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Such news stories add credence to the idea that the web + social media have been a universal solvent for societies. Especially democratic societies. Three deca
by areoform 5y ago
Such news stories add credence to the idea that the web + social media have been a universal solvent for societies. Especially democratic societies.
Three decades ago, such a move would have been an eyebrow raising 2 to 5 minute news story on the evening news. Or, mentioned in a tiny column in the newspaper on some page. Most people wouldn't have come into contact with it. Let alone with such vigor that it led to an us v. them dynamic. It would have been a somewhat pointless gesture that would have been quickly forgotten.
Editorial discretion would have pulled to something more "important" such as Presidents pressuring interns into sexual activity.
Today, due to the attentional nature of the internet, the same story is quite attractive. No matter what your stance, you click on it, at least once, because it's bizarre. It's distilled catnip. On HN as well.
People and machines notice that you're clicking on it. So people start talking about it on social media. Which you engage with. And so more of it is served to you by the machines looped in. On and on until you spend an hour or more of your life on a topic you probably wouldn't have touched or known about thirty years ago.
The emotional valence created by the issue is overpowering as compared to the past, and it's self-sustaining. Forever propagating through the intellectual wastelands we're self-curating.
Humans have been dying on pointless hills for thousands of years. But our technology has amplified it to quite an art form.
- zahma 5y agoWell said, and this feedback loop you refer to fits into the “culture wars” narrative that prepossesses many news establishments as they vie for eyeballs to reinforce their ad revenue and bolster their Twitter feeds. Some of this stuff is click bait, but other stories take on lives or their own whereas they would ordinarily be forgotten about shortly after arrival.
- slowhand09 5y ago
- notreallyserio 5y agoAre we still talking about math books or did you mean to post this elsewhere?
- slowhand09 5y ago
- loudmax 5y agoAbsolutely this. Dragging CRT into a math curriculum is a bad idea. The state legislature passing laws to ban the practice is even worse. I know you're being facetious about interns, but issues today go so far beyond this. There's an actual war on in Europe, inflation is the highest it's been since the 70's and the pandemic is still wreaking havoc on global supply chains. There are very real crises to deal with, but there's political hay to be made from culture war divisions.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Three decades ago, such a move would have been an eyebrow raising 2 to 5 minute news story on the evening news. Not because of some unique effect of social media; race in education has been that kind of culture war centerpiece for a long time; it was more than 25 years ago that a major national controversy erupted because of a single local school board decision on recognizing African American English as a distinct source language that students come with and which impacts teaching of Standard American English. (It's true that decisions to impose a racist view of American society by the same faction that has pushed anti-CRT policies in the states where they have recently passed anti-CRT laws wouldn't be news, but that's more the same shift of the center on educational content that the anti-CRT movement is part of the response to than anything about social media.)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- RickJWagner 5y agoI'm just wondering why NPR (!) is so political. You'd hope they'd be a better source of news that better serves all political parties. (And avoid those that seem partisan.)
- stillbourne 5y agoI fail to see what part of the article is "political." The article states the facts, the books being banned, gets a quote from an opposing voice taking a jab at Florida republicans, and reiterates this is not the first time that Florida republicans have tampered with school curriculum. These are facts it doesn't matter if it was done by republicans or democrats. I would expect NPR to report the news regardless of whodunit. That's news, a change was made, the people who made the change are mentioned, an opposing opinion is supplied and prior history is shown. Just because you may support or dissent to the actions taken of the parties involved doesn't make the news political it just makes it news.
- RickJWagner 5y agoAn alternative headline might have been "Florida prefers math books that teach math." Factual. But provactive in some way, isn't it? That's the point. NPR should play the middle line, after all it's tax money.
- stillbourne 5y agoOh sure, maybe. If they bothered to release the list of titles and the isbn for each book that was banned perhaps we could reach such a conclusion. But since no such list exists and no citation examples are provided. Seems pretty easy to dismiss the actions taken by the Florida Department of Education as strictly political. What do they have to hide? I want to see what they consider to be prohibited topics for a mathematics curriculum.
- timintheglades 5y agoHere you go. I think that RickJWagner's point is why not wait. Why jump to conclusions and post inflammatory headlines as a default... because NPR is a leftist political entity now. https://dailycaller.com/2022/04/21/desantis-examples-critical-race-theory-textbooks/ https://dailycaller.com/2022/04/21/desantis-examples-critica...