[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic a...
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Ask HN: Why has the internet become so pessimistic and political?
I can't find a single place without politics and pessimism. It
should be easy to differentiate between conspiracy theorists but
lately, I have been finding it harder. Every thread here results in
accusing companies of wrong doing even when the evidence isn't
quite clear. Other places like reddit and blogs are even worse.
While I understand there must be politics in every day life and it
is inescapable but the issue and discussion seems to go round and
round. I am not finding anything insightful from any political
discussion online. Is it just me? I feel like most things come down
to people wanting to have enough resources to live happily. If they
just had enough money, most of their problems would be solved. Is
it selection bias that commenters on the internet tend to be more
depressed/lonely? Has the demography gone down in age which
results in lot of shitty behaviour like witch hunts and trending
non-issue outrage? Young generation seems to like these and they
especially love twitch from what I have seen. Maybe an impact of
that? What do you think is the biggest reason for the current
condition?
Author : you_are_naive
Score : 30 points
Date : 2021-02-08 19:49 UTC (3 hours ago)
| codegeek wrote:
| - Too many people on the internet who just want it to be about
| them. Me Me Me. Look at me. I try not to be that guy but I am
| sure I have been there too. Look at facebook. It is mostly a
| bunch of family/friends showing their latest vacation pics, or
| their kids doing some stuff (guilty as charged here) or whatever.
| It is mostly about THEM. Look at me. Me me me. Instagram. Need I
| say anything ? Twitter: A bunch of people who have opinions and
| if they are famous, everyone listens in. Like ok, who cares but
| people do. When someone "less fortunate" sees all that stuff,
| they get depressed/jealous/sad whatever. Why can't I have those
| things ? Why can't I go to that great vacation ? Oh, look at THAT
| family. How perfect they are. My life sucks.
|
| - People are really becoming too reserved and within their own
| circles. Internet has made it much easier contrary to what we may
| have thought when internet started. Now you don't need to worry
| about socializing or getting to know your neighbor. You can
| literally get/do anything online these days which also means you
| create your own echo chambers. For example, why participate in a
| debate with a fellow neighbor/friend when I can go on reddit
| (anonymized) and write whatever I want for the most part. I was
| talking to someone few days ago and they mentioned "We used to
| almost know everyone in my neighborhood 15 years ago and now in
| the same neighborhood, I only know a handful"
|
| I wouldn't say most commenters online are depressed. I think it
| is more because of how our society has become.
| FAANG_dream wrote:
| People are frustrated in general and use online as a medium to
| vent out without much consequences?
| genericone wrote:
| No rain drop thinks it's responsible for the flood.
| Natfan wrote:
| Very succinct, I might use this quote for other discussions!
| techbio wrote:
| Nicely put, maybe also: " _Because_ no raindrop thinks, it 's
| responsible for the flood."
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| There is no single reason for why this is happening but I do have
| a few suspicions on what is contributing to it.
|
| 1) The internet is directly and indirectly incentivizing this
| kind of attention seeking behavior. It's rewarding to be noticed,
| upvoted, and retweeted. Pleasant, well reasoned, and evenhanded
| discussion rarely gets as much attention as sassy clapbacks.
|
| 2) Younger generations have been raised to believe that activism
| is a virtue and that injecting politics into everything is the
| way to affect progress (intersectionality).
|
| 3) Young people tend to be more vocal and more prolific. This is
| probably because they have more energy and free time than older
| folks. Additionally, young people tend to be more
| abrasive/obnoxious, as they don't have as much life experience to
| tone themselves down and learn how to behave.
| ploika wrote:
| I don't really agree with this. I think the internet is just
| starting to look more and more like real life.
|
| My grandmother, born in a house without electricity, is on
| Twitter. My aunts and uncles, who would previously have watched
| argumentative current affairs panel shows on TV (which were
| never pleasant or even-handed, even decades ago), can now join
| in the brawl in the comments sections online.
|
| The young people argument is a bit too loose for my liking too.
| Are you talking about teenagers or people in their thirties?
| I'd also directly challenge you on the assertion that young
| people have more free time and are more obnoxious than older
| people. I'm not sure that stands up to scrutiny.
| treis wrote:
| >There is no single reason for why this is happening
|
| The internet skews heavily young, international, and urban. In
| other words, pretty overwhelmingly Democratic. Obviously they
| were pretty unhappy with the way things were going the last 4
| years. It's not really different from how things were under
| Bush. And now that Biden is president and the Dems control
| congress things will be less negative online.
| pickle-wizard wrote:
| I've noticed what you say about younger people. I'm in my early
| 40s and my sister is her early 20s.
|
| My Dad is an aerospace engineer and we were discussing the work
| that Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is doing with their rockets. When
| my sister buts in and goes on a 20 minute rant about how it is
| unethical for billionaires to exist. It really pissed me off as
| I don't get to talk to my Dad much[1], especially about things
| he is excited about. That's not the only time she has done it,
| it happens all the time.
|
| Or maybe I'm just an apathetic Gen Xer.
|
| [1] I live 500 miles away and my Dad doesn't like to talk on
| the phone.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| rough yeah. But not specifically younger gen, as see similar
| behaviour clearly on things like Clubhouse, with some older
| folks, where everyone just rants and likes the sound of their
| own voice
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| I think it's a combination of anonymity, the power of the
| internet to increase your reach, regular greed, and human
| tribalism. IRL you have to be polite to people because you need
| to interact with people and politeness helps with that. But when
| you're anonymous you don't care as much- it can't come back to
| you IRL and you don't know the other person, so you don't feel
| bad about hurting their feelings. And then there's the sample
| size- if there is an opinion so extreme that only 0.1% of people
| agree, you could make a forum with 100k members just from the
| USA's active internet users. You could go even bigger with a
| global audience.
|
| A lot of people want to make money, and if you cater to someone's
| opinion then you might want to give them money (a prerequisite to
| getting money is telling people what they like to hear). So we
| have a lot of super specific communities popping up, because
| people see it as an easy way to make money. This is fine so far.
| But then a fairly large group of people (by IRL standards) gather
| and see that everyone is like them. The idea that everyone is
| like them doesn't hold true in the rest of their lives, so people
| start to appreciate this new home they've found. And then some
| other people from the outside come along and the "protect my
| tribe" instinct kicks in. Because of the anonymity people get
| rude over silly stuff, because they don't like to entertain the
| idea that someone disagrees with them in "their" piece of the
| internet.
|
| This is inevitable in nearly any internet based community. Strong
| moderation helps, and so does raising the cost of entry a few
| bucks, but neither is a perfect solution. See Stack Overflow for
| moderation or Metafilter for a place that costs a few dollars to
| join. It keeps the trolls away but something about them feels
| different, and I don't know if I'd point to either option as
| being a best solution.
| Solid_Applaud wrote:
| I don't know how large this effect is but confidential memos such
| as this one https://ibb.co/7pKQCVk are an indicator of great
| forces at play to alter the relationships between people online
| by forcing certain types of discussion.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Even here we find conspiracy theories! /s
| Chermska1 wrote:
| Here we are in a thread about why the internet has become so
| pessimistic and we have someone spreading disinfo.
|
| Go ahead and perform a TinEye or reverse Google search on that
| image of the so-called "confidental memo", check out it's
| origins. Lots of posts on 4Chan, /r/The_Donald, reposts on
| sites like "JewWorldOrder".
|
| Zero attribution to which organization this is supposedly from.
| This poster, Solid_Applaud, uploaded this photo to ibb and
| created his HN account at the same time.
| Solid_Applaud wrote:
| The origin is unknown. Does it read like something a loser
| from one of those sources you mention would write? No. It is
| actually well written and a lot of thought went into it.
| Analyze the text yourself and consider the choice of words to
| draw your own conclusions.
|
| Funnily enough the commenter is guilty of the same thing I am
| accused of: creating a new account recently.
| Solid_Applaud wrote:
| Discussion disruption patterns employed by foreign governments:
|
| 1. Say that if something is not reported in mainstream news, it
| didn't happen, or the claim isn't reliable. "Reading
| Activistpost.com? Get out >>"
|
| 2. Say that if a viewpoint disagrees with the government, it's
| unpatriotic "Yeah right, Russia-lover. Go >>"
|
| 3. Say that only 'experts' who are on your side are qualified
| to give opinions or facts. "Quoting Dr. Paul Craig Roberts?
| Opinion Discarded."
|
| 4. "Citation needed." It's a little known fact that when a
| [REDACTED] is hatched from its egg, "citation needed" are the
| first words out of its beak. "Citation needed" means either a)
| "I'm too lazy to check this" or b) "Your claim is supported by
| Encyclopedia Britannica, but I want to imply you're a lying
| sack of sh _t. " [REDACTED] squawk "citation needed!" even when
| a citation is given.
|
| 5. Become incredulous and indignant, and claim a topic is off
| limits. "How dare OP say these things? This is going too far!
| Of course a [REDACTED] invented the pork casserole!"
|
| 6. Call your opponent's claim a rumor, conspiracy theory, or
| urban myth. "Too tinfoil for me! Loony detected! You are
| obviously crazy! And on drugs!"
|
| 7. Only bad people think like your opponent. "OP is a typical
| stormfag. No wonder he's a laughing stock. He probably lives in
| a ditch." ([REDACTED] post like this all the time, even though
| it is similar to holding a 20-foot tall neon sign that reads
| "I'M NOT ONE OF YOU AND I HATE EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR." They
| can't help but stand out: they're too arrogant.)
|
| 8. Claim your opponent was replaced by some mysterious computer
| hacker, and all posts after a certain point are obviously fake
| and not by OP. (It's laughable, but the shills really do this.)
|
| 9. Claim an opposing OP is a shill, and post links to your own
| (newly-created) thread inside OP's - trying to lure away anons.
| (A favorite tactic of American Spring shills.) 10. Claim your
| opponent is saying something he isn't. Totally misrepresent
| him. "So you're saying George Bush flew into the Twin Towers?
| Idiot." "So you're saying [REDACTED] is a [REDACTED]? And I
| suppose you want to kill him and lure us all to your own
| website, is that it?" (Both of these are genuine shill
| comments. [REDACTED] can be relied on to argue like hysterical
| teenage girls.)
|
| 11. Claim your opponent is exactly what you are: a shill. "NSA
| detected. Take your lies elsewhere!"
|
| 12. Tell anons not to bother reading your opponent's posts,
| threads, or infographics. "Already read it. Total junk. OP is
| wasting everyone's time." (Again: [REDACTED] arrogance gives
| them away.)
|
| 13. Call your opponent insulting names. "Nutjob", "idiot",
| "pathetic". "Everyone here is laughing at you." Timid or stupid
| people will think twice about supporting your opponent.
|
| 14. Ignore every good answer that your opponent gives. If you
| have to, lie and say it's a bad answer. Make up a fake reason.
| "Of course you would say that, you're a mudslime-lover!"
|
| 15. When your opponent raises facts and evidence, lie. Say he
| made them up. Most people won't check, even if it only takes 20
| seconds to do a web search. "Total bullsh_t! You made that up!
| It's photoshopped! The link doesn't work! It's not true! It
| proves the opposite!" Etc.
|
| 16. Always claim your opponent is biased. Make up a reason.
| "You're obviously a Yurropoor/Amerifat/hom _/ n_gg _r /etc."
| (My favorite: I'm regularly called an obvious les*an.)
|
| 17. Claim you are an expert, have personal knowledge, or
| personal experience. "I went to school with a victim at Sandy
| Hook and it was all real, I assure you. In fact she's my mom."
|
| 18. Claim that an important issue simply doesn't matter. Your
| opponent is talking about dull, unimportant things. "This isn't
| news. Nothing to see here. Who cares. So moot has been arrested
| for killing prostitutes and eating their livers, and he yelled
| at the police and TV camera crew 'I'm sacrificing these goy
| whores to Satan!' That doesn't prove anything. OP is boring
| me."
|
| 19. Claim that an important issue is 'old' and 'dated' - even
| if it isn't. Say that your opponent is wasting time on issues
| that have 'expired'. (As if the truth can ever expire.) "Old
| news, yawn."
|
| 20. When you get caught out in a lie, use fake identities to
| make posts backing up your claim. Most people place a high
| value on personal opinions, even those of complete strangers.
|
| 21. Claim no-one can ever know the truth: it's too complex
| Cloud the issue with minute details, even if it's clear cut.
| "We can't ever know for sure, so why are you asking? It's not
| worth checking your links, so don't check his links anyone.
| Seriously, especially not the first link. Because we just can't
| know. So don't check the links."
|
| 22. Claim an issue can never be solved. Claim things are the
| only way they possibly could be. "There's nothing we can do.
| Why bother, anon?" ([REDACTED] use this weak tactic when an
| issue has just been solved beyond any doubt, and the evidence
| is damning.)
|
| 23. Pretend your position is unarguably right. The "Everybody
| knows..." ploy. "Everybody knows only losers support Ron Paul".
| "Everybody knows you can trust the government." Etc.
|
| 24. 'Doing an Alex Jones'. Agree with the facts, but claim that
| they point to a conclusion that is the complete opposite of
| your opponent's (and reality). "So you see folks: it's Nazis!"
| 25. 'Doing a David Icke'. Take the thread down a crazy route.
| Illuminati, reptilians, aliens, etc. Sensible posters have
| their image tarnished by all the idiotic comments around them.
|
| 26. Encourage laziness and irresponsibility about important
| issues. "So who cares? Everyone knows already, it's not a big
| deal..." (Often used by [REDACTED] trying to excuse away
| incontrovertible evidence that [REDACTED] is a gay [REDACTED]
| who collaborates with the FBI and freely states that he hates
| [REDACTED]. Because, you know, that's Just how a genuine
| [REDACTED] would feel upon discovering that [REDACTED] is a gay
| [REDACTED] who collaborates with the FBI and freely states that
| he hates [REDACTED].)
|
| 27. When your opponent argues in favor of online privacy, call
| him or her a "coward". Try to make reckless stupidity seem
| brave. "Only cowards care what the government thinks! Only
| cowards hide their identity online! Only cowards would leave
| [REDACTED] when they realize it's run by [REDACTED] trying to
| manipulate them! Only cowards don't p_ss on the third rail!"
| Etc.
|
| 28. Trying to push a spectacularly bad idea (like American
| Spring) but anons aren't buying it? Try "We have nothing to
| lose". This 'desperation' gambit works best when the risks are
| astronomical, and the idea you're trying to sell is batshit
| insane. (Well, that's what [REDACTED] thinks. It's their
| favorite ploy for astronomically risky, batshit insane ideas.)
|
| 29. Say the facts mean something different. Most people don't
| understand logic, science, math or statistics very well. They
| have a patchy knowledge of history. "OP is innumerate. Those
| statistics clearly show that the economy has grown massively
| under Obama." "[REDACTED] is a valuable ally: it has never lost
| a war!" (Translation: "[REDACTED] barely won its wars - and
| that was only thanks to billions of dollars of cutting edge
| weapons the USA flew in for free, just before the Arabs
| overwhelmed them." Translation courtesy of Henry Kissinger. He
| really said this.)
| mads wrote:
| I wonder how the description of "Hacker News" would have
| sounded in that memo.
| Solid_Applaud wrote:
| I got your back: http://n-gate.com/
| v_london wrote:
| I believe the biggest problem is virality. What you see is
| determined by what captured the attention of other users, or what
| algorithms think would keep you on the site so they can serve
| more ads to your hungry eyeballs. As it turns out, divisive and
| emotional content (whether it's politics, pop culture flame wars
| or YouTube drama) is great at capturing that attention.
|
| It's a problem I've recognized, and we're currently working on a
| new kind of social network that aims to promote better discussion
| on the internet. One of our methods is removing the concept of
| "virality" and having the discussions happen in small groups
| instead of on public forums. After all, your group chats with
| friends still have good discussions, that's what we're trying to
| replicate on a wider scale. We don't yet have a website to show
| unfortunately :(
| throwaway19937 wrote:
| > Is it selection bias that commenters on the internet tend to be
| more depressed/lonely?
|
| Most of what you read on the Internet is written by a small
| percentage of people (https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/com
| ments/9rvroo/most...). This was previously discussed on HN as
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18881827) and
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25600274). The clicks and
| likes they receive also provide positive feedback, can be
| addictive, and contribute to spending more time online. It's also
| well established that social networks can contribute to
| unhappiness.
|
| > Has the demography gone down in age which results in lot of
| shitty behaviour like witch hunts and trending non-issue outrage?
| Young generation seems to like these and they especially love
| twitch from what I have seen. Maybe an impact of that?
|
| Witch hunts and moral panics are part of the human condition. The
| main difference is the internet makes it much easier to start a
| witch hunt or moral panic and lowers the transaction costs of
| participating. Modern moral panics are started by a tweet or post
| - it used to require authoring a book
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse) or
| months/years of press coverage. It's also much more likely for
| controversial content to be shared
| (https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-
| rage...). Your friend or relative on Facebook who shares click
| bait wouldn't have bothered to do so before the internet.
|
| Another factor is that the woke don't believe in debate
| (https://newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-wont-debate-you-
| heres...). They feel that the deck is rigged against them,
| debating reinforces the current oppressive system, that all
| disagreement is illegitimate, and that anyone with power who
| isn't dismantling the current system is evil.
|
| > What do you think is the biggest reason for the current
| condition?
|
| I think the biggest reason is that the internet has made it much
| easier for people to publicize their views. People have always
| been this awful; you just weren't exposed to their views.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Here's what politics was like ~30 years ago (in the US): your
| representative was rewarded primarily on the basis of local
| issues and economics. For us it was 'can they keep the local Navy
| base open' which provided most jobs. You can see the remnants of
| this pork-barrel politics in the Obamacare deal, with various
| deals to bring over a few senators.
|
| The US had tons of diversity. But it got expression in local
| culture, and you didn't think as deeply about your identity at a
| national level. The national stuff felt more distant. It was
| exceedingly rare families to travel outside one or two state
| radius.
|
| NOW, perhaps due to the Internet, maybe other factors, everything
| far away feels 'closer'. It's like we're suddenly crammed
| together at the same party, sharing more space with people that
| we would have culturally been more distant from in the past,
| creating tons of issues. Most issues have become nationalized.
| The lack of local media compared to social media, the lack of
| attachment to a community (people move more), and other factors
| probably are at play here.
|
| So everyone projects values in the past they would have put into
| local communities onto the shared, national space. Of course if I
| project my educated, metropolitan PoV and you project your rural
| working class PoV, things will clash and we will have fundamental
| disagreements about everything, including facts and core values.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Just to add: 30 years ago there was nearly as much hand-
| wringing about pork-barrel politics as there is today about our
| insane partisanship. It led to its fair share of sub optimal
| decisions...
| potta_coffee wrote:
| We used to be worried about the national debt. Now it feels
| like a given that it's all funny money.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| "Not funny ha-ha, but funny 'BANKRUPT'"
| mattm wrote:
| This is a good This American Life podcast about that issue:
|
| > Two towns where people got really upset about undocumented
| immigrants, even though in both places, that did not seem to be
| the most important thing happening at all. One of the towns, a
| small town in Alaska, has no undocumented immigrants at all,
| but the possibility of them arriving put the whole town at each
| other's throats.
|
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/621/fear-and-loathing-in-ho...
| username90 wrote:
| It is because the people who drive what you see online doesn't
| care about your wellbeing.
|
| At the dinner table: We shouldn't talk about politics, just
| brings heated arguments and makes us miserable. As long as nobody
| brings it up we can get a moment of calm and happiness.
|
| At the community management table: We should encourage people to
| talk about politics by constantly showing them posts about
| politics, brings so much engagement!
| tanseydavid wrote:
| You said: _I am not finding anything insightful from any
| political discussion online. Is it just me?_
|
| No it is not just you.
|
| You asked: _What do you think is the biggest reason for the
| current condition?_
|
| I believe the single-greatest contributor to the current
| condition is the way in which wholesale dehumanization of "the
| other" has been utterly normalized.
|
| My opinion is that this type of _Political Puritanism_ (seriously
| afflicting both sides of the political spectrum) is product of a
| "win-at-any-cost" mentality.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| > I feel like most things come down to people wanting to have
| enough resources to live happily. If they just had enough money,
| most of their problems would be solved.
|
| So how do we get people the money they need to be happy? Is
| making young people go 50k+ in debt to enter the workforce, while
| creating conditions that cause rent and housing prices to
| skyrocket the way to do it?
| giardini wrote:
| tenebrisalietum asks _> " Is making young people go 50k+ in
| debt to enter the workforce, while creating conditions that
| cause rent and housing prices to skyrocket the way to do it?"<_
|
| If there is an abundance of people foolish enough to incur such
| debt then I see no way to prevent capitalism from doing so.
|
| Despite our social advances the situation today remains the
| same as that which Charles Dickens' characterizes in "A
| Christmas Carol" where the main obstructions to progress are
| "Ignorance" and "Want"(poverty). In particular, Ignorance is
| difficult to extinguish w/o doing something abhorrent (at least
| for most of us). Although far from a Christian, more and more I
| find appropriate the phrase:
|
| "The poor you will always have with you..."
|
| - Matthew 26:11
| postit wrote:
| I believe it's mostly an unsetting bitter feeling.
| Underrepresented and marginalized people are fighting back
| structural society norms, the internet is the new medium[1], and
| social media resembles a lot the `Cercle social`[2].
|
| I remember reading research that notes the music, poesy, and
| literature to carry cynic and political narratives preceding and
| during society changes (could find the link).
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism_in_the_French_Revolu...
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Friends_of_Trut...
| madengr wrote:
| 25 years people had a 3 minute attention span, or at least that's
| what the advertisers said. Now it's down to 15 seconds.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > It should be easy to differentiate between conspiracy theorists
| but lately
|
| Society is nothing but conspiracies. The fact that you can see
| them indicates you've matured intellectually. You just don't
| realize the totality yet.
|
| > Young generation seems to like these
|
| Young people don't understand that Marxism is theft and moral
| corrosion. They will learn the hard way, as the Russian and
| mainland Chinese people have learned.
|
| The best and most balanced source of news today is NTD media on
| Youtube. Click on their "Channels" page for related channels. How
| balanced are they? Youtube demonetized them as soon as Biden was
| sworn in.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/user/NTDTV
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