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Addiction to Outrage (2020)

• ipsocannibal 6y ago
  Archive link: https://archive.is/nMiHk https://archive.is/nMiHk
  • kactus 6y ago
    Thank you, Medium is ruining my life.
    • tonystubblebine 6y ago
      There's got to be a better HN policy-level solution than this. This author put their article behind a paywall because they get paid for that. And here we are, a pretty well-to-do community, stealing it. I don't see how it's our choice to do that. If this author wanted to share it with us, they have a non-paywall article link they could share (or they would have published it outside the paywall). We could just not allow any paywalled content in the feeds. That would include the NYT. Or we could mark it so that people knew not to click through if they didn't have a membership. Or... I bet several of the big publications, Better Programming which I run and Towards Data Science would be fine reflexively posting the non-paywalled version here. They key though is that the authors really deserve to be part of that discussion.
      • ipsocannibal 6y ago
        For reference see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html for the question regarding paywalled content.
• fullshark 6y ago
  It's certainly ruining all ad-based social media platforms
  • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    And all kinds of formerly respectable media. Over the last decade newspapers that were either dry and centrist or devoted to particular causes outside of the current culture wars, suddenly began to run daily articles that were strident from either one side of the culture wars or the other. The reason for that is almost solely desire for maximum clicks to ensure ad-based revenue. People should keep that in mind when they feel outrage at an article and are tempted to say "of course, X publication said that, they are supporters of Y!" In fact, the newspaper’s management may not actually support the political or social cause appearing in its editorials, they simply run that content because advertising revenue is higher with it. This mercenery disingenuousness is one of the greatest crises of our time, I feel.
• smt88 6y ago
  The problem is that you can't go anywhere that's safe from outrage-bait. You can't watch local news, network news, or cable news. You can't use Twitter, Facebook, or reddit. All of those things mix objective info with outrage, and you can't seem to get the former without the latter. I myself have given up all social media and use RSS readers now, but the "recommended" or "trending" stories on news sites still have some of those stories in them.
  • FourthProtocol 6y ago
    I think how you use a thing might make for some middle ground. Facebook has consumed many forums I use for my hobby, and so I now go to Facebook for that. I don't read my feed or whatever it's called, I only go for some very specific groups which focus on a single interest. No doom scrolling, no anger, just the occasional sense of awe at the creativity people in those groups are capable of. The old way my family and friends used to use social media (keeping in touch and up to date on family stuff) has migrated to first Whatsapp and now Telegram. I do however doomscroll on Pintrest, although for positive reasons -- primarily inspiration, and some learning.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • iliekcomputers 6y ago
    The solution is to read more curated better quality stuff. There are more quality books written in the last 100 years than you'll ever finish. There are high quality magazines like Lapham's Quarterly. Even weekly magazines like The Economist have a marked increase in quality compared to daily news or social media. My point here is, do you really need to know what big thing happened every single hour? If it's so important, you'll come to know of it anyways. It's okay to let time filter out the low quality stuff and then consume the high quality stuff instead.
    • smt88 6y ago
      I take your point, but I live in a state in the US where the government is constantly trying to take away voting rights. Democracy is important, so I pay attention. I also need to keep up with many/most industries for work, because I have clients in many areas and need to sound knowledgeable when I talk to them.
• drawkbox 6y ago
  Doomscrolling caused by "engagement" metrics. When engagement is all that matters, the most engagement comes when people are divisive, mad/angry or even pushed to extremes. When you feel yourself getting bothered, angry and you have to prove someone wrong on the internet, step away. You are taking valuable time from your own projects and quality of life. People can have different opinions and that is ok, your ideas and opinions are what make you, see that as your unique tool to success. On top of that many "organic opinions" are actually astroturfing and PR designed to promote or get you to "engage".
  • pmg102 6y ago
    But getting bothered, angry and proving someone wrong on the internet ARE my own projects. What would I do without them? :/
    • edoceo 6y ago
      Go outside?
      • WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
        I think FL's 13 month summers drove all our boomers on to the internet.
  • colmvp 6y ago
    Hear hear. For me at least it's been a vice for decades. First it was discussion/gaming forums, then it was Fark, then Digg, and then Reddit. It's just as detrimental as being addicted to alcohol/drugs/games to distract you from life. In controlled doses it's okay but when it starts to take over an entire day or periods of a day/week from doing other things that could be giving your mind/body some life, that's when you really have to check in and ask yourself is this worth it?
    • yuppie_scum 6y ago
      Don’t forget slashdot
• LB232323 6y ago
  It is if you stay tuned into these outlets. Pop culture is not healthy, it is exploitative. Its greatest strength is emotional manipulation. I can't relate with the collective "we" in this article. I feel a lot more stable and closer to reality after disengaging from big social media corporations.
• tayo42 6y ago
  I agree selling outrage is a problem, (I like the phrase outrage porn) but you do need some balance. You shouldn't just only focus on your self. Your pretty privileged to do that (take a deep breathe before you freak out about me refering to privilege, or maybe read the article again heh) The things he mentioned are important, I don't think ignoring societies faults is the right thing to do. Maybe some education. Collective outrage does make change happen too, and things do need to change. I guess outrage is needed, but it needs to actual important topics. Not manufactured packaged and sold to certain audiences like the Dr Seuss stuff
• undefined1 6y ago
  history will not look kindly on Twitter, Facebook and the news media. they're even worse than the tobacco industry.
• hi5eyes 6y ago
  unfortunately a lot of people have a hard time realizing 99% of the content they're exposed to is pointless and solely meant to waste your time/put you into a heightened emotional state. lot of mental illness on social media/twitter brought on by getting baited into interacting with all the noise for the people using these platforms to build, I understand using them. for the rest of the users it's probably a net negative to themselves and the ones around them.
  • oxymoron 6y ago
    I like the argument that Taleb makes in _Fooled by randomness_, which is essentially that most news has negative informative value because most of it is just noise. Only with time does the signal appear.
• jackcosgrove 6y ago
  I stopped participating in social media outside of old-school forums, and my stress level went way down. I took a look around, saw that fewer people were living in poverty than ever, I have a quality of life my parents never had, and all the predictions of doom over the past decade or so never came about. Life is pretty much the same or slightly better for me since then. Maybe I am lucky, but a lot of the broad stats back up that this is a great time to be alive.
  • xyzelement 6y ago
    You are the winner. There are multiple lenses to look at everything. Chose the lenses that works for you - optimism is just as realistic as pessimism and nihilism.
  • jeetelongname 6y ago
    While I am glad you have found inner peace or some thing ignoring the world won't make it any less shitty for those who have to deal with the consequences. While social media is fueling outrage people have reasons to be angry with the world and to ignore it is to be ignorant of the problems that real people have to deal with.
    • largbae 6y ago
      The point of this article is to, instead of feeling and spreading outrage for the shitty things you cannot change, go work to change and enjoy the things you can.
    • WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      To add some nuance: Me being angry over systemic harm to vulnerable individuals - harm perpetuated by powerful interests - this anger is reasonable, often productive. Me being part of a 1M strong mob dog-piling the single racist nitwit - I am the powerful interest in this scenario.
    • lolinder 6y ago
      Acknowledging that we have a lot of work to do improving things further doesn't require us to simultaneously accept the idea that the world is a worse place today than it was a generation ago. Indeed, noting that real progress has been made made, as the parent does, seems like the first step toward hopefully pursuing further progress—it's proof it can work!
• asjldkfin 6y ago
  Addiction to outrage isn't ruining anybody's life. It's an inability to control one's emotions that's ruining people's lives. When somebody says something offensive to a well-adjusted person, do you know what they do? They shrug it off, because words are just that. For some less-adjusted people, it seems an offensive statement is an existential threat of sorts. Unfortunately, social media concentrates the less-adjusted people as well as the well-adjusted. It's just the less-adjusted have plenty of time to spend on social media. It also doesn't help that most people don't really spend any time developing their mental resiliency as a child because educational environments are overly protective.
  • xmzx 6y ago
    People shrugged off all the anti-Asian rhetoric pushed in American politics for the past five years especially the last year. Now we have major increase in anti-Asian hate crimes and attacks including one mass shooting. I guess the Asian-American community should continue to shrug it off, as you say.
    • asjldkfin 6y ago
      I'm sorry, but how does this have anything to do with "addiction to outrage"? Unless you're implying the Asian-Americans upset are unjustifiably "addicted to outrage" or "less-adjusted", which I'm going to assume isn't your intention.
    • throwoutttt 6y ago
      3 to 28 is not a major increase. That many people are shot in some American cities every night.
    • dimgl 6y ago
      This is admittedly a low quality comment, but I really feel like saying: herewego.jpg I haven't heard anything about "anti-Asian" sentiment till last week. Maybe it, you know, doesn't exist at the level you think it does?
      • 6y ago
• paxys 6y ago
  100% agree with the premise. Outrage culture is ruining all reasonable discourse in this country (and world), and is now massively fueled by politicians, corporations, media for their own gains. I do not, however, agree with their solution. Turning off the news/Facebook/Twitter and ignoring everything happening around you is not going to make things better. The world has made a lot of progress over the last few centuries (as the article calls out), but all of it has been driven by common people like you and me getting outraged over things that might not directly concern us. Anger is sometimes justified. Instead, when you read something that angers you, take a few minutes and do that extra step of research. Could it be completely fake? Does the headline reflect the contents of the article correctly (it is normally not written by the author)? Is the data researched and sourced? Is what you are reading heavily opinionated? Are you subscribed to a healthy mix of sources? If enough people actually did this (instead of reading the title and going straight to Twitter/Reddit/HN), meaningless outrage will disappear without the trade-off of not being informed about the world. You will organically discover that everything is a lot more reasonable and moderate than people want you to believe. And if something actually isn't, you will be able to see it.
  • vlunkr 6y ago
    Well I don't think it has to be taken so literally. 1% of the news is actual new info that you should know, the other 99% is repetition, opinion, speculation, propaganda, etc. You can check the news once a day from a reasonably neautal source and know all the relevant information.
    • gpanders 6y ago
      You can check the news far less than once a day. If you apply a low-pass filter to current events by, say, checking once a week or even less, the broad movements and important things will remain while the shallow and ephemeral will naturally be filtered out.
    • WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      > the other 99% is repetition, opinion, speculation, propaganda, etc. I'd respectfully amend this to: the other 99% is repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, sportball, sportball, sportball, sportball, celebs, celebs, opinion, speculation, propaganda, etc.
• bjt2n3904 6y ago
  This article is the dark underbelly of "I Like that the Big Boat is Stuck".
• xmzx 6y ago
  This is a very privileged, ignorant take. He seems to be lumping in all outrage as the same. People being outraged at Nike doing something is the equivalent to voter rights being taken away because certain people of a certain race vote a certain way. These things aren't remote the same. And his idea that political parties should "work together" often means you're negotiating the rights of people, who neither party member usually is part of, either to have more or less rights, and you're negotiating them like they're bargaining chips. This author and so many people who aren't part of marginalized groups really can't grasp this.
  • naravara 6y ago
    Irrespective of how justifiable the anger is, the root issue that compulsive anger is both poisonous to mental health and that it gets in the way of critical thinking in ways that make it easy to be manipulated are both true. Things don't need to be morally equivalent to have the same mental, emotional, and physiological effects. It is also possible to be mad about stuff and take productive action on them without regularly having to stoke the outrage fires. In fact that's critical to being able to think strategically about it.
  • kemonocode 6y ago
    Not all causes are made equal, and they're not necessarily important to the same degree for everybody. That's not being "privileged" or "ignorant", that's the patent truth.
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • betwixthewires 6y ago
    Sounds to me like you're deliberately missing the point to as to protect your own outrage. "Of course what they are outraged about is bullshit, but what I'm outraged about is 100% valid and reasonable." The article isn't saying there aren't things to be legitimately outraged about. The article is saying 1) being outraged doesn't fix anything, and 2) of course you feel strongly about what you're outraged about, but objectively there's a high chance you're overreacting to your own detriment and the detriment of those around you. More to your view though, the history of politics is negotiating the rights of people, look at how the UN Declaration on Human Rights was negotiated. Finally, this gatekeeping idea that basically says that anyone that disagrees with you cannot possibly understand, that is complete horseshit. Words like "privileged" and "marginalized groups" give away this completely wrong mentality. We all really can grasp it. We just disagree. We might have very good reasons to disagree, you just refuse to try to understand them. If you did maybe you'd find a way to show us how they're wrong.
• bubblicious 6y ago
  While I agree with the overall feeling of the article, I couldn't help but smile at the irony of its clickbait title (which seemed unintended). Sensationalism definitely attracts the eye.
• colechristensen 6y ago
  A lot of modern technology is something like the evolution of an angler fish. Design a technology, optimize that technology for some metric, figure out a way to profit from it. An angler fish lights up, attracts prey which hasn't learned to know any better, and eats it. A tech company lights up with a feed, optimizes it (often blindly) to whatever attracts the most prey... er ... audience, and then takes from them what it can. We didn't evolve in an environment with this kind of psychologically manipulative trickery, and the tech companies often barely know that what they are doing is manipulation at all, they're just measuring success and iterating to enhance that metric.
• primitivesuave 6y ago
  It also doesn't seem to be accomplishing much - after tearing down the statues and protesting for months, both sides seem even less willing to consider the other side's point of view.
  • watwut 6y ago
    There are hundreds new laws and actual policy changes. And I covered both sides by previous sentence. Neither side goal was for other side to love them. Getting policies and laws is the ultimate goal.
  • Dumblydorr 6y ago
    I consider it a positive that we don't venerate slave loving traitors in public, don't you? Slavery is the blackest sin upon the American history, outrage machine doesn't change that.
• mmaunder 6y ago
  Addiction to outrage is also extremely profitable. Perhaps we’ll see those manufacturing addictive outrage face similar consequences as those manufacturing addictive painkillers.
• bmitc 6y ago
  No, the things causing outrage are ruining our lives. There are multiple systems of society, at least in the U.S. that are flat out failing.
  • dimgl 6y ago
    You don't seriously believe this? Have you been outside in the last few months?
    • bmitc 6y ago
      I’m seeing my fiancée for the first time in well over a year today, the separation caused by systems failures, so yes, I do seriously believe this.
• hprotagonist 6y ago
  Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first feeling, 'Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as that,' or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything -- God and our friends and ourselves included -- as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred. -- C.S. Lewis
  • Thorentis 6y ago
    And even worse than this, is that I see people go on to accuse the writer of the second story as being an apologist for the events in the first, and making them out to be even worse than the perpetrators of the first story. Essentially, whoever is the first to bring "bad things" to light, must be immediately trusted and considered completely truthful and no criticism is possible. Whoever "cancels" somebody first automatically wins. There is no chance for defence, counter-argument, or questioning the "evidence"/here-say. If you get in first with breaking a story, event, past mis-deed, then you win.
    • me_me_me 6y ago
      If you accused of crime and go to court, you will be guilty in the eyes of your neighbours no matter how baseless the court case was, no matter that someone else had confessed to that crime. That's the sad reality.
      • pnt12 6y ago
        "That's the sad reality." That's debatable, or incredible cynic imo. But even if so, losing your job is not comparable to losing reputation.
• Edd314159 6y ago
  “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” - Mark Twain
• pharmakom 6y ago
  But outrage is also a powerful motivator for changing society for the better. Right now in the UK people are protesting an authoritarian anti-protest bill. How many are out there because they were outraged by it? What if they were at home, happily following their respective hobbies instead? If no one ever speaks up, what prevents society from sliding towards fascism / 1984 / etc?
  • jpttsn 6y ago
    Do you believe the protest is working well, achieving meaningful change? Have protestors so far been able to stem the slide toward 1984?
    • pharmakom 6y ago
      I think they are losing, but I’m glad they are trying. I don’t think I would be so brave if I were in Hong Kong, for example.
  • inglor_cz 6y ago
    Things that work in some context may turn fairly dangerous outside of it. An example. Being hungry and finding high-calorie food is, in our natural state, a very important mechanism for survival. Our tribal ancestors wouldn't have survived all the famines and periods of bad luck or bad weather if we weren't programmed to seek high-calorie food. Unfortunately, in the developed world of 2021, we have so much cheap high-calorie food in our lives that blind obedience to the ancient "gorge yourself!" impulse is killing us. The same applies to outrage. Twitter is an outrage mall, with outrage screaming at you from every shop window there. It is not in anyone's interest to buy it all.
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • sonthonax 6y ago
    The irony is that the Bristol protesters are doing a great job at swinging public opinion towards the bill. The police have been really accommodating of protests. It’s an incredibly fine line they have to walk, between the fairly soft rules of engagement, the right to protest, and the COVID restrictions.
• whymauri 6y ago
  I just got off a two month, almost completely disconnected van dwelling trip. With such little Internet, I literally forgot who the president was. The complete detoxification from the outrage machine... it was like pure heroin. The snap back to reality almost broke me. Humans are not meant to doomscroll. They are not meant to be this angry, this often. Just like disconnecting felt like a high, coming back was the come down. Those months/weeks completely changed my view on media and doomscrolling. I can't stomache it anymore, and avoiding that behavior has helped me be more positive over the last week.
  • nicbou 6y ago
    I've done this a few times, although I usually had Internet wherever I stopped. What surprises me every time is how few notifications and important things I miss. It seems to plateau quickly, and whether I leave for a day or a month, it's about the same. I guess the outrage doesn't affect me so much. However, being constantly hooked on a source of dopamine does. After an hour away from the screen, I start planning activities, fixing things around the house etc.
• deleted 6y ago
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• benlumen 6y ago
  Is anyone using website blockers? I broke a Google News habit by modifying my Windows hosts file once, but there are more sophisticated solutions now. Quick search reveals tools like "Freedom" and "Cold Turkey".
• slacka 6y ago
  Worse yet, it's destroying the fabric of our society. I've know my neighbor since I was a kid, always having a friendly relationship. Just yesterday we were talking about my uncle and somehow he jumped how angry he was at "Coke for training their employees to 'be less white'". So I pull out my phone, and first hit is a fact-check showing it's a right-wing, culture war fabrication. I see the same on the other side with younger generation. We've lost a shared set of facts. Social media and the filter bubble it creates is destroying our country by radicalizing people with addictive disinformation.
  • kingsuper20 6y ago
    Probably the most forgiving take on the subject. https://www.newsweek.com/coca-cola-facing-backlash-says-less-white-learning-plan-was-about-workplace-inclusion-1570875 https://www.newsweek.com/coca-cola-facing-backlash-says-less... mea culpa. Here I am, feeding the beast.
    • slacka 6y ago
      I should have left out any details because they are a distraction. My point was I could not have a friendly conversation with my neighbor, because he was all wound up over a culture war issue fed by Facebook. But for the record, here was what I saw on my quick phone fact-check at the time, that contradicted his claims about Coke having an anti-white/anti-conservative policy[1][2]. > In a statement, Coca-Cola denied the video and images circulating on social media were part of the company’s learning curriculum. But these details really didn't matter. What would have been a positive neighborly interaction 20 years ago, was soured because of today's environment. This is going on all across America. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/03/02/fact-check-coca-cola-ceos-alleged-insult-conservatives-false/6872079002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/03/02/fac... [2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/coca-cola-training-less-white/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/coca-cola-training-less-wh...
  • labatyd 6y ago
    You should at least entertain the idea that you might be the one who is wrong in that interaction. I googled your exact quote and it looks like it’s 100% true not some right wing conspiracy. Even if you are going to try and bend over backward and claim that’s not what coco cola intended, the literal fact is they require their employees to take a training and in that training they are told to be less white. That makes your quote above literally a true thing that happened. I can see why he would be angry at you for trying to pretend the literal facts in front of his face are not true.
• kingkawn 6y ago
  It is not the outrage, but the outrageous, that is responsible.
• gmac 6y ago
  Outrage is a problem, but I don't think it's just (social) media that are responsible. The article says that things are better than they were 100 years ago, but politically speaking I'm pretty sure they're not better than they were 20 or 40 years ago, and they may well be worse. In the US and UK, at least, democracy seems pretty creaky. So yes, your outrage is being gamed, but it is also real. The challenge is to channel it into something useful, and (social) media is little help with that. Edit: on brief reflection, maybe (social) media is the problem after all, since perhaps politicians themselves are now optimising (social) media exposure via maximum outrage, and chance the consequences.
  • dimgl 6y ago
    You seriously think that life now, with all of the advancements in technology and healthcare, is not better than it was 40 years ago? Not better than the 1980s?
    • kingsuper20 6y ago
      Oddly, the unemployment rate is better than it was in the early 1980s.
• jsz0 6y ago
  Outrage is one part of the problem but it's the lack of shame and guilt that allows it to flourish. People are too insulated from feeling shameful about their own behavior these days. Everyone's got a quick excuse to justify their animalistic behaviors now
• djohnston 6y ago
  I remember when I started working I got hooked on this subreddit tumblrinaction. At first it was just funny "Oh PC culture you're so ridiculous,", but over a few months it got really dark and I started impulsively heading there to feed this weird anger. On reflection I realized it was the same thing that happened to a family member with Fox News, but here it happened much more quickly.
  • cma 6y ago
    Sounds a bit like Orwell's Two Minutes Hate.
  • Applejinx 6y ago
    There's a Chrome widget that flags posters to a set of subreddits (i.e. Trump supporters et al, general rightwingers and dark enlightenment folks) with extra red signs on the posts specifying which 'bad' subreddits the poster posts to. (I'd like to see a wider range of flagging, perhaps different colors) tumblrinaction is most definitely one of the subreddits marked for 'warning signs'. I think I could propose a set of complementary subreddits for a contrasting color, which uses politically opposite extreme views… to accomplish literally the same effect. Hence my desire for the additional tool, because I've used the 'flagging' tool as a way to not be drawn into argument and outrage. Sort of 'wearing your sponsors on your sleeve' but for reddit posts. Wouldn't mind seeing that extended more broadly.
• eudajmonia 6y ago
  Recognizing Propaganda Propaganda appears in a variety of forms and uses common techniques to successfully influence people, including: Activating strong emotions Responding to audience needs & values Simplifying information & ideas Attacking opponents Technique: Activate Strong Emotions Technique: Activate Strong Emotions Propaganda plays on human emotions—fear, hope, anger, frustration, sympathy—to direct audiences toward the desired goal. In the deepest sense, propaganda is a mind game—the skilful propagandist exploits people’s fears and prejudices. Successful propagandists understand how to psychologically tailor messages to people’s emotions in order to create a sense of excitement and arousal that suppresses critical thinking. By activating emotions, the recipient is emotionally moved by the message of the propagandist. Labelling is another weapon of choice for the propagandist. What emotions are important for those who create propaganda? Fear, pity, anger, arousal, compassion, hatred, resentment - all these emotions can be intensified by using the right labels. Technique: Simplify Information & Ideas Technique: Simplify Information & Ideas Propaganda may use accurate and truthful information, or half-truths, opinions, lies and falsehoods. Successful propaganda tells simple stories that are familiar and trusted, often using metaphors, imagery and repetition to make them seem natural or "true." Oversimplification is effective when catchy and memorable short phrases become a substitute for critical thinking. Oversimplifying information does not contribute to knowledge or understanding, but because people naturally seek to reduce complexity, this form of propaganda can be effective. Technique: Respond to Audience Needs & Values Technique: Respond to Audience Needs & Values Effective propaganda conveys messages, themes, and language that appeal directly, and many times exclusively, to specific and distinct groups within a population. Propagandists may appeal to you as a member of a family, or your racial or ethnic identity, or even your hobbies, your favourite celebrities, your beliefs and values, or even your personal aspirations and hopes for the future. Sometimes, universal values are activated, as when our deepest human values—the need to love and be loved, to feel a sense of belonging and a sense of place—are activated by propaganda. By creating messages that appeal directly to the needs, hopes, and fears of specific groups, propaganda becomes personal and relevant. When messages are personally relevant, people pay attention and absorb key information and ideas. Technique: Attack Opponents Technique: Attack Opponents Propaganda can serve as a form of political and social warfare to identify and vilify opponents. It can call into question the legitimacy, credibility, accuracy, and even the character of one’s opponents and their ideas. Because people are naturally attracted to conflict, a propagandist can make strategic use of controversy to get attention. Attacking opponents also encourages "either-or" or "us-them" thinking which suppresses the consideration of more complex information and ideas. Propaganda can also be used to discredit individuals, destroy their reputation, exclude specific groups of people, incite hatred or cultivate indifference.
• elteto 6y ago
  You can clearly see this in action: open reddit in an incognito tab and half of the posts on the front page are from outrage “porn” subreddits: PublicFreakouts, JusticeServed, instant_regret, IdiotsInCars. Go ahead and try it. Outrage is highly engaging.
  • Dumblydorr 6y ago
    Does anyone else just cringe and not enjoy those subreddits? Sometimes, I see a place like twoXchromosomes with an outrage post about mysogyny and even that makes me cringe. I think the top 1% of these topics skimmed off for us will be highly entertaining for many who love outrage porn. I prefer mindless memery and simple jokes to all those outrage posts. I'm not being productive but it doesn't poison my mood.
• anm89 6y ago
  It's crazy how 75%+ of the content on reddit has the single unifying theme of "this should outrage you"
  • lazyweb 6y ago
    For real. Cut down on my reddit usage last year - mostly lurking anway. Might also have something to do with discovering hn around the same time :)
  • fortytwo79 6y ago
    Agree completely. Whenever I see the phrase, "let that sink in," that's a signal for me to stop reading. They're just going to tell me to be angry.
• TechBro8615 6y ago
  I remain optimistic that society will outgrow its desire to feed the hate machine. The younger generations will realize how stupid it is and outrage bait will be relegated to the corner of the internet for angry millennials, just like mainstream news and the boomers before us.
• deleted 6y ago
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• gugagore 6y ago
  This article would resonate with me almost entirely if not for this part: > Here’s the thing — the world right now, despite all its problems, nastiness and tragedy, is far better than it was a hundred years ago. The world a hundred years ago was better than it was a hundred years before that. In other words, the world might not be improving fast enough for you, but it’s improving every day. Optimism is wonderful and necessary, and also I think it's important to recognize ways in which the world might not be improving every day. I think optimism is great when it's forward looking and about hope. When applied backwards, I don't personally like it that much. I'm reminded of this short (12 minute) video clip "In Defense of Optimism w/ John Nichols" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj7pN6Assu0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj7pN6Assu0
• dalbasal 6y ago
  Drugs are getting weird, but I suppose that was predictable. In fact, here's a prediction from 11 years ago. The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago. And unless the forms of technological progress that produced these things are subject to different laws than technological progress in general, the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40. http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html
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• amanzi 6y ago
  I agree 100% with the article, but I will just point out that the outrage ruins everyone's lives, not just the ones conducting the outrage. This is why it's difficult to ignore, even if (like me) you eliminate/reduce social media participation.
• Aloha 6y ago
  When you read news, the first thing you should be asking is, does this actually matter? I think if more folks did this, they'd be lots happier.
• anonu 6y ago
  Obama called out the "super woke" generation a few years back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM "If all you're doing is casting stones, you're probably not going to get very far"...
• emrah 6y ago
  Outrage is helpful only if one is willing and able to do something about the problems, either in one's personal life or globally. If not, it doesn't go beyond being harmful to one's own health.
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• Traster 6y ago
  This article deeply, deeply fails to resonate with me. I'm not outraged. I'm not outraged by some guy making some poltiically incorrect statement, I'm not particularly outrage by the people who sleuth through their twitter comments to find a reason to be outraged. It's just not important. What's more- it seems it's only important to people who already think it's important. It was both a reason for RMS to leave the FSF and not a reason for him to leave the FSF. It was entirely determined by how much he felt accountable to outrage. The thing is though, I don't personally believe that it should be all or nothing. I don't want to go on your crusade, but I do want to discuss things and I think we can say things are bad without the tandem groups who are "cancelling" people and decrying "cancelling" people. Both those groups take extreme stances to stifle reasonable discussion. The constant railing against "cancellation" is just as stupid and unthinking as the people who want to form a mob and "cancel" people.
  • Thorentis 6y ago
    What is stupid about the constant railing against cancellation, when groups exist that do want to form mobs and ruin somebody's career over a comment made 10 years ago?
    • Traster 6y ago
      What I'm saying is that the correct response to those mobs is to ignore them or discuss their points on their merits. What often happens (particularly on HN) is a counter-mob forms that rails against the general idea of cancellation, despite the fact that often there are actually underlying reasons for being aggreived. If someone said something stupid 10 years ago the correct answer isn't for them to be fired, it's for them to apologise. But instead we see one group proclaim "Off with his head" and another group simply counter-mobilize. You see it even in the most extreme scenarios, today on HN we've literally got an article about Harvard closing down something because of it's links to Epstein, and people talking about "cancel culture". There actually are degrees of badness that we need to talk about beyond tagging everything as "cancel culture".
    • matthewmacleod 6y ago
      Because it's a dumbass catchphrase made up to make you outraged and you're buying in to it.
• WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
  > Addiction to Outrage Is Ruining Your Life How I came to this same conclusion. I voted for GwBush 2x. I found myself annoyed by compulsive Bush hatred; it often seemed divorced from the reasons given. However, I did come to realize that the parallels between Bush hatred and my earlier Clinton hatred were too strong to deny. FF and Obama wins 2008. I wasn't at all happy but so be it. Fifteen minutes later - as in 15 actual minutes - red rooms exploded with threads calling for his impeachment. Why? IDK. The reasons were incoherent. More than anything, it seemed like an arms-race escalation of rage-driven thinking. It was enough for me tho. I wanted to be done being an outrage junkie.
  • not_kurt_godel 6y ago
    I find it outrageous that you fail to see why people compulsively hate Bush - did you miss the whole Iraq war?
    • WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
      Compulsive hate isn't known to be healthy. and The challenge wasn't the reasonable outrage over the Iraq war, it was the selective outrage. The earliest protests tended to be from folks who were silent during Clinton incursions. One could make worthy arguments that some wars are not outrageous while others are - however it may not hold up well when one considers how Bush's war became largely uninteresting (to protesters and to news orgs) when it transferred into Obama's hands. Code Pink (who has been wholly consistent) couldn't get the time of day after 1/20/2009. To be clear, my assertion isn't intended to demonize the left but to highlight a general inconsistency. Refined with age, my position this: By failing to hold reasonable PotUS accountable, we gift power to unreasonable ones. (ref: see FastTrack Authority or Record Number Of Whistleblowers Prosecuted For Espionage)
      • not_kurt_godel 6y ago
        Bush expanded executive power tremendously in his first term - how did you hold him accountable by voting for him again after that?
• JackFr 6y ago
  I cannot watch John Oliver’s show on HBO anymore. I understand that it addresses some public policy question worth looking at. But the reality is that rather than thoughtful content, it’s a finely tuned formula intended to produce maximum outrage. It doesn’t even matter what the topic is, the formula remains the same. The viewer gets the high of fake moral superiority while remaining fairly ill-informed. But hey, it’s cool, they’re comedy not a news program.
  • tayo42 6y ago
    His shows is investigative journalism with a comedic twist. What should a should journalism do then? His last show about plastic recycling was informative.
  • Applejinx 6y ago
    I stopped watching him as well, even though near as I can tell his politics and attitudes closely match my own. Better that I should just vote, and act, in line with my beliefs without spending extra time getting worked up into a state of rage in the service of them. John Oliver, Keith Olbermann, folks like that, are the Alex Jones of left-wing perspectives. You can share the views and still object to the mechanism for engagement they employ. I feel like we're learning hard lessons on what these mechanisms for being human, signify. It's a pity we're learning the lessons in such a damaging way.
    • Sporktacular 6y ago
      I'm not so sure if Oliver is just pushing a left wing position. Certainly not to an Alex Jones level of deceptiveness, and to a much higher degree of public service. When he explains how some shithead county sheriff starved an inmate to death or shows how one public defender is forced to take on 400 clients a year (I'm not being accurate here, though he is) then that's not a left wing position. Left vs right accusations just become excuses for inaction.
• eudajmonia 6y ago
  Generally, people can be classified into three groups: First, those who believe everything they consume; Second, those who no longer believe anything; Third, those who critically examine what they consume and form their judgments accordingly. Numerically, the first group is by far the strongest, being composed of the broad masses of the people. Intellectually, it forms the simplest portion of the nation. It cannot be classified according to occupation but only into grades of intelligence. Under this category come all those who have not been born to think for themselves or who have not learnt to do so and who, partly through incompetence and partly through ignorance, believe everything that is set before them in print. To these we must add that type of lazy individual who, although capable of thinking for himself out of sheer laziness gratefully absorbs everything that others had thought over, modestly believing this to have been thoroughly done. The second group is numerically smaller, being partly composed of those who were formerly in the first group and after a series of bitter disappointments are now prepared to believe nothing of what they see in print. They hate all newspapers. Either they do not read them at all or they become exceptionally annoyed at their contents, which they hold to be nothing but a congeries of lies and misstatements. The third group is easily the smallest, being composed of real intellectuals whom natural aptitude and education have taught to think for themselves and who in all things try to form their own judgments, while at the same time carefully sifting what they read. They will not read any newspaper without using their own intelligence to collaborate with that of the writer and naturally this does not set writers an easy task. Journalists appreciate this type of reader only with a certain amount of reservation. Hence the trash that newspapers are capable of serving up is of little danger much less of importance to the members of the third group of readers. In the majority of cases these readers have learnt to regard every journalist as fundamentally a rogue who sometimes speaks the truth. Most unfortunately, the value of these readers lies in their intelligence and not in their numerical strength, an unhappy state of affairs in a period where wisdom counts for nothing and majorities for everything. Nowadays when the voting papers of the masses are the deciding factor; the decision lies in the hands of the numerically strongest group; that is to say the first group, the crowd of simpletons and the credulous. It is an all-important interest of the State and a national duty to prevent these people from falling into the hands of false, ignorant or even evil-minded teachers. Therefore it is the duty of the State to supervise their education and prevent every form of offence in this respect. Particular attention should be paid to the Press; for its influence on these people is by far the strongest and most penetrating of all; since its effect is not transitory but continual. Its immense significance lies in the uniform and persistent repetition of its teaching.
• TeeMassive 6y ago
  People are surprised hearing that I never had a Twitter account, me being the tech nerd who likes arguing with strangers. First of all the characters length limit is clearly meant to favor witty jabs over well structured arguments. And then there's the fact that the only times I hear about Twitter are when people are getting outraged or their life destroyed. Why would I even be part of that? If I am to be part of a dangerous mob I'd rather go to a mushpit and have fun with me fellow headbangers. Then there was Reddit. Reddit used to be cool and all about diversity of ideas even with its left wing bias. But they never really appreciated the problem of coordinated account farming and their policy of who gets to be moderator which is by nature wide open to manipulation by giant PR firms and other online mobs. Now it's mostly uninteresting outrage like farming "racist" comments by creeping out old ladies, obvious product placements (I doubt most of Reddit user base became fans of the NBA, F1 and the NHL overnight) and political "blogs" maintained by PACs. Looking at the archived front page over the years I can really see sanity disappear slowly and pure folly take over like this grandparent we used to know who used to be nice when we were young but now shouts when you leave the door opened. I'd delete Facebook too, but family. At least delete the app from my phone. Good thing they made Messenger its own app. I used to follow various state media of various countries, and then I began mocking the CCP's propaganda, and low and behold it's always on my front page. Seeing it happened in real time is just very creepy, even if I engage in other pages much often.
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• KoenDG 6y ago
  The world a hundred years ago was better than it was a hundred years before that. In other words, the world might not be improving fast enough for you, but it’s improving every day. What a gross overgeneralization. What are we talking about exactly? Technological advancements? Yes, that's a lot better now. What technology is being used for? No, that's worse than 100 years ago. Climate? Worse than 100 years ago. And we could go on... This piece is a prime example of being very selective in what you're willing to consider, in order to build a narrative around something the person thinks is bad, and then everything perceived to be part of that lands in the negative. This then allows the writer to put themselves up as a voice of reason. Which is exactly what the author complains about, in a general sense. The idea of others that they are smarter than you, which the author tries to defeat by... throwing himself up as smarter than the people he's complaining about... He doesn't literally say it. Instead, he shits on everything these people do and goes "here's what you can do instead". Let's not split hairs: that's something you do when you believe you're smarter than someone. Anyone can take their time to write something in a fashion that seems calm and eloquent and when people call you out go "I didn't say that". We can still notice you worked your way around it. And no, not all opinions are equal. If someone's opinion is that the color of your skin, or the country you live in, or your sexual orientation, or your gender, etc... means it's okay for you to be attacked, that's not an opinion I have respect for. It firmly stands out that the "all opinions are equal" crowd seem to have always forgotten about opinions that involve discrimination. The problem here is the classic idea of "the democratic process is perfect and cannot be subverted in any way" while it clearly can. It's partly a hero fantasy, where your view of the world makes you oh-so-much smarter than people who don't hold it (ironically, what the author is complaining about). And partly a "perfect world" fantasy, in which people cannot bring themselves to consider that the world holds great injustices. Instead, only small inconveniences exist, and people who complain are exaggerating. Both come from a lack of experience and an unwillingness to believe others. Dr. King already said it in his letter from a Birmingham jail: "wait" almost always means "never". The only person to decide if things are changing fast enough, is the person who is being disadvantaged, when they are not feeling defeatist.
• dt3ft 6y ago
  This was wonderful to read. I believe that I am guilty of the thing the author calls the martyr complex. The world right now is indeed the best that it ever was and here I was constantly outraged about things I have no power to change. Life is too short. For me personally, it is time for a change.
• at_a_remove 6y ago
  I wonder how many people can read that and remember the "literally shaking" crowd thrashing about to the revelation that someone had two scoops of ice cream. TWO. The thing is, the people that this article is about are going to give themselves a pass. They love being outraged, they love the feeling of being outraged, and it eclipses any kind of self-reflection.
• gitowiec 6y ago
  The anger I feel now is much weaker than it was before. When I was addicted to weed and before I found my girlfriend which I currently have a child. The anger was my friend, thanks to it I never felt lonely, I never was alone (but I was, I was just alienated teen-ager that couldn't cope with life and my feelings). The anger I felt gave my strength. Strength to resolve problems and issues with relations and interactions. I felt so powerful I knew I could stand up to that person (father) that never told me good thing, never prised me, never agreed... The anger I felt to my parents I protected onto other people. The strong anger I felt sometimes was causing next day so blue that my mind was just wandering if suicide is the solution.
• iainctduncan 6y ago
  If you're like me, and you feel like you need to see some stuff for business reasons, but you hate all the shit the "engagers" put in our face (looking at you Twitter....), I can't recommend enough learning to add custom CSS. Actually, if you use the Stylebot chrome extension, it's so easy you don't even need to. I just hide everything i don't want to see. no recommendations, no trending bullshit, just the very select people who post only content I actually want to find out about.
• nindalf 6y ago
  The premise is so compelling - you can improve your mental health, free up your time and improve your relationships by insulating yourself from any source of outrage. You, you, you, you. Sometimes we need to think about others too. Of course we shouldn't be outraged by everything or spend all our time doom scrolling. That much we can all agree on. But the solution proposed here - unplugging completely, has consequences too. Last summer there were tragic deaths in America that triggered massive protests. One of the many heartening things about those protests is that many of those protesting weren't personally affected [1] by the issue at hand - policing of black communities. But they cared about their fellow citizens and they showed up. You want to call that outrage and demean it? Sure. But those people did something good. If we turn inward and only care about ourselves, we might find that no one cares when we need help. [1] - One Big Difference About George Floyd Protests: Many White Faces. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/us/george-floyd-white-protesters.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/us/george-floyd-white-pro...
• randomsearch 6y ago
  I think the mention of specific company policies really weakens the argument here. What Nike does is just irrelevant in scale compared to what Twitter or Facebook do. They are the platforms that threaten to destabilise the free world.
• alexashka 6y ago
  Meh, as if people who argue on twitter all day don't know it's stupid. They know. We all know. 1/3 of Americans are obese, you think they don't know? They know. We all know. These are systemic problems. If you try to solve them at an individual level of Jordan Peterson aka clean your room or Tony Robbins jump around yelling 'yes' to loud music, that'll last you a week, a month, a year and a life for 0.00001%. When the system is built to have shit food everywhere and healthy food in select places, when the infrastructure is built to make communities impossible, when you get taught useless shit for 12 years in school and more stupid shit through entertainment your whole life - don't blame the people who go haywire, the system makes you go crazy because it doesn't make any sense. Look at the developed world - these people are going extinct - they're having fewer than 2 children on average, eating themselves to death while talking about 'social media'. It's not social media, it's your culture and worldview. Of course who wants to have that conversation - just go read Steven Pinker about how we're doing better than ever.
• kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
  I agree with this a lot. I feel way less stressed out completely leaving reddit, all news, and so on.
• nexus2045 6y ago
  Over the past few years I've definitely been addicted to outrage porn and anything related to SJWs and cancel culture. Now I impulsively read YouTube comments to feel like I'm right. None of this has added any value to my life, if anything made me more antagonistic and feeling like the world is screwed. Meanwhile there are probably plenty of people out there who aren't caught up in the culture wars and are just working away at their craft, getting jobs they want and paid more.
  • kingsuper20 6y ago
    They (SJWs) do seem to have the bit in their teeth as of late, and the stories do make for good rage-bait. Of course, there's not a thing you can do about it besides improve your own lot in life and build productive local relationships. I've gone down the same path, but now it seems to me like there are two possibilities..(1)the insane people lose inertia and it all dies off or (2)the Red Guard really takes off and those newfound local relationships will save your bacon. tl;dr. I hear ya old son.
• ricardobayes 6y ago
  Turning away can't be the real solution, of course can't blame anyone who chooses so. I find the article interesting but oversimplifying. OP suggests that we don't discuss & try to solve large-scale problems and instead focus on actionable smaller bites. But, if we no longer can discuss problems how do we progress further as a society? How do I know what others with different views think of the matter? Harari argues everyone must gather as much information as possible so they make informed decisions as in our globalized world every decision counts.
• hypersoar 6y ago
  What a maddeningly lukewarm and privileged take. Your anger is being nurtured and harvested financial gain? Politicians are stoking outrage and fear to distract you from graft and corruption? You should disengage from it all and just, like, chill out, man? How bold. There are made-up outrages, blown out of proportion outrages, and real, genuine outrages. There are productive things you can do about them and there are worthless things you can do about them. These are all mired together, and there will never be clear, objective boundaries between them all. It's hard, but you have to deal with it if your goal is to try improve things. There are real, systemic issues, issues perpetuated, often knowingly, by people with power. Those aren't going to get fixed by being nicer to your social circle and ignoring everything else. To take an old example, the Civil Rights movement only succeeded because people became rightfully outraged by segregation and racial oppression. If your answer to that is "Sure, but that was then. We don't have any big, systemic problems like that anymore," you'll probably find agreement with most white Americans in 1953. This guy's choice of examples is telling. Calling people "a Nazi, a sexist, or a bigot" is what we should worry about. Not the society-wide protection of serial sexual abusers, not the rise of white nationalism, not the wildfire of state bills trying to legitimize transphobia. Those things don't matter to me, so what's the point? Obviously, spending all your time getting mad on Twitter is neither productive nor good for you. It's okay to not be a 100% all-the-time zealous advocate for good causes. And even if you are, you still need to take care of yourself. But the solution is not to just blow off everything that doesn't affect you.
  • Sporktacular 6y ago
    Spot on!
• kingsuper20 6y ago
  Hang on. So I'm not supposed to throw my drink glass at the wall because I just read "University of Oxford considers scrapping sheet music for being 'too colonial' after staff raise concerns about music curriculums' 'complicity in white supremacy' after Black Lives Matter movement" in the Daily Mail? Oh hell, now you tell me. Besides all the crazy people running around, who are best not read or watched, my general take is that any sufficiently large step in technology results in a shaking out. Agriculture, gunpowder, mass production, now communications networks. The time is nigh for not just ignoring negative value media but for hunkering down generally.
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• yt-sdb 6y ago
  The author's question reminds me of a pivotal scene in "American History X". Sweeney, a black high school principal, visits Derek, his former student and a white supremacist who is in jail for murder. Derek has just been hospitalized by other white people in a prison gang, and Sweeney asks Derek, "Has anything you've done made your life better?" In my own words, what is the point of anger if it does not result in better outcomes?
• maxrev17 6y ago
  Sadly this pushes the people with the most insight and capability off the platforms where the outrage takes place. I've seen many capable people de-zucking and refusing to consume newspaper/radio/TV news. Notably a lot of HN readers too. These platforms although (insert outrage) heavily criticised, for me have fuelled the tech explosion which has brought so much collaboration and benefit - now all the techies are leaving because they're sick of it, is that good or bad?
• 11thEarlOfMar 6y ago
  People got killed as a consequence of outrage from false information. One antidote is open-mindedness. Yes, open to new information, new ideas, new concepts and new experiences. But the key point is, open even though that new information may contradict what you already believe is true. People need to be able to look at a statement and realize there are potential inflammatory elements, and then measure the extent of their investigation by the level of flames that could ensue. The more severe the implications, the more due diligence we need to do before accepting that information as true, and reacting to it. It's an important discipline and it seemed to be very lacking over the last couple of years. One graphic example was when the US pulled out of Syria and the Kurds there were put in jeopardy. ABC News reported that after the troops left, Kurds were being slaughtered by the Turks and Syrians. The report was accompanied by disturbing video of high-powered, high caliber automatic weapons destroying apartment buildings. Come to find out a few days later, there was no slaughter and that video was from a military weapon trade show that took place in Kentucky. ABC News is considered by many boomers to be a credible and professional news company. Many Boomers haven't recognized that over the last 15 years, all the major incumbents have degenerated to National Enquirer methods, perhaps ultimately for survival, but nonetheless, this type of reporting is beyond irresponsible. It feeds the outrage that ultimately led to a nation that collectively seemed to just look the other way as our cities were looted and burned. Meanwhile, the spotlight of shame shone on law enforcement, not for failing to contain it, but for causing it in the first place. If you were convinced of law enforcements' culpability either way, what did you do to confirm your belief was based on facts? It turns out that trusting the same primary news sources that have been the mainstay of information in the US for decades is no longer of any value. We need to do what we can to ensure we have done our own due diligence and confirmed to the base factual evidence that what we believe is actually true.
• kaliszad 6y ago
  You can probably be addicted to the adrenalin produced during stressful situations even if you don't like being in those at all. Your body is addicted to the adrenalin it produces as it expects a (usually verbal) fight. If you cannot understand this, just think of the pulse you have looking down somewhere very high without any kind of railing. Some people might like that feeling more than they fear the quite certain death by the unlikely but very much possible fall. This stress is comparable to outrage in that it can be mostly synthetic and self-imposed. E.g. you don't have to search for a fight with friends, colleagues or family and some people constantly do. You also don't have to be outraged on the internet and some people constantly search out content that helps them get outraged.
• Sporktacular 6y ago
  On the other hand, how many historians say that passive support and wilful blindness by ordinary Germans facilitated Nazi atrocities? Follow the article to its logical conclusion: outrage is subverted and moral relativism is the consequence. If we fear a resurgence of nazism, for example, then some outrage over recent events is warranted. Acting upon that is even a moral imperative. So the author is right that we can't mindlessly let it consume us, but misses the point with the question has "outrage made your life any better?" Has fighting for a country or a cause made any soldier's life better? Has it for the healthy able advocating for the sick or disabled? If a better life for ourselves is all we seek then the glue of society evaporates. But he follows the lazy path of attributing it to mainstream media. Pick up an old school western newspaper and it's mostly unsexy, even boring stories about reserve rate predictions, library openings, a corruption investigation into some councilman, some news from abroad about a peace accord or a conflict. Retractions, editorials, classifieds. It served us well enough for a couple of centuries, but now suddenly mainstream news outlets are the enemy. Because Trump said so, because the lazy parroted him, because the quacks promoted conspiracies for their freshly disillusioned new readers. I call bullshit. What changed is that social media could amplify the few polarising stories coming from hundreds of mainstream sources, with enough inaccuracies on all sides to sew general distrust. Real, professional journalism is a critical resource, and for now it's still mainstream outlets that that employ the most real journalists. Count the number of retractions for inaccurate reporting in mainstream vs social media. Social media despises the boring truth. Mainstream media grudgingly tolerates it. That false equivalence, that lazy misattribution tars all media, undermining valid outrage. Outrage that has exposed treatment of Uighurs, exposed Sétif, Operation Condor, vivisection, Katyn, has helped women get the vote, helped emancipate slaves, and helps with progress generally.
  • kergonath 6y ago
    > On the other hand, how many historians say that passive support and wilful blindness by ordinary Germans facilitated Nazi atrocities? The thing is, if we are swimming in manufactured outrage, actually outrageous acts are just hidden in the noise. Everything turns into a 2-days hate fest with no meaning.
    • 6y ago
• kingsuper20 6y ago
  The sweet sweet thing about the comments section is watching all the down voting. Everyone needs their daily dose of irony. Maybe, if nothing else, it lends strength to the Ted Kaczynski notion that people need to have lives filled with difficult but not impossible tasks that are necessary (ie. not hobbies). Dunno if mailing letter bombs gets you to that place, but he is worth reading.
• ykevinator 6y ago
  George floyd is real but I get his point
• devnull255 6y ago
  While completely unplugging from social or mainstream media for a while is one strategy to keep outrage levels at bay, you can also choose a strategy of quality over quantity for consuming information about the world. This is also a strategy that involves depth over breadth of information sources. Choose longer and more thoughtful articles in respected journals instead of headline news bursts. Read books that provide deeper analysis and context of topics given insufficient context in headline news. Watch shows like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver or The Daily Show that make you laugh while often giving you more thoughtful reporting and analyses of current events than traditional news sources. I might have included Real Time with Bill Maher, but lately I've found that show dials up my outrage against the host. In any event, you should tailor this strategy to your own outrage triggers. Finally, while excess outrage can be harmful to your mental health, it also provides input about what is important to you. Or at least, what you think is important to you. For this reason, it's probably also useful to take the opportunity to be mindful of what it is that is triggering the outrage and determine if there is a deeper issue provoking the outrage. Doing this might actually help you regulate your own emotions while processing difficult information.
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