[romanoderoma]

> but that something is not that obvious to people up on the social ladder.

I think that's a bit of simplification.

The idea that people in charge cannot understand them it's as old as modern humanity (hence 5-6 thousands years old)

I believe that a good part of that "being easily pissed" has been engineered by the same people you think are too up on the social ladder to understand.

What bothers me is that most of those who are genuinely pissed are pissed about things that don't actually matter for them.

What does it matter to the proletarians if a famous person (say an actor) says something pro or against Brexit (for example). You have your vote, you cast it and that's what really matters to your category: representation.

Have you ever read the comments below some of these tweets?

I do not think that kind of reaction is really genuine or has anything to do with the situation of working class in 2020.

I could be wrong, but I think that that kind of knee jerk reaction has been fabricated.

To make an extremely simplified example: in an episode of "the boys" (the TV show) one of the new character says to an old timer who's have more followers than her (the incumbent in the posted article) something on the line of "you have followers, I have soldiers"

People up on the social ladder are up there also because they are good at exploiting human weaknesses and aren't afraid nor ashamed of doing it for their own personal gain.

[mgkimsal]

> What does it matter to the proletarians if a famous person (say an actor) says something pro or against Brexit (for example). You have your vote, you cast it and that's what really matters to your category: representation.

Sort of in agreement with you, but on this, I think there's good reason to be concerned with something like this. If people with social influence disagree with your position and are public about it, they are in a position to influence more people than you can, and your position is less likely to be heard/adopted/enacted/etc.

I'm not sure that's actually why people get upset/involved when famous people hold opposing views - I think it's probably something more visceral - but I can say I don't want views in opposition to mine to get amplified favorable treatment in the media.

Perhaps secondarily, people get upset with famous folks holding opposing views because it ruins our perceptions of them. We often think we 'know' famous people on some level, and when they break out of the model we have of them, it's bothersome.

[romanoderoma]

> If people with social influence disagree with your position and are public about it, they are in a position to influence more people than you can,

Yes, it does.

But in a different way than people think.

First of all, it only reinforces the positions pro or con, it doesn't actually move votes, it polarizes them though.

So in theory the best reaction would be to ignore the statement if you are against it, to not give it more exposure.

Secondly, attacking that person personally, commenting on social networks, usually with fake names, I doubt solves anything at all.

> Perhaps secondarily, people get upset with famous folks holding opposing views because it ruins our perceptions of them

That's my impression too, people, but I should simply say humans, we are all affected in a way or another, usually don't like to have their opinions challenged, because it puts them in the position of reconsidering their choices and we kinda have a natural protection against it that made us form tribes that lasted because members shared a common view and common beliefs against "the others".

Probably if that famous person is someone you follow and then you find out that they don't actually think like you do or like you believed they did, it can feel like a betrayal.

But on the other hand, I love Ted Nugent's music while I completely despise the man behind it...

I'm not shocked when he says what he says, I simply don't understand how that same man made something I like so much.

[TeMPOraL]

Exactly. I've noticed two types of outrage most commonly voiced by the general population on the Internet:

- Outrage about things that have no bearing on their lives. That's, in a big part, continuous dramas about what a famous person said, or - if no celebrity said anything controversial this week - about what some random people are saying. This includes drama as spectator sports - like few people get offended at each other, but it gets magnified to a million-large audience, because everyone gets offended at an offense.

- Outrage about things that have bearing on their lives, but misguided and misdirected. Knee-jerk reactions to government decisions, as well as general politics, are a lion's share of that. This is the problem with simplistic views, that manifest on the social media. If you talked with any random person individually about an issue that affects them, you could likely help them reach a nuanced position - that takes into account second-order effects, and reflects the understanding that most policy decisions involve optimizing across the entire population. But on social media, almost all you see is repeating soundbites and arguing in circles.

To a large extent, both of those types I can confidently classify as manufactured by media, traditional and social alike. Not entirely intentionally - it's a bunch of feedback loops we're stuck in[0]. But the consequence is that exposure to the hivemind can easily drag you way past "declining faith in government", and all the way to idiocy.

--

[0] - Some of the pieces from which the loops are assembled: traditional media earns money through ads, so will systematically prioritize things that generate more pageviews. Algorithms on social media optimize for engagement, which also means promoting things people are statistically likely to engage with. Humans seem to have a natural tendency to pay attention to the gossips about people of highest status. Thinking is hard, knee-jerk reactions are easy. Soundbites are easier to digest and have more immediate emotional impact than well-thought-through, nuanced arguments. Add all that together, and you get a strong, sustained pressure to dumb down our social discourse.

[thaumasiotes]

> The idea that people in charge cannot understand them it's as old as modern humanity (hence 5-6 thousands years old)

There isn't great evidence for authority structures that would justify the label "person in charge" 6 thousand years ago. History generally starts around 5 thousand years ago, with the development of writing.

(Were there people in charge of other people 6 thousand years ago? Sure, it's not unlikely. But Çatalhüyük is a more or less urban area 9 thousand years ago; if we're going on what's likely, your estimate of 6 thousand years is much too low.)

[romanoderoma]

AFAIK the Sumerian king Enmerkar was ruling the city of Uruk around 4500 BC

That's where my estimate comes from, but I'm not archeologist, I might well be wrong

[thaumasiotes]

Enmerkar appears to be known from the Sumerian king lists, where he is one of the pre-flood monarchs who reigned for hundreds of years.

I wouldn't put much weight on any estimate of when he ruled.