Why does it feel that the evil sides globally are winning. Even evil people are winning. Why?

  • Because it has become fashionable not to hide it.
    Evil has always been winning. The early homo sapiens attacked the Neanderthals. They kept them as slaves and raped the women. (At least that is the current theories, no one “really” knows the specifics other than they “won”). It is in the nature of homo sapiens to get ahead by exploiting others. It’s why they win, and why we have the technology and such we have today. A person with less morals to constrain them will win out over a moral person. I think our only realistic way out is to let AI take over. But I don’t see any reason why it won’t come to the same conclusion, and then exploit us even more. But one can hope.

  • @humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    02 months ago

    If you did not understand that the US was the evil force in the world all along, then your new feeling is mostly based on the previous internalization that countries resisting US evil were the evil ones, and that the US now picking wars on allies that it can easily win, and giving up on wars it cannot win. Colonial rulerships supporting US evil, were also deeply explicitly evil and subjugating their people’s prosperity with disinformation and subjugation.

    Inside the US, Zionist first rule was always a factor, but never as important as last election cycle. Oligarchy/media siding with the most zionist candidate, is simply ensuring the naked totalitarianism we must now endure. That the US has shifted the targets of its evil, does not change its nature. Replacing Presidential subjugation of allies with CIA subversive control of allies may not be as effective in force multiplication of evil, but it is just breaking your previous feelings/geopolitical illusions of “good”/values based alliances.

  • Evil has always been there. People have a tendency to turn a blind eye when it isn’t directed at them. Recently it’s very much been directed at Europe and North America. It brings the problems of the world into sharp focus.

  • TwoCupsofSugar
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    02 months ago

    evil people have always been there, but we’re in an era of many crisis’s, it was easier to ignore it when it didn’t personally effect you. Now i imagine in the next 10-20 years it’ll start effecting everyone in ways we’ve yet to imagine. But I don’t think its the end of the world or anything just that its probably time we start considering what we want our futures to look like and start making plans to survive or fight.

  • Akiko
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    02 months ago

    People are scared and angry and want action without thinking about the long-term gains only the short term. Creating fear is fascism 101 and how many rise to power

  • @underwire212@lemm.ee
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    02 months ago

    It is all the cycle of Tao. Light and dark flowing. It all balances out in the end, brother/sister. You need not worry.

  • @7dev7random7@suppo.fi
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    02 months ago

    I just talked to my superior about the most urgent thing EU countries are facing currently. I should add that he is 100% disabled but studied in CS and reads everything which is interesting to him and his world view.

    When I said that social media dictates the discussions and the media, we agreed on the thought after a short period.

    And if we could solve this issue we mostlikely would get awarded a noble price.

    What I am trying to say: Social media is run by - at least - flawed people. And used by the evil ones to their maximum, putting the honest Ones into a position to explain.

    We are loosing our discourse, we are mixing our cultures - or we split at our ethics.

    Social media is a cancer with no current treatment. Civilians will be in favor of social media since it also benefits society directly. But we are diminishing other things with it.

    Maybe there will be one more brilliant mind educated who may aid us in these times.

    • @AA5B@lemmy.world
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      02 months ago

      I don’t even think it’s the people who ruin social media that’s the problem- the fascists and racists and haters were always there. And not even so much that they now have a stage and algorithms

      The whole problem is there is no longer anything people agree as worthwhile news. No fairness, no trustworthy. The few remaining objective news outlets are pigeonholed into one partisan side or another, regardless whether they deserve it.

      To the common person, there is no news. That social media is it. And every if there were, how could you tell the difference?

      I blame Fox News more than streamers because they did at least as much as anyone to destroy News, with clear bias and outrage, and misleading its viewers to blur the distinction between news and news entertainment

    • @rumba@lemmy.zip
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      02 months ago

      IMHO, It’s the algorithm that’s the real devil.

      For a long time, it was us against the bots and the companies. But we no longer know what’s being given to us because it matches versus what’s being given to us because they’re paying for it to be seen.

      The danger is the algorithm gives us a steady stream of what we appear to want. It’s serotonin. Then it’s weaponized. There’s no appreciable difference between the ads, the propaganda, the creators honest content and the creators paid content. We’re getting echo chambers of what we want and paid advertisements to sure that up.

      People see it on Facebook and TikTok and just take it as read that what’s being presented is truth. Even the ones that are savvy to bias end up getting swept along with the tide.

      The only way to stop this is to demand disinformation and fact-checking. But instead of that, everyone seems to be hell-bent on knocking out private conversation where we might be able to communicate and are being forced to rely solely on whatever the algorithm allows us.

      • RobotsLeftHand
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        02 months ago

        There’s no appreciable difference between the ads, the propaganda, the creators honest content and the creators paid content.

        Well said.

    • @FauxLiving@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The Algorithm needs to be regulated. (Meaning: Recommendation algorithms should be monitored to make sure that they’re not ‘discovering’ that they can manipulate people with fear, anger and other base negative emotions.)

      We already know that the most motivating things for humans is fear and anger/outrage. We also know that these are not healthy emotions for the individual or for society and yet we allow social media algorithms to to maximize engagement using fear and anger.

      In addition, it is very hard to craft a message that is both appealing and true. It is much easier to craft a message that is appealing if you can get rid of the Truth constraint.

      These are probably the two core issues that are causing us the most strife. Unthinking recommendation algorithms have identified content that stokes base emotions like fear and anger as being the ones that generate the most ‘engagement’; and people, seeking to exploit these algorithms for personal gain (advertisers, political actors, etc), craft messages to maximize their engagement (anger/outrage, fear) while ignoring reality/truth/facts because reality is too hard of a constraint.

      The flip side of this is that you see people, who practically live on social media, start to unconsciously adopt the same messaging style because it works even better as people become attuned to the fear and outrage.

      So, now you have a feedback loop of people being conditioned by algorithms to be maximally outrageous and those masses of people spontaneously generating memes and social connections that reinforce outrage and fear.

      This poison is now spreading into our social institutions and governments. Facts matter less than saying things that are outrageous and valuing the truth is obviously a silly proposition. After all, it’s plainly obvious that it is much harder to get upvotes if you care about the truth…

      Try it, go to a community that matches your political leanings and try to correct misinformation. If you’re not banned you will be buried in downvotes because people don’t value the truth as much as they value an entertaining lie.

      • @UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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        02 months ago

        I wanted to let you know there is an option in your settings so you don’t see upvotes or downvotes.

        Lemmy (AFAIK) doesn’t even show you your total upvotes (karma… whatever it’s called) by default either. None of these imaginary points fucking matter.

        So why don’t you do yourself a favor and uncheck these boxes and not give a fuck what others think about your comment.

        I know I have.

        (Lemmy is rad as fuck)

  • edric
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    02 months ago

    The information age of the internet grew too fast before humans could get an actual sense of the repercussions, and it was just a matter of time for the greedy people in power all over the world to use it to their advantage.

  • @samus12345@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    A ruling class of ultra wealthy lording over the vast majority of people who are left with crumbs is a common sign that an empire is in decline. With the US having more global influence than any previous empire, the whole world will be feeling the effects in one way or another.

  • @FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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    02 months ago

    Because people say stupid shit like “but they have laser-guided drones and you have a rifle!”

    Fucking idiots do not understand how revolution works and dont know that the US military has failed every invasion.

  • @CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 months ago

    It feels that way, because it kind of is winning a bunch of battles. Whether it’s “winning the war” is much more up for interpretation - the past was seriously shit going just a few generations back, and it will take a lot of backwards progress until we get anywhere comparable.

    Okay, so why is it happening? When it comes to democratic backsliding specifically, the first reflex everyone had was to blame social media bubbles for causing runaway political polarisation, but it turns out breaking those bubbles actually increases radicalisation, so that’s not it. Another theory I’ve heard is that in a democracy, the weakening of a political party inevitably creates space for extremists to take control. There definitely was some building dissatisfaction with the status-quo right before the trouble began, I could feel it, and in the case of the US specifically winning a party is nearly as good as winning the country.

    It’s also worth considering this has happened before. Since the French revolution itself the path to liberalism has been two steps forward, one step back. I don’t know what causes it exactly, but the dip we’re in is big - comparable to the one before WWII.

    Even evil people are winning. Why?

    That’s yet another separate question, which I struggle with too. One notable bad person isn’t even smart-evil.

    It’s been shown in studies that narcissists achieve more conventional success and social status, despite the fact they pretty much ruin everything and everyone they touch. It’s a real thing. Bad actors are given far more leeway than would be game-theoretically rational for us to give.