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How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

joanwestenberg.com

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Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#141

Post by vacuity »

mikepurvis wrote: post #81
y0eswddl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ezra Klein's book why we're polarized cover this a bit and basically studies show that intelligence level has little to do with what people believe and more so just affects their ability to defend whichever position they already hold.

Indeed, and an articulate, confident defense can also be that much more insidious. I never found it hard to ignore obviously bad-faith talking heads on cable news, but when someone is on a podcast conversation with a host I like, it's much easier to nod along until that moment where they say something demonstrably false and I have to rewind my brain a minute or two to be like... wait a sec, what? How did you get to t…

And in a classic stroke of Gell-Mann amnesia, if you're questioning what you just heard, how much should you trust what you were hearing five minutes ago?

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#142

Post by giva »

danielbln wrote: post #122
giva wrote: post #120

> You get certainty in an uncertain world. You get a community that will defend you. You get a simple heuristic for navigating complex issues. This is what faith used to provide. I say this as a not religious person: Maybe societies really need something like religion to channel irrationality?

We've been trying religion for as long there have been humans. Tends to suffer from the same shortcomings: very easy to subvert and abuse by adversial agents (grifters, sociopaths, etc) and increases in-group/out-group thinking. We need something new.

But the point is, that's the same happening right now without religion. At least, with organized religion, you have someone accountable.

Again, this come from someone without a religious affiliation.

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#143

Post by disambiguation »

jjk166 wrote: post #40

The real grift has been in echo chambers changing peoples vocabulary such that we can use the same words but talk right past eachother, allowing extremely moderate positions to be reframed as extreme and making what ought to be minor disagreements unresolvable. People making an "I can see both sides" argument are completely missing the point - the issue is that most people can't see both sides, and even when they go…

> The real grift has been in echo chambers changing peoples vocabulary

Glad others are noticing this, it deserves more attention than it gets and everyone should be aware it's happening.

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#144

Post by cal_dent »

alexachilles90 wrote: post #107
HeinzStuckeIt wrote: post #2

The author writes, “You end up in a world where changing your mind becomes impossible because you've built your entire identity around being right”. Yet social-media personalities regularly do a 180° turn on some issue (e.g. pro-Ukraine to anti-Ukraine or vice versa) and still keep their following and ability to monetize it. Social media is full of parasocial relationships; followers are in love with an influencer’s…

It's more about being confident and extreme on their stance no matter what it is at that particular moment. People are attracted to personalities that are confident and says they are right all the time. Heck, personalities like that gets all the influence in the workplace too. Imagine John Doe in your office who has a solution for every problem and knows the code base like the back of their hand. You might find that…

I see it as the continued corporatisation of everything. I suspect that you'd be hard press to find anyone who has ever been anywhere above middle-management in a corporate organisation who doesnt see, and chuckles at, the similarities in the worst places they've worked and this:

"Where admitting uncertainty is social suicide. Where every conversation is a performance for your tribe rather than an actual exchange of ideas. You lose the ability to solve problems that don't fit neatly into your ideological framework, which turns out to be most important problems"

Politics is the obvious one to see this effect in action but it's bled into so many facet of society now because society is one giant grey areas but our mediums don't like greys. The medium continues to be the message.

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#145

Post by JKCalhoun »

oytis wrote: post #96
JKCalhoun wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the influenced are rewarded by the influencer that is validating their polarized views. You also might be putting too fine a point on "influencer". A relative of mine on Facebook might be a kind of "influencer"—at least with regard to his small cadre of family and friends that follow him.

You can look at it it this way, but why your small circle of family and friends would reward polarizing opinions? If anything, I have seen people losing real life relationships by not knowing when to stop in online arguments

That's for sure. Sure think a lot less of some members of my family and a coworker or two thanks to SM (can we just call it SM?).

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#146

Post by array_key_first »

biophysboy wrote: post #66
EdgeExplorer wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has a real name policy and is a prime example of internet-fueled insanity. Why does deanonymization not help Facebook be a more positive place?

To tie it to my own view, I don’t think deanonymization has any effect if the name is meaningless to 99.9% of the community. For every person fired for posts, there are 10000 others who are not.

If companies really wanted to fire people for posts, they would start with firing people for vaguely anti-capital sentiment. Not saying racist things or whatever.

We need to be careful what we ask for. Who is effectively doing the censorship matters. Powerful people are probably not going to be censoring based on 'good morals' - because they themselves do not have good morals.

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#147

Post by array_key_first »

MarkusQ wrote: post #37
mock-possum wrote: post #29

> The writer who says "this issue has nuance and I can see valid concerns on multiple sides" gets a pat on the head and zero retweets. Because I think at this point ‘both sides ism’ Is easily recognizable as a dead end rhetorical strategy. At best it’s an ignorant position, at worst it’s low effort engagement bait / concern trolling that actively sabotages progress.

The phrase/concept "both side ism" is a very clever bait and switch that, so far as I can tell, was designed to marginalize/discredit people who are trying to actually engage with the issues (instead of just toxically emoting), and it was avidly adopted and weaponized as such. By both sides.

No, moderatism or centrism is legitimately a fallacy. The idea or intuition that, given two endpoints, the most correct position is one in the middle, is a fallacy. It depends entirely on the endpoints.

For example: the three fifths compromise. Turns out, bad. The correct answer was emancipation all along, and the 'centrist' answer was just bad. Because, well, one of the endpoints was slavery. If you 'halfway' slavery, that's still bad. There's no merits or 'well what about's when it comes to slavery.

That doesn't mean centrists or moderates are wrong - they're often right. But it DOES mean that just taking a middle of the road approach isn't reasonable. You need to actually understand why you're doing that, and why the middle makes the most sense. In some parts of the world, right now, as in right now right now, the 'both sides' argument is pro-genocide. In the past it's been pro-slavery, pro-colonialism, pro-holocaust, whatever. Plenty of really bad stuff.

So, you can't hide behind 'both sides'. You need to justify WHY 'both sides' and why in the middle is best for this particular case.

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#148

Post by [deleted] »

corpMaverick wrote: post #17
rsynnott wrote: post #3

> But exposing yourself to articulate versions of positions you oppose does something valuable: it makes you realize that intelligent people can disagree with you without being monsters or morons. The idea that being articulate implies intelligence and/or sanity is very common, but really a bit weird. You can find plenty of articulate defences of, say, flat earth theory.

Not all the flat earthers are true believers. Some are there just for the attention or other motives.

[deleted]

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#149

Post by jkmcf »

mikepurvis wrote: post #81
y0eswddl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ezra Klein's book why we're polarized cover this a bit and basically studies show that intelligence level has little to do with what people believe and more so just affects their ability to defend whichever position they already hold.

Indeed, and an articulate, confident defense can also be that much more insidious. I never found it hard to ignore obviously bad-faith talking heads on cable news, but when someone is on a podcast conversation with a host I like, it's much easier to nod along until that moment where they say something demonstrably false and I have to rewind my brain a minute or two to be like... wait a sec, what? How did you get to t…

They were called Sophists in Ancient Greece and were despised by Socrates because their arguments were based, not on truth or facts, but whatever rhetoric would convince the audience.

Re: How to stay sane in a world that rewards insanity

#150

Post by simpaticoder »

jkmcf wrote: post #149
mikepurvis wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, and an articulate, confident defense can also be that much more insidious. I never found it hard to ignore obviously bad-faith talking heads on cable news, but when someone is on a podcast conversation with a host I like, it's much easier to nod along until that moment where they say something demonstrably false and I have to rewind my brain a minute or two to be like... wait a sec, what? How did you get to t…

They were called Sophists in Ancient Greece and were despised by Socrates because their arguments were based, not on truth or facts, but whatever rhetoric would convince the audience.

Yes, and the antithesis of rhetoric is reason.

The quality I value in myself (and others when I find it) is a bias to doubt evidence of things I already believe, and to accept proof of things I do not believe. The bias isn't strong (that way lies madness!), but it makes your mental model of the world stronger. It's also a much better filter than "intelligent", "polite" or "articulate", which are all orthogonal to the kind of rational, open skepticism I advocate. The big downside is that such qualities are subtle and hard to judge. Tribal affiliation is, for all its faults, easy to measure.

Another point of optimism: being a persecuted (or neglected) minority can have some positive effects, if you can find your people.

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