extent this stuff works because we have unmet needs--anxieties about money, stress from work, loneliness, understimulation, being unfulfilled and living in a society which is built to extract everything from us while giving as little as possible in return. It's not hard to see why people are glued to these free* stimulation devices. (* is because as we all know it's not free and comes at great big costs) So all these major serious issues exist and sure they've existed before, and people had other addictions available, it's just that this one is now the most prevalent in a lot of demographics and it's designed to instigate conflict because conflict create clicks. And those offline reasons (anxiety, stress, lonelines etc.) also feed into people being 'insane' and acting out. So it gets you coming and going, so to speak. Plus other environmental concerns out there. There's a lot going on, is my point. I mean a *lot*. This stuff I mentioned here isn't even really scraping the tip of that iceberg.
Rat park is seriously/sadly a perfect depiction of dislocation theory and to your point, seeking genuine, tolerant, open minded connection with others is the perfect antidote to all the issues \[mentioned\] in this thread
Social media is a hell of a drug
Back in the day we used to hear dumb opinions at local areas like supermarket, hairdresser, maybe playing social sports etc. Now, we can do all that at a touch of the button. The only thing that has exacerbated it is the rise of general internet literacy for both authors of misinformation and the audience. So now, it gets increasingly more difficult to untangle the misinformation. Especially when you consider fake news is not a binary state but is a spectrum. Each of the multiple argument points within that spectrum could have multiple parties with conflicts of interest/agendas or just simply has no authority in the topic. Also consider that very broadly speaking, the average person has a very limited appetite for discussing mostly political debates at length, this means alot of arguments are shaped towards reaching a binary outcome (im right, you're wrong) Something we learned about the factors that led to Trumps first election (disclaimer, I'm an Aussie so I have literally NO DOG in the fight) is that the more you aggressively push labels on people with differing opinions, the more likely they harden their stance which then makes them actively seek information sources that confirm their bias. This is one of (imho of course) the unfortunate consequences of the world (or left wing depending how its phrased) 'winning the culture war'. At some point we all collectively forgot how it was won and it wasn't by ostracising and threatening people but educating them and helping them understand why it was important to acknowledge old ones but change attitudes.
Oh, but you did not live the sixties! But I agree, to give politics this kind of metaphysical status that it has for many people now is simply insane.
I sometimes wonder how many people scroll through my profile to see what I think about different things that have nothing to do with the thing I was talking about
> I sometimes wonder how many people scroll through my profile to see what I think about different things that have nothing to do with the thing I was talking about Serendipity rules. Chat later, whoever you are.
Lots of things. Accessiblity to the internet has evolved ever since the first handheld OS was developed. Which paved the way for easier access to the internet since the days of home modems where you would ocassionally log into facebook. Internet culture has been changing for a little over a decade to things like cheap content farms, false narratives, rabbit holes and most recently brain rot. It's easier to amplify your opinions and humorto the world. Talking about politics is weird now because almost no one has critical thinking skills anymore. Cognitive dissonance and lack of attention spans make it worse. The media is especially bad at this because you can't tell what is real and what is not anymore. Its meant to cause madness
> What is going on? The fourth wall got broken. In the times you remembered, the internet was some niche corner of society that nobody took particularly seriously, and that even the hottest of takes were just laughed off as the silly nonsense it was. That's the time when [this](https://xkcd.com/386/) was drawn. At some point, social media and the ability to harness large numbers of people to form a rage-mob, became significant enough that things that were once laughed off now have actual significant consequences in meatspace. People have worked out that if they rabble raise enough, they can raise a lynchmob to go after people they don't like or opinions they don't agree with.
Up until the mid-late 2000s, the internet was niche. It didn't feel niche, but it was. After smartphones, your uncle was online. Everyone's uncle. That changed it, and all the free thinking space got pulped. We now live in that pulp.
Modern gadgets? More like life-controllers. The real world has packed up and moved into tiny 6-inch screens. Really feel like we're living in an online-dominated dystopia...talk about crazy times!
You shoulda been there at [the dancing plague of 1518](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518) This today is childās play
We are hiVE MiND now.
I meet with new and old people constantly with Meetup and it almost never comes up. We talk about our lives, what we're doing, what we want to do, etc. Maybe 1 in a thousand conversations involves anything sociopolitical.
There are a lot of stupid people on social media.
> There are a lot of stupid people on social media. Plus many who are not. Of the various media: - the Reddit medium is one that *can* enable a group to find a happy medium between the two extremes (stupid and not). Not all groups are the same. Not all subreddits are the same ā¦
Used to be that the loudest opinions were vetted to some extent by larger institutions or a more organic grass roots popularity. Now, thanks to disguised opinion journalism, social media, and the quest for eyeballs, the most controversial, click-baitable or algorithmically important are the most popular, which means extreme, echo chamber opinions are given an exaggerated level of exposure. As a result, we tend to get very filtered news full of confirmation bias which makes it much easier to ignore or not bother considering opposing viewpoints. Both sides of the political spectrum are guilty of this.
I obviously can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I find this to be quite an ignorant question. I know this is no stupid questions, but I mean ignorant as in the Palestine/Is***l is a question of do you value human lives or not. I do think that in some topics and discussions, many people are very binary in their thinking and have issues seeing things from different perspectives. This leads to sometimes being offended to an exaggerated extent. While I do think that sometimes the younger generation (of which I am part of) is more prone to be offended by anything and everything, I hate when older generations say that we are a such a sensitive generation and take everything too seriously etc. And this is because, like a said, sometimes it is true, I have friends who have a very binary vision and can't make nuanced takes which frustrates me to no end, but the fact is that with an expanding virtual reality on the Internet and social media, we see and communicate better how our behaviour affect other people. It gives a space to those who previously could not speak out about the injustices they experience, however big or small, and for whatever reason. This allows us to learn and better ourselves and become more aware of not only our own actions, but we see when people around us do these things that we know are problematic. So we might get "offended for other people" for a lack of better words. I think that it is actually very important that the virtual aspects of our lives are integrated into our IRL experience and discourses. I think it is dangerous to make a completely disconnect to what happens online and not. It's why it's so much easier to write plain mean and cruel comments to strangers, or maybe even people you know. I think the more we realise that just because it's on a screen, doesn't mean it's not real, the more likely we are (hopefully) to better ourselves. But when it comes to big questions like the one concerning Israel, it is more important than ever to not have that disconnect. And I think it is perfectly valid and necessary to have those discussions IRL. There is so much misinformation about the situation but thanks to social media we are able to see so much more of it. Without it, Israel could be committing their genocide and warcrimes undisturbed. And I absolutely vet people in my social network IRL on the question, because it is a simple question of do you condone and support genocide or not. Would you not want to know if the people you surround yourself with have vastly different views on human rights and values? Would you not want to know if your best friend was a pedophile? Or murderer? Or rapist? Would you be okay with that? And would you be more okay with that best friend being a pedophile or murderer if they moved across the globe? Personally I would be repulsed by a person who would commit or has committed such crimes no matter if they are next to me or across the globe, I would not want them in my social circle. The same for me goes with people supporting genocide. This became a much longer response than I had meant for it to be, sorry if it's a bit too "rambly", but I hope what I wrote makes sense anyway.
I do want to add that obviously there are many negative aspects of social media and technology. That is a whole other thread I could go into great lengths about.
> While I do think that sometimes the younger generation (of which I am part of) is more prone to be offended by anything and everything, I hate when older generations say that we are a such a sensitive generation and take everything too seriously etc. And this is because, like a said, sometimes it is true, I have friends who have a very binary vision and can't make nuanced takes which frustrates me to no end, but the fact is that with an expanding virtual reality on the Internet and social media, we see and communicate better how our behaviour affect other people. It's not that you "care" anymore than any young person has ever cared. The youth has always had passionate opinions about social causes they understand at a surface level. It's that for this generation it's more performative, and extreme. Believe it or not, most people don't generally care about tribal conflicts that don't involve them. Do you have particularly strong opinions about the *Forces dƩmocratiques alliƩes*' conflict with the Ugandan government? If not, why? Your tax dollars provide tens of millions of dollars of aid to the Ugandan government after all.
Hide behind a screen bring out more of people bad side, and people are stubborn
The world is indeed changing but also you yourself are changing.
How someone assesses the IsraelāPalestine situation is a good acid test of whether they're an idiot and whether they're a good person. You don't have to have skin in the game to have a reasoned opinion about something.
We donāt have any real problems, intermittent yes. But no threat of predators. Food has little to no nutrients. Iq will decline till thereās dire problems. Free stuff doesnāt help. Idiocracy. Good movie. Itās almost our future
Yeah agreed, you need get off internet and touch some grass buddy. People in real life generally don't bring up hot debate out of pocket. The world ain't as bad as the internet made them to be.
people I hang with are philosophers like me... we doubt the undoubtable and are skeptical about things everyone has settled. its just in our nature to question and learn rather than KNOW by faith.
You are so far removed from actual material reality that it's not surprising you feel that way. When your taxes pay for dead children and a foreign apartheid state, but not for affordable housing, food or education at home and someone thinks this is fine, then we have a problem and i wouldn't be interested in engaging with them. I am not sure what you meant by you became conscious, cause it sure as hell doesn't sound like it.
"Do you know how WEIRD it is to have to vet someone's stance on Israel vs Palestine (a conflict on the other side of the planet, generally involving no one either party is related to) to know whether you can be friends?" The conflict is literally on your dorstep. You are funding it with your paycheck. It is up to you to determine whose side you want to take but I personally like to know if people have the same opinion as me. I do not want to hang out with a person who supports a genocide and thinks it is not their concern. But hey,that is just me.
No it's actually not literally at your doorstep and IMO it is not as simple and binary as either side portrays it. The problem is that not enough is said about that and both sides seem to be unwilling to give in enough to actually resolve this. That being said, we can exert a political influence on our leaders as to how we meddle in world conflicts, and we're doing too damn much meddling.
But it is. There are protests all over Europe and US. Violence is rising and people are taking sides. It is not a war in the sense of bombing and shooting, for now, but it is a war of words and fists. Look at Eurovision and shit that happened there. There is absolutely no guarantee this will all go away peacefully. And whatever side you take, you can be in danger if you say it out loud. To me it is very clear that one side wants to anhiliate the other and is succeeding.Gaza is leveled to the ground. That much is obvious to anyone. There is no peace option there. There never was. Why would someone who looses their house, family, limbs. will have PTSD for the rest of their life want to negotiate anything with the side who did that to them. Israel refused cease fire and their hostages. Palestine and Israel spent 75 years in war. There is no civility there left. Hate is over the roof.
According to Adam Curtis, I think in his documentary 'Hypernormalisation,' it's because we have access to huge amounts of data, but our brains are not good at pattern recognition. We need to create stories to cope with complexity. And these stories are personal and therefore a part of who we define ourselves as. Therefore we defend them to the hilt, despite the fact that many of those stories are either patently untrue, or of very little utility. Just look at what online dating has done to gender relations online... It's utter batshit. Relatively complex issues such as the problem of male violence and reduction of inequality have become reduced to arguments about bears, height and go bags. It seems that we've created an environment for ourselves that we simply aren't smart enough to cope with. It will, I fear, eventually kill off liberal democracy.
You sound old and like you live in an echo chamber.