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I just wish as a civilisation we could simply reject "enragement is engagement" for the foul influence it actually is. That entire repulsive concept has done so

I just wish as a civilisation we could simply reject "enragement is engagement" for the foul influence it actually is. That entire repulsive concept has done so much harm to society, instead of turning our anger on each-other over opinions that are barely our own to begin with we should reserve it for those who profit from tearing apart the relationships of friends and family by making people as angry as possible in order to consume their content. They're the real cause for anger here, not our neighbours with different opinions. As long as people stick too rigidly to any orthodoxy, there will always be morally weak people willing to sell them firewood to burn their heretics with. In this case, that firewood salesman is simply called "the news industry". What would stop this in its tracks would be to promote a new social attitude that sees the intrinsic worth and dignity in all human beings regardless of their differences, a deeply non-sectarian philosophy that says "you and I disagree and that's okay, neither of us are inherently bad people because of that".

snarf21 5y ago
I agree. I think the only plausible path forward is taxing digital advertising revenue. People wouldn't pay for this trash infotainment and it is only free because ads make it highly profitable. I think this is the great trick that the oligarchy has pulled off: they have convinced us that our neighbor is the cause of our ills and not them. I think the other problem remains that the world is too fast and complicated now. It is impossible to be up to date on a single issue let alone all of them. We are so fatigued by all the yelling and just want to be with our families and make it through the week. We don't have the energy left to be watch dogs or organize protests against injustice.
- BoxOfRain 5y ago
  >I think this is the great trick that the oligarchy has pulled off: they have convinced us that our neighbor is the cause of our ills and not them. I couldn't agree more, I think the other great trick is making a significant proportion of people think this kind of talk is somehow radical or dangerous! It's a lot easier to sell division and hatred than tolerance and forgiveness, but given the vast amounts of human ingenuity that go into deliberately hurting society with these things I'm sure we can figure something out with even a hundredth of that effort. I agree that taxing advertising revenue is a good start and absolutely should be done, but I'd argue that's only one part of the picture. Governments can be bought and sold so we can't rely on regulation alone, we need to educate the people as a whole on the dangers of anger-driven reporting. Talking about things that are common knowledge among programmers and other tech industry professionals gets at best an "I have nothing to hide" or "ads don't work on me anyway" from the layperson, and at worst a "you're a loony conspiracy theorist". History will undoubtedly rank the infotainment industry of today with the tobacco industry who knew full well smoking causes cancer, or the fossil fuel industry who knew full well they were damning us all to ecological catastrophe.

snarf21 5y ago

I agree. I think the only plausible path forward is taxing digital advertising revenue. People wouldn't pay for this trash infotainment and it is only free because ads make it highly profitable. I think this is the great trick that the oligarchy has pulled off: they have convinced us that our neighbor is the cause of our ills and not them. I think the other problem remains that the world is too fast and complicated now. It is impossible to be up to date on a single issue let alone all of them. We are so fatigued by all the yelling and just want to be with our families and make it through the week. We don't have the energy left to be watch dogs or organize protests against injustice.

BoxOfRain 5y ago
>I think this is the great trick that the oligarchy has pulled off: they have convinced us that our neighbor is the cause of our ills and not them. I couldn't agree more, I think the other great trick is making a significant proportion of people think this kind of talk is somehow radical or dangerous! It's a lot easier to sell division and hatred than tolerance and forgiveness, but given the vast amounts of human ingenuity that go into deliberately hurting society with these things I'm sure we can figure something out with even a hundredth of that effort. I agree that taxing advertising revenue is a good start and absolutely should be done, but I'd argue that's only one part of the picture. Governments can be bought and sold so we can't rely on regulation alone, we need to educate the people as a whole on the dangers of anger-driven reporting. Talking about things that are common knowledge among programmers and other tech industry professionals gets at best an "I have nothing to hide" or "ads don't work on me anyway" from the layperson, and at worst a "you're a loony conspiracy theorist". History will undoubtedly rank the infotainment industry of today with the tobacco industry who knew full well smoking causes cancer, or the fossil fuel industry who knew full well they were damning us all to ecological catastrophe.