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Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

theatlantic.com

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Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#191

Post by travisgriggs »

> Recent academic studies suggest that social media is indeed corrosive to trust in governments, news media, and people and institutions in general.

The author uses the term social media here in this statement without much differentiation. Elsewhere though, he has differentiated “old school” social media from modern “social media.” I think he should have made that more clear here. He expressed earlier that the effects of “old school” social media were pretty benign.

I would like to propose that the term social media has become varied and ambiguous enough that it loses its value when introspecting on its modern effect. I’ve personally taken to no longer use the term “social media” and instead try to use variations on “profit media”, “engagement media”, and “highly mechanized.” These better capture (for me) the essence of what most modern supposed “social” platforms are really about.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#192

Post by dragonwriter »

jdkee wrote: post #163
nr2x wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is mentioned 19 times, Fox News once, and talk radio zero. This is a very techno deterministic argument that utterly fails to acknowledge the main source of misinformation and division is boring old tech like cable news and radio. The main role Facebook serves is to make Fox and radio personalities more accessible.

Fox News and conservative talk radio have existed since the early 1990s yet the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010, which appears to prove Haidt's point.

> the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010

You're late by about 200 years.

There was an unusually long period from the 1930s through the early 1990s where, due to a set of overlapping partisan realignments, the divide between the major parties did not line up with the main axis of polarization, such that after the end of this period with the crystalization of the partisan alignment partisan polarization increased, but the prior bipartisan era was not one of low polarization, but merely of poor alignment between party and salient ideology.

America’s intense partisan polarization is it's normal state.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#193

Post by pixl97 »

titzer wrote: post #183
jdkee wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox News and conservative talk radio have existed since the early 1990s yet the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010, which appears to prove Haidt's point.

Fox News came about in 1996. I remember before that, there was just Rush and co, and they were fringe on the radio. Fox when mainstream in the early 2000s and just snowballed slowly ever since. There was never a moment where extreme polarization just suddenly appeared. Rush in the early 1990s was saying f-nut stuff back then, too.

I do think the internet was required for the final acceleration into madness.

In general commercial media is seeking ad dollars, even though its saying some crazy things it still has some limits. In addition, it has a limited number of guests and they tend to get limited to 'interesting' individuals.

The internet is not limited in such a fashion and the echo chambers and feedback loops are faster.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#194

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

VictorPath wrote: post #107
mymythisisthis wrote: post #44

40 years of austerity in the west. Life span actually decreasing. Desperate people act out.

Also with productivity gains, the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage of half a century ago is the same as it was in 2018, and it has popped slightly up and down since the . All gains have been sucked up by the heirs, the aristocracy.

The way this stuff is measured is broken. The baskets of goods aren't comparable.

Given the choice between a $1000 (real) basket of goods from 1956 and a $1000 (real) basket of goods from 2022, which would you pick?

To me the answer is obvious, 2022. Everything you get will be better. Better textiles, better food, cheap electronics...

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#195

Post by wyldfire »

titzer wrote: post #180
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That Trump's pleas for his supporters to take the vaccine fell on deaf ears appears to indicate things aren't quite that clear cut. Perhaps some groups are more inclined to force compliance with all of their views than other groups.

[flagged]

I think it's just the idea of endorsing prophylactic medicine. Since anyone could be a potential victim of a virus, everyone should consider vaccination. And while it's not compulsory, the suggestion that it be widely advocated sets the conspiracy folks on edge. They seem to pin their identity on { I'm not like the others + mistrust of authority }. So it's really easy to accept a message that the too-trusting have all fallen into a trap that they're too smart for. If it's not tracking, it's greed, or some other motive driving evildoers to vaccinate the world.

Hydroxychloroquine was attractive because it was available before the vaccine and you would only need to administer it to the infected. Of course, a few did try to take it prophylactically and at least one OD'd.

Trump is so purely and consistently self serving. He didn't promote the vaccine enough because he feared his successor would get the credit and he (rightly) feared his base would hold it against him. And he only promoted it when he realized that his supporters were dropping like flies and millions of the kids in the next generation will turn eighteen before the next presidential election.

The vaccines are a triumph of humanity that should be celebrated. They were produced, tested and distributed very rapidly (among the wealthiest countries). We could stand to improve significantly at how well it was distributed to poorer nations. But IMO a positive story overall. And antivaxxers might have had reason to be cautious at first, but now it's so widely distributed that it doesn't make much sense to fear it anymore. the long term consequences of the infection are likely much much worse than the long term consequences of vaccination.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#196

Post by oceanplexian »

nr2x wrote: post #152
rossdavidh wrote: post #97

While I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt, and have read several of his books, I can't help but feel that this is written from a point of view that is entirely too impressed with (if also afraid of) technology. Peter Turchin predicted escalating levels of polarization in the US, reaching a peak around 2020, without any need to look at social media. The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the la…

Facebook is mentioned 19 times, Fox News once, and talk radio zero. This is a very techno deterministic argument that utterly fails to acknowledge the main source of misinformation and division is boring old tech like cable news and radio. The main role Facebook serves is to make Fox and radio personalities more accessible.

I don’t know why Fox gets all the credit. I distinctly remember watching MSNBC in the early 2000s during the Bush era and it was surprisingly… centrist. Most of the stuff that passes for news today would have been considered radical.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#197

Post by simonh »

rossdavidh wrote: post #97

While I am a big fan of Jonathan Haidt, and have read several of his books, I can't help but feel that this is written from a point of view that is entirely too impressed with (if also afraid of) technology. Peter Turchin predicted escalating levels of polarization in the US, reaching a peak around 2020, without any need to look at social media. The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the la…

> The level of political polarization now, while high, is less than the late 1850's

In other words it could be worse, you could be in an actual full on civil war.

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#198

Post by positus »

wyldfire wrote: post #195
titzer wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think it's just the idea of endorsing prophylactic medicine. Since anyone could be a potential victim of a virus, everyone should consider vaccination. And while it's not compulsory, the suggestion that it be widely advocated sets the conspiracy folks on edge. They seem to pin their identity on { I'm not like the others + mistrust of authority }. So it's really easy to accept a message that the too-trusting have al…

What are your primary sources for Trump's motivations?

Re: Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid

#199

Post by MisterBastahrd »

titzer wrote: post #183
jdkee wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox News and conservative talk radio have existed since the early 1990s yet the extreme polarization in American life didn't begin until ~2010, which appears to prove Haidt's point.

Fox News came about in 1996. I remember before that, there was just Rush and co, and they were fringe on the radio. Fox when mainstream in the early 2000s and just snowballed slowly ever since. There was never a moment where extreme polarization just suddenly appeared. Rush in the early 1990s was saying f-nut stuff back then, too.

Limbaugh was so "fringe on the radio" that they gave him a Monday Night Football announcer spot, at least until he had a predictable response to a black football player in a position traditionally played by white guys.
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