- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
- politics@lemmy.world
If there’s one thing I’d hoped people had learned going into the next four years of Donald Trump as president, it’s that spending lots of time online posting about what people in power are saying and doing is not going to accomplish anything. If anything, it’s exactly what they want.
Many of my journalist colleagues have attempted to beat back the tide under banners like “fighting disinformation” and “accountability.” While these efforts are admirable, the past few years have changed my own internal calculus. Thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Hannah Arendt warned us that the point of this deluge is not to persuade, but to overwhelm and paralyze our capacity to act. More recently, researchers have found that the viral outrage disseminated on social media in response to these ridiculous claims actually reduces the effectiveness of collective action. The result is a media environment that keeps us in a state of debilitating fear and anger, endlessly reacting to our oppressors instead of organizing against them.
Cross’ book contains a meticulous catalog of social media sins which many people who follow and care about current events are probably guilty of—myself very much included. She documents how tech platforms encourage us, through their design affordances, to post and seethe and doomscroll into the void, always reacting and never acting.
But perhaps the greatest of these sins is convincing ourselves that posting is a form of political activism, when it is at best a coping mechanism—an individualist solution to problems that can only be solved by collective action. This, says Cross, is the primary way tech platforms atomize and alienate us, creating “a solipsism that says you are the main protagonist in a sea of NPCs.”
In the days since the inauguration, I’ve watched people on Bluesky and Instagram fall into these same old traps. My timeline is full of reactive hot takes and gotchas by people who still seem to think they can quote-dunk their way out of fascism—or who know they can’t, but simply can’t resist taking the bait. The media is more than willing to work up their appetites. Legacy news outlets cynically chase clicks (and ad dollars) by disseminating whatever sensational nonsense those in power are spewing.
This in turn fuels yet another round of online outrage, edgy takes, and screenshots exposing the “hypocrisy” of people who never cared about being seen as hypocrites, because that’s not the point. Even violent fantasies about putting billionaires to the guillotine are rendered inept in these online spaces—just another pressure release valve to harmlessly dissipate our rage instead of compelling ourselves to organize and act.
This is the opposite of what media, social or otherwise, is supposed to do. Of course it’s important to stay informed, and journalists can still provide the valuable information we need to take action. But this process has been short-circuited by tech platforms and a media environment built around seeking reaction for its own sake.
“For most people, social media gives you this sense that unless you care about everything, you care about nothing. You must try to swallow the world while it’s on fire,” said Cross. “But we didn’t evolve to be able to absorb this much info. It makes you devalue the work you can do in your community.”
It’s not that social media is fundamentally evil or bereft of any good qualities. Some of my best post-Twitter moments have been spent goofing around with mutuals on Bluesky, or waxing romantic about the joys of human creativity and art-making in an increasingly AI-infested world. But when it comes to addressing the problems we face, no amount of posting or passive info consumption is going to substitute the hard, unsexy work of organizing.
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But when it comes to addressing the problems we face, no amount of posting or passive info consumption is going to substitute the hard, unsexy work of organizing.
No shit, so when I’d say this in year 2013, it wasn’t worthless nerd screeching aimed at satisfying my hunger for attention which I don’t get because I’m a worthless nerd and can’t accept the new world where tech helps, you know, normal socialized people, not like me, to fix every problem with their mutual likes and reposts and flashmobs.
Seems damn clear that radio reproductors on German streets didn’t help against Nazism.
I would argue that journalism is necessary, just not sufficient, for moving into the future.
Ironically this is true for every one of the myriad sides in this conflict.
I recall a sci-fi book from CS Lewis… anyway my point is that this was well known after WWII, and probably often had to be rediscovered throughout history. Strong societies produce weak children and so on. We’ve had our Yin, now time for the karmic Yang to brutalize us for being so extremely negligent.
Maybe it’s better to refrain from growing strong men, though, just average will do, with average children, not weak.
ADD:
Also from LOTR, a smart thing in the same direction, I think one can find most of Tao Te Ching and Art of War rephrased in LOTR.
“Other evils there are that may come; for Sauron is himself but a servant or emissary. Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule”
I’m not sure how it is possible to produce merely average people though? Anyway, even if humanity itself were to not change, the world around us still does. Perhaps one day aliens will show up, assuming that climate change doesn’t kill us all in the moderate term future. Just like all those species of animals and plants and such that we’ve driven extinct: they lasted so long, but then could not survive us.
So I would argue that we always should remain strong… it’s just that the definition of what that even means will constantly keep changing, in response to our circumstances.
But, Stoicism, yeah - it’s literally all that we can do, so let’s do that.:-)
I’m not sure how it is possible to produce merely average people though?
Not getting excited with global solutions and utopias. At some point in my 12-15 I considered libertarianism a far wiser ideology than the rest due to this, but then noticed how there are libertarian utopias emerging for all tastes. Panarchy (that’s not yet a thing), agorism (that to some extent is, with cryptocurrencies and internet connectivity) and maybe something else.
Any wise construct stops being wise if you rely on it too much.
So people thinking “correctly” are not those you want to have, people familiar with good things, but not invested too much, are.
If you build a construct (say, in a game like Civilization) with -7 modifier to fascism, then the humanity will regulate to that and negate the modifier. Then your construct crumbles, and the humanity gets +7 to fascism. Was it really a good idea in the first place then?
So I would argue that we always should remain strong… it’s just that the definition of what that even means will constantly keep changing, in response to our circumstances.
And that means that trying to remain strong we’ll waste effort in all directions instead of having some when needed.
But, Stoicism, yeah - it’s literally all that we can do, so let’s do that.:-)
Stoicism is about spending effort where you should and not spending when you shouldn’t. It’s not pure inaction, it’s the way to do less nonsense.
EDIT: Or the biblical example with 7 abundant years and 7 hungry years - imagine taking all the increase in food for granted, many more children being born, many more slaves brought in, expecting to be able to pay many more debts perhaps, thus taking more, and then during hungry years not only the difference in population dying, but more (because those who die from hunger still consume food before it, those who are used to eating more need more to survive, some debt payments can’t be postponed, and a weaker state spends more resources to defend its borders).
Humans seem not to be great planners - we are too short-sighted and selfish, but like in a bad way where we first lie to ourselves, and then also to one another.
This allows us to get out of local minima as we spread to new areas, but that same trait seems equally likely to lead to our extinction when all areas have been found and we need rather to switch to a more stablilzed society, yet won’t bc we don’t feel like doing so.
Such situations would regularly arise till early XX century and even now, so, eh, humanity tries everything. I wouldn’t assume I know a solution.
deleted by creator
For those who are feeling disheartened or numb and want/need a little push to get things started, you should check out AOC’s video she posted. It’s like an hour and a half long but she does a good job breaking down the situation, acknowledging the challenges, but also provides examples of things you and everyone else can do to resist.
In her own words/examples, you don’t have to feel like it’s all on just you to rollback illegal FAA staff appointments, to stop musk harvesting USAID, etc. There are specific concrete actions you can take within your capacity to make a difference.
Disagree. Calling leftists Nazis for not voting for Harris is basically the same thing as Stalingrad
100000000% agree
The revoltion will not be televised - Gill Scott Heron
Even people agreeing with this are wary of any revolution which is not in some way being televised. And more trusting to television than to what they can see with their own eyes.
I straight up hate that so many people are just now brushing up against the fact that everything is marketing. Everything is purposeful. Everything is sinister. Goddamn.
Even violent fantasies about putting billionaires to the guillotine are rendered inept in these online spaces—just another pressure release valve to harmlessly dissipate our rage instead of compelling ourselves to organize and act.
ahem lemmy
Maybe we won’t be guillotining them anytime soon, but we can at least slow their roll: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVgNJf6CsBA
TLDR - We need more Luigis against the techbros
Luigi 1 didn’t accomplish anything, though.
You’re talking about it.
I’m talking about a guy who made no impact on a single company much less an industry and then went to jail awaiting prison, throwing away all of his rich boy ivy league education, because people like YOU keep bringing him up.
I’m talking about a guy
Since you’re refusing to back up your stance I take that to mean you’ve resigned from the argument and that you agree with me.
Back up my stance of “you’re talking about it” when you start your comment with “I’m talking about it”?
I really don’t see a reason to “back that up” any further. You did all for me.
I see you have the memory of the goldfish so I’ll recap the discussion for you.
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User above stated we need more luigis
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I brought up the fact that Luigi 1 accomplished nothing
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You retort that we are talking about it
So either your response was completely pointless and off topic or you meant it as evidence that Luigi 1 accomplished something. What did he accomplish? How does talking about it change anything for anyone?
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He traded his life for another. He showed the world that it’s possible. And “we” outnumber “them”. Making people realize that is an achievement in itself.
Would you say people like Rosa Parks “didn’t accomplish anything”?
“They” actually won the recent election meaning “they” are actually the majority. The only way for “us” to accomplish anything other than constant bloodshed and a near 50/50 civil war scenario is to convince a bunch of “them” to change the system with “us”.
We’re not fighting a dozen people like Brian Thompson, we’re fighting tens of millions of idiots who empower them.
First, people supporting Trump are not the majority by any metric. They are 49.8% of the people who voted, which is 31,8% of the eligible voters and 23,3% of the total us population. You could argue that the majority of people “don’t hate” Trump, and while that’s still a scary metric, it’s not the point that I wanted to make.
“They” aren’t Republicans or Trump supporters, they’re wealth-hoarding billionaires that actively make people’s lives worse. As it has already been said, support for Luigi is pretty much bipartisan. Nearly everyone hates those people, and even plenty of people who voted Trump did it because they see him as “one of the people” (for some godforsaken reason). They’re propagandized into voting Republican through all the culture war, misinformation and fear mongering, but when people like Brian Thompson die, no one is actually sad and a lot actually celebrate.
Trump does indeed have a personality cult, but from what I’ve gathered the great majority of people voting him aren’t part of that and they don’t actually like him, it’s just that they hate “the gays”, “the libs”, or “the immigrants” more.
Anybody who didn’t vote for the party who opposes Trump but was eligible is actively against the reform that caused these problems. If you’re against reform but promote Luigi then you don’t care about a single person who went into medical debt or died as a result of it.
I suspect the vast majority of people turning to social media as a pressure release valve feel disempowered, and don’t know what more they can reasonably do. When voting is no longer enough, and you have little time or money to spare, what’s next? How can a fly meaningfully change the orbit of a planet?
This article is insightful, but practically useless. I think it would be better if it also presented specific actions and achievable goals that would lead to shutting down encroaching fascism.
How about joining the Fediverse?
And ad blocking.
Seriously. Participation in Google/Meta/Tiktok/Whatever and their manipulative algorithms is what makes a lot of this go around. Break their ad revenue, break out of the algorithms, and you break their manipulation.
It’s easy. It’s free. You can do it on your butt, in the same timeslots you doomscroll. And it would draw more devs into developing/hosting.
Vast numbers of people feeling disempowered … sounds like the Trump crowd when he appeared and proclaimed himself their savior. Liberals are in for the same treatment from someone with a different sales pitch. Some people think that’s who Kamala Harris was, I truly believed in her, but maybe that was the whole plan and it’s already like professional wrestling - you win this match, I’ll win the next one, and we both take home the money. I dunno.
People need to know that posting doesn’t actually do anything!
posts an article about it
Posts comment about it.
It’s super helpful to identify the issue.
Well at least the article validated some of my feelings and gave me a sense identification of the problems I have been sensing around me with the flaccid liberal rebellion.
Hey wait a sec! Dammit!Most concrete action I can think of is some posts I remember seeing about coat-hanger do it yourself frontal lobotomies. I’ve seen plenty of very low IQ Americans with economic status as bad or worse than mine somehow perfectly happy with all the fascist shit that is going down. This seems like an opportunity to join in their bliss.
Get to know the people in your community. Take an interest in growing food, learn how to fix things. Get a gun (or two) and learn how to use them.
https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/
Establish secure lines of communication and start preparing for what’s coming. The next decade is going to be hard but we’ll probably know how it’s going to shake down by then.
edit: formatting
Funny, I find this in my doomscroll app. I just want out, man
I have the social skills of a cholla cactus and so when someone says ѻɼﻭคกٱչﻉ ץѻપɼ กﻉٱﻭɦ๒ѻɼɦѻѻɗ กﻉՇฝѻɼᛕ I find it only confusing and unintelligible. I did consider making cookies for my neighbors with a notice saying _I don’t know how to ዐዪኗልክጎጊቿ ል ክቿጎኗዘጌዐዪዘዐዐዕ ክቿፕሠዐዪጕ but maybe someone else does…here’s some cookies? Mind you, my neighborhood is a tad lower class and has an air of desperation so they may not trust my cookies.
It’s a thought. My kitchen appliances are lent out right now, and I don’t actually know how to bake.
But I seem to understand enough leftist theory to bridge those who, like me, have been brainwashed to see communism and socialism as derisives and terms of contempt.
I’m also going through a psychotic break because a lot of stressors piled up at the same time seventy-seven million voters decided to give the Genie’s lamp to Jaffar.
People even knowing their next door neighbors NAME is leaps and bounds ahead of where we are right now.
For better or worse, this seems to be way less of a problem on the Fediverse. I can’t tell if it’s because it’s federated OR if it’s because corporate America hasn’t woken up to it (yet?!?). I find way more interesting discussions on lemmy than anywhere else on the net. Hopefully it stays that way!
Doom scrolling is facilitated by ad-optimised algorithms that push low-nuance, emotive content that gets a reaction, for views. (Thinking particularly of twitter and Facebook here)
The fediverse doesn’t have that, and has no reason to, because as soon as any provider starts pushing ads, people will switch servers. So I think it WILL stay that way.
Also, I think as a consequence of having less combatitive content up front, people are generally in a less heightened emotional state as a baseline, and are able to approach more nuanced content more thoughtfully.
Shamelessly reposting this here, because it seems relevant:
Negative news has a greater impact on people than positive: https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf
Media sites know this, and use it to drive engagement:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01538-4
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/social-media-facebook-twitter-politics-b1870628.html
And so, negative headlines are getting worse: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276367
But negative news is addictive and psychologically damaging: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-worry/202009/the-psychological-impact-negative-news
So it’s important to try and stay positive:
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/benefits-of-good-news
If you want a break from the constant negativity, here are some sites that report specifically on positive news:
- https://www.goodgoodgood.co/
- https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
- https://fixthenews.com/
- https://positivenewsfoundation.org/
- https://www.onlygoodnewsdaily.com/
And here’s 35 more: https://news.feedspot.com/good_news_websites/
Some communities on Lemmy you might be interested in:
- !lemmybewholesome@lemmy.world
- !goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
- !upliftingnews@lemmy.world
- https://lemmy.world/c/hopeposting
- https://lemmy.world/c/worldinprogress
- https://lemmy.world/c/climatehope
Remember, realistic optimism is important and, unlike what some might have you believe, is not the same as blissful ignorance or ‘burying your head in the sand’: https://www.learning-mind.com/realistic-optimism-blind-positivity/
https://www.centreforoptimism.com/realisticoptimism
And doesn’t mean you must stay uninformed on current affairs: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/how-to-stop-doom-scrolling
https://goodable.co/blog/tips-for-balancing-positive-and-negative-news/
Excellent set of resources - ty for posting them
thanks for the links, looking forward to checking them out.
You’re welcome
For anyone interested here is the CIA’s publicly available field manual for simple sabotage. Dated, but mostly still relevant.
