It seems the more people spend online the more they trust online picture whatever it is (for most people it's an algorithmically generated feed) and less pay attention to what they can see in person. Smartphone addition is harmful in so many ways.
I have a friend that is a "Bernie Bro." Basically, everyone sucks; right, left, etc.
He constantly sends me hate-porn videos; much of it obvious fakes; AI or not (It's been going on far longer than AI tools).
People get hooked on anger. It's -literally- an addiction, and they behave like addicts; seeking out the best "hate dealers," selling the "best" anger-inducing content, and savagely attacking anyone that questions the stuff.
I learned to just ignore most of what he sends me. I've asked him not to send it, and he's ignored it (like an addict).
I have friends that are into the far-right and far-left cesspits, too. It's pretty sobering.
What was it that Bill Burroughs said about heroin?
> "Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy."
You could replace "junk" with "hate," and it would apply.
long term recovering addict here and yeah i’ve been trying to work on the “anger” stuff in this last year. you’re right. in the moment it feels good. and it’s very easy to replicate that dopamine hit though getting righteous about stuff — just go on HN and find something about AI (that’s for me anyway - “they’re wrong, must fix the wrong!”).
i guess we are kinda hardwired as humans to react to perceived danger/threats. warm and fuzzy nice feelings seem harder to cultivate and take a lot of persistent effort. so it’s much easier to fall into this anger/hatewatching cycle than the other more compassionate/reasonable/warm and fuzzy side.
dunno, most of this comment is probably pop psych bs, but it feels right for my experience so i dunno.
fwiw, i hope your friends finds their way to something a little more peaceful one day.
I see lots of that stuff in the Fellowship. I've seen resentments go on for decades, and metastasize. Since no one is putting a stem in their mouth, it's OK.
I gave up my anger at about the ten-year mark. It was really difficult. Just like giving up the substances.
"I have a friend that is a "Bernie Bro." Basically, everyone sucks; right, left, etc."
That isn't completely wrong. Bernie Sanders was refreshing because he didn't feel such a big part of the machine. I also hate the way everything is being turned into two polar opposites all the time as if there are not other ways and viewpoints, it feels to me as this is one way that the masses are controlled.
One thing I noticed when I set up my current YouTube account was that YouTube was trying to work out which of two routes to send me down... One very pro-Democrat, CNN/MSNBC and so on, and the other very pro-Republican, Fox etc. I was not interested in either of these, and am not an American, so that is not my circus anyway. It constantly shows me far right (and more rarely far left) content... And within a UK context, it's always about Labour, Tories and Reform type content, occasionally the English Greens... Never about the SNP or even Lib Dems, let alone the Scottish Green Party. This is without getting into the non-party political rabbitholes YouTube will try and drag you into.
The best way I could deal with these RepDem ragebait videos was constantly to click "not interested" on such things. I have a friend who is educated and intelligent, but spends an inordinate amount of time on Trumpbait videos and what looks like NATO propaganda (which has been saying the Ukraine war is about to finish for the past four years at least). I am not a fan of Trump, but I'm not going to watch some hack like Jimmy Kimmel rant about him for twenty minutes. They are not serious political analysis and are based more around mudslinging and personality attacks than actual policy and ideology. It has affected my friend's mental health a lot and I've told him off for it. He is totally out of touch with our local and national political scene now.
I've noticed a lot of Americans believing the fake stuff about the islamization of England. Living in England it's obvious a lot is fake by looking out of the window and similar. Not that there aren't any issues but it gets hugely exaggerated and some things completely made up.
It really depends where you live. In you live in Norfolk or Devon, then you're not living in an "Islamised" area. However, there are places that feel more that way. I was on the Edgware Road in London around ten years ago, and there was a large visible Arab population (to the extent one or two even wore traditional costumes) and people smoking hookahs outside cafés.
A more reliable guide would be how many women you see wearing hijabs, burqas, niqabs etc. In some areas this is more common than others. You will see more of these in Birmingham than Berwick upon Tweed.
That's because Internet and apps has largely cut communities. People would rather stay at home and doomscroll tiktok videos, than meet their neighbors at the library and see that they are actually not scary at all
In the past I think people were equally wrong when assuming their real life was accurately similar to average for the entire society they lived in and not a regional and perhaps class based bubble. I think there was a short period when amateur media was correcting more misconception than adding to it.
It can be the opposite way. I can think of umpteen examples where mainstream media seemed to misrepresent or ignore certain aspects of ordinary life. For example, if a bore is shown in a sitcom or drama, they will usually talk a lot about trains or so called conspiracy theories, not about football (soccer) or the weather... Even though in real life, I've encountered far more football and weather bores. (They are very common all over the UK.) I suspect this is because football is an acceptable thing to drone on about.
Drama writers can also imagine situations which don't derive from real life. Channel 4 had a drama about a Muslim riot grrrl punk band called Lady Parts, something which to my knowledge has never happened in the UK... Because if it had the Guardian etc would be all over it. Maybe it was meant to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. (The drama was written by an upper middle class woman who was sent to private school and lived much of her childhood in Singapore... Not exactly a typical working class British Muslim upbringing.)