| > Noam Chomsky said humans are living through the darkest and most consequential time in history. > Chomsky said the current age is a “point of confluence of severe crises,” including the threat of nuclear war, climate change, a raging pandemic, economic depression and racial unrest in the United States. The period between 1914 and 1945 would probably beg to differ. I've found it interesting to read "left" and "right"[1] pundits on Twitter recently. Each "side"[2] believes that this is the last chance to save democracy and all hell will be unleashed if their candidate loses. Ten years ago we had the "Tea Party", on average a deranged bunch of lunatics without the ability to see or think clearly. In response one could validly and amusingly proclaim "facts have a notoriously liberal bias". Fox News was extremely partisan and contributed to a sort of radicalisation of the right. In 2020 the same lunacy seems to have taken over the Democratic party as a whole. Facts are out of the window on both sides. Fox News and CNN and a whole host of other media outlets are contributing to radicalisation of both sides. In 2016 the media convinced me that Trump would turn into Hitler 2.0. I'm glad and embarrassed to realise that what he has turned into is an average Republican president except he understands the working class and he hasn't started any wars. This is "the darkest and most consequential time in history" for people who want to push an agenda (right-wing commentators will claim the same, not just left-wing ones) and for media outlets who want to increase their ratings. We are facing deep, deep problems that need overcoming, but only people whose worldview was based on the assumption that the growth and stability of '92-'08 would last forever are going to be swayed by claims of this being the worst ever. In order to be able to tackle the challenges on our plate society needs to be able to think clearly. What we need at the moment are calming forces, not the inducement of more panic. [1] for want of better descriptions [2] if you can really call them "sides" |
Misguided people are surrounded by misguided people. And Like count made sure they all upvoted each other. Reinforcing Beliefs and Behavior.
Its not a coincidence the Tea Party grew along with social medias rise. Similar groups have emerged all over the planet.
Remove/Hide/Delay the Like Count and Behavior will change. That will be the calming force. Social medias current control rods to stop chain reactions are too ineffective.