I have a completely different take on the phenomenon of "rage bait". Far from being "junk information", I believe it to be a wonderful opportunity. Rather than

I have a completely different take on the phenomenon of "rage bait". Far from being "junk information", I believe it to be a wonderful opportunity. Rather than avoid it, we should do the exact opposite by seeing the extraordinary opportunity in adverstity. What opportunity? The opportunity to mindfully explore why it triggers the emotion of rage in us. Why is this useful? Because rage is an accurate predictor of a learning disability that is holding us back from reaching our full potential. Both as individuals and as a species. Learning disability? What do you mean? The Buddha pointed out that avijjā, the choice to ignore uncomfortable truths, is the root cause of all suffering. The Buddha called such rage bait, the first arrow. The first arrow is, in reality, a notification of sensory motor misprediction. We experience this notification of misprediction as pain because this alerts the brain to the existence of an error in our sensory motor predictive model. In order to restore equanimity as we move through this domain of sensory experience, the brain should respond by striving to correct the error in the model so that sensory experience is predicted correctly. With the error corrected, we can now move through that domain of sensory experience without anxiety; confident that our model will guide us to make good decisions. Most of the time, we do this. However, sometimes, a bias we have prevents us from doing so. The Buddha called such biases, āsava. The path to liberating the mind involves the total destruction of the āsava. The suffering we experience in response to rage bait then is an inner conflict between 2 strategies to satiate our craving for the restoration of the certainty of an accurate predictive model of sensory experience. 1: The more intelligent strategy of seeking to find and correct the error in the predictive model so that we can "see the world the way it actually is" and 2: The less intelligent strategy of clinging to bias and demanding that sensory experience bend to our will now. i.e. between 1: mature delayed gratification and 2: immature immediate gratification ALL suffering we have ever experienced, are experiencing and will ever experience is an inner conflict between these 2 parts of us pulling in different directions. ALL suffering we have ever experienced, are experiencing and will ever experience is resolved by extinguishing the craving for things to be different than they actually are now in favor of seeing the world the way it actually is. We don't see it as such when we are doing it, but suffering is clearly a learning disability. Were we to free our mind of all such learning disabilities, rage bait would have no effect on us whatsoever. In this regard, rage bait everywhere should be seen as a wonderful opportunity to free our minds of a learning disability that is preventing us from contributing to our full potential. Both as individuals and as a species. What might billions of minds liberated from bias in this fashion be capable of producing? For this reason, "rage-bait" should be embraced as a wonderful opportunity.