[battlebot]

If you read about "Yellow Journalism" and how newspapers were used to accomplish things rich people wanted to happen, you will realize that Americans, and humans in general, have been subject to mass manipulation via the media for centuries.

[veidr]

I do know about that, and find it interesting. And that stuff still goes on, of course, and likely always will.

But there's a lot of other stuff also going on today. It feels more organic, rather than intentionally directed, but I think the effects on the collective mind are still huge.

The clickbait articles that don't have any underlying motivation other than getting people to click on them (along with those that do). The web of people out there providing each other confirmation of truly nuts conspiracy theories, whether it be "the Sandy Hook massacre of children was a government hoax" or "thousands of children have gotten autism from the measles vaccine". Youtube comment threads.

There's no cohesive agenda behind a lot of this stuff, and no ultimate benefit achieved by any party. It's more like these things are memetic prions, folding onto each other and interacting in their unthinking inanimate way, having significant effects on the host but without any intention driving them.