These kinds of articles reinforce my idea that we're witnessing our society collapse before our very eyes. I tend to blame it on Republican idiocracy and Russian trolling, but I suspect the problem is larger than that.
It's just depressing.
Is the US the only country suffering from this lunacy, or is this a more global phenomenon?
Its crazy elsewhere too like in the UK, Hungary, Russia, most of eastern and southern europe, India, Brasil, etc. same MO just nationalist/racist/anti intellectual/conspiracy junk shared on social media.
When hasn't it been mainstream? It sure qualified as mainstream for JFK assassinations and arguably Roswell as well. And that is before going to the Know-Nothings and their anti-catholic conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories about JFK, Roswell, moon-landings, and things like that are basically harmless. Well, mostly harmless anyway. Usually spread by someone trying to flog some nonsense book, or a confused "true believer".
But this is different: it's just a plain ordinary self-serving lie. Completely invented by a sad narcissistic liar and his merry band of sycophantic enablers to win ("win") an election.
There's also a type of maliciousness to it that's lacking in more traditional conspiracy theories.
We probably shouldn't even call it "conspiracy theory".
I read an Atlantic article the other day where a lit professor from Columbia University said that he has students nowadays who admit to having never read a book cover to cover. Ones that have tend to say their favorite book is something like Percy Jackson. They also can't focus on a small poem. This confirms what a teacher I know has been saying for a long time: highschool kids since around the class of 2010 are getting very noticably stupider.
I'm beginning to wonder if social media really has caused kids to miss key developmental stages. Parents being on their phones has led to kids hearing a substantially reduced vocabulary, these kids also receive less interaction from their parents and interact less with their environments and other kids. This stuff is really important for brain development, and we've replaced it with an iPhone.
I don't think social media started this, just accelerated the trend. I do think commercialized media for decades now has really been a driver of insipid banality.
Befriend any professor at any school who teaches reading, writing, or anything adjacent.
I have a friend who teaches journalism at a small, private liberal arts school in the midwest. He's been teaching for over 40 years. He says that, beggining in the late 2010s he noticed incoming students began to really struggle. Then, pre-pandemic he would recommend that they use the on-campus reading and writing labs to get help, lean on TAs, use office hours, etc. Post-pandemic, he says he now recommends that they drop his course because they aren't prepared at all, even with all of the help the campus provides. He says that this went from a small % of his course enrollment to being > 50% in the span of a decade.
Small N but I've gone into overdrive to teach my own (very young) children how to read and interpret literature.
Ignorance wouldn't prevent you from concentrating on a 14-line poem, or from understanding the immediate plot details of a book and how they fit into the plot more broadly.
Things like this are foundational for learning. If you can't do them, you can't learn very well. Even if you do learn to do these things in college, you're literally learning as an adult what previous generations learned in elementary-, middle- and highschool. This is delayed development. People like that will never be able to achieve at the same level.
But, ignorance predisposes you to stupidity. In the absence of knowledge, you can either admit you don't know enough about a topic to have an informed opinion on it, or, you can cobble together some bullshit, making up stuff as you go.
Since admitting you know nothing takes humility, most (ignorant) people opt to cobble together bullshit. Or accept plausible-sounding cobbled-up bullshit as true.
She's also not the only one, she's just low hanging fruit. This same point can be made about Trump, and as you know, he has a lot of dedicated followers who are smart, functioning adults. Not Gen Z.
I guess my point is that we as a society have allowed things to get to a point where some of our brightest students have graduated highschool without ever reading a book, or having to focus their attention undivided for the duration of a short poem.
What kind of society produces kids like that? Our values have changed focus from effort, hard work and self improvement to ease, comfort and a one-dimensional notion of happiness. It's a downward spiral.
And MTG is 50 and she has to know what she's spouting is nonsense, so why does she spout it? Is her audience really that dimwitted, or is there something else at play? For example, is this part of some mass brainwashing ploy? Are they Jim Jonesing millions of Americans? If so, then to what end?
Are all the people parroting this stuff actually believers? My instinct is that the majority tried to grab the bull by the horns by jumping on the Trump schtick when he took power and are now left riding this increasingly deranged and unpredictable animal. At this point they can do nothing but try to keep holding on lest they be trampled by the beast they created.
But there's also gotta be true believers in there, and yeah, I don't know what those people actually want, and it's pretty scary.
There's always been nutcases (apologies to people with actual mental illness).
The problem is that politicians (worldwide) have figured out how to utilize them for their own benefit.
I agree that at times it does seem like a very bad premonition.
this implies that its just a few folks talking shit on a lark, when it is actually a concerted, aggressive, multi-billion dollar effort across all-channels, with the goal of degrading civil institutions and hopefully causing a civil war.
that the average American rube can't figure that out is also part of the problem
I think many other cultures are crippled by pervasive conspiracies that re-enforce views of having no agency. And their rulers like it that way.
In street drug circles today there are widespread complaints about the quality of fentanyl, withdrawal effects and treatment. OD's are apparently dropping. For those that live in some semblance of reality, I think many there's withdrawal going on. For those that don't get out and call in threats like this, they don't really believe anything persistently, they just believe whatever is the rage of the day. They'll OD someday, you just won't see it in the obits.
The lunacy is definitely worse in the Anglosphere. I moved to Eastern Europe a few years ago and it's way more sane (and yes, I speak the local languages here).
I can’t imagine this kind of stuff happens in the PRC.
The upside to a tightly-controlled “infosphere” is that people who are at the controls and have rational thought can jump right in and quench the idiocy fires right away.
And the downside of that upside is that they jump right in and quench things, not always on the basis of idiocy, but also on the basis of opposing the government's narrative. That doesn't actually lead to rationality.
Funny enough, the fact that your link lists 9 pages compared to 112 for the US[1], it could be taken as stronger evidence for the parent's point. Not that I think this is a particularly reliable way to gauge the phenomenon.
It is significantly worse in the PRC, where they don't believe that the Uyghur genocide is happening. At least (for now) the West has no similar level of denial about something within their own borders.
It turns out that "The remedy for bad speech is more speech" doesn't actually scale globally.
You can blame this on Russian and/or Chinese disinformation ops and tik-tok, etc, but the problem is more general than that. One of the assumptions around free speech ideals is that the people who are speaking or publishing are citizens of the community in which they are speaking or publishing, and now a large part of the content on the internet is produced by people who are crossing national boundaries, or not even produced by people at all.
You used to be able to assume that the vast majority of the content you're exposed to is produced by people who live in your community or country and would not like to see it destroyed, and now, in fact, you should probably assume the opposite. You should assume that most content on the internet is produced by bad actors trying to rip the fabric of your society apart, particularly if you're reading something that enrages you.
The especially insidious part of this is that most of the rage bait stuff plays on widespread personal biases so it's self sustaining after a while. People start to hate each other, so then they do stuff to each other to make each other hate each other more and so on and so on until you've got Rwanda.
not really -- rather consider the ability of a very small minority of voices to amplify tremendously without sufficient dampening.. stability in public communication is never simple. A psychologist might say that social rage itself, or anger with blame itself, is the root of the behavior. Every language group on Earth has rational, constructive people in it.
> rather consider the ability of a very small minority of voices to amplify tremendously without sufficient dampening
Strongly recommend reading about Wayne Wheeler -- the guy who made Prohibition happen.
Prohibition was not especially popular in the US, even before it passed. But Wheeler was able to make a small minority sound very, very loud, and lever politicians accordingly
It is global. I was just in Poland. Literally same thing as in the US just a bit different flavor. Mainstream media bad, covid fake just a little flu and used to control society, proud for not wearing masks, did not vaccinate because some crazy reasons.
Not everyone obviously, but I was visiting smaller cities where I grew up. I always thought I could go back one day but I don't think I would be able to deal with people there. The customer service is non existent and when you are shopping/getting services you are an inconvenience. Crazy.
My take is that this is a symptom of something else. Populism has existed for a long time, but it feels to me that the environment we created also created the perfect target audience for it on a scale that never existed before. Observing the alt-right and conspiracy bubbles collapse into one over the last five years, it feels like it's the result of a sort of mental defense mechanism for a group of people that is growing every day. As I see it, we have built a world around us that is very complex and abstract, and hostile to the mind in a way that enables this sort of ideology immensely.
In it, it is very hard to feel a sort of purpose, and it is very easy to be overwhelmed. On average, the work people do has little to no effect on themselves or their direct peers. All day, every day is spent shuffling around numbers on a spreadsheet, or doing work to aid someone who shuffles around numbers on a spreadsheet. Then you clock out having a net zero benefit on your life, or that of people that matter. Other than, of course, a number that goes up in a different spreadsheet. And while you do your shuffling about to scrape by another month, you get bombarded with a flood of information about this war or that catastrophe or those disasters.
It leaves people numb, overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, helpless, purposeless, etc.
Keep that up long enough, and what happens is something like a narcissistic collapse, except that it's not narcissists it happens to, but normal, healthy but vulnerable minds whose mental health can no longer be reconciled with a toxic reality.
In comes an ideology that does three things: It simplifies. It gives purpose. It provides an outlet.
Once you subscribe to it, everything returns from countless shades of gray to black and white. If you're not one of the good guys, you're one of the bad guys. If a bad guy says a thing, it's a bad thing. If you say a bad thing, you're a bad guy. The simple prescriptive labels of what counts as good and bad are delivered to you, on the house. Takes away all the nuance, all the complexity and all the mental burden that came with it.
Then, it gives purpose. If you fall into this hole, you end up seeing yourself as two things: A victim, and a savior. You see what others don't, and you suffer for it. "They" - the bad guys - are out to get you, to destroy everything. Every confrontation is thus someone attacking you, the victim, or defying you, the savior. It provides a narrative in a chaotic world where bad things happen for no reason and without explanation.
Last, it creates a target for all your bottled up frustration and anger. The bad guys are responsible for all the bad things, and it is made clear how very okay it is to channel all your negative emotions into hate towards some group. Be it Jewish people, immigrants, scientists, democrats or some imaginary lizard people. Hate is fine.
The end result is a full abdication of responsibility, and a return of control at the low, low price of a divorce from reality. To the mind that slips into this rabbit hole it is not so much a choice as it is a lifeline. That is why it is so incredibly hard to get people out of it, as well.
This sounds like a discussion I'd love to have with you over a beer!
With that in mind, how serious are you? This is fascinating stuff and sounds like you've been thinking about it for a while. Is this your attempt to make sense of it all or is this reflective of something you've observed and studied?
Hah, I'd be up for that. This could be dissected so much further.
As for my own situation, I have been watching for a while. I didn't know I was, until the pandemic hit and all the alt-right and conspiracy talking points all of a sudden got brought up by my peers in real life. I had seen the same troll posts on 4chan and propaganda Telegram channels months prior. They don't know what these things are, and they were repeating the same things, convinced they came to their own conclusions.
I watched Occupy rise and fall on 4chan over a decade ago, then in the run up to the 2016 elections I saw the whole Trump thing unfold in real time, not thinking any of it. I'm not from the US so the connection to my personal life was never there. In 2019, during the height of the climate protests, a Telegram group I was in got raided by right wing trolls posting nazi imagery, antisemitic memes and then some. The obvious response was to try and get to the bottom of that and join as many right wing channels as I could, which I did, to the point that I joined their social media platforms for the sake of interacting with people who had fallen into the hole. To push and prop, and to see what falls when I shake the tree a little. Nothing about it is scientific, of course. I was just sating my own curiosity.
What I ended up seeing was a lot of misinformation and fear-mongering, a lot of projection, hate, and non-solutions. As well as a lot of people that are more emotionally than rationally inclined in their decision making, their judgement of what they see, and their response. This also seems to be something studies are showing. [1][2]
What I describe in the GP is my attempt to come to a conclusion in my endeavors. Why people end up in the hole. What I had hoped to find an answer for is how to get them out, but I came up empty-handed. I have since lost multiple peers to this behavior and ideology, and alt-right populists have gained a lot of ground politically, here and everywhere else. What I had also hoped to learn is who is helping dig the hole, and why. The answer to that seems to be that there is simply an alignment of interest among many parties, that all benefit from some aspect of it. To what degree they may or may not collude, I don't know. Those are the things where someone smarter and/or more dedicated would have to take over to find good answers.
Russian propaganda doesn't actually necessary need to collude with the people who's voices they amplify to meet their goals.
(it also doesn't necessarily need to spread false information, either. The general strategy is just 'find divisive statements and/or figures and amplify them'. Making up their own isn't usually necessary)
Just because no one acted doesn't mean that "they essentially found nothing".
The Muller report described Russian interference in the 2016 election as “sweeping and systemic.” The report spent a bunch of pages saying that there were “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.”
Which are you saying - that the Muller report didn't find things, despite it clearly finding things, or that it was a coup, even though it was under the Trump admin, by DAs placed by Trump?
Go watch the interview with Mueller at the end of the investigation. He was completely senile and knew nothing about the case. Mueller himself was a puppet for other people.
The "other people" being Trump's DAs? Why would that be the case? Do you believe that Muller did the entire report alone? Who was behind the coup? Why did it fail?
If you look through your last few messages you'll see that your argument is constantly changing. First that they investigated and found nothing, but then presented with evidence you try to discredit that source of evidence, first by saying they didn't find anything, and changing tactics to accuse Muller of senility. It as if the truth doesn't so much matter as maintaining your worldview does.
My argument isnt changing, its just there were so many holes in the investigation I dont even know where to start. I'm busy at work, but again, just go watch the end of the investigation interview with Muller. Watch how little he understands, how little he was involved. Then go watch all media coverage, and how they Gush over him. Go look at the facts of what actually came out. Why didnt they prosecute trump? If you cant look at the above points with open eyes and read between the lines, then you are clouded by ideology.
The muller interview doesnt disprove/get Trump off the hook at all. It was for me, just a shocking display of realizing that what was shown in the public eye about the invesitgation had nothing to do with the reality.
Much like everyone realizing biden isnt running the country, and probably has alzheimers.
I appreciate that you're repeating talking points about Muller, but that's ignoring that Muller had a whole team. Does Muller being feeble mean that the content in his report is wrong?
They didn't prosecute Trump because the report was presented to Barr. He had no interest in prosecuting, and there was a ton of constitutional questions regarding charging a sitting president.
Do you believe that all people charged and found guilty as an outcome of the investigation were innocent and it was all political theatre? There were a lot of people who weren't Trump, where there were no constitutional problems, who were found guilty.
To wit, Barr spread disinformation (otherwise known as "lies") about the report before it was even released to the public. Barr made sure the well was poisoned before anyone could get a drink.
> it was political theater, and essentially a coup
That's an interesting relabeling of what would normally be regarded as simply the gathering, vetting, and reporting of evidence — some reliable, some not — in accordance with established statutory- and constitutional processes and norms.
If it'd really been a coup, Trump would either have been imprisoned without trial or he'd have fled the country to Russia or someplace else without an extradition treaty.
A few people say or do something completely nutty and the 'country is suffering this lunacy'. At what golden period in history were there no nutcases pitching some irrational extremes into the public sphere?
On the other hand maybe I'm quite wrong about all this. Someone has estimated (an open calculation) the payback time for the US debt burden at 90,000 years if it was paid back at the rate of $1,000,000 per day. Some might argue there's lunacy at work over many decades to achieve this result.
1. It's different because the internet feeds us every bit of lunacy that happens anywhere in the country, so it looks like everyone has gone insane. (Especially in politics, where the Ds will tell you about every single stupid thing an R says anywhere in the country, and the Rs will tell you about every single stupid thing a D says.)
2. The national debt is probably a result of long-term lack of wisdom, yes. But with an economy the size of the US, there is absolutely no reason to pay it back at only $1,000,000/day. A serious attempt would be more like $1,000,000,000/day.
$1m per day divided by ~400m population is essentially zero. Why even mention this? It's just using numbers with a lot of zeros to sound scary, but means nothing.
This is what happens when you coopt science as cover for political decisions - people stop trusting all "science" including real science. From what I've seen I more associate the issue with Democrats than Republicans, especially in the COVID lockdown days.
> From what I've seen I more associate the issue with Democrats than Republicans, especially in the COVID lockdown days.
Can you explain the chain of logic here? During the pandemic I "did my own research" which amounted to basically masking when other people did and getting the vaccines as they came out. At the time my SO was a nurse working on a hospital covid floor, so it seemed prudent. So, I'm not really sure how you see Democrats as being less science based? No snark intended, I'm truly curious.
My interpretation of their comment is that it's the other way around. Democrats tend to use "science" to justify political decisions. Because people don't like those political decisions, and/or because pop science is allegedly used vs "real science", it devalues "real science" and causes people not to trust it as much
The left also tends to use higher education in their political positions. Which is why the right now seems to really have a bone to pick with higher education.
What people should be asking is, why does science have a supposedly left-leaning bias? Why does education have a left-leaning bias? It feels like there's some obvious conclusions the republican can draw there, but they see those conclusions and draw something else instead.
> Democrats tend to use "science" to justify political decisions.
I'd much rather politicians use science to justify political decisions instead of just doing whatever is popular, or would make them and their friends the most money.
I won't say "less science based" but I will say "mixes science and politics".
For example, there were covid lockdowns because "science" but then if anyone wanted to participate in the George Floyd protests and join a huge crowd of people that was A-OK, no pushback on that, no "scientific" worries about virus transmittal applied.
In that case "science" just becomes another tool to suppress the other side.
I will add to this that a very common line among republicans during COVID was "it's no worse than the flu". I heard this from my family members even though I lost a few from COVID. I nearly lost a sister-in-law in her 20s from COVID (she came DAMN close) and she is still anti-vax/mask/etc.
We can also talk about misinformation about covid vaccines. I mean, it's really kind of depressing that one of the best decisions of the Trump administration (IMO) was project warp speed which got mRNA vaccines approved and on the shelves in record time. But now, he can't really talk about that as a positive thing because the entire republican party is against those very vaccines.
we are mostly unable to process the fact that science lied to us
what's worse, it became an authoritative tool of (often foreign) powers; at least in most of America (as science came from Europe, ...they brought us "culture" when they colonized us in the south; the north did not get colonized but replaced)
but of course science lied, but it's not that it lied, it is that it changes. newer truth comes along and fights the old truth until it dies ("the pace of scientific funerals")
turns out, breaking people's trust is much easier than gaining it.
but my hill to die on, is the old truth of material scarcity and media (or licensing) content versus the new truth of digital abundance and freely sharing things without the license to do so. why do I need permission from some faceless corporate owner to copy cultural assets that I love and wish to share?
It's just depressing.
Is the US the only country suffering from this lunacy, or is this a more global phenomenon?