I’ve had thoughts on what’s been causing this, and turns out there’s a hot-take that’s well articulated by a professor under the concept of ‘Mass formation’. D

I’ve had thoughts on what’s been causing this, and turns out there’s a hot-take that’s well articulated by a professor under the concept of ‘Mass formation’. Decent summary, you can find him discussing it on YouTube: https://medium.com/@dina.osman/what-is-mass-formation-d2ac63020a34 https://medium.com/@dina.osman/what-is-mass-formation-d2ac63... The gist of it is what I’ve mostly concluded over the last few years. There’s a pathological level of frustration/anxiety/apathy that is leading to all of this at a mass scale (which makes sense considering we are virtualizing lives at scale, and I use the word virtual in it’s most abstract sense, not necessarily digital). We all have a very abstract identity that is unfulfilling because at the levels of abstraction we are at virtually is not relatable or realistic. I know, it’s a serious hot-take, but this is roughly where my line of thinking is at now days. The outcome of all of this is, well, people now bask in the cacophony of whatever life even is at this point (especially because there’s not a chance in hell any of us will be able de-scale the world (tech/vanity/capitalism/etc)). Quoting the most important part: … if ANY narrative is distributed through the mass media identifying an Object of the anxiety and providing a strategy to deal with that Object, mass formation can thrive. Since it provides the masses a sudden connection to a heroic struggle allowing them to meet their needs and provides them with a release — giving them a new social bond and meaning that has been lacking. There you have it, people are literally bonding via this constant hysterical back and forth.