10 ms·
It's almost like the media is deliberately choosing a divisive angle at every problem. COVID impacts small businesses regardless of their owners' race or gender
by john_moscow 6y ago
It's almost like the media is deliberately choosing a divisive angle at every problem. COVID impacts small businesses regardless of their owners' race or gender or sexual preference. It's a perfect "common enemy" that would normally help people unite. Like finding and sharing clever ways of reducing transmission while running your shop, or moving as many things as possible online. But nope, this wouldn't get as many clicks as forcing people to clash over their differences instead of working together in search of a common solution. Divide-and-conquer in action.
- the-dude 6y agoIdentity politics is divide and conquer. Mind boggling.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Consultant32452 6y agoWe're in the midst of the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. We destroyed small businesses but Wal-Mart/Amazon is making money hand over fist, not to mention the trillions in bailout/spending while John Q Public got a couple thousand bucks. If you want to pull something like that off it's best if you can keep the low status people arguing about masks and melanin.
- oblio 6y agoFacebook and Google also destroyed small, local newspapers, magazines and generally local advertising places. All this revenue is siphoned from around the world so that it can be hoarded in offshore tax havens and not even taxed in the US. At least, if you rob us blind in the rest of the world, have the decency to do something useful with the money :-)
- Consultant32452 6y agoThey're doing their part by keeping us angry about melanin, masks, and pronouns. The more "sophisticated" among us will chatter on about which political party will be taking point position in the wealth transfer, but that's all we get. It's grifting season and every politically connected business has a role to play.
- jacobwilliamroy 6y agoYes the media will try to piss everyone off, because it is profit driven and pissing people off is the best way to fuel engagement. Anger memes spread the best. It's a mixture of a profit-driven business and the competition with other profit-driven businesses which leads them to act this way. The game needs to be redesigned if you want them to play differently. In either case, it's more important to be educated to know that the media is divisive, and that the only way to overcome media bias is to increase one's bandwidth of information: read all the major news outlets. Don't just rely on one news source. Get to know who owns which papers and always keep an eye out for conflicts of interest when reading about certain subjects.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- netcan 6y agoSpecific framing aside... A "common enemy" dynamic is not guaranteed even when/if the enemy is a non-metaphorical enemy army. The opposite dynamic can also unfold, as well as the more common many-against many dynamic with multiple, competing, fluid alliances. See the Syrian civil war for a recent example. When the "enemy" is a disease, disaster or somesuch... I think the opposite often emerges. In fact, these things tend to produce exactly this kind of thing. Hardening of identities, conflict between groups, blame... In Jewish history, for example, epidemics and plagues yielded some of the darkest times. Times of plenty are better for solidarity, usually. When times are tough, people group. People conflict... unfortunately.
- rwmj 6y agoThis guy has been studying the link: https://scholar.harvard.edu/bfriedman/pages/moral-consequences-economic-growth https://scholar.harvard.edu/bfriedman/pages/moral-consequenc... https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bfriedman/files/the_moral_consequences_of_economic_growth_0.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bfriedman/files/the_moral_...