Social Media is Ruining Our Minds
A fatalistic title for sure. Conservative circles are outraged after interviews with Twitter developers are outlining direct attacks on conservative opinions and views. Frankly is anyone surprised about this? Conservative or Liberal alike will tell you that conservative views are not welcome in the Social Media circles. In my personal opinion, this creates more extreme Conservative views to rise to the top because of the middle ground being wiped clean especially for groups like fiscal conservatives that a lumped with white supremacy views. The echo chambers created by moderated content where the voice is weighted by a machine rather than an open and completely searchable set of data is the problem. The media (on both sides) spoon feeds the listeners mixing your agreed opinion content with polarizing items giving you a spoonful of medicine that makes the medicine go down.
The blockchain brings back rational if you choose to exercise it. The basic premise of democracy is the ability to have an open dialogue free from filtering. I caveat this by saying a direct threat to one's person being or property is criminal and should be acted upon, however, all other speech should be permitted. Just because you have an opinion that differs from me does not mean you are hurting me. I am sure many have opinions that my opinion makes me an idiot. You, my friend, have every right to exercise that opinion and I will celebrate your right to do so while telling or thinking you are an idiot. Please express away my friend or foe, express away.
Do I think that white supremacy is stupid? Yes. Do I think that affirmative action is stupid? Yes. Do I think that Trump and Hillary are idiots? Yes. I am a middle ground conservative. Do I believe that a single mother of 2 children needs a support system and a way to get on her feet in the way of welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid. Yes. Do I think she should take that as an opportunity to pull herself up by her bootstraps? yes. These are the middle ground moderate conservative values that are being lost and I directly attribute the loss of this information being shared due to a number of factors in social media.
1. The Echo Chamber
We as humans naturally want to hear what we are thinking and saying especially from others. We seek to hear our own voice and seek out others who have like minds. What does this echo chamber do to us? It limits our exposure to other opinions. New ideas, thoughts, concepts, and expression of ideas are limited by not listening and learning from others who have a new opinion. Social Media has taken this concept and refined, and refined again until if you believe Elon Musk the AIs will win not through commanding legions of Terminator style robots but by having the humans tear each other apart.
2. Everything is a Dichotomy
Black and white, right and wrong there is nothing that exists in the middle. There are no more original thoughts, there are no other possibilities there are only two and those two are right and wrong. How does this happen? I will give you a hint: the problem is not with social media, the problem is not with your neighbor. I want you to get up from this computer go into the bathroom and stare into the mirror. Now you might be getting the idea. You and me friend internally we are so desperate to be right and that other person to be wrong that we don't stop and say that person has some legitimate points that I should consider.
3. Polarization to Extremes
Due to both the echo chamber and the removal of the center ground everyone is pulled to a side making all thoughts, ideas, and opinions to be extreme polar opposites. You cannot believe in a middle ground. In this Brave New World, you must stand with your pole on everything, don't break the faith with your camp and swallow the red pill. We also could do with a healthy dose of realizing that probably 90% of what we believe is bull shit and others might have figured it out. If you remember that everything people say is 10% true and 90% bull shit but you are doing the same you might really start to take the time to question your own 90% bullshit rather than trying to figure out someone elses bullshit?
4. Information Overload
Social media takes it's giant fist full of youtube cat videos, CES electronics, Trump Tweets, CNN, Fox News, Vice and every other written article, video, and TV show and shoves is down your throat. Just as you chew, swallow, choke, and try to take a breath Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Snap chat has shoved another mouth full partially constitute oil by-product down your throat again. We have so little time for self-reflection and organizing our thoughts that we can never get ahold of cleaning up the 90% of bullshit that we think is true.
Correction by Blockchain
There is a simple truth about the blockchain. No one is manipulating it without some serious ramifications that would be noticed. While I am not going to saythat there couldn't be problems the data is ready and available for anyone. By having the choice to have no filter and to be able to explore history in full and see the posts. While again we have to govern our actions the blockchains let us see everything unfiltered if we so choose. By not having an AI select our news but looking through the blockchain ourselves and being conscious of the information we select to get all sides and many opinions and then looking for others with well-rounded thoughts, and opinions.