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Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#22- Too many people on the internet who just want it to be about them. Me Me Me. Look at me. I try not to be that guy but I am sure I have been there too. Look at facebook. It is mostly a bunch of family/friends showing their latest vacation pics, or their kids doing some stuff (guilty as charged here) or whatever. It is mostly about THEM. Look at me. Me me me. Instagram. Need I say anything ? Twitter: A bunch of people who have opinions and if they are famous, everyone listens in. Like ok, who cares but people do. When someone "less fortunate" sees all that stuff, they get depressed/jealous/sad whatever. Why can't I have those things ? Why can't I go to that great vacation ? Oh, look at THAT family. How perfect they are. My life sucks.
- People are really becoming too reserved and within their own circles. Internet has made it much easier contrary to what we may have thought when internet started. Now you don't need to worry about socializing or getting to know your neighbor. You can literally get/do anything online these days which also means you create your own echo chambers. For example, why participate in a debate with a fellow neighbor/friend when I can go on reddit (anonymized) and write whatever I want for the most part. I was talking to someone few days ago and they mentioned "We used to almost know everyone in my neighborhood 15 years ago and now in the same neighborhood, I only know a handful"
I wouldn't say most commenters online are depressed. I think it is more because of how our society has become.
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#23Here's what politics was like ~30 years ago (in the US): your representative was rewarded primarily on the basis of local issues and economics. For us it was 'can they keep the local Navy base open' which provided most jobs. You can see the remnants of this pork-barrel politics in the Obamacare deal, with various deals to bring over a few senators.
The US had tons of diversity. But it got expression in local culture, and you didn't think as deeply about your identity at a national level. The national stuff felt more distant. It was exceedingly rare families to travel outside one or two state radius.
NOW, perhaps due to the Internet, maybe other factors, everything far away feels 'closer'. It's like we're suddenly crammed together at the same party, sharing more space with people that we would have culturally been more distant from in the past, creating tons of issues. Most issues have become nationalized. The lack of local media compared to social media, the lack of attachment to a community (people move more), and other factors probably are at play here.
So everyone projects values in the past they would have put into local communities onto the shared, national space. Of course if I project my educated, metropolitan PoV and you project your rural working class PoV, things will clash and we will have fundamental disagreements about everything, including facts and core values.
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#24There is no single reason for why this is happening but I do have a few suspicions on what is contributing to it. 1) The internet is directly and indirectly incentivizing this kind of attention seeking behavior. It's rewarding to be noticed, upvoted, and retweeted. Pleasant, well reasoned, and evenhanded discussion rarely gets as much attention as sassy clapbacks. 2) Younger generations have been raised to believe th…
>There is no single reason for why this is happening
The internet skews heavily young, international, and urban. In other words, pretty overwhelmingly Democratic. Obviously they were pretty unhappy with the way things were going the last 4 years. It's not really different from how things were under Bush. And now that Biden is president and the Dems control congress things will be less negative online.
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#25There is no single reason for why this is happening but I do have a few suspicions on what is contributing to it. 1) The internet is directly and indirectly incentivizing this kind of attention seeking behavior. It's rewarding to be noticed, upvoted, and retweeted. Pleasant, well reasoned, and evenhanded discussion rarely gets as much attention as sassy clapbacks. 2) Younger generations have been raised to believe th…
I've noticed what you say about younger people. I'm in my early 40s and my sister is her early 20s. My Dad is an aerospace engineer and we were discussing the work that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is doing with their rockets. When my sister buts in and goes on a 20 minute rant about how it is unethical for billionaires to exist. It really pissed me off as I don't get to talk to my Dad much[1], especially about things he…
rough yeah. But not specifically younger gen, as see similar behaviour clearly on things like Clubhouse, with some older folks, where everyone just rants and likes the sound of their own voice
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#26Here's what politics was like ~30 years ago (in the US): your representative was rewarded primarily on the basis of local issues and economics. For us it was 'can they keep the local Navy base open' which provided most jobs. You can see the remnants of this pork-barrel politics in the Obamacare deal, with various deals to bring over a few senators. The US had tons of diversity. But it got expression in local culture,…
Just to add: 30 years ago there was nearly as much hand-wringing about pork-barrel politics as there is today about our insane partisanship. It led to its fair share of sub optimal decisions...
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#27There is no single reason for why this is happening but I do have a few suspicions on what is contributing to it. 1) The internet is directly and indirectly incentivizing this kind of attention seeking behavior. It's rewarding to be noticed, upvoted, and retweeted. Pleasant, well reasoned, and evenhanded discussion rarely gets as much attention as sassy clapbacks. 2) Younger generations have been raised to believe th…
I don't really agree with this. I think the internet is just starting to look more and more like real life.
My grandmother, born in a house without electricity, is on Twitter. My aunts and uncles, who would previously have watched argumentative current affairs panel shows on TV (which were never pleasant or even-handed, even decades ago), can now join in the brawl in the comments sections online.
The young people argument is a bit too loose for my liking too. Are you talking about teenagers or people in their thirties? I'd also directly challenge you on the assertion that young people have more free time and are more obnoxious than older people. I'm not sure that stands up to scrutiny.
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#28Here's what politics was like ~30 years ago (in the US): your representative was rewarded primarily on the basis of local issues and economics. For us it was 'can they keep the local Navy base open' which provided most jobs. You can see the remnants of this pork-barrel politics in the Obamacare deal, with various deals to bring over a few senators. The US had tons of diversity. But it got expression in local culture,…
Just to add: 30 years ago there was nearly as much hand-wringing about pork-barrel politics as there is today about our insane partisanship. It led to its fair share of sub optimal decisions...
We used to be worried about the national debt. Now it feels like a given that it's all funny money.
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#29I believe the biggest problem is virality. What you see is determined by what captured the attention of other users, or what algorithms think would keep you on the site so they can serve more ads to your hungry eyeballs. As it turns out, divisive and emotional content (whether it's politics, pop culture flame wars or YouTube drama) is great at capturing that attention.
It's a problem I've recognized, and we're currently working on a new kind of social network that aims to promote better discussion on the internet. One of our methods is removing the concept of "virality" and having the discussions happen in small groups instead of on public forums. After all, your group chats with friends still have good discussions, that's what we're trying to replicate on a wider scale. We don't yet have a website to show unfortunately :(
Re: Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
#30Here's what politics was like ~30 years ago (in the US): your representative was rewarded primarily on the basis of local issues and economics. For us it was 'can they keep the local Navy base open' which provided most jobs. You can see the remnants of this pork-barrel politics in the Obamacare deal, with various deals to bring over a few senators. The US had tons of diversity. But it got expression in local culture,…
This is a good This American Life podcast about that issue:
> Two towns where people got really upset about undocumented immigrants, even though in both places, that did not seem to be the most important thing happening at all. One of the towns, a small town in Alaska, has no undocumented immigrants at all, but the possibility of them arriving put the whole town at each other’s throats.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/621/fear-and-loathing-in-ho...