No sorry, I don’t buy into this.
Never before in history have we ever had to deal with the thing called social media.
We’re like a bunch of monkeys playing with fire. We don’t realize how powerful it is.
It will be the death of society as we know it. I feel confident in that.
“Society as we know it” dies all the time. Nothing new about that, either; though the phenomenon does seem to have sped up quite a bit since the Paleolithic.
The trick isn’t to try to keep things the same. It’s to try to hang on to the better bits, and add in the bits of the change that are improvements – improvements for that particular time, place, and people.
Social media’s a tool. It’s being used to do good, and to do damage: in both directions sometimes deliberately and sometimes inadvertently.
Also describes the printing press.
Except that the printing press wasn’t controlled by a handful of billionaires with access to intimate mined data on each of its readers that they can use to manipulate and control the public with.
I don’t think I would call it ‘outrage fatigue.’ I think it is more that I am done with you trying to extract money from me.
What I’ve found particularly wearisome is the dawning realization that shit, we liberals now also have to be the conservatives.
I don’t mean that we old moderate-liberal fogeys are getting Overton-windowed by a resurgent radical left (I wish, kinda) into a position that looks centrist or even conservative by comparison. I mean that there is nobody on the right that we can count on for the traditional support of status quo, prudence and caution, realistic common sense, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mindset that conservatives not so long ago used to pride themselves on.
The people espousing the traditionally liberal causes of expanded human rights, environmental protection, environmental justice, and so forth? Us liberals. The people espousing the traditionally conservative causes of defending traditional governmental norms, established protocols, science-based pragmatism, and the basic principles of democracy? Also us liberals, because nobody else will.
The people pursuing economic justice and a more fair distribution of wealth and opportunity to help make easier routes to prosperity for the disadvantaged? Us liberals, as usual. The people rationally rejecting economic recklessness and political theater like budget-busting tax cuts and threats to default on the debt? Also us liberals, because we’re the only sane ones left.
The self-professed “conservatives” and “libertarians” have gone full-on rabid howler monkey and lost all serious ambitions for practical constructive governance. They’re deep down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and all other kinds of anti-factual and anti-science woo. Right now when we have so many serious global problems that need hard-working intelligent grownups to address them, half of the citizenry has completely abdicated its responsibilities in order to go on a gleefully self-indulgent rampage of destruction, like a toddler who serendipitously found a hammer while the babysitter was on the toilet.
I have always said, and my voting history corroborates, that I don’t mind collaborating in citizenship with ethical, reasonable, tolerant conservatives whose top priorities happen to be somewhat different from my own. But I deeply resent being forced to be an ethical, reasonable, tolerant conservative as well as an ethical, reasonable, tolerant liberal, and be the de facto guardian of their principles and priorities as well as my own, because those lazy selfish motherfuckers can’t get their shit together to handle their responsibilities like adults. (Christ, listen to me, I even sound like a stereotypical old-school conservative.)
No way am I giving up on the job, and I’m not even giving up on outrage altogether, though I’m cutting back on it somewhat. But overall, my outrage is rapidly solidifying into dense and weighty grudge. I’m not soon going to forget how those self-righteous peckerheads left me and my fellow liberals to do their work as well as our own, while they indulged in their delusional violence-promoting circlejerks about the imaginary horrors of gay woke immigrant Chinese atheist microchip abortion white replacement.
The stupid bastards OWE me for this. They owe us all, for making the work of fighting ignorance so much harder while they abandoned all pretense to be contributing anything to it themselves.
I think our inadequate response to climate change would not have been sufficiently improved with a better information landscape. We’re simply not capable of dealing with such vast consequences where both the causes and effects are so diffuse. Rich people, both on a local scale and on a global scale would have to voluntarily give up so much it would lead to political backlash even with good information.
About a year ago I got too exhausted to keep up the outrage, and instead contented myself with cynical critique. But now the outrageous corruption is so widespread, with so little cause to think any charges or investigation will stick, that I’m barely tracking it enough to even snark at it.
If Trump is indicted it will be historically important. 5 years ago I would have danced a jig over it. But at this point I’d shrug and assume that the trial will either result in a corrupt acquittal or a corrupt overturning by SCOTUS. (That is, if I have the mental bandwidth to consider it at all, given how distracted I’ll be by the corrupt antics already emanating from the corrupt House Republicans).
They have successfully flooded the zone with shit. I personally am defeated.
Yes, I find this troubling as well. And partly because, well, every faction does have its nutty fringe, and the left is no exception. However, since the right has permanently and irrevocably lost all credibility as a critic of “nutty fringe”, that means we on the left need to police our own ranks. And since that (justifiably) seems much less urgent than policing the authoritarian threat from the right, the outcome (I feel) is that the left really is nuttier than it used to be, in some ways that are really counterproductive.
Note that I’m not being a centrist about this. I will continue voting Democrat no matter how nutty they get, provided that they’re the best available opposition to right-wingers, as I have done continuously since I attained political adulthood. But I do bemoan the fact that a lack of meaningful opposition is making the left dumber, as I see it.
This.
Beyond it, I, too, have moved from outraged to defeated. I’m trying to remember that I am making positive contributions in my own way (I teach in a university, so I help give young minds the tools to think more critically and communicate better, which I really believe is a net social good). I’m pretty defeatist about the state of the USA, and the climate, but I don’t know what else I can do other than be supportive of those who are making the sacrifices to make things better.
Of course we’re fatigued, not the least because conservatives appear to pay no penalty from their voting base for the most egregious actions of lying, cheating and stealing. George Santos doesn’t get seated in Congress by a party which considers integrity important.
I calm myself by thinking of the coming generational changes; the yutes are aware of it (as much as can be expected).
Trump is hardly the only person responsible for the current state of affairs. A backlash against authority and institutions has been increasing for sixty years. A distrust of elites and educated often by the very elites and educated for a decade or more. The Internet taught many that their opinions on any topic are essential, more important than others views, much more important than civility and/or can foster a sense of community regardless of being disconnected from reality or reason.
The failure of governments to protect privacy, enforce civility, earn respect and defend reasonable norms has made many permanently angry, despite doing better, in many ways. than almost any previous generation, at any time and in any place. But why not be angry over some perceived slight or giving resources to someone else or helping others in need? (These things are not always de minimus and can and often should be debated, but anger - manufactured, performative or mandatory - hardly helps).
The media, all media, has often prioritized fear, bad news and shock over purported ethics and actual public interest. Some people have also monetized saying ever more offensive things as a short cut to publicity, popularity or power. The resultant political polarization is hardly surprising. But people will eventually tire of ineffective and counterproductive dogma. It is not very rewarding to deal with the perpetually pissed.
@Dr_Paprika I believe you have summed up the situation well.
By fatigue, I meant more than “sick and tired.” I’m thinking of something like metal fatigue–
Metal fatigue occurs when metal parts are weakened due to repeated stresses.
…
Metal fatigue is one of the subtlest types of metal failures, and one of the most dangerous. Although metal failure can occur from excessive tensile loads, shear loads and impact loads, to name a few, metal fatigue is a failure type that can go unnoticed right up until the point when it is too late.
That sounds like us, doesn’t it?
Neither do social media companies. Yes, they own platforms. And, yes, they have some significant amounts of data on us. But none of that makes them very good at controlling people. You have only to look at what the owners wish they could do versus what they actually do accomplish. That data is primarily sold to and used by advertisers, and has little to do with how people exploit social media.
No, the issue with social media is primarily information overload, and our natural human responses to that. It makes it very easy to be told only what you want to hear, and filter out anyone you don’t want to hear. It makes it easy for the con artists who have always been out there to spread their cons. It makes it easier for conspiracy theorists to do their thing.
But if you pay attention, you notice that the people most affected are older, and that, just like in the past, the young people who grow up with something are far more resilient to it. You notice that the good guys can exploit the same things the bad guys exploit.
And you’d notice that a lot of the stuff we keep fearing would happen don’t actually happen as we fear. That’s why catastrophizing as you have done is ill advised.
Fortunately, feeling something is hopeless doesn’t make it so. Everything you’ve said is based on how you feel, same as for those who fall for disinformation. They also feel hopeless, which is why they can be exploited.
Twitter is my source of outrage, for better or worse. And in general, I’m interested in the meta analysis of stuff. In this case, I was on twitter, following my curated feed and it’s an unceasing LOOK AT WHAT THE DUMBASS REPUBLICANS HAVE DONE TODAY.
(And we have that kind of thread here…the Schadenfreude thread…)
But then I looked at it further and saw more patterns. The statement can be rephrased as:
LOOK AT WHAT THE DUMBASS %opposition% HAS DONE TODAY. And it covers all the people that want to own the libs.
And even more patterns: ‘I’m so tired of %opposition% being stupid’ and ‘can you believe how stupid they are today, and were yesterday, and remember that stupid thing they did 6 months ago?’
And I realized that the ONLY place I was consuming this information was Twitter. Our local news wasn’t carrying it, and what I see of the national news is light on it as well. Twitter was distilling the hatred. And it was my only source.
And my life is so much better without it, though I still go back a couple times a day. Look at the stupid thing Elon did, Look at how MTG and Boebert were fighting in a bathroom, See the stupid thing the orange shitgibbon said today. (hint: he says a dozen stupid things a day, I’m both amazed and dismayed that one person, without a staff of writers, but comes up with SO MUCH of it, and WE ALWAYS MANAGE to not take the mic away from him.)
Sounds like last words.
I have not figured out why but it seems we have lost a sense of society and community. The default now seems to be all about “me” and if “you” are getting something that I am not that infuriates “me”.
Lots going on in this thread, but your comment reminded me of something adjacent to it: How much of this outrage is driven by people who profit from it.
A few weeks ago we had the McCarthy battles. Trump was behind KM the entire time. On Wednesday he twuthed his support of KM and his disappointment at other GOPers, telling them to get in line or else!
And he was promptly ignored. The thing went on another 3, 4 days… 15 damn votes, more than 10 votes after Trump told everyone to fall in line. And whatever machinations it took for KM to become speaker, they occurred because of KM, not Trump.
And yet… and yet…
The second, the second that KM is elected, Rick Wilson and The Lincoln Project were shouting how this proves Trump was still in control of the GOP, that this was Trump’s victory, etc.
However, it was anything but.
Anyway, KM gets out there and gives a rather tepid statement of thanks for Trump’s support and the LP was like “See?!? See?!? It’s still Trump’s GOP!”
Akin to a charity which is facing the dilemma “do we kill this thing and disband, or do we perpetuate the misery, keeping our nice lifestyles”, the LP is acting as if they chose option #2. And so they are, in their own way, perpetuating the problem they have sworn to fight, all via manufactured outrage.
As are those Twitter accounts.
YES! And I’m smart enough to realize that if you flip the coin on the other side, a Republican getting fed an equal-but-opposite stream of bile…from largely the same sources, is providing the other half of the revenue stream.
And how it largely doesn’t follow me off my computer. Literally NONE of it seems to actually extend into my real life*.
You’re forgetting the algorithms. Social media companies are designed to radicalize people. That’s how they make the most money. (Same is true of news media.)