A Substack on how social media has supercharged culture war and driven us insane | Hacker News Reader

A Substack on how social media has supercharged culture war and driven us insane

bendreyfuss.substack.com

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Bear in mind that every paragraph in this piece should be appended with "... in America".

These kinds of acrimonious, partisan political discussions only occur in places where democracy has damaged foundations. In America, this is caused by the "winner takes all" style of state-level national vote, leading to gerrymandering, battleground states, strategic legislation, and a two-party system where most people don't feel heard or understood by either party, and no politicians other than the idealists will run independent or with a 3rd party. When things feel broken enough to be threatening, politics get nasty, and the rest of the world watches on with worry.

I speak German and Polish. Polish politics is absolutely broken, Austrian has a lot of tension between the leftists and the rightists, German, well, let us say that they have massive fringes, especially in the former GDR.

My wife speaks Spanish and says that Spanish politics is absolutely hateful and crazy, a legacy of the Civil War.

I won't even start with Czech politics. A lot of polarization, bad.

Most democracies have damaged foundations. The reasons are different (in Spain, shadow of the Civil War; in the Eastern Bloc, legacy of Communism; in the German speaking world, legacy of Nazism; in Greece, legacy of Ottoman rule...), but damaged foundations are almost everywhere. Perhaps Iceland is better off.

Yes, the fringes in Germany can get pretty crazy, but in general politics in Germany are pretty tame overall. In fact it's nice that parties like FDP exist because then it's easier for AFD to push out their more extreme members as they grow more mainstream, while FDP remains irrelevant to the nation as a whole. You're not going to have families splitting up over politics, or super crazy flame wars except with the most extreme of partisans. The same goes for Canada. Most things are a storm in a teacup that average people don't get too terribly worked up over. If anything, it's municipal and state/province/prefecture level politics that rile people up the most in more stable democracies.

Turkey, on the other hand, has gotten pretty nasty, to the point where my friends refuse to even talk about politics anymore.

True, but as with many other trends, things _start_ in America, then conquer the rest of the world (often in a distorted, sometimes significantly worse way). Maybe a wrong example, but the political life of my home country was bad enough but when some politicians started to import professional political consultants from the US then everything got significantly worse. Another example: English is not my native tongue and in my native tongue nouns are not gendered so I always have to pay a bit more attention to them (e.g. someone from Germany or Italy uses gendered pronouns much more self-evidently than me). Now because I work with people from all over the world, I had to start paying attention not just to use he/she properly, but all the other stuff, it's quite stressful actually (because we all know: embracing diversity definitely does not include embracing the social mistakes made by e.g. autists, foreigners).

So what happens in America matters, a lot.

Yes.... and especially with Tech. I am actually sad this is happening. I want each nation, countries and culture to stay weird in their own way.

I'd like to add that unhealthy messed up democracy (e.g. two-party system, recent civil war, support for "extreme" wings, corruption etc.) is not a sufficient condition. I can think of at least three Western European countries that meet this standard, but still manage to have vaguely civil social media, and a naturally-aspirated culture war.

I agree this article is US-centric.

> These kinds of acrimonious, partisan political discussions only occur in places where democracy has damaged foundations.

By this definition, there are very few (if any) democracies with sound foundations. What, in your mind, is the healthiest democracy in the world?

> two-party system where most people don't feel heard or understood by either party

I don't think this is supported by evidence. Out of people who had an opinion, 50% of them had a favorable view of the Democratic Party[1].

If you add in the 37% of people who had a favorable view of the GOP, between 50% and 87% of Americans had a favorable view of at least one party.

Democracy is always about compromise. People who refuse to be "satisfied" unless they agree 100% with a party (or candidate) are never going to be satisfied.

1. https://news.gallup.com/poll/24655/party-images.aspx

I recently did a mini internet-studies on this and some of the stuff is indeed regional, but a lot of it is international too.

https://venam.nixers.net/blog/internet_communication_narrati...

Good article. Would also add polarisation & political extremism is a major catalyst in converting people of good faith into people of bad faith through questionable narratives, false statistics and all the other means of propaganda available.

This is the main reason why the political forcefeeding we are experiencing right now is highly dangerous.

Plug as a founder: We are trying to balance things out on https://polemix.co (invite code hn169, download app at both stores) Launched 6 weeks ago, we bring together people from both sides of hot questions. The format is inspired from TikTok and consists of 30-second videos in which speakers answer YES or NO to controversial questions. The app’s goal is to break echo chambers.

We are onboarding early adopters to shape the next paradigm of internet dialogue, and we have the most caring debating champion on board (defeated IBM!) https://youtu.be/qgIAEUPyGMM

If you are passionate about exchange of ideas, shoot me your thoughts to feedback@polemix.co to have your intake on social media current situation.

The problem with this "both sides have a point" ideology (arguably popularized by CNN when they intentionally became an entertainment network) is that, for many issues, one side does not have a point.

It's fascinating that you actually used one of these examples (though a milder one) on your landing page. The woman on the left says "#RecordGrowth" as a reason to miss Trump, even though:

- GDP growth was not at a record high under Trump[1] (both Bush Jr. and Obama had years with higher YoY growth[2], for example)

- Congress ultimately makes major economic decisions, not the president

- policy doesn't always impact the economy immediately

I'd actually argue that sites like yours are the actual problem. When you elevate false narratives to a "both sides have a point" level of credibility, people will just pick whichever one they like better.

That's one of the core problems with social media: you can always find thousands of vocal "people" (possibly some bots, possibly some paid actors) to agree with anything you want to believe. Instead of facing the pain that you might be wrong, you have been wrong, or the world is not what you want it to be, you are given the option to just believe everyone else is stupid.

1. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/oct/01/donald-tru...

2. https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/gdp-...

Thank you for taking the time to reach out and reading our value proposition.

Indeed, it will be a hard task for us to solve all the issues regarding baseless opinions. We believe that hearing both sides of a question and acknowledging that 2 sides can co-exist, will make you a better citizen. Even more if you engage with the other side with a respect signal. Even more if you speak out. And even more if, while you speak out, you receive respect votes :)

Assuming any issue can only have 2 viewpoints is extremely fallacious

Maybe you have two sides - most issues do - maybe there is only one. But exposure to both is helpful regardless. On most issues we haven’t considered both sides, and only have weak thoughts - listening forces us to think. In other cases you can ratify your beliefs, and is something you may change your mind. Regardless, it’s better that we have seen a wide range of opinions.

How is it a wide range of options if you forced to say either viewpoint A or B is true, when in reality any semicomplex issue will have truth in viewpoint C, D, ∃!xP etc.

Complex societal issues will not be solved within the scope of a 30 second video.

I can't see how this can affect the echo chamber issue in any way. Turning the "disklike" button into "respect, but dislike" hardly does anything to the substance of the general conversation topics. People are still socially afraid of presenting viewpoints and trying to make people do so with their own name and face will produce worse results VS twitter. Unless a monochamber is what you're shooting for.

To be fair to you, I hardly see any technological solution within humanity's current capabilities as a solution for the problem.

Hi there, thank you for taking the time to reach out.

I'm glad you've seen the respect button innovation. The meaning of that button is not "respect, but dislike". We want it to be "normally I wouldn't engage, but there is a positive signal I want to share".

Since we are alternating the YES / NO sides all the times, engaging with the other side and showing respect foster more balanced debates.

The idea that "the personal is political" stems from the 1960s, before the advent of the Internet.

What the Internet and especially social media did was give it wings.

To use an analogy: you can throw down bombs from a baloon, but there were no carpet bombings of cities in the baloon era. You need airplane for this threat/tactics to grow into massive proportions.

The result is the world where you cannot really distinguish between the parodic account Titania McGrath and real people.

The origins of "the personal is political" is the idea that if man abuses his wife, it is not just private family issue, but it is caused/related to general gender politics: social status of women, their employability, ability to get education and so on.

The phrase basically died over time, because it is not 1960 anymore and gender issues nowdays are different.

TIL. Nowadays it means, though, that whatever you consume (from a sandwich in a fast food chain up to a video game) should align with your worldview.

Nowdays, basically no one is using it.

No one is using the term because so many people are living it.

I take the author to mean some things we do with social media are insane, not the we are literally driven insane. However, I feel strongly that psychiatry has not caught up with social media and in the future several social media related diagnoses will be listed in the DSM-6 or 7

For those looking DSM: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_M...

Thanks. For those unfamiliar, there is always a lively debate on what should be included in the DSM as a mental disorder and definitions often change and new definitions added as more research comes in.

We are facing the issue that our real life has become global while our virtual life has become very local.

The first by the news which convey for example the effects of a supply chain disruption to the world economy down to the effect for every one of us.

The later by infotainment supercompanies which try to group us with like brethren and keeping us in a virtual small world bubble.

Escape from supercharged culture war and the insanity the OP is talking about is to make real life local and virtual life global again.

I don’t think that the social media has something special.

A cliche in the movies is the bar scene where everyone fights with no apparent reason .

Social media is like a bar, It’s optimized for engagement, so it’s only gas no brakes large gathering space and it’s well known what happens in such environments. Stadiums, concerts etc are all known for for the antisocial behavior of some the participants.

The social media is a supercharged stadium. I used to think that it’s the way it is because the human communication tools are implemented without the self control tools but now I believe that it’s simply because people are incapable of living in large groups with no barriers.

People are capable of living in large groups. Thats how we get the largest cities in the world.

But the Upvote/Like & Follower count based reward/signalling system on social media is dumb as shit. Even Ants with billion member colonies have more sophisticated signalling.

So now we just sit around and wait for the buffoon class that invented it and mindlessly cling to it to retire or die.

In cities people don't live in hippie commune like organisations but in separate houses with no direct interaction with others outside of the house most of the time. The issues arise when they come together in bars, concerts, workplaces etc. Workplaces tend to be more orderly though, which means that it's possible to moderate large groups.

Outrage bait is so yesterday. Outrage over the outrage bait is the new opium of the masses. Article after article of why you should be terrified of the existential threat that hyperpoliticization represents to our society.

It's still fear porn. It's still designed to drive clicks. You're not doing yourself any favors reading it. You're not becoming more educated, or more mindful. You're just trading one boogyman for another.

Want to really solve the problem for yourself? Stop reading news, and stop reading articles about news. Stop using social media and stop reading articles about why you should stop using social media.

Obviously I'm not interested in solving this problem for myself. That's why we're here. Like other vices, internet news just needs to be consumed in moderation.

Well I come here for the interesting nerd stuff, the research papers, the interesting perspectives on everything basically. Honestly I was a fan of substack and this article spurred me to realize what I said above and re think whether I like that publication or not. I agree with the principles and motivation of it's founding.

I agree about the original outrage bait, but I disagree that the resulting outrage is not scary.

> Article after article of why you should be terrified of the existential threat that hyperpoliticization represents to our society.

Why shouldn't I be terrified that nearly 1,000 people attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in the US on Jan 6, and something like 30% of the country agrees with their cause?

How is it not terrifying that so many elected officials get death threats, and there was a botched plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan?

To make it more personal: a friend listed me as a co-organizer of a demonstration to support the counting of votes in the US (i.e. we were opposed to throwing out thousands of votes, which the courts prevented in the end anyway).

A few days later, the FBI warned us that our names and addresses were on Oathkeepers message boards. They advised us to cancel the demonstration for our safety, which we did.

Let's assume at least one of those people really wanted to kill me. The original outrage bait that made him so angry was certainly fake, but his outrage was absolutely real.

I can stop reading news and social media, but that doesn't solve the problem of all the other people who are reading it.

You shouldn't be terrified because everything you've said is over exaggerated horse shit being fed to you to keep you angry. Most people don't think they're hyperpoliticized, but if you want to find out for sure, check and see if every talking point you use when politics comes up are exactly the same as the ones used by partisan propaganda outlets. If you check all the boxes for either CNN or Breitbart, you've been successfully fearmonhgered and hyperpoliticized by propaganda.

Also, what I said that you quoted, I was referring to the "existential threat to our society" that is referenced in the article, that is, internet news and it's polarization effect, not the scaremongering fed to you by whatever news you consume.

What you see here is the effect of opening the floodgates and letting the masses in without any barriers of entry. Be it a social media or a trading platform. You know who they are. I think we underestimate greatly the rock bottom levels of average attention spans and intellectual curiosity.

In the past, you had to be a somebody to voice your opinion - you had to publish an article, a book, be on TV. Not an easy feat.

Then came the web and democratized this a bit, but it was still not trivial. You had to find a hosting provider, learn HTML, spend one hour on the phone with Network Solutions, etc. If you wanted to say something - you could, but it wasn't free and easy. And that's why the early web was so high quality.

I was an early customer of WebTV, and I got a glimpse into the future by browsing their fenced-off usenet. It was a tornado of flame wars and just pure stupid. And why? WebTV made it super easy to access the web.

2007 changed everything. The iPhone came out, Facebook, Twitter, big data. Now, every idiot could whip out their phone and type in "owning the libz 24/7! MAGA! Lolz!" [SEND].

And we all have to process that shit. A barrier of entry is good. It ups the quality of whatever it's applied to. Social media fundamentally destroys the hardship of voicing an opinion, which, as we can see, most should probably not voice. If you are not willing to work for it, then it's probably not worth hearing.

> Social media fundamentally destroys the hardship of voicing an opinion, which, as we can see, most should probably not voice.

Well, you can put the blame on the sender. But I think that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and voice it.

Maybe the receiving end needs to learn and distinguish between "important feedback" and "just ignore it". We should stop treating everyone's little issue as top-notch priority.

Anyone can still voice their opinion. In most parts of the world, either to a neighbor or go out on the street, write a sign, have at it. The world is not better off by letting everyone broadcast their opinion to BILLIONS of people.

That would help. Although there's some cognitive load involved, and the question for me is "What's the upside?" I suppose I've done exactly what you're suggesting, but I've drawn the line at social media itself. Because "everyone's little issue" is 100% what it contains and transmits, whether it's something personal or a shared news story. I have deprioritized all of it. Even Hacker News, where my participation is much less lately.

I see posts by intelligent, knowledgeable, people that are pure poison. I have worked with journalists and half those people shouldn't be allowed near a keyboard. I don't think the "barrier theory" adequately explains why everyone is so involved these days. Looking forward to hearing how TFA explains it.

They are involved because it's easy.

imo the blame needs to be placed on platforms that enslave people's attention and dopamine cycles. Even it's just micro-profits that get skimmed from the individual (which compound thanks to numbers of users), the actual costs and damage done to people's mental health, their increased isolation and lonlieness etc is unprecedented. My prediction is that the future belongs to terrorism simply because there is no other escape for that energy to go, and our response to it will be more surveillance/control of the individual. This sounds much more realistic than a movement that will turn people away from their devices to spend time outside or with real-life friends.

I agree that the barrier of entry yields a low signal to noise ratio and there is no "realistic" solution to it that wouldn't be considered either ultra-capitalist or fascist depending which camp you ask. There is a hypothetical solution which could reduce this which is to regulate the shit out of targeted advertising and create a watchdog that places limits on dark patterns and companies that hi-jack cognitive faculty of their users. It would immediately outlaw these business models. Secondly I'd make individuals (not companies) accountable so it's impossible for a CEO to hide behind their corporate facade.

The solution is simple but impossible. Regulations will not work.

Here is the thing - you can create a Meetup and charge a nominal fee, and that weeds out almost everyone who is not serious about going. If Twitter charged even a small fee, like $5 a year, it would knock off tons of people off of it who are cheap enough to not care about it, unless it's free. But that won't happen (even though I DID hear rumors this was discussed in 2020, at the very top).

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