Structural Stupidity
April 30, 2022 6:03 PM Subscribe
The Atlantic delivers a solid summary of why algorithmically-driven social media is harmful to common culture and democracy itself, ending with a few ideas about what can be done to course correct.
"What changed in the 2010s? Let’s revisit that Twitter engineer’s metaphor of handing a loaded gun to a 4-year-old. A mean tweet doesn’t kill anyone; it is an attempt to shame or punish someone publicly while broadcasting one’s own virtue, brilliance, or tribal loyalties. It’s more a dart than a bullet, causing pain but no fatalities. Even so, from 2009 to 2012, Facebook and Twitter passed out roughly 1 billion dart guns globally. We’ve been shooting one another ever since."
"What changed in the 2010s? Let’s revisit that Twitter engineer’s metaphor of handing a loaded gun to a 4-year-old. A mean tweet doesn’t kill anyone; it is an attempt to shame or punish someone publicly while broadcasting one’s own virtue, brilliance, or tribal loyalties. It’s more a dart than a bullet, causing pain but no fatalities. Even so, from 2009 to 2012, Facebook and Twitter passed out roughly 1 billion dart guns globally. We’ve been shooting one another ever since."
Oh hey, it's University of Austin faculty member Jon Haidt, who in the past has disingenuously defended bigots in academia, and in this piece seems constitutionally incapable of understanding the actual issues underlying the polarization in our popular culture or how the tech industry abused them. Tom Scocca, in his takedown of both the piece and the Axios brain trust pushing it, sums up the issue thus:
posted by NoxAeternum at 6:49 PM on April 30, 2022 [67 favorites]
Yes, The Atllantic
posted by sjswitzer at 7:42 PM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by sjswitzer at 7:42 PM on April 30, 2022 [2 favorites]
"...but kept framing it as a matter of personal moral decay—of people being tempted into falseness and performance and unleashing "our most moralistic and least reflective selves"—while describing the giant and inconceivably wealthy corporations responsible for that design as having done their damage "unwittingly.""
Hmmm, that sounds a bit misleading given the actual article says:
"Mark Zuckerberg may not have wished for any of that. But by rewiring everything in a headlong rush for growth—with a naive conception of human psychology, little understanding of the intricacy of institutions, and no concern for external costs imposed on society—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a few other large platforms unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together."
posted by storybored at 9:27 PM on April 30, 2022 [16 favorites]
Hmmm, that sounds a bit misleading given the actual article says:
"Mark Zuckerberg may not have wished for any of that. But by rewiring everything in a headlong rush for growth—with a naive conception of human psychology, little understanding of the intricacy of institutions, and no concern for external costs imposed on society—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a few other large platforms unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together."
posted by storybored at 9:27 PM on April 30, 2022 [16 favorites]
Seems to me that structural stupidity is, always and everywhere, a consequence of top-down control by the deluded.
The deluded top-down controller responsible for personal stupidity is an overambitious self-concept, one that insists on mistaking itself for the feeling, thinking animal its proper task is merely to model. The result is the hijacking of huge amounts of creative potential by an endless parade of spurious projects that serve no purpose but the ongoing preservation and aggrandizement of that very delusion.
The same kind of effect also operates on the largest scale, where we see the wealthy and powerful act in ways devoted almost exclusively to the ongoing preservation of completely toxic disparities in wealth and power.
At both scales we can observe a wilful, deliberate, studied refusal to pay attention to useful information that is both readily available and vital to the continued wellbeing of the structures over which control is exercised. Anything that could conceivably justify a relaxation of control, or even appear to, is at best dismissed as irrelevant and at worst vigorously suppressed, even when acting on it would almost certainly yield better outcomes for both controlled and controller.
It's mental illness all the way up.
posted by flabdablet at 9:38 PM on April 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
The deluded top-down controller responsible for personal stupidity is an overambitious self-concept, one that insists on mistaking itself for the feeling, thinking animal its proper task is merely to model. The result is the hijacking of huge amounts of creative potential by an endless parade of spurious projects that serve no purpose but the ongoing preservation and aggrandizement of that very delusion.
The same kind of effect also operates on the largest scale, where we see the wealthy and powerful act in ways devoted almost exclusively to the ongoing preservation of completely toxic disparities in wealth and power.
At both scales we can observe a wilful, deliberate, studied refusal to pay attention to useful information that is both readily available and vital to the continued wellbeing of the structures over which control is exercised. Anything that could conceivably justify a relaxation of control, or even appear to, is at best dismissed as irrelevant and at worst vigorously suppressed, even when acting on it would almost certainly yield better outcomes for both controlled and controller.
It's mental illness all the way up.
posted by flabdablet at 9:38 PM on April 30, 2022 [14 favorites]
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a few other large platforms unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together.
You say unwittingly, I say deliberately as their core business strategy. Tomayto, tomahto?
posted by flabdablet at 9:43 PM on April 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
You say unwittingly, I say deliberately as their core business strategy. Tomayto, tomahto?
posted by flabdablet at 9:43 PM on April 30, 2022 [15 favorites]
Mark Zuckerberg may not have wished for any of that
There was a whistleblower. There were memos. They did their own research, and they found out that the way their algorithm privileges discord drives engagement but undermines democracy. They decided that driving engagement was more important. Unwittingly my ass.
posted by sohalt at 9:54 PM on April 30, 2022 [86 favorites]
There was a whistleblower. There were memos. They did their own research, and they found out that the way their algorithm privileges discord drives engagement but undermines democracy. They decided that driving engagement was more important. Unwittingly my ass.
posted by sohalt at 9:54 PM on April 30, 2022 [86 favorites]
I was thinking about posting this but on a somewhat light review did not note any insight that many local observers on the blue would not have made much clearer. He does get some air time on cable.
posted by sammyo at 10:07 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 10:07 PM on April 30, 2022 [1 favorite]
I agree with the thesis in general: that trust in people and institutions are necessary for the proper function of a state or society, and that social media is responsible for a massive decline of same. But the advent of the press, radio, television and the automobile also had an enormous effect in that regard. The article is reflective of an irritating tendency for people to blame a historical phenomenon on contemporary or fashionable developments. Has Twitter had a worse impact than Father Coughlan? Than Rush Limbaugh? Than InfoWars? Or is it a continuum? If anything, it has taken the lessons from its forbears, injected a massive amount of capital, and opened its doors to malevolent powers (not all of which are foreign or external to the companies themselves).
(I'm reminded of a paper by an anarchist academic at my school, to the tune of "Capitalism Sucks." I asked him: isn't this a catalogue of things that sucked before capitalism, and he admitted that it was, but, and we agreed on this, capitalism still sucks!)
I'm also amused at the notion that America might have been somehow more socially or politically cohesive in the past when, traditionally, America has achieved cohesion through exclusion. It often seems to me that the biggest threat to social cohesion in America (among the white middle and upper classes, at least) is the penetration of formerly-marginalised voices into mainstream discourse -- something they've achieved in part through... social media.
And this shit...
posted by klanawa at 10:25 PM on April 30, 2022 [31 favorites]
(I'm reminded of a paper by an anarchist academic at my school, to the tune of "Capitalism Sucks." I asked him: isn't this a catalogue of things that sucked before capitalism, and he admitted that it was, but, and we agreed on this, capitalism still sucks!)
I'm also amused at the notion that America might have been somehow more socially or politically cohesive in the past when, traditionally, America has achieved cohesion through exclusion. It often seems to me that the biggest threat to social cohesion in America (among the white middle and upper classes, at least) is the penetration of formerly-marginalised voices into mainstream discourse -- something they've achieved in part through... social media.
And this shit...
This new narrative is rigidly egalitarian––focused on equality of outcomes, not of rights or opportunities. It is unconcerned with individual rights....is lifted straight from the classical liberal shitlord playbook. In my experience, pretty much every leftist operates on the premise that opportunity, individual rights and outcomes, logically speaking, are the same thing.
posted by klanawa at 10:25 PM on April 30, 2022 [31 favorites]
Beyond that, anyone who says this:
Haidt is one of the sort who piously argued that "hate speech is the price of free speech" and as such we are obligated to give the bigot and the abuser a seat at the table out of an obligation to free speech - and then when the expected result of that happens and their victims are either chased out of the forum or start to demand that their humanity not be a subject of debate then turns around and starts blaming everyone but himself for enabling those bigots.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:29 PM on April 30, 2022 [63 favorites]
One result is that young people educated in the post-Babel era are less likely to arrive at a coherent story of who we are as a people, and less likely to share any such story with those who attended different schools or who were educated in a different decade.And does not grasp that the reason why this is the case is due to our old "shared story" being a fucking lie (and in fact a large part of our current polarization revolves around one faction refusing to accept this) is someone who is not actually interested in actually addressing that polarization. In fact, if you scroll to the end of the piece in the OP, you find Haidt hawking as an answer a bunch of Third Way bullshit arguing that the problem is getting people to "agree" (and not, you know, actually addressing bigotry in society.)
Haidt is one of the sort who piously argued that "hate speech is the price of free speech" and as such we are obligated to give the bigot and the abuser a seat at the table out of an obligation to free speech - and then when the expected result of that happens and their victims are either chased out of the forum or start to demand that their humanity not be a subject of debate then turns around and starts blaming everyone but himself for enabling those bigots.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:29 PM on April 30, 2022 [63 favorites]
On NextDoor, the dude 2 blocks down from me is writing about how he can't wait for the Civil Unrest to begin so that he can start killing Leftists. If only I could understand what he meant by that! Unfortunately, Tower of Babel, both sides, etc. etc., both sides both sides. Good point by Haidt that I am just as much to blame for this situation as my neighbor is.
posted by Balna Watya at 10:36 PM on April 30, 2022 [63 favorites]
posted by Balna Watya at 10:36 PM on April 30, 2022 [63 favorites]
I appreciated some of the ideas in here about algorithms but when the article got into fretting about left-wing Americans pinning down "older liberal leaders" (but not Bernie Sanders I guess?) with their dart attacks, I couldn't help wondering about reports I had heard that the Koch Foundation had sponsored an Atlantic series about "cancel culture" and whether this piece fell under that part of their budget?
posted by johngoren at 4:01 AM on May 1, 2022 [24 favorites]
posted by johngoren at 4:01 AM on May 1, 2022 [24 favorites]
The Tom Scocca piece that NoxAeternum links above identifies the fundamental, and utterly damning, intellectual dishonesty of Haidt's article. I like to assume good faith, but that's hard to square with a piece which spends thousands of words talking about "structural stupidity" while ignoring all real structural factors and refusing to contemplate a single structural reform.
In a sense, Haidt's piece is quite a remarkable achievement in the field of disingenuous defences of the status quo. Managing to write 8,000 words on one of the central social issues of our era, while denying the relevance or even existence of nearly every relevant factor, requires either a conscious decision or a reality distortion field of unimaginable strength.
Haidt fundamental position here is that it's stupid to want democracy to change things: that the purpose of democracy is to provide legitimacy to institutions of power and those who control them. Wanting the "moderate majority" to dominate discourse means wanting discourse to be determined by institutional power and interests.
If you assume that preservation of the status quo is the only good (at least for you), then this piece makes sense. If you think we should actually be trying to encourage human flourishing, it reads like a broadside from the Bizarro World.
posted by howfar at 4:16 AM on May 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
In a sense, Haidt's piece is quite a remarkable achievement in the field of disingenuous defences of the status quo. Managing to write 8,000 words on one of the central social issues of our era, while denying the relevance or even existence of nearly every relevant factor, requires either a conscious decision or a reality distortion field of unimaginable strength.
Haidt fundamental position here is that it's stupid to want democracy to change things: that the purpose of democracy is to provide legitimacy to institutions of power and those who control them. Wanting the "moderate majority" to dominate discourse means wanting discourse to be determined by institutional power and interests.
If you assume that preservation of the status quo is the only good (at least for you), then this piece makes sense. If you think we should actually be trying to encourage human flourishing, it reads like a broadside from the Bizarro World.
posted by howfar at 4:16 AM on May 1, 2022 [17 favorites]
Is it too much to hope that the obvious tendentiousness and bias of Jonathan Haidt in this article might finally pour some cold water on his bizarrely popular "moral foundations" theory, which was always never anything more than a way to delay the obvious fact that conservatives have entirely abandoned any claim to the moral highground by inventing out of whole cloth a special moral highground just for them.
posted by Proofs and Refutations at 4:32 AM on May 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by Proofs and Refutations at 4:32 AM on May 1, 2022 [11 favorites]
This is a terrible piece, and I'm strongly seconding the Scocca bitchslapping coming from his very well written substack. Haidt is one of those well-educated stupid people who turns out to be an Axios panty sniffer who would have nothing to write about if not for his credulous engagement of spurious moral panics. It's no surprise to find it in the schizophrenic Atlantic, which publishes great writers like Adam Serwer alongside pathetic pablum-slingers like Conor Friedersdorf the odious Caitlin Flanagan.
And if you think this is a harsh assessment, you haven't considered how harsh the response could be from the fascist Minister of Internal Information that might be established under a second Donald J. Stumpy regime—or that of Ron DeathSantis, who's currently turning Florida into a MAGA fever dream.
Instead of reading this, one might be better served by registering voters. Print the forms, put them in envelopes, carry them with you, and ask people The Question: "Are you registered to vote?" Anyone can do this, because it really is no more than that, and you can do it regardless of your engagement level on facebook or twitter dot com.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 5:33 AM on May 1, 2022 [12 favorites]
And if you think this is a harsh assessment, you haven't considered how harsh the response could be from the fascist Minister of Internal Information that might be established under a second Donald J. Stumpy regime—or that of Ron DeathSantis, who's currently turning Florida into a MAGA fever dream.
Instead of reading this, one might be better served by registering voters. Print the forms, put them in envelopes, carry them with you, and ask people The Question: "Are you registered to vote?" Anyone can do this, because it really is no more than that, and you can do it regardless of your engagement level on facebook or twitter dot com.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 5:33 AM on May 1, 2022 [12 favorites]
The most important thing about Haidt to remember is that he wants to infect social media with AI intended to both-sides everything based on the idea . He even has a simple chart listing off "inconvenient truths" from the right and the left that this AI would tackle. The left side of the chart entirely made up of white supremacist and transphobic strawmen such as "IQ deniers" and "Sex difference deniers," saving the loudest dogwhistle for the end: "Stereotype accuracy deniers"
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:57 AM on May 1, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:57 AM on May 1, 2022 [14 favorites]
The sort of stern, "daddy is very disappointed" reproachful moral scolding of the Atlantic house style that also finds room to mention Bill Clinton as a character witness
posted by anazgnos at 6:19 AM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by anazgnos at 6:19 AM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
I had problem at the beginning of the Atlantic article when FB like and Twitter retweet were identified as basically the snake in the Garden of Eden. Both vitality and the cash for fake news long preceded either.
FB's own research tells us it's not the bad information itself that's key, but the algorithm that pushes it higher and higher up the food chain.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:23 AM on May 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
FB's own research tells us it's not the bad information itself that's key, but the algorithm that pushes it higher and higher up the food chain.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:23 AM on May 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
From 2009 to 2012 the algorithms were there and the cultural divisions were there, but something happened from 2013-2014 specifically to really blow them up and if you traced the money you'd see what it is.
posted by subdee at 7:37 AM on May 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by subdee at 7:37 AM on May 1, 2022 [9 favorites]
The Atlantic Is a fine publication, but to my mind it does have a certain WIRED-esque tendency to routinely run articles about why everything is on fire or everything is about to transformed.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:28 AM on May 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 9:28 AM on May 1, 2022 [7 favorites]
I heard an interview with Haidt about this and I tried to appreciate his view, but when he got into comparing the ways the extreme right & left are equally out of touch I couldn't take him seriously at all. The example was something like, most Americans think political correctness is out of control, but the left doesn't, and most Americans think gay people should be allowed to exist, and the right doesn't. So the worst he can come up with for the left is they want you to be nice to people, meanwhile on the right there is a laundry list of ACTUAL POLICY that is killing and harming people TODAY. That's why the tragic middle 80% are trapped between both. ok, thanks for trying, guy.
That seems to come up a lot from middle ground types - liberals/the left are annoying, the right are out to destroy democracy and the world, and thus the two are equal and both bad.
I mean there probably is truth to his concerns with the speed of social media and the amplification of extremism, but I would never trust a guy who can't see the difference between the right & left to properly identify it.
The Socca piece was great.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:14 AM on May 1, 2022 [15 favorites]
That seems to come up a lot from middle ground types - liberals/the left are annoying, the right are out to destroy democracy and the world, and thus the two are equal and both bad.
I mean there probably is truth to his concerns with the speed of social media and the amplification of extremism, but I would never trust a guy who can't see the difference between the right & left to properly identify it.
The Socca piece was great.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:14 AM on May 1, 2022 [15 favorites]
I showed up here to diss Haidt but you guys beat me to it. Christ what a moron.
posted by ovvl at 10:23 AM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by ovvl at 10:23 AM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
You know what happened in 2009 in addition to Twitter adding retweets and Facebook changing its algorithm to include input from likes and shares? The United States inaugurated a Black man as president, and 30% of our population was so mad that they have spent every day since then trying to burn the country down. There is no way to talk about everything that happened in the 2010s as "polarizing our national dialogue" without mentioning the fucking Tea Party, Gamergate, the Daily Caller, Breitbart, Project Veritas (or any of the other bullshit Thiel has been funding), the Freedom Caucus, or the thousands of other parts of the white supremacist movement that have bloomed in the wake of people being mad about Barack Obama's presidency.
posted by hydropsyche at 10:36 AM on May 1, 2022 [52 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 10:36 AM on May 1, 2022 [52 favorites]
Oh, the other thing he said in the interview was that he didn't really explore conservative thought until he was in his 40s, and he agreed with some conservative thinker that: liberals think if you just give everyone total freedom, they will be good and nice to each other. Conservatives think you have to constantly constrain people or they'll be evil. He takes the "conservative" view.
Anyway, he found this assessment to be clear eyed and nuanced. So actually it shouldn't be very hard to post tweets that are nuanced enough to impress Haidt, "Libs must respect my cultural need to say slurs" should probably do it.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:43 AM on May 1, 2022
Anyway, he found this assessment to be clear eyed and nuanced. So actually it shouldn't be very hard to post tweets that are nuanced enough to impress Haidt, "Libs must respect my cultural need to say slurs" should probably do it.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:43 AM on May 1, 2022
also don't forget Citizens United vs FEC, argued in 2009 and decided in January 2010
posted by glonous keming at 10:46 AM on May 1, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 10:46 AM on May 1, 2022 [18 favorites]
Q. Why did The Atlantic publish this?
A. They need additional Haidt to get enough air above the shark they're jumping
posted by otherchaz at 11:57 AM on May 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
A. They need additional Haidt to get enough air above the shark they're jumping
posted by otherchaz at 11:57 AM on May 1, 2022 [6 favorites]
There is number of social-media look-a-likes that don't deploy algorithms designed to hook users up, like https://github.com/operatornormal/classified-ads/wiki/Classified-ads-wiki-page but lack of those algorithms is maybe one reason they're not greatly popular. How to save a cake and eat it at the same time?
--
Antti
posted by costello at 12:27 PM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
--
Antti
posted by costello at 12:27 PM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I searched this article for a couple of phrases - Citizens United, Gamergate, stochastic terrorism, gawker and Peter Thiel, bot farms, "pivot to video", marketing, ad revenue, media consolidation... a lot of things that I sort of expected to see there, but... no, this about how people are inherently bad?
Strange.
posted by mhoye at 2:23 PM on May 1, 2022 [21 favorites]
Strange.
posted by mhoye at 2:23 PM on May 1, 2022 [21 favorites]
As I like to say:
"Hegemons gonna hegemoninze"
posted by symbioid at 3:28 PM on May 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
"Hegemons gonna hegemoninze"
posted by symbioid at 3:28 PM on May 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
I subscribed to The Atlantic out of a desire to support journalism. But after a couple of years the most I can say about it is they refund the balance of your subscription when you finally cancel.
posted by elwoodwiles at 5:01 PM on May 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by elwoodwiles at 5:01 PM on May 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
I like to assume good faith, but that's hard to square with a piece which spends thousands of words talking about "structural stupidity" while ignoring all real structural factors and refusing to contemplate a single structural reform.
I hate to keep harping on Wilhoit, but I'm gonna harp on Wilhoit.
To get to the other side.
posted by flabdablet at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
I hate to keep harping on Wilhoit, but I'm gonna harp on Wilhoit.
As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny.Q. Why did The Atlantic publish this?
To get to the other side.
posted by flabdablet at 8:35 PM on May 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
There is no way to talk about everything that happened in the 2010s as "polarizing our national dialogue" without mentioning
...The Onion.
posted by flabdablet at 8:51 PM on May 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
...The Onion.
posted by flabdablet at 8:51 PM on May 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
I don’t agree with Jonathan Haidt’s position, nor what I guess I would describe as the Metafilter commentary consensus. But I was interested to find a Google doc, co-managed by Haidt, that is attempting to collect relevant academic studies on the effect of social media on politics: you can read or contribute here.
posted by ntk at 11:23 PM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by ntk at 11:23 PM on May 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
So, I thought that about a third of this article was a fairly decent examination of the effects of social media and I actually kinda liked the Babel metaphor. For example, I think the observation that the problem with modern social media isn't that people can post bad stuff but rather that the media platforms make it possible to blast that bad stuff out to audiences of millions is fairly accurate. However, Haidt then spends a big chunk essentially rehashing the old "[liberal] cancel culture is out of control" canard that was already tired when "cancel culture" was called "political correctness", but I figure that's just par for the course for the kind of stuff that Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief, publishes in his magazine.
However, probably the biggest thing missing from this analysis about the ways social media has fractured society and balkanized us into different echo chambers is that (imho) the biggest problem isn't exactly that the left and the right are in different bubbles and don't talk to each other. The bigger problem is that one of these bubbles is filled with lies. It's not just a matter that people are forming different moral frameworks in these bubbles, which definitely could and would be a difficult problem to resolve in itself. However, the deeper issue is that one of these moral frameworks seems unwilling or unable to, well, perceive reality as it actually exists. The article spends a total of about two sentences gesturing at this (search for "QAnon") before moving onto its whole "political correctness" hobbyhorse. Although, to be fair, Haidt does return to the problem of lies & propaganda later on in the article but mainly in the context of foreign actors like Russia and China.
There seems to be a fundamental unwillingness among these kinds of commentators to recognizing that a big chunk of conservative civic engagement is simply based on lies and that the bulk of those lies are originated and pushed by conservative American actors. And we're also not just talking about people on the political fringes believing in relatively inconsequential conspiracies (e.g.: Flat Earth). We're talking about GOP politicians, secretaries of state, attorneys general, etc.. who believe that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud and that Trump was the actual winner of that election. Like, this seems to be a whole different kind of problem than people disagreeing about a moral judgment call like whether a particular action should be considered racist or not. Like the old quote goes, "Every man has the right to an opinion but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts."
posted by mhum at 5:56 PM on May 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
However, probably the biggest thing missing from this analysis about the ways social media has fractured society and balkanized us into different echo chambers is that (imho) the biggest problem isn't exactly that the left and the right are in different bubbles and don't talk to each other. The bigger problem is that one of these bubbles is filled with lies. It's not just a matter that people are forming different moral frameworks in these bubbles, which definitely could and would be a difficult problem to resolve in itself. However, the deeper issue is that one of these moral frameworks seems unwilling or unable to, well, perceive reality as it actually exists. The article spends a total of about two sentences gesturing at this (search for "QAnon") before moving onto its whole "political correctness" hobbyhorse. Although, to be fair, Haidt does return to the problem of lies & propaganda later on in the article but mainly in the context of foreign actors like Russia and China.
There seems to be a fundamental unwillingness among these kinds of commentators to recognizing that a big chunk of conservative civic engagement is simply based on lies and that the bulk of those lies are originated and pushed by conservative American actors. And we're also not just talking about people on the political fringes believing in relatively inconsequential conspiracies (e.g.: Flat Earth). We're talking about GOP politicians, secretaries of state, attorneys general, etc.. who believe that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud and that Trump was the actual winner of that election. Like, this seems to be a whole different kind of problem than people disagreeing about a moral judgment call like whether a particular action should be considered racist or not. Like the old quote goes, "Every man has the right to an opinion but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts."
posted by mhum at 5:56 PM on May 2, 2022 [7 favorites]
However, the deeper issue is that one of these moral frameworks seems unwilling or unable to, well, perceive reality as it actually exists.
You're only saying that because you live in a reality-based bubble.
posted by flabdablet at 8:53 PM on May 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
You're only saying that because you live in a reality-based bubble.
posted by flabdablet at 8:53 PM on May 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
There seems to be a fundamental unwillingness among these kinds of commentators to recognizing that a big chunk of conservative civic engagement is simply based on lies and that the bulk of those lies are originated and pushed by conservative American actors.
Because these are the commentators who have been pushing Broderite "bothsidesism" and free speech "absolutism". And as such, to admit that would be tantamount to admitting that the beliefs they advocated for were lies, and that they are in part responsible for all that has happened. Better to pretend that the right isn't peddling blatant lies than admit that you're a rube.
In addition, as was pointed out earlier, Haidt in particular has bought into the conservative idea that people are inherently horrible, and thus need to be overseen to be kept virtuous. This is of course not only ridiculous, but runs contrary to actual experiences of people banding together to support one another in poor circumstances, and speaks more to his own mindset than anything else.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:47 AM on May 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
Because these are the commentators who have been pushing Broderite "bothsidesism" and free speech "absolutism". And as such, to admit that would be tantamount to admitting that the beliefs they advocated for were lies, and that they are in part responsible for all that has happened. Better to pretend that the right isn't peddling blatant lies than admit that you're a rube.
In addition, as was pointed out earlier, Haidt in particular has bought into the conservative idea that people are inherently horrible, and thus need to be overseen to be kept virtuous. This is of course not only ridiculous, but runs contrary to actual experiences of people banding together to support one another in poor circumstances, and speaks more to his own mindset than anything else.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:47 AM on May 3, 2022 [4 favorites]
In my experience only about five percent of humanity is inherently horrible, and it's that five percent that grits up the gears of any model of human organization constructed mainly along theoretical, ideological lines even worse than those that have had at least a few hundred years to evolve while being continuously tested under real world conditions. I have a great deal of confidence in the arsehole five percent's ability to do this, which is why I'm generally opposed to revolutions as a substitute for the persistent work required to improve existing systems from within.
The arsehole five percent does need to be overseen to be kept virtuous and also gravitates naturally toward attempting to wield disproportionate power over others, which is why any power structure intended to serve the public good must include robust independent anti-corruption mechanisms with teeth.
Most people are completely fine once you get them away from the arsehole five percent's influence. Which is, of course, why the arsehole five percent maintains structures such as Fox News and the PR and marketing industries generally that are specifically devoted to making sure this never happens.
Haidt has always struck me as a dupe and a tool of the arsehole five percent. I have yet to read anything from him that reveals any actual understanding of how the real social world works, despite his extensive formal qualifications in exactly that field. I think he's pretty thoroughly blinded by his own self-image's cleverness.
posted by flabdablet at 8:34 PM on May 3, 2022
The arsehole five percent does need to be overseen to be kept virtuous and also gravitates naturally toward attempting to wield disproportionate power over others, which is why any power structure intended to serve the public good must include robust independent anti-corruption mechanisms with teeth.
Most people are completely fine once you get them away from the arsehole five percent's influence. Which is, of course, why the arsehole five percent maintains structures such as Fox News and the PR and marketing industries generally that are specifically devoted to making sure this never happens.
Haidt has always struck me as a dupe and a tool of the arsehole five percent. I have yet to read anything from him that reveals any actual understanding of how the real social world works, despite his extensive formal qualifications in exactly that field. I think he's pretty thoroughly blinded by his own self-image's cleverness.
posted by flabdablet at 8:34 PM on May 3, 2022
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