Slashdot Mirror
Is Social Media Making Us Hate Each Other? (bostonglobe.com)
Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. Now an anonymous Slashdot reader reports on Carr's newest warning:
It seems obvious: The more we learn about other people, the more we'll come to like them. The assumption underpins our deep-seated belief that communication networks, from the telephone system to Facebook, will help create social harmony. But what if the opposite is true? In a Boston Globe article, Nicholas Carr presents evidence showing that as we get more information about other people, we tend to like them less, not more. Through a phenomenon called "dissimilarity cascades," we place greater stress on personal and cultural differences than on similarities, and the bias strengthens as information accumulates. "Proximity makes differences stand out," he writes. The phenomenon intensifies online, where people are rewarded for sharing endless information about themselves. What the research indicates, warns Carr, is that the spread of social media is more likely to create social strife than social harmony.
The article concludes by opposing the idea that "If we get the engineering right, our better angels will triumph. It's a pleasant thought, but it's a fantasy... Technology is an amplifier. It magnifies our best traits, and it magnifies our worst. What it doesn't do is make us better people. That's a job we can't offload on machines."
The article concludes by opposing the idea that "If we get the engineering right, our better angels will triumph. It's a pleasant thought, but it's a fantasy... Technology is an amplifier. It magnifies our best traits, and it magnifies our worst. What it doesn't do is make us better people. That's a job we can't offload on machines."
We should note that this increase in division parallels the resurgence of leftist philosophies over the past decade or so.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody familiar with leftist teachings, however.
Despite professing to support "tolerance" and "acceptance", we often see very little of such things from leftists. In fact, it's impossible for leftists to truly support such ideals.
A core tenet of leftism is that of division. Another term for this is "identity politics". People are broken down into smaller and smaller groups based on race, sexual preference, gender, and any other discernible trait.
Leftists then pit these groups against one another to cause orchestrated strife. Some groups are labeled as "marginalized". Others are labeled as "privileged". These groups are made to hate one another. The main goal of the leftists is to stir up anger and discontent, which they can then control and direct to meet their objectives.
Anyone who calls out this disunity that leftists are trying to cause is immediately mislabeled as a "racist", a "bigot", or "intolerant". Leftists then direct extraordinary levels of hatred at anyone who might oppose them. For all of their talk about "tolerance" and "acceptance", they are very unwilling to actually tolerate or accept anyone who dares to express a viewpoint that differs from theirs.
We see this intolerance embodied in their odd concept of a "safe space", which is essentially an area where free thought is strictly prohibited. Only ideas that are approved by leftists may be voiced in these areas.
As for social media's role, it's more of a conduit than a cause of this discontent. Social media has proven to be a powerful way for leftists to blast their philosophy against a large portion of society with relatively little effort. We shouldn't blame social media itself, however. It's leftism that's the cause of this anger, this hatred, and this division we now witness.
... of similar people with similar backgrounds, professions, ages, political and cultural outlooks. Sometimes these are called "tribes".
And like street gangs facing off in big cities, members of different tribes tend not to like each other much.
Because large segments of society -- including "thought leaders" -- that used to be nominally against hate are now cheerleading for it.
The election was a good example, with one candidate bad-mouthing Mexicans and Muslims (in a way described by some as hateful) and the other directly calling Americans in the other party "enemies" and identifying a broad class of Americans as "irredeemable" and/or "deplorable".
If we don't want more hate, let's stop encouraging it.
If there's one thing the left can't stand, it's diversity.
Sure, they want to eat Mexican food, but they don't want anyone who thinks differently to them. Everyone must be a compliant drone in the hive-mind. Everyone must think and behave the same, or be sent to the death^H^H^H^Hre-education camps.
And, thus, we're heading at an accelerating pace toward civil war.
Or just not participate. If you don't sign up or log in, you're not part of the problem.
Trying to destroy it makes it stronger. Let it die on its own when the next generation refutes it.
No, though Trump is more centre than right.
The left can't tolerate anyone who thinks differently to them, because their ideology is their identity. To disagree with them is to claim they're wrong, and they can't be wrong, because they're so much smarter than everyone else that they should be The Great Leader telling everyone what to do.
The right can handle diversity of opinion. The left can't. That's why the left always try to censor or murder anyone who disagrees with them.
Some of us are the opposite, and find most individuals wonderful, but humanity as a whole nearly irredeemable.
Play Command HQ online
Nice. Point proven right at the top. People are so focused on dumb petty political bullshit and are at each other's throats over it. In person, most don't talk about political shit non-stop since there are a million other things to talk about and do that don't bring up conflict between the person you're with.
I did the same for a while. I had a couple of friends who were wonderful people in real life, but posted a steady stream of toxic sludge that I didn't want to block because I wanted to "be open to other viewpoints." At some point, I figured I wasn't becoming more open minded, and was just becoming miserable, so I blocked them. My Facebook wall became so much more pleasant immediately! Even then, so much of Facebook was constant political discussion that I grew exhausted. I was too easily baited into arguments that I didn't even want to have. Quitting Facebook was one of the best choices I've ever made. I read a lot more interesting books and get a lot more work done.
It doesn't help when lots of people with strong opinions (some I agree with, some I don't) take the stance of 'I believe in X and anyone who disagrees with me must be an idiot.' This is because so many people want to fight for their cause and somehow think you can attract more flies with vinegar instead of honey. They used to be just those people who would march in protest carrying some sign that called the other side stupid or evil. Now with social media, that hateful crowd has grown substantially and they don't go home and throw away the sign when it starts to rain. We see both sides of the political aisle take these kinds of approaches and even see it here on /. when people start flaming each other over what operating system or programming language they use.
I've noticed that on social media people make more assumptions about you than in real life. Seems to be due to them grouping people and then assuming that the group's properties apply to the assumed members.
I get that a lot on Slashdot. People assume all kinds of crazy things about me because they put me in some imaginary "SJW" group.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Nonsense. Most human beings are driven by a desire to protect their families, and in most of the world are educated enough to realise that participation in civil society and being sociable is the best way to achieve that.
What you are describing are sociopaths.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Social media has more negative impacts than positive. Following, liking, and posting begins to replace phone calls and visits from friends and family. The charged atmosphere of political posts creates wedges and animosity. Friends, and unfortunately family, start using social media to "aire grievances" and stab people in the back. The result of all of this is a lot of conflict and relationships that are in ruin.
Being a good moral person involves not acting on judgment to an innocent person's detriment. Judgment of others is simply human instinct.