The Internet and 24 Hour News together are going to push us into a civil war, I'm convinced...

[JP226]

I read this article on cracked a while back:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19860...viding-us.html

Obviously it's an entertainment site and easy reading for fun. I use it quite frequently when I'm on the toilet at work. But it got me thinking, this is really about more than just facebook. It's the internet, it's the news networks, it's the entertainment world we live in that is so consumed with targeting you specifically with what you want to see and it's generating these absurd bubbles where no matter how wrong, or right you may be, you think EVERYONE agrees with you.

Now I make no qualms about my political affiliation. America is awesome, Europe sucks, Dems are a bunch of pussies etc etc etc. And i supported GW for the most part, I liked his foreign policy and didn't give a about the domestic stuff b/c well... the god damned President's role isn't domestic. Back then though, little things about spending and whatever other complaints were topical at the time started seeping in on the right. At the end of his presidency, I was pretty much "whatever." Then Obama got elected, the world was ending apparently and thanks to that we had this god awful creation of the tea party, in part to which I've come to the full realization that there are way too many stupid people on the right. It makes me not want to associate with them. And that's all fine and well, but then this extremeness hit a little too close to home, namely my parents. It's like a zombie disease of extremeness, and it's compounding as it gets worse.

This was probably circa 2009 or 10. I'd been out on my own for sometime and made the visit back. Hadnt seen the folks in a while and I get there and we're sitting, around not 15 mins into the visit, politics comes up about how bad off we are. Ok... fine, then again and again and again convo after convo devolve into politics and hitting on what are basically talking points. What do they watch? 24 hr news non stop, what do they listen to on the radio? Talk radio, what are they lookin at online? Whatever stupid site Glenn Beck says to go to. And I'm sitting here thinking WTF? My complaint with the left, the extreme left had always been about lemming mentality b/c I saw so much of it from looking at the comments on sites like HuffPo, or Bill Maher (when he had a MB) and here at twc, and here is that same lemming behavior w/ a different set of talking points. Suddenly the fam like country music, why? Because that's what you do on the right. Same thing with guns, learning how to farm and whatever other stupid crap is associated with the right that is boring and stupid and not any fun.

So... I proceeded to take a gander back at the Tea Party and it's the same thing. Instead of lefty sites I look at the rightwing ones and it's the same behavior the same stupid talking points, the same BS, all of it. And the worst part about it is it's getting worse. These extremists, left and right, are so insulated ina bubble of BS thanks to the internet and 24 hour news that they don't know any better. No one exists to tell them they are idiots and it's unfortunate. When people point and laugh at celebrities for acting stupid for not living in the real world, how is this any different?

Maybe a civil war isn't likely, I was joking, but this definitely doesn't bode well. Maybe like most problems it'll solve itself, but god damn it's annoying right now.

[Imperial]

Everyone takes their political opinions so seriously now. If you don't fully agree with them they feel like you're insulting their intelligence or something.

No one cares.

[Col. Tartleton]

I read this article on cracked a while back:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19860...viding-us.html

Obviously it's an entertainment site and easy reading for fun. I use it quite frequently when I'm on the toilet at work. But it got me thinking, this is really about more than just facebook. It's the internet, it's the news networks, it's the entertainment world we live in that is so consumed with targeting you specifically with what you want to see and it's generating these absurd bubbles where no matter how wrong, or right you may be, you think EVERYONE agrees with you.

Now I make no qualms about my political affiliation. America is awesome, Europe sucks, Dems are a bunch of pussies etc etc etc. And i supported GW for the most part, I liked his foreign policy and didn't give a about the domestic stuff b/c well... the god damned President's role isn't domestic. Back then though, little things about spending and whatever other complaints were topical at the time started seeping in on the right. At the end of his presidency, I was pretty much "whatever." Then Obama got elected, the world was ending apparently and thanks to that we had this god awful creation of the tea party, in part to which I've come to the full realization that there are way too many stupid people on the right. It makes me not want to associate with them. And that's all fine and well, but then this extremeness hit a little too close to home, namely my parents. It's like a zombie disease of extremeness, and it's compounding as it gets worse.

This was probably circa 2009 or 10. I'd been out on my own for sometime and made the visit back. Hadnt seen the folks in a while and I get there and we're sitting, around not 15 mins into the visit, politics comes up about how bad off we are. Ok... fine, then again and again and again convo after convo devolve into politics and hitting on what are basically talking points. What do they watch? 24 hr news non stop, what do they listen to on the radio? Talk radio, what are they lookin at online? Whatever stupid site Glenn Beck says to go to. And I'm sitting here thinking WTF? My complaint with the left, the extreme left had always been about lemming mentality b/c I saw so much of it from looking at the comments on sites like HuffPo, or Bill Maher (when he had a MB) and here at twc, and here is that same lemming behavior w/ a different set of talking points. Suddenly the fam like country music, why? Because that's what you do on the right. Same thing with guns, learning how to farm and whatever other stupid crap is associated with the right that is boring and stupid and not any fun.

So... I proceeded to take a gander back at the Tea Party and it's the same thing. Instead of lefty sites I look at the rightwing ones and it's the same behavior the same stupid talking points, the same BS, all of it. And the worst part about it is it's getting worse. These extremists, left and right, are so insulated ina bubble of BS thanks to the internet and 24 hour news that they don't know any better. No one exists to tell them they are idiots and it's unfortunate. When people point and laugh at celebrities for acting stupid for not living in the real world, how is this any different?

Maybe a civil war isn't likely, I was joking, but this definitely doesn't bode well. Maybe like most problems it'll solve itself, but god damn it's annoying right now.

Good rant. I feel similarly. My immediate family seems to have shifted from pretty liberal democrats to liberal republicans (my grandfather is an immovable factory union guy from the North Shore of Mass, so he'll never not be a Democrat and I respect him although we butt heads at time.) I suspect it's partially my fault (if you can call it that) that my family is "moving right" I'm not sure they really are.

We certainly aren't the Christian right country music types around here. They're just coming to agree with me that the Bush administration wasn't as bad as everyone thought (at least for the initial reasons) and Obama's term isn't as good as everyone had hoped.

The more (I don't want to say educated because that's not really the problem) thoughtful Conservatives and Populists are not in a healthy relationship. Conservatism appeals to exactly the wrong kind of stupid people and frankly I don't want to be around them and I have no love for the Democratic party as they've historically been the party of complete bastards who have ruined America and currently I'm frankly not impressed with their pandering to minorities and divisiveness.

I'm definitely a Federalist and a Republican. I'm just confused how i can agree so much with the same people on some issues and disagree so strongly on others.

I miss W.

[I WUB PUGS]

I've been saying for probably 2-3 years that social media (the internet) since that is now the majority of internet bandwidth will be the death of our society.

All facts are merely a consensus between a majority. Seriously all facts are this way. Prove to me without a shadow of a doubt that the center of the earth is made of molten iron. You can't, but it has been put forward as a plausible theory............but here is the kicker, it is only valid because a majority of "experts" agree that it is plausible.

Apply that to your daily interactions. Human beings don't require much reinforcement to settle on a position. Very few have original thoughts, we are influenced from birth to believe certain things and throughout our lives we latch onto sources that reinforce. Occasionally we get a shake and change our views, but that doesn't mean we don't continue with the same validation process.

I love to frequent news forums like MSNBC or Fox and see the comments. Look at how people defend positions based on just a couple other people agreeing with them, or hitting "like".

A person can be presented with a wall of facts on the internet and still deny the validity of an argument, because they can. God help you if they get a couple buddies to agree.

This doesn't happen in face to face interaction, if you can be challenged and proven wrong, then you can usually get embarrassed into changing your opinion.

With the internet I can say whatever I want, get some quick validation and then log off. I am now content to think I am the smartest person in the world.

The most powerful educational tool in history is now essentially a database for porn and like-minded-individuals to find one another and entrench themselves in whatever idiocy they agree upon.

Civil war? Sure, who knows in 50 years just how entrenched people will get and if they'll be violent about it. The next step would be to set up neighborhoods of like-minded individuals. Imagine that, organizing a building's tenants solely along how compatible they are according to some algorithm that extracts information from social media.

[Imperial]

I've been saying for probably 2-3 years that social media (the internet) since that is now the majority of internet bandwidth will be the death of our society.

All facts are merely a consensus between a majority. Seriously all facts are this way. Prove to me without a shadow of a doubt that the center of the earth is made of molten iron. You can't, but it has been put forward as a plausible theory............but here is the kicker, it is only valid because a majority of "experts" agree that it is plausible.

Apply that to your daily interactions. Human beings don't require much reinforcement to settle on a position. Very few have original thoughts, we are influenced from birth to believe certain things and throughout our lives we latch onto sources that reinforce. Occasionally we get a shake and change our views, but that doesn't mean we don't continue with the same validation process.

I love to frequent news forums like MSNBC or Fox and see the comments. Look at how people defend positions based on just a couple other people agreeing with them, or hitting "like".

A person can be presented with a wall of facts on the internet and still deny the validity of an argument, because they can. God help you if they get a couple buddies to agree.

This doesn't happen in face to face interaction, if you can be challenged and proven wrong, then you can usually get embarrassed into changing your opinion.

With the internet I can say whatever I want, get some quick validation and then log off. I am now content to think I am the smartest person in the world.

The most powerful educational tool in history is now essentially a database for porn and like-minded-individuals to find one another and entrench themselves in whatever idiocy they agree upon.

Civil war? Sure, who knows in 50 years just how entrenched people will get and if they'll be violent about it. The next step would be to set up neighborhoods of like-minded individuals. Imagine that, organizing a building's tenants solely along how compatible they are according to some algorithm that extracts information from social media.

Imagine if people were forced to post under their facebook account. All the trolling and stupid arguments will completely disappear.

Yahoo did this with some of their blogs and literally no one posts in sections that used to have hundreds of comments that was filled with trolling and stupid posts.

[JP226]

That's a good point, part of why the last civil war was fought was b/c you essentially had an isolated south that developed a separate society. This whole wave of mass customization could very well have significant downsides as what we see, do and consume, and live, is tailored towards us.

I've also come to the realization that people aren't as great and smart as I thought growing up. Where my contacts with the adult world as a child were with authority figures, parents, doctors, established career folks who were family friends etc etc. Now my world of adults are as co workers doing a job I do and I've quickly realized I can in many situations do as good a job if not better, but there's also a lot of children running around in adult bodies.

[I WUB PUGS]

Everyone is retarded. Even me, I'm a ing retard, I completely believe that. If you don't think you're a retard then you are lying to yourself.

The problem with being younger is you always look at age as an indicator for maturity. Then eventually when you grow up, you realize you and everyone around you is still a retard.

You used to look up to doctors and professors, now you look at them with critical eyes knowing that they too are probably retarded, they just have a specialty to be retarded in.

You can still be a doctor if you graduate with a C- average from the worst medical school, just pass the certifications. Doesn't mean you are brilliant.

Again though, the problem is that we can find other retards that are just like us all over the globe and validate our retardation as nothing short of genius.

I am scared of my retardation and I know how many more are out there, I wish to be left alone poolside while I sip margaritas. I used to have aspirations, I used to want to help people, I wanted to be President, no now I know they are retards and they don't want my help, because no one wants direction from a retard.

This is what has arrested our political system, the retards are winning and they can't even keep focused for more than 2 weeks.

My sister-in-law has a PhD in Neuroscience and some ridiculously high IQ and she is incredibly brilliant in her work at Georgia Tech. She also barely manages to drive without killing herself, thinks shes knows how to solve the worlds problems even though she only has training in one field, and is completely irrational when it comes to relationships. ing retard.

Edit: My grandfather is nearly 90. He has a masters degree and he got it back in the 1930s before everyone went to college so he was pretty smart back then. He was a bombardier in B-24s. He has written several books. He is also completely obsessed with pussy and he just recently tried to bum money off my dad for a new car. ing retard.

[Ludicus]

Everyone is retarded.
My sister-in-law.... ing retard.
Edit: My grandfather is nearly 90.... ing retard.

Learn to appreciate people while you still have them.

[Col. Tartleton]

And to think we thought that the Bomb was the end of the world. Perhaps we made a mistake by not using it enough.

I guess it just comes down to a question of where we draw the high water mark?

I'm going to say 1869. 15th amendment. All the amendments since have been crap (okay, I'll be honest, the 19th is secretly fine with me.)

Or 1969 when Buzz Aldrin became the first human being to urinate on a celestial object.

[Thorn777]

I see now where all trouble started JP226.

On topic: the epitome of the neo-liberal powergrab as this overarching consensus, started really by hijacking ways of the left, hijacking their vocabulary, and also by hijacking much of what I see very wrong within many leftist groups of thought, like this subordinate groupthink thats imposed on the masses.

I think though I might be regarded as a leftist extremist by most here, but its just because I see the matters as they seem fit, and they wouldnt be regarded very leftist some decades ago, maybe conservative even.

I also think, or know, that there is also an extreme-centrism, that completely lacks any coherent view on larger contexts and doesnt get that the sum of things make the outcomes. That doesnt get that these outcomes got the center very far to the right.

They are often intelligent people with lots of wasted political anger-potential, but its like with most usefull idiots; they go along to get along, they dont want to be seen as "extremists" etc, but down to earth cool guys on top of things. Well your completely usueless and the reason why we are going where we are.

[I WUB PUGS]

You know, as much as I hate the Newsroom that was one episode I got into. The one where he made the comments section be validated like a credit report site.

I'd be totally fine with this even on here. I'm as honest as can be in my profile. I'd like to see more than just a facebook account, just like a valid profile check done through a third party.

Then surely the dicks would go away, or maybe not, but at least you'd know they meant it and didn't just hop on board in a fit of rage to defend their bandwagon.

*I hope*

[Phier]

I agree with you but there will only be a revolution if it can happen over Facebook.

Personally I gave up listening to the day to day news and BS about 2006. I had too much in my life and there was no reason to be pissed at things I couldn't control.

[I WUB PUGS]

I agree with you but there will only be a revolution if it can happen over Facebook.

I agree, the problem that I see is that people can entrench and cut themselves off from the "undesirable part" of society and still go to the voting booth with for brains.

[Town Watch]

I agree with you but there will only be a revolution if it can happen over Facebook.

Personally I gave up listening to the day to day news and BS about 2006. I had too much in my life and there was no reason to be pissed at things I couldn't control.

I agree, the problem that I see is that people can entrench and cut themselves off from the "undesirable part" of society and still go to the voting booth with for brains.

Didn't that pretty much happen already with facebook and UK riots? I remember some British MPs claiming that the rioting was spreading through agitation across facebook? Or something...

[xcorps]

My lovely bride is a perfect example of this. If she even gets a whiff that someone is or could be a liberal, her opinion of that person drops dramatically. Nurses, teachers, salespeople...if they say a thing or look a certain way that qualifies them as "Libs" then she insulates herself from that person with a cloak of disdain and refuses to deal with that person on any level without being combatitve and confrontational. I blame Sean Hannity.

On the other hand, she might be on to something.

[Phier]

On the other hand, she might be on to something.

She just has class. My wife does exactly the same thing, but only instead of liberals its Cub fans.

One aspect that is being over looked is that perhaps a civil war will be needed at some point in the future? The mistake here might be confusing the symptom for the cause.

[xcorps]

She just has class. My wife does exactly the same thing, but only instead of liberals its Cub fans.

.

It's incredibly entertaining at times. One of the guys we work with said he voted for Obama during a political conversation with my wife one day (we both work on the same boat). For the next 3 months it was high drama on the high seas. Every look, step, and meal was scrutinzed by her for hidden meaning and critiqued for hours. The Captain finally had to make them sit in a safety meeting together and hash out the issue. Political conversation is now banned.

One aspect that is being over looked is that perhaps a civil war will be needed at some point in the future? The mistake here might be confusing the symptom for the cause

[Sphere]

She just has class. My wife does exactly the same thing, but only instead of liberals its Cub fans.

Wait, your wife is a Sox fan? You married a prostitute? You know you don't have to marry them, it is much cheaper to keep them hourly rather than give them half your stuff.

In any event, "information cocoons" are a problem in the US and it is linked to the variety of media we have. You really can only listen to things you want to hear, be it radio TV or internet.

As a liberal I got to taste the crazy back in the GWB years. I remember walking out of Fahrenheit 9/11 with a massive amount of wtf, who believes this ? Same with the more crazy 9/11 conspiracies which were generally leftist as well. These days the right is being more industrious with the crazy (there already is another ammo scare going on, how the crap can that work twice?).

The sad part though is that it seems like the crazy is becoming the new normal. A bigger chunk of the electorate are slipping into "information cocoons". I almost think "uninformed" voters might start having a better political perspective than those who are "informed".

[Phier]

Wait, your wife is a Sox fan? You married a prostitute? You know you don't have to marry them, it is much cheaper to keep them hourly rather than give them half your stuff.

A prostitute? Sir I take offense to that! I would NEVER pay, and remember divorce is for people who can not hide bodies.

In any event, "information cocoons" are a problem in the US and it is linked to the variety of media we have. You really can only listen to things you want to hear, be it radio TV or internet.

As a liberal I got to taste the crazy back in the GWB years. I remember walking out of Fahrenheit 9/11 with a massive amount of wtf, who believes this ? Same with the more crazy 9/11 conspiracies which were generally leftist as well. These days the right is being more industrious with the crazy.

The sad part though is that it seems like the crazy is becoming the new normal. A bigger chunk of the electorate are slipping into "information cocoons". I almost think "uninformed" voters might start having a better political perspective than those who are "informed".

I think its part of a bigger issue, in that the internet makes you stupid. Look up something non-political like high fructose corn syrup. People are having heated arguments over how bad it is for you. They will cite studies they do not understand, being most people don't have the training or intelligence to determine what is a good experimental design, and assume they are themselves now an expert on the topic.

[kesa82]

A new technology is causing, or exacerbating, polarization ?

Nah, I don't think so. I think Manifest destiny, or centralization, was a bad idea. The Holy Roman Empire is routinely ridiculed. What is routinely ignored is that united Germany has either worked out horribly, or , at least, worked out no better than the HRE.
It didn't work for Rome. It didn't work for Russia. It didn't work for Austria-Hungary. If that's what they really have in mind with the European Union, it won't work there.
The oldest of the big centralized nations , China ........well, who wanted to move to China in 1600, or in 1800, or now in 2012 ? In any case I hear that Tibetans and Viets, poor and backward as they are, don't care to join it.
I suspect that , beyond the fact that artificial inflation of the workforce tends to erode wages , the rub of Mexican immigration in the U.S. is that these Latinized Indians don't really care any more for Old Glory in 2012 than the Iroquois or Cherokee did in 1790. Only now the demographics are reversed. Instead of millions of Americans versus plague-devastated handfuls of Indians, it's now millions of Indians who you and they both pretend care as much about Washington, as an Austrian and a Bosnian pretended the latter cared about Vienna.
I'm not psychic, so maybe the United States will endure. But it seems a reasonable bet that the Declaration of Independence will be read in Spanish.

What's the primary complaint against the internet ? Instead of giving of us a universal brotherhood of man, it has given us greater balkanization ?

I would say that local pot holes are really more important than marble shrines in a far off capitol. Who you actually invite home to dinner is more pertinent than your abstract ideas. The internet not withstanding. U.S.A is as great a chimera as A.E.I.O.U was.

" Civil war " , or maybe just an un-romantic, un-heroic, divorce ?