America Is Getting Meaner

[Fritz]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/opini...erica.html

[Lemon Drop]

Tim Egan is one of my favorite writers.

We're in a time of national anxiety on several fronts: health, racial inequality and the economy. Not to mention politics. It's no surprise that the pot is boiling over.

Egan ends like this
"My own better angel, currently on hiatus, tells me that the majority of people today aren’t as awful as they appear on social media, which rewards hate at a high volume. But who, or what, rewards civility and nuance?

It may be, as the writer George Packer says, that the United States is headed for “a cold civil war that continues to erode democracy.” No nation can survive for long without some self-evident truths as a lodestar.

There’s an old saying, attributed to the Sioux: A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass. What may be worse are a people without a heart, unable to see half their countrymen and countrywomen as anything but the enemy."



What rewards civility is a better life. Life still rewards the kind and thoughtful people. We'll get through this.

[Fritz]

"My own better angel, currently on hiatus, tells me that the majority of people today aren’t as awful as they appear on social media, which rewards hate at a high volume."

one of the reasons I signed off and closed out my fb.
I'd got on a decade ago upon the passing of an old work buddy and fb was a way to get out the info to many compadres across the country.

Now it's just hate and sadness.

I miss being in touch with old work mates, but not willing to support the uckerberg lifestyle. Trying to find a better alternative.

[davester]

I find it odd that people blame Facebook for invective when it's actually the "friends" they choose to associate with that's the problem. I'm no fan of the Zuck and I realize that FB, like any public forum, can be used to amplify hatred, but I use Facebook as a tool to stay in touch with people I like. My FB newsfeed is generally about life events, appreciation, humor and travel. I did momentarily "friend" some former high school acquaintances who turned out to be jerks but the solution was to "unfriend" them rather than ditch FB. Ditch the nasty people and your problems will be solved. If there's nobody left after you do that then you have been hanging with the wrong crowd.

[Ted King]

This quote has some has some truth to it but is misleading:

The left shares the blame, with its cancel culture, group-think stridency and identity politics — tactics now picked up by the right. (See the canceled Liz Cheney, party fealty to the falsity that Trump won.)

There clearly is more of this "meanness" on the Trumplican side but this quote gives the impression that there is an equal share of the blame. False equivalence. And I don't get this "cancel culture" "identity politics" tactics "now picked up by the right". WTF. Like those things (maybe under different guises) haven't had a constant presence in our politics probably since the beginning.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

It's tough to find an alternative. Social media giants like FB usually buy up and corrupt any upcoming sites. I am a supporter of Congress breaking any company that has an international media group/arm worth over $500 million.

I have occasionally been a little too unrestrained here, which I attribute partly to overreacting to other people fired up by partisan websites that have been purposely juiced by bad actors (NRA taking money from Russia, Koch bros., Pig Oil*, etc.). Some large media companies push both sides of debates, like Murdoch's News Corp being pro-Climate Change in Australia and being anti-Climate Change in the US. :punch:

* could be considered a duplicate of the previous entry.

[mrbigstuff]

it may well be time to look in the mirror even here, at this august bastion of civility. Mostly, this is a good space, an honest clubhouse for intelligent discussions. But there are times when the smugness overboils, and the desire to pile on is overwhelming. I guess it wouldn't take much to just view some of the recent threads of late, eh?

[$tevie]

davester wrote:
I find it odd that people blame Facebook for invective when it's actually the "friends" they choose to associate with that's the problem. I'm no fan of the Zuck and I realize that FB, like any public forum, can be used to amplify hatred, but I use Facebook as a tool to stay in touch with people I like. My FB newsfeed is generally about life events, appreciation, humor and travel. I did momentarily "friend" some former high school acquaintances who turned out to be jerks but the solution was to "unfriend" them rather than ditch FB. Ditch the nasty people and your problems will be solved. If there's nobody left after you do that then you have been hanging with the wrong crowd.

This is my experience as well. And algorithms do affect it: if you "Like" posts about art and music and kitties and your friends' good news, FB shows you more art and more music and more kitties and more about your friends.

My brother used to live in a rural area and has had to un-friend all but one of his high school classmates due to their advanced Trumpism. Once he cleared out the debris his feed got much lighter and friendlier.

[RgrF]

Turning to religion can bring some solace from the hate...


...or not.

[RAMd®d]

My brother used to live in a rural area and has had to un-friend all but one of his high school classmates due to their advanced Trumpism.


Advanced Trumpism.

That's dark and sad, and I shouldn't find it amusing but I do, in a darkly sad and clever way.