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Comment by stcredzero | Hacker News Reader

It's very fashionable to suggest that social media is polarising.

It's very fashionable, because it has produced jaw-dropping public idiocy with unprecedented immediacy on a huge scale. It has given a voice to the loudest idiots, along with the power of the mob. It has unprecedented power to give people license to denigrate other people and anger them, including people they know or are related to. This only figures, as its viral power comes from precisely that effect. (That effect on our affect, no less.)

Maybe it's just like the stylized mock battles carried out by rival little towns in Tuscany dating from the middle ages and renaissance. Maybe it will just amount to blowing off steam and "local color" in the long view of history. I sure hope that undergrads screaming that Yale is not a place of learning is not a harbinger of the future.

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Idiots were always around, and they didn't make too much effort to hide either. Remember that people used to gather mobs and actually hang other people, beat them to death, torch their houses, etc. instead of insulting them on twitter. I think there's an improvement here.

>I think there's an improvement here.

I don't know about that. I mean, sure, it's better to be trolled with tweets than hung, but there is something insidious about the way social media, etc. is changing us collectively. We seem to be getting meaner and more polarized on a macro level. Our interactions are more superficial and staged even.

And, the idiots seem to wield a disproportionate amount of "power" these days. It's like idiocy concentrate.

A professor of mine in my first year of college gave a lecture on Determinism and Free Will. His thesis was basically what you described above: subtle yet gradual determination of how we think, believe what is important to us, what we buy etc through your environment and circumstances. Seriously, social media is a numbing poison to the mind....

What's actually wrong with getting meaner if we're also getting less violent?

Perhaps it is just another form of violence. Instead of trying to inflict physical pain, people try to inflict emotional pain. In many ways it can be more damaging, the signs can be less obvious.

I would suggest this causes greater polarisation and less tolerance. This leads to less reasoned discussion to understand perspectives and work out differences. Which leads to more polarisation... etc.

What's wrong with shooting for less violent and less mean?

The timescale, basically. It's only 2016. There's no telling where we'll be in 20,016.

That's the point - I don't think it's changing us. People felt virtuous and righteous sending other people to be stoned to death, burnt at the stake, slowly driven to death in GULAG or murdered in killing fields, concentration camps, and so on. Now people feel virtuous and righteous calling other people names on twitter. The idea didn't change, people didn't become worse. They just now have a way to do it without killing anybody. There's still a beating or two sometimes, and maybe ruined careers, maybe some property damage and so on - it's still not a pretty picture. But better than before I think. And also more public - so we can look in the mirror and see what it looks like.

> the idiots seem to wield a disproportionate amount of "power" these days. It's like idiocy concentrate.

It looks like it sometimes. E.g. worry a lot when I look what is happening in academia. But then again - it's not like there weren't places that were insane before. At least this time I hope nobody gets burned at the stake.

But, with assassins and twitter you can do more than with just twitter.

I agree with you.

It's basically:

1. now we can vent frustrations publicly more easily, anonymously (this should, I hope, lead to fewer actual violent incidents, sort of like many smaller earthquakes relieve pressure and reduce the risk of a big one)

2. since venting frustrations is very, very public and there's basically no curation for content these days, there's a deluge of garbage that could somewhat be avoided in the past

I think it's a good process since at some point we're just going to get immunized: we'll discover better channels, we'll improve curation and since all the garbage is floating to the top, there's a small chance people will actually notice it and actually act, i.e. try to take care of some of these misguided loonies.

I hear you, but I think you may be conflating extraordinary historical events with kind of the day to day notion of what is considered socially acceptable treatment of one another in modern society.

That is, I was referring to the latter, versus suggesting that humans have never done bad things to each another.

I stopped using Facebook and mobile two years ago. I lost contact with people and discovered who my true friends who still wanted my company. I think it was the right decision.

I also agree with you, and furthermore think that we live in the most prosperous and productive period of history and yet we are arguably the most asinine and facile society since the Internet arrived.

It's important to note, especially in forums like this, that no amount of intelligence will save you from someone considering you an idiot. Doesn't matter how right you think your opinions are.

"Even if you are the most beautiful rose in the garden- there simply are people who just don't like roses."

-- my grandmother

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