4 ms·
The times we live in are absolutely brutal for people who struggle with diversity of belief (wherever they are on the sociopolitical spectrum). Never before has
by reb 4y ago
The times we live in are absolutely brutal for people who struggle with diversity of belief (wherever they are on the sociopolitical spectrum). Never before has an individual had so many perspectives to contend with at once. It breaks a lot of people in different ways, although I think people who can navigate the noise without losing their sense of self are better for the experience.
Still, it's impossible to deny the negative impact it has on people who can't handle the vastness of opinion, and many of them turn to the comforting simplicity of reactionary extremism to cope.
- madrox 4y agoThis was my struggle with social media as it evolved. I watched it go from a predominantly techie novelty to how everyone communicated. I'd say I became more anxious and self-doubting as a result, but in some ways that's an improvement.
- vkou 4y agoThey aren't 'coping' with reactionary extremism, it's always had its seductive song. What has changed is just that extremist groups have very successfully adopted the communication tools available to them for recruitment and engagement.
- reb 4y agoI don't think it's off-base to suggest individuals gravitate toward belief systems that address their anxieties, and that might be particularly true for reactionary extremism. Completely agree on your second point though, the amplifying power of the internet aids all messages (without intervention, anyway).
- vkou 4y agoSure, I suppose so, I'll agree that both factors are at play. It has been objectively documented that anxiety has increased over the years, and I (And every other Tom, Dick and Harry) have subjective just-so-stories and complaints that will blame particular attributes of modern society on why more people are looking for these kinds of answers today than they were before.
- faeriechangling 4y agoI’ve absolutely met people especially with limited language skills who get confused and frustrated by all these complicated concepts they’re expected to understand to simply not be accused of being hateful. Not to be too Orwellian, but I’ve often wondered why nobody say, talks about removing gendered pronouns altogether in formal speech instead of adding 50 new ones for instance. People seem to only talk about adding new words and concepts.
- reb 4y agoYep, turns out people of all sorts can be assholes, even to folks who are making a good faith effort to navigate a changing world. That said, I think your Orwellian concerns might reflect your personal media consumption more than the state of our changing world. People do talk about removing gendered pronouns (see: nonbinary people), and the vast majority of transgender people are attempting to assimilate into the existing man/woman gender model rather than pushing a complex system of new words and concepts. As I'm sure you're aware, both of those approaches have proven controversial and generated quite a bit of backlash, sometimes violently so. Not everyone is cut out for a world filled with people who don't think like them. Unfortunately that's the world we live in, so we all get to figure out what to do about it.
- layer8 4y agoHumans favor adding over subtracting in problem solving: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26727878 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26727878
- l3uwin 4y agononbinary people have been begging peiple to use non-gendered language. the singular they, 'my friend', y'all, fam etc... are all wonderful substitutes for a gendered pronoun.
- LawTalkingGuy 4y agoThat makes no sense. An enby is saying they don't have gender, not that gender doesn't exist. In fact, if you don't use gender words for everyone else you're sort of throwing shade at them. That sounds like a liberal feminist from ~20 years ago, trying to remove words that they think are used to oppress people. Like the people who invented Latinx.