Somewhat amusing that the article starts off using a parable from the bible. Maybe it's more amusing to someone outside the the US.
Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
81–90 of 504 posts
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#82This is the dumbest thing I have seen come from Jonathan Haidt. If social media is this powerful a destabilizer of societies, I wonder how Haidt explains first world countries like Germany, Canada, and most of the rest of the planet that have social media but haven't fallen into the same sort of divisiveness the US has.
Does the USA have a common national identity to rally around anymore; what do a Floridian, a California, and Minnesotan have in common in the 2020's? America has always been a melting pot of different cultures. You can tell a story about how the "american dream" united Americans in the past but you can also argue that dream has been degraded over the years. Even things such as the constitution and bill of rights are…
Funny thing is local politics is dying. Your hypothetical statesmen are rallying around how much they hate the other political party, and what they are trying to use the federal gov't to accomplish. That Floridian basically has everything in common with that Californian, as long as they are on the same side of the political divide (give or take one or two "contarian" positions within the tent).
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#83Random scribbling here, but, i feel like America has been the idiots wearing the dunce cap ongoingly for a long time.
But we're finally seeing some real world events & consequences across the world that mirror our internal battle of values, seeing what heavily regressed shelted "anti-political" naivety & other declared antipathys & worse maledictions happening on the world stage look like, far & wide. It feels like there's a lot more examples of very ethnocentric, me & us thinking playing out on the world stage. Personally I find it scary but I think this system shock has a distinct potential to help the world reflect, to decide on stronger more pan-human values, in the face of these upswelling raging distinctionalisms.
In some ways I do worry, that isolationist & nationalistic programmes may see some sucess. But by & large, I feel that there's some pretty clear moral groundings staking it out, have been for a while, and seeing a lot more cases on the world stage, seeing more consequneces of what exclusivist policymaking really looks like is a painful painful painful lesson, but one that will illuminate & recalibrate us all, will help remind us & scare us our of some of our pervasive & monstrous behaviors.
I have some hope we can keep learning & watching, that the parallax view of other countries undergoing the sick battle for it's soul America has suffered & whether that & the law/system is for a very few or for a general public benefit-- I have hope.it carries the world towards caring & concerns. Tbings seem to decidedly be getting harder & worse. I feel like huddling closer has been a natural response, but ultimately has been tinged with cruelty & defeatism, and that we can start to recognize more how weak & scared & isolated responses- when we see them happening elsewhere- look bad, and dont help. I hope we can see the morality & logic of the situation better, seeing more of the world undergoe it's own self-crisis, it's anti-belief in structure & governance & trying, and find remewed vigor to work collectively for better. Just a hope, a small little one, but it feels so new to me to see this struggle playing out more widely.
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#84Haidt makes an excellent observation about the mid-20th century unity being an aberration due to the technology of the time: > Gurri is no fan of elites or of centralized authority, but he notes a constructive feature of the pre-digital era: a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society. Something I think we o…
> What I see missing from Haidt's analysis is increased federalism and localism as a solution. I'm theoretically in favor of this, but ... one of the reasons we need a bigger, more powerful federal government is to have a governmental entity that can take on the massively more powerful private entities (corporations) that exist. No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon. The federal government can (or could,…
> No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon.
An alternative theory posits that these massive corporations in fact depend upon the centralization of governmental regulatory and fiscal powers for their very existence. Regulatory capture is much easier to pull off when there’s only one central authority that needs to be captured.
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#85Haidt makes an excellent observation about the mid-20th century unity being an aberration due to the technology of the time: > Gurri is no fan of elites or of centralized authority, but he notes a constructive feature of the pre-digital era: a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society. Something I think we o…
> What I see missing from Haidt's analysis is increased federalism and localism as a solution. I'm theoretically in favor of this, but ... one of the reasons we need a bigger, more powerful federal government is to have a governmental entity that can take on the massively more powerful private entities (corporations) that exist. No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon. The federal government can (or could,…
The EU seems to be fining big tech quite a bit.
Do you think individual US states wouldn't be able to organize like that?
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What I see missing from Haidt's analysis is increased federalism and localism as a solution. I'm theoretically in favor of this, but ... one of the reasons we need a bigger, more powerful federal government is to have a governmental entity that can take on the massively more powerful private entities (corporations) that exist. No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon. The federal government can (or could,…
The EU seems to be fining big tech quite a bit. Do you think individual US states wouldn't be able to organize like that?
I do not.
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#87This is the dumbest thing I have seen come from Jonathan Haidt. If social media is this powerful a destabilizer of societies, I wonder how Haidt explains first world countries like Germany, Canada, and most of the rest of the planet that have social media but haven't fallen into the same sort of divisiveness the US has.
>Canada hasn't fallen into the same sort of divisiveness the US has Canada is, politically, even more harshly-divided than the US is. We even have specific political parties for it: the Quebec Party, the Western Party, and the Largest Cities Party (the latter two will deny this, but that's the truth). Quebec has tried to separate from Canada twice in the last 50 years, and was within a Brexit's margin of their latest…
> NYC and DC picked every single representative, senator, and the President.
This is essentially the goal of those who complain about the electoral college and the Senate.
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#88Haidt makes an excellent observation about the mid-20th century unity being an aberration due to the technology of the time: > Gurri is no fan of elites or of centralized authority, but he notes a constructive feature of the pre-digital era: a single “mass audience,” all consuming the same content, as if they were all looking into the same gigantic mirror at the reflection of their own society. Something I think we o…
This might be a weird outcome of the inability of large groups to process nuance. Groups seem to struggle with the idea that things can be done one way in one place and another way in another place - and struggle in a way that individuals seem not to. Groups - even small government types, weirdly - seem to fall into a trap whenever something goes wrong. The answer to a challenge is "centralise power, then do things m…
Large groups cannot “process” anything; individual humans do that. Maybe what you mean is simply that humans act tribally, and most of the traditional tribe proxies (clubs, churches, etc.) have weakened or died off in modern society so we are left only with borderless ideologies as tribal allegiances.
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What I see missing from Haidt's analysis is increased federalism and localism as a solution. I'm theoretically in favor of this, but ... one of the reasons we need a bigger, more powerful federal government is to have a governmental entity that can take on the massively more powerful private entities (corporations) that exist. No state government can take on Walmart or Amazon. The federal government can (or could,…
The EU seems to be fining big tech quite a bit. Do you think individual US states wouldn't be able to organize like that?
> Do you think individual US states wouldn't be able to organize like that?
Isn't that what a federal government is?
Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isn't immune, but it certainly hasn't gotten to the point it has in the US. We had a failed insurrection two years ago that killed 5 people. The truck convoy was a bunch of morons thinking they could get their way by going to Ottawa and being absolutely obnoxious --- and ultimately failing because no one wanted to put up with their shit. Social media is a factor. It's not the main factor, and Haidt's weird focus o…
Canada literally had to suspend the charter and due process by enacting the emergency measures act, which is unprecedented amongst western countries. Why would the government do that if no one supported them anyways? Your insurrection did not kill 5 people by the way. I get that there's a weird urge to make that event some sort of insanely important historical moment but it doesn't mean you have to make up dead peopl…
> Canada literally had to suspend the charter and due process by enacting the emergency measures act, which is unprecedented amongst western countries
This is not totally true.
[1] https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-pr...
And of course there are others. The US has quiet a bit of history around suspending rights.
This is the issue I have with these kinds of statements of, the sky is falling, this hasn't happened before. A co-worker did the same with masks. Masks mandate are the most egregious thing the US government has ever done. But apparently putting people born and raised in the US with Japanese ancestry in camps was less egregious than masks? States banned the use of the German language? The house unamerican activities committee ruined the lives of people by dragging them infront of congress for character assassination?