General Discussion

Early in the covid pandemic a physician wrote an oped that struck me. He said politicking of the style that attracts most attention on social media has some overlap with Borderline Personality Disporder.

I am a little skeptical of a lot of pop psych and shallow, armchair analyses of human behavior.

It can end up being overly contemptuous of or judgemental towards our fellow humans. We are an angry, uncertain and confused global population snipping at each other like factory farmed animals on this overpopulated planet. Our industrialists, politicians and media largely do not care. Or at least that is how I see it.

But that social media and internet companies encourage that unpleasant dynamic for profit and control strikes me as likely. That alternating with a type of insipid harmony that also reinforces their control over reality.

I pretty much always blame the worst of those jerks..It is part strategic since I don’t have bunker to sit in while snootily passing judgement 🧐. I might get judged! I can be as judgemental, lacking in self-awareness or misjudging of appropriate degrees of response as other people roughly like me. But I am vaguely aware of it. And besides as I said I wouldn’t want to be trampled underfoot by any angry mob.

I may have been a different and less nice person had such a bunker been an option ;-/. But I would like to think that it is more that maybe some grace for everyone but the oligarchs is warranted strategically, logically (🖖 ) and humanely.

EarlG/elad otoh would not really push people in any direction beyond being clear where they stand on the rules. They are human and ALL humans have flawed reasoning some. The degree varies. But they certainly would not manipulate people for profit or politics. It is why I post here. I would be shocked if the admins didn’t care more about the fate of society (which we all rely on) than anything else.

So this could probably be a better baseline indicator of unpromoted social strife and strain in a part of the democratic part of the American public. Of course we are all constantly interacting with way more of that other online rot than we are aware of in all likelihood. I am trying to avoid most of it myself. Only semi successfully thus far.

This is either a half-baked (the house specialty ;-/) theory or an angry mob handling pr strategy…I am not sure which yet…

I usually post online to make Nimby points about my home/street/data etc (that is when I sound borderline!) or to placate all angry mobs and direct them towards the bunkers of the tech and other oligarchs.. I am an elite social strategist ;-/! Well okay that is not quite true. I can handle an angry mob.

I just would rather not since it is such a giveaway to our sleazy oligarchs like this creep I was just reading about thanks to DUer cirscium (psssst angry mob ..thataway):

https://corporateknights.com/finance/meet-the-vulture-capitalist-working-to-prop-up-fossil-fuels/

I really hope Jon Stewart runs for office. He gets what is wrong with our media culture. So sick of divide and rule. It is all way more complicated than that as Nathan Robinson or Yasha Levine or Chris Ketcham etc could spell out better. But it has to be factor wrt the dynamic you mention sinkingfeeling.