Just an FYI - you will probably cringe when you look back at how you used to type and form sentences.
How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
81–90 of 262 posts
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. What is the argument for why this is better than the alternatives? Self-sacrifice can also be a worship.
He is positing here that the alternative is being enslaved to the systems of the mind. He is not arguing that you be a doormat. He is arguing that you be attentive and aware of your own mind's biases. The supposition being that when you are free from these controls, you will be able to see others as more than just means to ends.
> and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
It seems to have a religious "give until it hurts" type of mentality. Because giving doesn't really "count" unless it hurts. Otherwise you're just a rich dude donating money and that's not as edgy as a poet giving his last hot-pocket. Seems very Christian in nature..
But personally, if I were ever poor and starving - please, to whoever has resources (looking at you Bill Gates) - I will be equally grateful for all donations.
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#83I don't understand why so many people are addicted to outrage, anger and fear. For a while I played along but then I quickly realized that all this stuff is manufactured to manipulate people. Now I can't even stand watching CNN or watching a campaign ad.
In general, you can sell 3 things: 1) fear, 2) greed, and 3) sex. 30% percent of Internet content is porn. So you have number 3 covered. Selling greed is hard, so lets do fear.
Wait... index funds, e*trade, 'you can day trade your way to retirement at 29!'... quants and HFT, the fact that there is a Wall Street after 2008...
Money still sells most of all. Fear is just catching up now that the "news" is instant.
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#84I and I am sure a good percentage of the internet population always struggle with articles like this. I don't have an ad blocker, don't have any 'ad-free' subscriptions to anything, yet I never click an ad while at the same time am not particularly bothered by them. They're just noise, and since they register as basically whitespace in my head, noise easily ignored. I don't feel 'at war' when I go online, and even if…
Just because you don't click on an ad or think you ignore them doesn't mean you're not being manipulated by them.
Subconscious influence/manipulation is more powerful and prevalent than most people realize.
The most skillful forms of influence are invisible to the target.
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
He is positing here that the alternative is being enslaved to the systems of the mind. He is not arguing that you be a doormat. He is arguing that you be attentive and aware of your own mind's biases. The supposition being that when you are free from these controls, you will be able to see others as more than just means to ends.
> and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. It seems to have a religious "give until it hurts" type of mentality. Because giving doesn't really "count" unless it hurts. Otherwise you're just a rich dude donating money and that's not as edgy as a poet giving his last hot-pocket. Seems very Christian in nature.. But personally, if I w…
I don't read "give until it hurts" in "give over and over myriad petty, unsexy ways". That's your own bias creeping in, I think.
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#86Just an FYI - you will probably cringe when you look back at how you used to type and form sentences.
Can you please clarify the point you're making here?
Because this is a complete non sequitur to me.
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#87I don't understand why so many people are addicted to outrage, anger and fear. For a while I played along but then I quickly realized that all this stuff is manufactured to manipulate people. Now I can't even stand watching CNN or watching a campaign ad.
Humans are at their core emotional creatures. You don't get engagement with logic and facts. Instead you go after emotional stories. It takes immense mental effort to see through these stories and to hold back the immediate emotional responses. Many people have no clue that they are being manipulated in this way.
I came to the US in 2000. At first I found the constant excitement in TV news interesting but after two or three years I noticed that I couldn't handle it anymore. It just wasn't comfortable for me.
Is it maybe that most people have checked out too and only a small but loud minority is addicted to all the nonsense? On Facebook it seems it's only a few people that constantly post web links or engage in flame wars. Most people I know are very quiet.
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#88"Regardless of the dramatic drop in crime over the last 30 years, more than half the population believes crime is worse than it was in years past." "The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise." - Socrates This argument keeps popping up. To confirm it we would need a control group. It is likely that even before soci…
Isn't the control group the part of the graph from 1993-2000ish, where perception and reality are fairly closely correlated?
I guess that raises more questions than it answers. What about the rise of cable news? That tracks the change in the graph more closely than the rise of social networks. What about 9/11 and the war on terrorism? A significant portion of the US population lost their shit and never got it back. I'm not sure we should pin all or even most of the change on social media.
I think you have a point that the "good old days fallacy" has been around since forever. But it also seems like something dramatically changed 15 years ago or so.
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#89I don't understand why so many people are addicted to outrage, anger and fear. For a while I played along but then I quickly realized that all this stuff is manufactured to manipulate people. Now I can't even stand watching CNN or watching a campaign ad.
> I don't understand why so many people are addicted to outrage, anger and fear.
I know right? It's outrageous how people are so addicted to outrage, anger and fear. :)
> Now I can't even stand watching CNN or watching a campaign ad.
I stopped watching cable news a long time ago. I also canceled my subscription to useless things like NYTimes, NPR, etc.
It's amazing how much media influences the way you think and contorts your viewpoint to their extremism.
Re: How Fear and Outrage Are Sold for Profit
#90And articles like that miss (or just ignore) that there are reasons to be worried, as small as they might be A person having Ebola seems to me like a significant fact even though it doesn't represent any danger These articles want to play a holier-than-though nihilist/"we know better" image but just come across as idiotic. Overreacting is stupid, but underreacting is naive.
The issue with the ebola articles is that they all omitted to say how all experts agreed that there was no risk of epidemic.