Divided and Conquered

[Michigan Swampbuck]

Just an additional thought, perhaps the new elite don't speak Latin, but they do have "speak" of all kinds. The acronyms are annoying, to be sure.

[TokenLiberal]

Is this ability of social media to make people less informed a symptom of the way media is manipulated?

As I tried to explain earlier, I think the reason people end up consuming mostly low-quality, biased media is that it's the kind of content they actually want to see, even if it's not what they want to want to see. They reward it with their clicks. People just don't click on content that challenges their existing beliefs when there is something that validates them right next to it. So the algorithms, who know what we want better than we ourselves do, give us constant validation. This slowly radicalizes us and nudges us further and further away from the truth.

You seem to think there is nefarious intent by some player in this process. The way I see it, there is no need for "manipulation" on that level. We essentially manipulate ourselves by rewarding sensationalized appeals to emotion over balanced, fact-based journalism. Do you not buy that explanation? If not, why not?

Historically, I was thinking more about the power shift from the literate elite who knew Latin, to the masses who only understood their own native language. The movable type printing press opened the flood gates of information to be used and manipulated toward various ends. Sounds familiar some how, digital fonts and typesetting, hum, I did major in advertising graphic design in college.

How much of the early books contained any real "truth"? How much of the information we get on social media contains truth? Currently, our situation is similar, but instead of plugging along on the impulse engines, we are at warp speed now, maybe warp two.

Ah, so you're trying to draw parallels between our current situation and the discovery of the printing press. A key difference I think is that printing didn't make us less informed. Sure, a lot of non sense was written especially back then, but there were also already many excellent works written by ancient Greeks, Romans, medieval scholars etc. Having access to books was, in any case, better than what people had before.

[Michigan Swampbuck]

As I tried to explain earlier, I think the reason people end up consuming mostly low-quality, biased media is that it's the kind of content they actually want to see, even if it's not what they want to want to see. They reward it with their clicks. People just don't click on content that challenges their existing beliefs when there is something that validates them right next to it. So the algorithms, who know what we want better than we ourselves do, give us constant validation. This slowly radicalizes us and nudges us further and further away from the truth.

You seem to think there is nefarious intent by some player in this process. The way I see it, there is no need for "manipulation" on that level. We essentially manipulate ourselves by rewarding sensationalized appeals to emotion over balanced, fact-based journalism. Do you not buy that explanation? If not, why not?


Ah, so you're trying to draw parallels between our current situation and the discovery of the printing press. A key difference I think is that printing didn't make us less informed. Sure, a lot of non sense was written especially back then, but there were also already many excellent works written by ancient Greeks, Romans, medieval scholars etc. Having access to books was, in any case, better than what people had before.

Thanks for your detailed explanation. As I understand the way you describe it, we are like the lab rats who can press a lever to stimulate their pleasure centers at will. We keep pressing the lever that delivers whatever dopamine we want from the media. 

However, I must believe the advertisers and influencers are pushing the pendulum as it swings one way or the other. Maybe they don't have full control, but they must be trying to exert some control. It is not one entity, but many that would have control if they could, even a little, so, going forward, I will adjust my thesis. Basically all this creates the system you have described, one where we are essentially masturbating our egos with the content of our choice.

Consider that last part of your quote . . .

Ah, so you're trying to draw parallels between our current situation and the discovery of the printing press. A key difference I think is that printing didn't make us less informed. Sure, a lot of non sense was written especially back then, but there were also already many excellent works written by ancient Greeks, Romans, medieval scholars etc. Having access to books was, in any case, better than what people had before.

It is too bad that the incredible access to information that the internet offers ends up this way. Personally, I dive deeply to find information. Certainly the internet hasn't made me less informed or caused me to filter the information into a shot of dopamine. Also, in certain areas, like genealogy for example, the research is so much easier, faster, and more complete than it used to be before the internet. I can only hope there is a beneficial outcome at the end of all this.

[Michigan Swampbuck]

All the above is excellent for this discussion, and I thank those who contributed. Perhaps, instead of thinking about what has led to the current situation, we should address the contention that we are horribly divided politically. If our current political division is determined to be normal and less severe than I propose, then my paranoid delusions can end with that.

So I'd like to think more about the division and the violent rhetoric associated with it on both sides of the aisle than the reason as described. Examining the why, as important as that is, only diverts from dealing with polarization to determine if it is as severe as I portrayed it. I believe that polarity can be subverted to unite the population against the common enemy, regardless of who or what that enemy is and whether it comes from within or without.

I still believe that keeping everyone at odds does benefit some, and those types never miss a trick when keeping and growing their political power. "Don't let a good crisis go to waste" as the saying goes.

[TokenLiberal]

There are definitely people who benefit from polarization. In politics, it's populists like Trump on the right, Sanders on the left. But polarization would be here, with or without them. They are symptoms of the problem, not its creators.

As far as the media organizations creating the content and the algorithms, they don't really benefit. They are in a Molochian (that's a link) race to the bottom which forces them all to sensationalize and use clickbait headlines and dumb down their content in order to get as many clicks as possible. 

It reminds me of a point that really opened my eyes about corruption: Politicians actually hate it. Politicians in the US don't want to be forced to spend 90% of their time fundraising (ask any of them and believe them when they say it's their least favorite part of the job), and they certainly don't want to be beholden to a bunch of lobbyists, but they're all forced to do it anyway. (Politicians tried to pass stricter campaign finance laws, but then SCOTUS, an unelected body with the luxury of never having to do any fundraising, deemed them unconstitutional).

Most journalists don't want to be forced to use clickbait headlines and don't want to dumb down their reporting or use biased language. Alas, if they don't, they get outcompeted by those that do.

You might say the richest people in the world benefit from the political gridlock that this is causing and the movement towards oligarchy. Yet they only benefit in the short term. Long term, if this leads where it seems to be leading, which is political instability, it's not fertile ground for business. What the ultra-rich want most of all is stability. We can already see it starting to backfire in the US with the Twitter president's tariffs, which are unequivocally bad for business. Anyway, the train left the station when Zuckerberg invented Facebook. Winners and losers alike are just along for the ride.

Perhaps, instead of thinking about what has led to the current situation, we should address the contention that we are horribly divided politically. If our current political division is determined to be normal and less severe than I propose, then my paranoid delusions can end with that.

Agreed. Since we seem to mostly agree on the causes, we can move on. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be the one to tell you you're being paranoid or delusional. We are indeed horribly divided, and I would go further and say that it's the main cause of this "crisis of democracy" that we find ourselves in. Populists (mainly far right populists) are gaining ground everywhere, and in some places (like Hungary) this has already eroded the constitutional order. Political gridlock is starting to become the norm in Western democracies - bipartisanship in the US is dead. This makes sense, for when most of the electorate is moving away from the center of the spectrum, how can we cooperate? We're barely living in the same reality at this point. As I've noticed dealing with extremists (including here and on ATS), even just agreeing on the facts is often a challenge.

There are many ways we can see people being nudged towards the extremes. Young men, struggling to find their footing in the dating arena, are charmed by people like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson who, first of all, validate their feelings: "No, it's not just you, school is tailored to girls. Yes, it does suck that a house and a family feel so out of reach. You're right, it is harder to be a man today." Conservatives are presented caricatures of "the left", start to think the left has gone crazy, and end up feeling validated in their political positions, and vice versa. Examples are everywhere.

So what do we do about it? Honestly, realistically, I think we're screwed. I could say we need to educate people on how to process information in a way that guards against the algorithms slowly nudging us towards the extremes, but I don't really believe this could work. Even people who didn't grow up with the internet, who still know what it's like to process information the old way, are being radicalized by social media. Today's younger generations are even further gone; try telling a 15 year old they should be careful with social media because it will radicalize them. In one ear, out the other. I guess I just don't trust humans, especially young humans who grew up with social media, to have the intellectual backbone necessary to navigate this new media landscape. (Some of them do, don't get me wrong, but too many of them don't).

People just really love validation. Our brains, which evolved a long time ago and are not built to cope with this problem, naturally and understandably gravitate towards things that make them feel good. For the masses, there is no fix other than the abolishment of social media, or strict journalistic standards enforced by the government. Of course, those are very dangerous "fixes". It means the end of the free press, and a lot of control on the part of the government to steer public thought. The effects of that, long term, are likely to be even more disastrous than what we're heading to now.

As for what we can do individually, well, this. What we're doing right now. It's why I'm here. We have to actively seek out content that challenges us and engage with it in good faith, with an open mind, as uncomfortable as that is. In that spirit, I hope you'll give people like Pete Buttigieg a real chance.

[Michigan Swampbuck]

Back in my youth, they had a saying, "Don't trust anyone over 30", kind of the opposite now. I was open-minded and left of center until around my late 20s. I didn't trust the man then and still don't now. Not too radical really, but college had me pick sides and the study of postmodernism pushed me far away from radical liberalism and put me right of center by graduation.

When I started voting, I studied the candidates and their records and voted split ticket for who I thought would do a better job. After awhile, it became the lessor of two evils, then finally I have been reduced to who will do the least amount of damage while in office. I voted non-stop since the mid-80s, but I've considered giving up and throwing in the towel with politics as divided and corrupt as it has become. I vote party lines now, straight-ticket. I don't throw away my vote on a weak candidate.

[Nugget]

Tthink the
media is some kind of benign, harmless entity that has no controllers seems a bit naive. We went through four years of non-stop coverage of everythiing Trump did being portrayed as the worst disaster to befall our country ever 24/7/365.Not one positive news story was ever showcased on MSM>
That was followed by four years of lies, deceit and coverup during the biden presidency. We were told the economy was great, joe's approval ratings were the highest ever-even surpassing obama's. He was the sharpest guy in the room!
If that isn't enough proof of the media being deliberlty used to control people and their opinion I'd say some people are beyond being politically biased and just non compos mentis.

[Nugget]

Double post due to edting glitch!

[FCD]

I am sort of addressing multiple people's comments here with this response.  Nothing directly, just sort of in general.

The media (MSM and other) - I can remember back in the early 70's people openly talking about bias in the media (whatever form it was).  I can even remember people like my parents and other parents opting to receive one daily newspaper over another to avoid various political biases.  So, even back then, "journalism" was an endangered species.  I even asked my parents and school instructors once where a person could find unbiased news reporting.  Their answer at that time was sources like the Christian Science Monitor.  Today, true 'journalism' is extinct.  Period.  Not even whatever is left of the CSM is unbiased.  Journalism can only be referred to in the past tense.  The only place the word "journalism" belongs today is immediately following the word "yellow".  In fact, as much as I hate to say this, one of the more unbiased sources for US political news is actually the English version of Al-Jazeera.  But obviously they have strong biases when it comes to subjects like Israel, so you can't depend on them for international news and have to look elsewhere like SE Asia, but not even sources like the New Straights Times out of Singapore is completely unbiased. 

Today, the MSM is so heavily biased (both right and left, depending on source) that it is downright laughable, not even remotely close to the truth...by like a million miles!  Over the past two decades, maybe a tad more, news has just gone over the edge in terms of bias, but why?  Well, what else happened around that same time?  Two things; ...1.) the Internet, and 2.) Social Media.  News media outlets have always had to compete for advertising revenue (their life blood).  But with the advent of the Internet, and then Social Media, those advertising dollars got spread over a much larger base.  Because the Internet and social media both were the Wild West there were no boundaries.  People could and do say whatever they want.  The MSM went from leading the news to following not news, but rather trends on the web and social media.  Today, the MSM is nothing more than a mouthpiece for every radical agenda on social media and the internet.  They're basically whores, all groveling for sponsor revenue...and they say anything to get it.  If you look carefully today you'll see true 'breaking news' hit social media first before it gets picked up by the MSM.  The delay is only because the MSM is trying to be politically correct at the same time and follow the agendas of the majority of their readers.  The MSM is following today, not leading.  They're selling out whatever shreds of morality they once had and turning tricks on internet digital 'street corners' just like the hookers and whores they are.  Again, this isn't a "left" or "right" thing; it's all of them.  Journalism is not just dying; it's DEAD. 

Elections - Two major factors affect current elections in the US today.  Money, and propaganda.  I've said before; if it takes a billion dollars for a candidate to be elected POTUS, then the system is badly broken.  At those prices, America will never get a completely honest politician.  It will just never happen.  The paraplegic, brain-dead and morally corrupt MSM plays a huge role here too.  They're turning 'tricks' to get in on all those billions of dollars, morality and honesty be damned.  In the past 40 years we have seen some of the most corrupt presidents in history...Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama, and Biden.  Why did I leave Trump off the list?  Because he's not corrupt.  Not with government money anyway.  How do we know this?  Because one of his main focal points is corruption; he'd have to be crazy to be corrupt himself.  He may by an ego-maniac and a psychopath, but he's not corrupt.  You may hate every last molecule of his guts, but he's not stealing money from the US taxpayer and putting it in his pocket like the rest of the guys on that list.  Regardless, Trump aside, just the simple fact it takes billions of dollars to win an election is ample proof the system is broken.  Forget the people, the 'system' is broken.  We're not electing the person with the most qualifications and merit, we're electing the guy with the fattest wallet.  No matter how you slice it, that's just...wrong.

I personally feel that social media is at the root of all this evil.  It's just so lawless and unregulated.  The problem though is with that last word, 'unregulated'.  Right now, any attempt to put virtually any regulatory controls in place will be viewed as censorship and trampling on freedom of speech rights...as it should be.  Even if someone came up with a sensible formula to regulate social media, actually implementing it would be next to impossible.  (BTW...I have no idea what a 'sensible formula' would look like, I just wanted to point out the futility of even trying).  So, my half-assed conclusion is...you have to approach the problem from the other direction.  You first have to make people, "The People", fully understand the problem.  I mean like, truly understand...the problem.  People have to understand that money is not the answer to politics.  'The People' have to force money out of politics.  Limit campaign monies, eliminate special interest lobby, impose term sensible term limits, and other things like this.  If this doesn't happen, then the problem will only get worse, not better.  There will come a time when every POTUS is worse than the last one (forget whose party they represent; that's all smoke and mirrors now anyway).  And ultimately, there will come a president who truly is evil and truly does bring the US to its knees. Obama's "change" came close, but just imagine someone 4-5x as anti-American as he was. Or, someone 4-5x as wild as Trump. Or, 4-5x as much of a puppet as Biden. At the current pace, this eventuality is really not that far off. Maybe 2-3 election cycles, tops. Maybe even less than that!

Just my .02

[Nugget]

Well said, FCD; very wellsaid.