| Jumpin said: Acceptable levels of authoritarianism by the populace is often a function of fear within the population. I bet if studies were done on historical data they would see this. The value of the actual threat relative to the value we (as a society) assigned to it  over a domain of time is often irrelevant by (sorry to use this word again) stupid people. Those who are wise understand society is being manipulated based on fear. We've seen it before. It's in the tyrants playbook dating back to the era of the Greco-Tyrants of the archaic era. And when I say "manipulation" - it might not even be a deliberate cabal forcing society into a direction, but rather the result of a loss of intestinal fortitude/balls as  a function of a loss of connection to reality... and people unable to perceive the meaning of data. As a note, I'm just borrowing numbers to demonstrate a point. I'm sure the actual values will be different if the data is scrutinized. The only alternative to manipulation by fear is ignorance/loss of common sense. Common sense would tell most of us that, even if that 3 in 100,000 sounds high, that the vast majority of that 3 will never apply to us. Think of it as the X factor, which includes homeless people, criminal associates, people with violent/abusive family members, and 3-X becomes a much smaller number. Whereas people today, if it's not the result of media manipulation, are simply too ignorant to understand the X-factor, and that X to them will always be 0. So, in 1995, because we were almost all spending 85-100% of our day in the real world, we got a good sense of that X-value, and it might be 2.9 or even 2.99, so then it's more like 1 in a million or 1 in 10 million chance we'll get murdered. But people who think that X-factor is 0, will think, even if the rate is lower, that 1-X=1, so they see it as 1 in 100,000... or 10 to 100 times higher than the perception of someone in the 1990s. Because yes, we almost universally considered society safer, except for the lunatic fringe. Now that lunatic fringe is mainstream thought. Do what Dietrich Bonhoeffer did far too late, and call them out on their stupidity. Shame them for their stupidity. Ostracize them for their stupidity. Because stupid people in large groups (and they're always in groups) are more dangerous to society than authentic evil on its own; because, stupid people don't recognize their own evil behaviour if it alleviates their irrational fears. In effect, these groups of stupid people are the vessel for delivering evil to the world. Nazism was indeed evil, but it would have never been anything more than a bunch of angry losers if it weren't for the vast swaths of stupidity that took over much of Europe when the economic system collapsed during the rise of the radio. Stupidity is the garden which allows evil to manifest on massive scales. |
We live in the age of idiocracy.
The noble intent of bringing people together through the internet has backfired spectacularly. Social media is the tool for stupid people to come together in large groups and now we're stuck with that. AI algorithms have refined the tools to enslave society to their constant conforming stream of distraction. What consumerism already achieved has been further refined with social media. Create insecurity, sell the solution, provide a dopamine hit, repeat. Social media is the same, stick to your echo chambers for temporary fake relief from any news that might possibly challenge your echo chamber beliefs.
As much as the internet is a vast resource of information and facts, it has become an even greater tool to serve confirmation bias. And AI algorithms feeding you fast thought food keep you stuck in dogmatic and emotional reactionary thinking. People don't have/take the time to reflect anymore. A quick fire response, fishing for likes. Repeating platitudes and one-liners without really understanding what they mean in the first place.
The school system was set up to teach conformity, to obey, not to question, to adhere to group-think. And that's the only path to fixing the mess we are in now. Education has to be rebuild from scratch. From training children to become drones to teaching them critical thinking. The Prussian model of education needs to be scrapped. I was lucky with a couple teachers who went outside the curriculum and taught how to connect the dots, but the vast majority was simply filling our heads with useless and biased 'facts'.
Yet the immediate threat is the smart phone. I ditched mine 16 years ago and this is the only site I'm still active at. Quiet backwater of the internet, much less noise here. However wherever I see people, they have their phone in their hand, browsing, browsing, browsing, and more browsing. Afraid of their thoughts? Or do they not have any?
Binge watching is another destructive form of entertainment. No time to reflect on the content, just more more more empty stimulation. I was always one of the last to leave the movie theater, reflecting on the movie during the end titles. Well when movies still had some worthwhile content to ponder :/ For most people it seemed to be a race to be the first out of the theater.
Critical thinking is hard and takes time, emotional (reactionary) thinking is quick and fits modern society's demand for speed. Modern society is build to compete for your attention every single second of the day. Leaving no time to think, no time to see the patterns or connect the dots, no time to challenge your own belief systems or see issues from multiple sides. Pick a side, dig your heels in, no time for debate.
I admit, I have mostly retreated from society. I follow what's going on but see no improvement coming any time soon. All I can advise my kids is find something you really want to do, outside preferably, work with your hands. That leaves time for critical thinking, reflection.
