4 ms·

Social media itself is a grand experiment. What happens if you start connecting people from disparate communities, and then prioritize for outrage and emotional

Social media itself is a grand experiment. What happens if you start connecting people from disparate communities, and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism? In years prior, you would be heavily shaped by the people you lived near. TV and internet broke this down somewhat, but social media really blew the doors off. Now it's the case that almost no one seems to be able to explain all the woes we're facing today: extreme ideas, populism, the destruction of institutions. All of this because people are addicted to novelty and outrage, and because companies need their stock price to go up.

decipherer 9mo ago
We have exited the age of information, and entered the age of irritation.
- HPsquared 9mo ago
  "Rage bait" is 2025 Oxford Word of the Year. We are reaching saturation levels now, I think, where people are becoming aware of it. https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-is-rage-bait/ https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-i...
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 9mo ago
    I'm glad people are aware of it. 7 years I heard about The Scissor on SSC and wasn't sure if people would ever believe it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
  - johnnyanmac 9mo ago
    Exposure is a good first step. But what action is taken with that awareness? We seem to be in that post truth era where being told what's happening before your eyes is at best met with apathy and at worst rejected.
gjsman-1000 9mo ago
> the destruction of institutions More like the exposure of institutions. It’s not like they were more noble previously, their failings were just less widely understood. How much of America knew about Tuskegee before the internet? Or the time National Geographic told us all about the Archaeoraptor ignoring prior warnings? The above view is also wildly myopic. You thought modern society overcame populist ideas, extreme ideas, and social revolution being very popular historically? Human nature does not change. Another thing that doesn’t change? There are always, as evidenced by your own comment, always people saying the system wasn’t responsible, it’s external forces harming the system. The system is immaculate, the proletariat are stupid. The monarchy didn’t cause the revolution, ignorant ideologues did. In any other context, that’s called black and white thinking.
- cluckindan 9mo ago
  Maybe social media is just another level of unethical human experimentation by corporations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...
rr808 9mo ago
Its interesting that TV is regulated. You can't put certain content on there and I'm sure the governments can ultimately control things. Now todays eyeballs are controlled by Meta and TikTok and I dont really trust them at all - they have too much unchecked power.
- Aurornis 9mo ago
  > I'm sure the governments can ultimately control things In the US there is free speech protecting the ability of people to say what they want. Public TV has limitations on broadcast of certain material like pornography, obviously, but the government can’t come in and “control” the opinions of journalists and newscasters. The current US admin has tried to put pressure on broadcasters it disagrees with and it’s definitely not a good thing. You really do not want to encourage governments to “control” what topics cannot be discussed or what speech is regulated. Sooner or later the government will use that against someone you agree with for their own power.
- dathinab 9mo ago
  > interesting that TV is regulated soso, it's mostly that freely accessible channels need their content to be in a certain ~PG/age protection range (and in many countries that also changes depending on the time of the day, not sure about the US) beyond that the constitution disallows any further regulation of actual content through that doesn't mean that they can't apply subtle pressure indirectly. Is that legal? no. Anyway done for years? yes. But mostly subtle not forced, i.e. let's say you give "suggestions" not required changes. Except in recent years it has become a lot less subtle and much more forced. Not just giving non binding "suggestions" but also harass media outlets in other seemingly unrelated ways if they don't follow your "suggestions". PS: Like seriously it often looks like the US doesn't really understand what free speech is about (as in some of the more important points are freedom of journalism, teaching and also showing your opinions through demonstrations and similar.). And why many historians find it good but suboptimal and why e.g. the approach to free speech was revisited when drafting the west German constitution instead of just more or less copying the US constitution (the US but also France, UK had some say in the drafting of it, it was originally meant to be temporary until reunification, but in the end was mostly kept verbatim during unification as it worked out quite well).
slg 9mo ago
>and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism This isn’t inherent to social networks though. It is a choice by the biggest social media companies to make society worse in order to increase profits. Just give us a chronological feed of the people/topics we proactively choose to follow and much of this harm would go away. Social media and the world were better places before algorithmic feeds took over everything.
- dathinab 9mo ago
  > This isn’t inherent to social networks though. It is a choice by the biggest social media companies and to make society worse in order to increase profits. going beyond social media it's IMHO the side effect of a initially innocent looking but dangerous and toxic monetization model which we find today not just in social media but even more so in news, apps and most digital markets
  - trevwilson 9mo ago
    Yeah unfortunately this seems to be a common, if not inevitable, result of any product where "attention" or "engagement" are directly correlated with profitability.
  - slg 9mo ago
    And if we want to go beyond that, we really just have to blame capitalism. What happens when you build a society around the adversarial collection of money? You get a society that by and large prioritizes making money above all else including ethics and morals.
    - dathinab 9mo ago
      yes but it's more complicated like if you look at original reasoning why capitalism is a good match for democracy you find arguments like voting with money etc. _alongside with what things must not be tolerated in capitalism_ or it will break. And that includes stuff like: - monopolies, (or more generic anything having too much market power and abusing it, doesn't need to be an actual monopoly) - unfair market practices which break fair competition - situations which prevent actual user choice - to much separation of the wealth of the poorest and richest in a country - giving to much ways for money to influence politics - using money to bare people from a fair trail/from enforcing their rights - also I personally would add in-transparency, but I think that only really started to become a systemic issue with globalization and the digital age. This also implies that for market wich have natural monopolies strict regulation and consumer protection is essential. Now the points above are to some degree a check list of what has defined US economics, especially in the post-Amazone age (I say post Amazone age as the founding story of Amazone was a mile stone and is basically the idea of "let's systematically destroy any fair competition and used externally sourced money (i.e. subsidization) to forcefully create a quasi monopoly", and after that succeeded it became somewhat of the go-to approach for a lot of "speculative investment" founding). Anyway to come back to the original point. What we have in the US has little to do with the idea of capitalism which lead to the adoption of it in the West. It's more like someone took it is twisting it into the most disturbing dystopian form possible, they just aren't fully done yet.
cal_dent 9mo ago
Throw into the mix inherent mimetic desire and where we are in society makes sense. There's a need for a more that frankly can't be satisfied and hard to see how we turn back from that without a structural rejig
nurettin 9mo ago
> people are addicted to novelty and outrage, and because companies need their stock price to go up Sounds like news broadcasts. Throw in some politics, murders, rapes and economic downturns and you've got your audience hooked watching through the ads.
rapatel0 9mo ago
>and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism The concept is called "yellow journalism" and extends basically to the days of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Modern culture has poured gasoline on this but it's existed forever. I think the issue is that we have scaled groupthink--people now engage in circular conversations that reinforce nonsensical beliefs. Where as they might have historically encountered 1 or 2 people that agreed with crazy or inaccurate notions and most of their environment would likely push back on outrageous ideas. Now, you can find 1000s of people that not only agree, but reinforce biases with other facts, perceptions.
- AniseAbyss 9mo ago
  [dead]
Eddy_Viscosity2 9mo ago
Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus

decipherer 9mo ago

We have exited the age of information, and entered the age of irritation.

HPsquared 9mo ago
"Rage bait" is 2025 Oxford Word of the Year. We are reaching saturation levels now, I think, where people are becoming aware of it. https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-is-rage-bait/ https://corp.oup.com/news/the-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025-i...
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 9mo ago
  I'm glad people are aware of it. 7 years I heard about The Scissor on SSC and wasn't sure if people would ever believe it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  Exposure is a good first step. But what action is taken with that awareness? We seem to be in that post truth era where being told what's happening before your eyes is at best met with apathy and at worst rejected.

gjsman-1000 9mo ago

> the destruction of institutions More like the exposure of institutions. It’s not like they were more noble previously, their failings were just less widely understood. How much of America knew about Tuskegee before the internet? Or the time National Geographic told us all about the Archaeoraptor ignoring prior warnings? The above view is also wildly myopic. You thought modern society overcame populist ideas, extreme ideas, and social revolution being very popular historically? Human nature does not change. Another thing that doesn’t change? There are always, as evidenced by your own comment, always people saying the system wasn’t responsible, it’s external forces harming the system. The system is immaculate, the proletariat are stupid. The monarchy didn’t cause the revolution, ignorant ideologues did. In any other context, that’s called black and white thinking.

cluckindan 9mo ago
Maybe social media is just another level of unethical human experimentation by corporations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...

rr808 9mo ago

Its interesting that TV is regulated. You can't put certain content on there and I'm sure the governments can ultimately control things. Now todays eyeballs are controlled by Meta and TikTok and I dont really trust them at all - they have too much unchecked power.

Aurornis 9mo ago
> I'm sure the governments can ultimately control things In the US there is free speech protecting the ability of people to say what they want. Public TV has limitations on broadcast of certain material like pornography, obviously, but the government can’t come in and “control” the opinions of journalists and newscasters. The current US admin has tried to put pressure on broadcasters it disagrees with and it’s definitely not a good thing. You really do not want to encourage governments to “control” what topics cannot be discussed or what speech is regulated. Sooner or later the government will use that against someone you agree with for their own power.
dathinab 9mo ago
> interesting that TV is regulated soso, it's mostly that freely accessible channels need their content to be in a certain ~PG/age protection range (and in many countries that also changes depending on the time of the day, not sure about the US) beyond that the constitution disallows any further regulation of actual content through that doesn't mean that they can't apply subtle pressure indirectly. Is that legal? no. Anyway done for years? yes. But mostly subtle not forced, i.e. let's say you give "suggestions" not required changes. Except in recent years it has become a lot less subtle and much more forced. Not just giving non binding "suggestions" but also harass media outlets in other seemingly unrelated ways if they don't follow your "suggestions". PS: Like seriously it often looks like the US doesn't really understand what free speech is about (as in some of the more important points are freedom of journalism, teaching and also showing your opinions through demonstrations and similar.). And why many historians find it good but suboptimal and why e.g. the approach to free speech was revisited when drafting the west German constitution instead of just more or less copying the US constitution (the US but also France, UK had some say in the drafting of it, it was originally meant to be temporary until reunification, but in the end was mostly kept verbatim during unification as it worked out quite well).

slg 9mo ago

>and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism This isn’t inherent to social networks though. It is a choice by the biggest social media companies to make society worse in order to increase profits. Just give us a chronological feed of the people/topics we proactively choose to follow and much of this harm would go away. Social media and the world were better places before algorithmic feeds took over everything.

dathinab 9mo ago
> This isn’t inherent to social networks though. It is a choice by the biggest social media companies and to make society worse in order to increase profits. going beyond social media it's IMHO the side effect of a initially innocent looking but dangerous and toxic monetization model which we find today not just in social media but even more so in news, apps and most digital markets
- trevwilson 9mo ago
  Yeah unfortunately this seems to be a common, if not inevitable, result of any product where "attention" or "engagement" are directly correlated with profitability.
- slg 9mo ago
  And if we want to go beyond that, we really just have to blame capitalism. What happens when you build a society around the adversarial collection of money? You get a society that by and large prioritizes making money above all else including ethics and morals.
  - dathinab 9mo ago
    yes but it's more complicated like if you look at original reasoning why capitalism is a good match for democracy you find arguments like voting with money etc. _alongside with what things must not be tolerated in capitalism_ or it will break. And that includes stuff like: - monopolies, (or more generic anything having too much market power and abusing it, doesn't need to be an actual monopoly) - unfair market practices which break fair competition - situations which prevent actual user choice - to much separation of the wealth of the poorest and richest in a country - giving to much ways for money to influence politics - using money to bare people from a fair trail/from enforcing their rights - also I personally would add in-transparency, but I think that only really started to become a systemic issue with globalization and the digital age. This also implies that for market wich have natural monopolies strict regulation and consumer protection is essential. Now the points above are to some degree a check list of what has defined US economics, especially in the post-Amazone age (I say post Amazone age as the founding story of Amazone was a mile stone and is basically the idea of "let's systematically destroy any fair competition and used externally sourced money (i.e. subsidization) to forcefully create a quasi monopoly", and after that succeeded it became somewhat of the go-to approach for a lot of "speculative investment" founding). Anyway to come back to the original point. What we have in the US has little to do with the idea of capitalism which lead to the adoption of it in the West. It's more like someone took it is twisting it into the most disturbing dystopian form possible, they just aren't fully done yet.

cal_dent 9mo ago

Throw into the mix inherent mimetic desire and where we are in society makes sense. There's a need for a more that frankly can't be satisfied and hard to see how we turn back from that without a structural rejig

nurettin 9mo ago

> people are addicted to novelty and outrage, and because companies need their stock price to go up Sounds like news broadcasts. Throw in some politics, murders, rapes and economic downturns and you've got your audience hooked watching through the ads.

rapatel0 9mo ago

>and then prioritize for outrage and emotionalism The concept is called "yellow journalism" and extends basically to the days of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Modern culture has poured gasoline on this but it's existed forever. I think the issue is that we have scaled groupthink--people now engage in circular conversations that reinforce nonsensical beliefs. Where as they might have historically encountered 1 or 2 people that agreed with crazy or inaccurate notions and most of their environment would likely push back on outrageous ideas. Now, you can find 1000s of people that not only agree, but reinforce biases with other facts, perceptions.

AniseAbyss 9mo ago
[dead]

Eddy_Viscosity2 9mo ago

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus