Promoting social judgement

Recommended listening - The Linda Lindas 'Oh!' - Spotify / YouTube

When does promotion of an idea, cause, artistic endeavour or plain old belly rumble opinion flip to self-promotion and troll feed? With everything from side-hustles to political campaigns and religious movements caught twitching on the web of social media by default, is social judgement inevitable? Let's have an unreasonable debate...

Let's not kid ourselves, as an animal, humans are the most judgy of the lot. If the food-chain was organised by the ability to deliver a withering stare, acerbic critique or nasty pile-on, humanity is the de facto leader. While other animals can ostracize members of their group, they don't tend to follow them round the countryside, trying to ensure everyone and everything they engage with joins their chorus of disapproval, not allowing the target of the ire to move on. Thanks to social media, humans are the best worst promoters of despicable behaviour - go us! So, with the accepted knowledge that anyone putting their head above the digital parapet can expect trolls to poop in their hands and fling it their direction, why do so many people fall into the trap of making it about them, and not the idea/product/belief they birthed into the world in the first place? Is it a natural progression?

Recent history is thick with people that have fallen into this trap - Billy McFarland with the hilariously disastrous 'luxury' Fyre Festival, Elizabeth Holmes and the 'revolutionary blood testing technology' Sam Brinkman-Fried and the FTX cryptocurrency exchange; all became more interested in cultivating their public persona ahead of the idea that captured the attention of investors and the public in the first instance. They all boosted their persona to cover weaknesses in their promises (the Theranos Edison Device didn't deliver the promise of bypassing expensive lab testing, Brinkman-Fried embrace Effective Altruism as a smokescreen for mishandling investors funds, McFarland thought a sandwich in a styrofoam container was luxury). You can learn more about the character type of all three of these examples through the painful watching that is "Fyre" on Netflix, if you are prepared for a cringe level that could cause you multiple cramps. He demonstrates a very human ability that has been super-charged in the communication age, the ability to manipulate and exploit FOMO.

'Fear Of Missing Out' is something we all experience at some time and has been ingrained in our nature for thousands of years. Ever since Moses had his original draft of the ten commandments rejected by his space-friend, after his trip on a mountain, forcing him to replace 'covet' with 'desire' - "You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female slaves, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour." has been a challenge that humans and capitalism have enjoyed accepting ever since. Hold my Frappuccino! Have you considered monetising violent and racist messaging to fund a select few living on Mars? All you need to do is doom scroll your life away and choose from our range of packages from 'odd person to be avoided in a pub' to 'violent over-thrower of democracy'. You can also opt for our most popular 'bile-filled keyboard warrior' package - every click and share helps impoverished billionaires!

The embracing of FOMO is nothing new, but the previous instances of its exploitation feel positively glacial in comparison to the rate large sections of the world's population can be united behind glitzy veneers of powerful ideas that cover the machinations of powerful individuals. Some, such as Donald Trump, thrive on being completely open with their lunacy. Our current social media culture has enabled legitimising conspiracy theories as a veneer for people like Trump, rather than glossing over the horrible aspects of messaging, as was done in the past. We no longer feel the need to sweeten the pot for centrists to make any extreme opinion palatable when it's so quick and easy to fire up extremes and fuel conflict.

Being a centrist is hard

The embracing of extremes and conspiracy theories to legitimise despotic or narcissistic theology makes being a centrist extremely difficult. Being the person that doesn't jump on fashions or trends, or immediately promote the latest 'new way' is made that much more difficult in the age of information assault. Bots, actors, entertainers and politicians all feed into the conflicting message machines where algorithms boost the popular, snappy, extremes at the expense of the reasoned centre. Those putting forth a reasoned argument are less likely, or perhaps able, to create the algorithm friendly, influencer fodder favoured by billionaires and time poor public.

Studies on Millennial and Gen Z workers indicates that these generations may be experiencing a decline in deep thinking due to increased stress and focus on immediate challenges. As a Gen X'er I can confirm it is not a generation limited affliction - we are all affected by societal change brought about by climate change, covid and increasing conflict in the world. Everything is on fast-forward and AI has made access easier, faster, sloppier and more exciting than ever before - deep reading around topics is less appealing when Gemini can summarise and argument, with references for you in seconds. When the large language models that AI relies on is fed by the very algorithm powered, extremist hungry internet that makes centrism so difficult achieve, it’s not hard to see the challenge we face.

Saying all that, I am going to end on a positive note. After a decade of turmoil in the UK, an admittedly left of centre government under Keir Starmer has been elected. After the previous merry-go-round of populist Trump-lite nutters that the Tory party coughed up during and after the disastrous Brexit referendum, the new government feels like the welcome return of responsible adults to a house party that raged completely out of control. But the first 100 days in power has shown how tenuous and tricky a centrist approach has in the information age. Spectacles, dresses and football tickets - it all pales in comparison to the VIP lane, tax dodging, taxpayer robbing antics of their predecessors, but it's all fodder for the 'they're all the same' machine. A media obsessed with personality over effective governance will find it hard not to appeal to those sweet, sweet easy column inches and send their frothing indignation into the world.

But the UK election result in 2024 shows populist nonsense can be defeated. France avoided a lurch to the right (though Macron's subsequent tight-rope act trying to keep a mélange of right and left together is painful to watch) and the fossilised Biden stepping aside for the more credible Harris gives hope that grown up politics stands a chance. Now, if only Twitter will finally swallow Musk whole and speed up his journey to Mars, we'll be a happier planet for it. Log off that hell-hole everyone, let's make it happen.

#opinion #politics #informationage #elongatedmuskrat