4 ms·

Stepping back a couple thousand feet, much of what makes us vulnerable to all the purported bias, capture, and revolving door manipulation in media and technolo

Stepping back a couple thousand feet, much of what makes us vulnerable to all the purported bias, capture, and revolving door manipulation in media and technology is our ongoing choice to seek an intermediary between ourselves and our community. Rather than directly engaging with our local (and immediate but non-local) community to learn about its needs and support its health, we've increasingly oriented ourselves almost exclusively towards abstract regional, national, and international concerns that we might only experience through some media intermediary. We invite ourselves to develop anger or pity or righteousness towards figures that enter our lives through the same channels and with the same illistration techniques of theatrical characters while barely knowing the names of our neighbors let alone the challenges that they're facing this week or this month. An simple off-ramp is to stop doing that, taking a stroll around the block to see if somebody needs help or company instead of scrolling through social media or watching TV news for the latest recounting of some faraway and universally misrepresented drama. As citizens in regional and national democracies, it's important for us to be informed about issues at those scales but becoming sufficiently informed about those issues requires no more than an occasional exercise in research when it's approaching time to make a vote or when someone we're personally connected to asks us to contribute concretely towards a cause. Removing bias and manipulation from the media and technology platforms is a Sisyphian task, but disempowering biased media and technology platforms only requires ignoring them. And once you do so, you get a lot of energy back for supporting individuals you actually know and who can support you in return.

Dalewyn 2y ago
[flagged]
- fcarraldo 2y ago
  “Productive” is an interesting word choice, because so many people seek out new causes, problems and politics in an attempt to be exactly that. Whether it is productive or not is up for debate, but what if the problem is the societal focus on productivity, which is an individual pursuit, rather than on community and relationships?
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    Productivity can be a communal/societal effort, and indeed the primary reason for creating communities and societies is to increase productivity beyond the means of a single individual.
- drdeca 2y ago
  that is way too many nines. If in my life, I saw one person, and then saw every other person on earth, and then saw the first person again, and then died, then, after seeing each person on earth once, then the fraction that I would never see again would be less than 0.9999999999 , i.e. 99.99999999% .
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    >that is way too many nines. Look: I come across literally thousands of people just taking a stroll through a busy airport once, and I will literally never see them again for as long as I live. Now imagine how many people I come across just taking a walk through a city: Tens if not hundreds of thousands. And again: I will literally never see them again for as long as I live. Now consider how many people I would come across just doomwatching/scrolling the media: At least a few dozen authors, casters, and editors and millions if not billions of people portrayed by them. And not only will I literally never see them again for as long as I live, technically I haven't even seen them yet. So arguably, I put down too few nines. Stalin was on to something when he said one death is a tragedy and a million deaths is a statistic.
    - mistersquid 2y ago
      Your disregard of people you do not personally know is repugnant. One of the most beautiful and sublime things about our human species is our ability to care deeply for others we may never directly know.
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        Unfortunately, my capacity to regard is limited. If I tried regarding every damn person on the planet I can't regard anyone. I am thusly going to disregard people I don't know in preference to the small handful of people I do know and will have meaning in my limited life.
    - drdeca 2y ago
      No I mean, I gave the maximum number of nines that you could possibly be justified in listing. The maximum number of nines, would be in the case that I described: in which you meet every other person on earth, but only one of them will you ever meet again. And, based on the current total population of the earth, that would be less than 10 nines. I'm saying, if you came across 8 billion people, and would only see one of them ever again, as long as you live, then that would be less than 10 nines.
pixl97 2y ago
>An simple off-ramp is to stop doing that, I don't think it's simple at all. Kinda like saying "It's simple, stop doing crack" or "Stop caffeine" or whatever. The problem is 'local' is boring in general in most places in the world (maybe unless you live in downtown NYC or something). I'm from nowhere in the midwest in the days before the internet. Other than the 3 channels on TV, or going down to the library, the world was a tiny place. After experiencing the connectedness of the modern world, you're going to have to drag most people kicking and screaming back to those days gone by. People aren't going to ignore the addiction feed, much in the same way they aren't ignoring meth, pills, and whatever else they can get high on.
- janalsncm 2y ago
  Local is anything but boring. It’s the main political sphere you can personally influence. It’s not unusual for a local candidate to win by a handful of votes, maybe people you personally persuaded. Local candidates are also far less polished than national ones, so you get all sorts of characters. Local politics is what decides your school board, police, and zoning regulations. There may be small time corruption and things often get heated. Maybe the reason local politics seems boring is because local media is largely hollowed out and acquired by huge national corporations like Grey Media Group. Local TV news has become sports, weather and crime mostly.
  - pixl97 2y ago
    >Local is anything but boring. > It’s not unusual for a local candidate to win by a handful of votes Where about 10-20% of the population is voting at all. This is because the 'average' person isn't politically connected to these local events, and mostly never has been in the US. The first moment anything else interesting showed up. And with TV/internet/mass global communication that constant feed is here. Hell, it started showing up decades ago with the advent of 24/7 news. Your local media simply can't drive a torrent of 30 second clips like tik-toc can. Your local populace just isn't that interesting. No matter how much they try to complete, there is orders of magnitude of difference in scale between them.
- hnben 2y ago

Dalewyn 2y ago

[flagged]

fcarraldo 2y ago
“Productive” is an interesting word choice, because so many people seek out new causes, problems and politics in an attempt to be exactly that. Whether it is productive or not is up for debate, but what if the problem is the societal focus on productivity, which is an individual pursuit, rather than on community and relationships?
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  Productivity can be a communal/societal effort, and indeed the primary reason for creating communities and societies is to increase productivity beyond the means of a single individual.
drdeca 2y ago
that is way too many nines. If in my life, I saw one person, and then saw every other person on earth, and then saw the first person again, and then died, then, after seeing each person on earth once, then the fraction that I would never see again would be less than 0.9999999999 , i.e. 99.99999999% .
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >that is way too many nines. Look: I come across literally thousands of people just taking a stroll through a busy airport once, and I will literally never see them again for as long as I live. Now imagine how many people I come across just taking a walk through a city: Tens if not hundreds of thousands. And again: I will literally never see them again for as long as I live. Now consider how many people I would come across just doomwatching/scrolling the media: At least a few dozen authors, casters, and editors and millions if not billions of people portrayed by them. And not only will I literally never see them again for as long as I live, technically I haven't even seen them yet. So arguably, I put down too few nines. Stalin was on to something when he said one death is a tragedy and a million deaths is a statistic.
  - mistersquid 2y ago
    Your disregard of people you do not personally know is repugnant. One of the most beautiful and sublime things about our human species is our ability to care deeply for others we may never directly know.
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      Unfortunately, my capacity to regard is limited. If I tried regarding every damn person on the planet I can't regard anyone. I am thusly going to disregard people I don't know in preference to the small handful of people I do know and will have meaning in my limited life.
  - drdeca 2y ago
    No I mean, I gave the maximum number of nines that you could possibly be justified in listing. The maximum number of nines, would be in the case that I described: in which you meet every other person on earth, but only one of them will you ever meet again. And, based on the current total population of the earth, that would be less than 10 nines. I'm saying, if you came across 8 billion people, and would only see one of them ever again, as long as you live, then that would be less than 10 nines.

pixl97 2y ago

>An simple off-ramp is to stop doing that, I don't think it's simple at all. Kinda like saying "It's simple, stop doing crack" or "Stop caffeine" or whatever. The problem is 'local' is boring in general in most places in the world (maybe unless you live in downtown NYC or something). I'm from nowhere in the midwest in the days before the internet. Other than the 3 channels on TV, or going down to the library, the world was a tiny place. After experiencing the connectedness of the modern world, you're going to have to drag most people kicking and screaming back to those days gone by. People aren't going to ignore the addiction feed, much in the same way they aren't ignoring meth, pills, and whatever else they can get high on.

janalsncm 2y ago
Local is anything but boring. It’s the main political sphere you can personally influence. It’s not unusual for a local candidate to win by a handful of votes, maybe people you personally persuaded. Local candidates are also far less polished than national ones, so you get all sorts of characters. Local politics is what decides your school board, police, and zoning regulations. There may be small time corruption and things often get heated. Maybe the reason local politics seems boring is because local media is largely hollowed out and acquired by huge national corporations like Grey Media Group. Local TV news has become sports, weather and crime mostly.
- pixl97 2y ago
  >Local is anything but boring. > It’s not unusual for a local candidate to win by a handful of votes Where about 10-20% of the population is voting at all. This is because the 'average' person isn't politically connected to these local events, and mostly never has been in the US. The first moment anything else interesting showed up. And with TV/internet/mass global communication that constant feed is here. Hell, it started showing up decades ago with the advent of 24/7 news. Your local media simply can't drive a torrent of 30 second clips like tik-toc can. Your local populace just isn't that interesting. No matter how much they try to complete, there is orders of magnitude of difference in scale between them.
hnben 2y ago