Silicon Valley 'Divided Society and Made Everyone Raging Mad', Argues Newsweek (newsweek.com)

"Anyone who is pissed off can now automatically find other people that are similarly pissed off," argues author Jamie Bartlett, in a new essay shared by Slashdot reader schwit1 which calls the internet "a bottomless well of available grievance." Here's an excerpt from Newsweek: Silicon Valley's utopians genuinely but mistakenly believe that more information and connection makes us more analytical and informed. But when faced with quinzigabytes of data, the human tendency is to simplify things. Information overload forces us to rely on simple algorithms to make sense of the overwhelming noise. This is why, just like the advertising industry that increasingly drives it, the internet is fundamentally an emotional medium that plays to our base instinct to reduce problems and take sides, whether like or don't like, my guy/not my guy, or simply good versus evil. It is no longer enough to disagree with someone, they must also be evil or stupid...

Nothing holds a tribe together like a dangerous enemy. That is the essence of identity politics gone bad: a universe of unbridgeable opinion between opposing tribes, whose differences are always highlighted, exaggerated, retweeted and shared. In the end, this leads us to ever more distinct and fragmented identities, all of us armed with solid data, righteous anger, a gutful of anger and a digital network of likeminded people. This is not total connectivity; it is total division.

Comments

Meh...

[Anonymous Coward]

> It is no longer enough to disagree with someone, they must also be evil or stupid...

You'd think at least *some* people would be smart enough not to jump to such conclusions. There's gotta be some middle ground somewhere. So, I disagree and this is stupid.

Oh, wait...

The Hitchhiker's Guide on the Babelfish

[locater16]

"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

Re:The Hitchhiker's Guide on the Babelfish

[sysrammer]

Yeah, I thought that was an incredibly insightful paragraph from that book. It's said that civil wars are the bloodiest because the people are very similar and speak the same language.

Re:The Hitchhiker's Guide on the Babelfish

[djinn6]

I don't think that's actually true, looking at this list, for every civil war, there's a bigger international war that killed more people.

I think this is because different civilizations tend to see each other as barbaric or less than human, and find it more acceptable to massacre entire cities of their opponents to make room for their own. On the other hand, in a civil war, you are only fighting for the control of the nation. Once you obtain that control, you'd want everyone to stop fighting and start working for you. Killing more people at that point would be meaningless.

It's the economy stupid

[rsilvergun]

The crazy shit going on is all due to a weak economy for the working class. The pro corporate folks have their knickers in a twist because they didn't expect Trump or Brexit and they're not sure how that's all going to play out. News flash, you can't have the cake and eat it too. Keep shitting on the working class and eventually they'll do something dumb. Probably another World War or they'll pick a minority for genocide.

Re:It's the economy stupid

[alvinrod]

That's only a small piece of the puzzle, and this is nothing new. American politics has always been divided to some degree because the first past the post system essentially guarantees that there be two big parties opposed to each other. The biggest change is that the internet has made it easier for people who would have never been able to organize previously to get together and build their own little digital enclaves. People can form communities more easily now than at and point in history and physical presence is no longer a requirement. This is incredibly awesome on the whole, but of course there are going to be bad outcomes as well.

The other big problem is that the internet is entirely impersonal. If you put 99% of people who get pissed off at each other on the internet together in the real world, they'd be a lot more civil. It's pretty easy to forget that there's another human being at the other end of the online conversation when you're just starting at a screen. When there's a real person there, you start to pick up on all manner of body language cues that just don't exist online and can't just mentally write them off as Satan.

Re:It's the economy stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's face it, you can't physically assault me online. That's why people say whatever they want whenever they want. In real life, you start spouting enough stupid shit at enough people and eventually someone is going to punch you in the face.

Most of us just walk away, but eventually someone won't.

Re:It's the economy stupid

[jlowery]

Hmmm... now, why would American society be divided?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

For those who can't afford health care though working two jobs, the only way to keep them docile is to turn them against imaginary bogey men. This works, because they don't have an inkling as to how obscenely wealthy the 0.01% are.

Re:It's the economy stupid

[jeff4747]

That's a massive amount of wrong condensed into a single paragraph.

1. Social Security and Medicare are paid out of two different funding sources.

2. Medicare has no expected shortage despite the Baby Boomers retiring. The taxes paid by GenX and Millennials will cover it, just like GenX and Boomer taxes paid for Silent/WWII-generation's Medicare.

3. The Social Security Trust Fund is supposed to go bankrupt.

It was created in 1983 in anticipation of the Boomers retiring. In the original design, Social Security benefits are paid out of the taxes collected today. That works as long as each generation is larger than the previous. When GenX turned out much smaller than the Boomers, there was a problem. Enter the trust fund. Boomers, GenX and now Millennials have been paying higher taxes over the last 34 years to build up a trust fund to cover the Boomers. And only the Boomers.

After the Boomers, we go back to each generation being larger than the last. So we can go back to the ~2 younger generations funding the one older generation. (Technically, this will depend on how many kids the Millennials end up having. So far, so good on that front.). Under current projections, the Trust Fund will last until virtually all the Boomers have died of old age.

4. There will not come a day where we suddenly have to pay the Social Security Trust Fund back, because we've already been paying the Trust Fund back. The Social Security Trust fund can only invest in US Bonds. Those bonds have a maturity date where the money has to be paid back. And that maturity date has already passed for some of the bonds. (The principal and interest were used to buy more bonds initially, at the moment some of the interest is being paid as benefits. Just as planned)

So no, there will not be a sudden need for more money. There has been and will continue to be a gradual reduction in how many bonds the trust fund can buy. That could theoretically increase the deficit, but if you give a damn about that then fix it via the general fund instead of a Rube Goldberg design involving Social Security.

6. If you really want the trust fund to continue to exist, the fix is incredibly easy - raise the cap on FICA taxes. Back when Social Security started, about 95% of income was subject to FICA taxes. Thanks to the growth of income inequality, only 70-someodd percent of income is subject to FICA taxes. The difference is caused by the wealthy making more money.

In 2017, the cap is $127,200. $127,201 and up are not subject to Social Security taxes. So raise that cap to ~$200-250k and the trust fund lasts forever...not that it would actually be needed.

7. Remember point 1 about Medicare and Social Security having different funding streams? Medicare taxes don't have the cap mentioned in 6. That's why it doesn't have a near-term funding problem.

8. Attempting to balance the budget 30 years from now is an incredibly stupid exercise. We can't predict the economy 10 years from now with reasonable accuracy. You think we can nail 30 years?

In summary, any pundit or politician giving dire warnings about insolvency and sudden repayment are lying to you in an attempt to convince you to support cuts.

Re:It's the economy stupid

[jeff4747]

The taxpayers paid into Social Security. The money paid was treated like general revenue and spent.

False

In its place there is an IOU from the treasury called a US Bond.

False

How does the treasury repay these bonds in the future?

Same way we've been repaying the bonds for the last 30 years. Again, there will not be some sort of sudden payment coming due.

The scheme keeps working until China stops buying treasuries.

False.

First, China stopped buying significant amounts of US bonds in 2006. They were trying to use these transfers to keep the Yuan low versus the Dollar, but you can only make a river flow upstream for so long. They currently use other, more direct methods. So if China not buying bonds was supposed to be a disaster, we'd have started that disaster a long time ago.

Second, countries are not the only entities that can buy government bonds. In fact, about 80% of US federal debt is owned by Americans and American corporations. And considering inflation-protected bonds are selling at close to 0% interest, we're not in danger of that drying up overnight.

Re:Newsweek is evil AND stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

not or.

How is the summary incorrect? Our divisions are growing wider and it is easier to find like minded people.

I seriously think that if impeachment starts Trump will go nuclear, possibly with nuclear weapons to distract or such, but more likely by ramping up the us vs them stuff to infinity and beyond until there is blood in the streets. He used the divisions and furthered them for his own end, but the divisions were there. Make America Great Again is just a polite way to blame everyone that isn't like them. It is at its heart exploiting deep seated racism and hate for political power.

I very much fear that this is going to all end badly. The expression fiddling while Rome burned is apt and seems to apply here. Winning at all costs is not winning at all.

Leaders must have a moral center, else our society suffers. They must have a sense of decency. I knew Donald Trump was the lowest form of life I've ever seen as a presidential candidate when he approved shoving Bill Clinton's mistresses in Hillary's face. Hillary is not Bill. That was beyond despicable.

The fact that so many people in America think that kind is okay if they just get their guy is well, truly sad.

What has happened to us? Wearing a flag pin does not make you patriotic. Preaching of your religion does not make you moral. The ends does not and never will make the means morally right.

You can't build a country on a stack of sinful decisions and expect good to flourish. I had thought we were better than this, but I'm less sure these days.

The internet doesn't force anyone to be a nitwit.

[hey!]

However it rewards them if they try.

Specifically social media, which is a massively distributed operant conditioning machine which rewards people to conformity. Conformity to what? Here's the novel wrinkle: anything. The owners of social media don't really care where the bandwagon you jump on is going, as long as a lot of people jump on; people whom they will be able to sell.

It's not access to information. It's the intrusion of information designed to trigger montetizable responses that's the problem.

Re:The internet doesn't force anyone to be a nitwi

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting operant conditioning basiclly describes perfectly shows like John Oliver.

It goes like this:
        fact
        fact
        fact, with a sincere face
        lie
        joke
        loud pun or shout something
        serious face

EXAMPLE:
        polar bears are cute
        polar bears are important
        here's a picture of a polar bear
        republicans want to kill all polar bears
        TIMOTHY STOP TRYING TO FUCK THE POLAR BEAR!
        But seriously, here's a picture of a dead baby seal

This is how we consume 'news'. These shows have embraced the quick bites of youtube and twitter.

Guess who feels threatened?

[Applehu Akbar]

"Anyone who is pissed off can now automatically find other people that are similarly pissed off," argues author Jamie Bartlett, in a new essay...

This used to be the prerogative of essayists in newsmagazines. Now they feel marginalized by public access to rich sources of information and online pulpits far bullier than any fora they had available to them in the days when freedom of the press was only available to those who owned presses.

Re: Newsweek is evil AND stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is people are diving in to ideological bubbles and hear nothing but the echo chamber. The fact that you chose the words "honest" and "ethical" shows your bias. You're so buried in a world of group think you believe that anyone that thinks differently is automatically dishonest and lacks ethics. The entire point of this article is that we as a society need to intermingle. Hear differing points of view. Have honest debate (that means actually listening). People on the right are very much as guilty as well of searching for those they agree with.

We're stronger as a people when we have mutual respect and work together. All we're doing by being smug and thinking we're smarter, more ethical and have all the answers is tearing ourselves apart.

This article is an interesting read on perspective. I can't vouch for how authentic it is though. I didn't bother researching the author. http://nypost.com/2017/10/21/the-other-half-of-america-that-the-liberal-media-doesnt-cover/