People seem to just want to be mad these days. Honestly, more of them to ought to get outside and do something physical and sweaty for an hour and get that adrenaline out of their systems. When climate change disasters threatens more of us, I guess that pent up adrenaline will finally go to good use.
People seem to just want to be mad these days. Honestly, more of them to ought to get outside and do something physical and sweaty for an hour and get that adrenaline out of their systems. When climate change disasters threatens more of us, I guess that pent up adrenaline will finally go to good use.
Headlines about life going on as normal don't garner attention, so the news industry sustains itself with stories of pain and disaster, and in so doing creates some degree of illusion that these things are more prevalent than they are. For example, every so often there will be a spate of shark bite incidents over a short period, and breathless columns will declare the Summer of the Shark or somesuch. Never mind that it's four or five incidents out of the tens of millions of people swimming every day.
Various media sectors figured out how to enhance that by adding a team sports aspect and turning that natural "look at the train wreck" urge most people have into a moral threat. "Bad things are happening every day, because that's what the other team wants!"
Getting people wound up and scared is hugely profitable. In a society where profit and wealth are largely held as the prime measure of a person's worth, it's inevitable that we go this way.
My pediatrician once reassured me about a childhood illness/complication by saying that if it were that common (and thus, worth worrying about) it wouldnтАЩt be in the news.
I sadly am coming to believe that people want crazy authoritarians to tell them what to do and how to live. They especially like to have a strong authoritarian to force people they don't like to do what they want them to do. That's book burning is so popular.
One of the things that turned me away from conservatism was the mindless embrace of the word "freedom".
A lot of people love the word but not the principle, and the conservatives around me were very much along those lines.
Freedom.
Okay, so can gay people marry?
Nah, that offends our faith.
Yeah well what if it's integral to somebody's else's faith? What if you're a faithless heathen like me that needs a tangible social harm to justify a restriction on free association?
Yeah, freedom.
What most people want is stability. If the system offers stability and minimizes offense, they'll ignore the excesses that take place mostly out of their sight. If the system doesn't offer that, if people feel the abyss yawning next to them (and most Americans feel that, because we're overworked, overcapitalized, and one medical mishap away from lifelong suffering, unpayable debt, and/or death) then a strong man becomes attractive.
This isn't a 'people suck' screed, it's acknowledging human nature. Most people want stability, respect, security, and freedom from offense to their core values.
People seem to just want to be mad these days. Honestly, more of them to ought to get outside and do something physical and sweaty for an hour and get that adrenaline out of their systems. When climate change disasters threatens more of us, I guess that pent up adrenaline will finally go to good use.
Is testicular tanning physical and sweaty enough? Perineal sunning?
Lol - not very physical, but it could be sweaty.
FacebookтАЩs own research revealed that anger is much more contagious than goodwill. So obviously thatтАЩs the path they encourage.
Happiness placates, anger motivates.
ThatтАЩs a new one to me, and very apt.
I might've just invented it or I might've heard it somewhere, you know how pithy sayings are.
Well IтАЩm going to repeat it. A meme is born!
The old formulation was "if it bleeds, it leads".
Headlines about life going on as normal don't garner attention, so the news industry sustains itself with stories of pain and disaster, and in so doing creates some degree of illusion that these things are more prevalent than they are. For example, every so often there will be a spate of shark bite incidents over a short period, and breathless columns will declare the Summer of the Shark or somesuch. Never mind that it's four or five incidents out of the tens of millions of people swimming every day.
Various media sectors figured out how to enhance that by adding a team sports aspect and turning that natural "look at the train wreck" urge most people have into a moral threat. "Bad things are happening every day, because that's what the other team wants!"
Getting people wound up and scared is hugely profitable. In a society where profit and wealth are largely held as the prime measure of a person's worth, it's inevitable that we go this way.
My pediatrician once reassured me about a childhood illness/complication by saying that if it were that common (and thus, worth worrying about) it wouldnтАЩt be in the news.
Which has left us numb and complacent to the very real threat of anti-democratic authoritarians taking over government.
I sadly am coming to believe that people want crazy authoritarians to tell them what to do and how to live. They especially like to have a strong authoritarian to force people they don't like to do what they want them to do. That's book burning is so popular.
One of the things that turned me away from conservatism was the mindless embrace of the word "freedom".
A lot of people love the word but not the principle, and the conservatives around me were very much along those lines.
Freedom.
Okay, so can gay people marry?
Nah, that offends our faith.
Yeah well what if it's integral to somebody's else's faith? What if you're a faithless heathen like me that needs a tangible social harm to justify a restriction on free association?
Yeah, freedom.
What most people want is stability. If the system offers stability and minimizes offense, they'll ignore the excesses that take place mostly out of their sight. If the system doesn't offer that, if people feel the abyss yawning next to them (and most Americans feel that, because we're overworked, overcapitalized, and one medical mishap away from lifelong suffering, unpayable debt, and/or death) then a strong man becomes attractive.
This isn't a 'people suck' screed, it's acknowledging human nature. Most people want stability, respect, security, and freedom from offense to their core values.
I meant "book banning." Autocorrect
Yep. Look at the proliferation of sheer unbridled lunatic conspiracy theories.
We lack the capacity to marginalize the really dumb ideas these days and they're just a viral as anything.