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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

#41

Post by dfedbeef »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #19
charlesabarnes wrote: post #10

I think disengaging from social media is a big part of this. These advertiser and engagement fueled algorithms promote all of the insane takes as well. You find much more fulfillment engaging with people locally or people in your close circles.

I’m not on social media unless you consider HN social media (I don’t) and the world is still totally as insane as it was before the internet. For your average city person: The food you’re offered is sugar + preservatives, the water is either non-existent (Tehran) or poisoned with fracking gas (Flint), almost all local communities have collapsed into extreme versions of themselves, the rich and poor still don’t mingle…

You think Tehran and Flint are good cases for 'average city'?

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

#42

Post by rizwank »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #19
charlesabarnes wrote: post #10

I think disengaging from social media is a big part of this. These advertiser and engagement fueled algorithms promote all of the insane takes as well. You find much more fulfillment engaging with people locally or people in your close circles.

I’m not on social media unless you consider HN social media (I don’t) and the world is still totally as insane as it was before the internet. For your average city person: The food you’re offered is sugar + preservatives, the water is either non-existent (Tehran) or poisoned with fracking gas (Flint), almost all local communities have collapsed into extreme versions of themselves, the rich and poor still don’t mingle…

Man, I’d love to hear that talk.

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

#44

Post by y0eswddl »

hexator wrote: post #39
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.

Speaking of people who are very articulate and also very wrong.

in general, maybe - In not a fan of how sycophantic he's gotten... but this was just the citing of outside studies, not his personal opinion.

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

#45

Post by kentm »

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.

In my opinion, the problem is that journalists in general used “both sides” rhetoric where it wasn’t warranted to avoid accusations of bias. It feels that nuance is used out of cowardice more often than not.

There’s also the fact that not all positions are equally valid or evidence based. Nuance doesn’t mean treating each position as equally valid, but evaluating each on the evidence. Journalists almost uniformly mistake “both sides” for nuance. There’s nuance in discussions about global warming, but treating “global warming is not man made” as a valid position is not an example of that.

Nuance is definitely something we need more of, but we also need to call a spade a spade more often.

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

#46

Post by baxuz »

biophysboy wrote: post #36

The main issue for me is the size of our platforms. If the owner of a platform tries to enforce a set of virtues, it will always be seen as censorship by a fraction of its users. That fraction will increase as the user base increases, as the alternatives diminish, and as the owners govern with more impunity. I personally think these loud users are immature, disrespectful, anonymous cowards, but my opinions are irrele…

Nah, the solution is deanonymization.

People with no shame, and with strong anti-social tendencies should not be given a safe space.

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

#47

Post by korse »

oytis wrote: post #32

I don't quite get the connection between the premise and the conclusion. Sure, influencers get rewarded by social media algorithms for polarising content, but most people are not influencers.

>most people are not influencers.

Perhaps, but many are. They just don't have much reach or don't use a digital platform.

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

#48

Post by kentm »

lkey wrote: post #20
ajkjk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really nothing in the article implied that whatsoever? It's not even about that if you actively try to read between the lines. Like--"liberal as a slur" is just a daily experience of american life these days, irrespective of the details of any of your personal relationships.

> a daily experience of american life You people call you 'liberal as a slur' in real life out in the world? Regardless, projecting your narrow experiences onto 'american life' writ large is not a sound starting point for any conversation. It is the pairing of the term 'manufacturing consent' with "'liberal' as a slur" (from the left, not right) that evokes the genocide. One of the primary consents manufactured in th…

Likely not to their face, but I’ve absolutely had tons of people use it when talking to me as a slur for other people. Because they assumed I was like minded.

It’s absolutely used as a slur in conversation, yes.

I mean you have the Republican President of the United States publicly calling Democrats evil. People like to pretend their party (Democrats and Republicans alike) generally adheres to decency and decorum even though they demonstrably do not, but it’s especially rich for Republicans to act like they’re the party of decency in politics when they’re falling in lockstep with Donald Trump

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

#49

Post by AndrewKemendo »

dfedbeef wrote: post #41
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not on social media unless you consider HN social media (I don’t) and the world is still totally as insane as it was before the internet. For your average city person: The food you’re offered is sugar + preservatives, the water is either non-existent (Tehran) or poisoned with fracking gas (Flint), almost all local communities have collapsed into extreme versions of themselves, the rich and poor still don’t mingle…

You think Tehran and Flint are good cases for 'average city'?

Yes

Both are significantly different but still fail to provide the most basic service: access to clean water

I can trivially get access to plenty of clean drinking water in most “wild” places in the world, in fact that’s like the third core thing you learn in survival schools (of which I’ve attended many).

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

#50

Post by ToucanLoucan »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #16

I have a hard time taking this kind of enlightened-centrist both-sides gruel very seriously. Calling every strong position "extreme" is a classic sleight-of-hand maneuver by people who want to mask their own wrong-side-of-history beliefs that they know they should feel ashamed of expressing. Yes, yes, look for truth beyond labeled groups, but pretending that the "sides" are equal is some utterly moronic "Fair and Bal…

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