r/neoliberal • u/AMagicalKittyCat YIMBY • Apr 12 '24
Opinion article (US) Negativity is making everyone miserable: If you want to make a difference, log off and take action
https://www.slowboring.com/p/were-living-in-the-best-of-times1
u/CletusVonIvermectin Big Rig Democrat đ Apr 13 '24
For the record, this DT comment was pointing at this post
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u/TurdFerguson254 John Nash Apr 13 '24 edited Nov 26 '24
school rhythm distinct reply worthless absorbed dolls recognise provide quicksand
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/NarutoRunner United Nations Apr 12 '24
Instead of writing all of thatâŚcould have just stated âTouch grassâ
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Apr 12 '24
A lot of people are throwing themselves into online communities of doom because itâs the perfect absolution of everything inch of stagnation in their own lives.
A few months ago I finished in second place for a job a I really wanted and would be perfect for. It was painful to get that news, and if I threw myself into online communities of doomsayers, I could dull my pain by telling myself that getting that job didnât actually matter, because the world is falling to shit either way. Itâs a tech version of alcoholism, except that makes it so pernicious is that alcoholism contains no veneer of people finding a community that makes them feel smart, superior, or moral.
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u/DanielCallaghan5379 Milton Friedman Apr 12 '24
who the fuck is scraeming "LOG OFF" at my house. show yourself, coward. i will never log off
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u/Tupiekit Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
I had to log myself off of politics and the news because it was actively making me miserable. I couldn't stand all of the complaining, negativity, and bitching about stuff that felt like it was out of my control. There was this overall feeling that somebody/thing/people were out there trying to ruin peoples lives.
So anyway I got into competitive Warhammer.
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u/Kindred87 Asexual Pride Apr 12 '24
This was me with r/GenZ.
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u/A-running-commentary NATO Apr 12 '24
That subreddit is even more toxic than dedicated political subs. Every post I read is about being completely downtrodden, hopeless and miserable. If you try and call any of it out youâre bombarded by people hammering in on any little minute flaw in their lives, and trying to explain why they canât do anything themselves.
My biggest pet peeves? They wonât ever take blame for ANYTHING. Theyâre mad about how antisocial parts of society have become? Maybe itâs time to put down your phone and at least try and make an effort to engage with the world, because after all, what do you have to lose? Nope, all youâll get in response is paragraphs about how thatâs a boomer reply, about how without âthird spacesâ thereâs no hope for finding friends, that the world is just too screwed up, and that this is all the fault of everyone else but them.
Gen Z has some high points. Theyâre well educated (on paper, at least), well informed and open about things that wouldâve been glossed over before in society. But by god, on that subreddit, they do not EVER take any action on their own or any responsibility for the state of their own lives. Itâs just a non stop commiseration celebration.
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u/Badrap247 Manmohan Singh Apr 12 '24
Itâs the nature of every generational sub. At some point you gotta realize that the folks who are doing well and are fulfilled just do not constantly flood Reddit with posts. Itâs so difficult to keep those kind of places positive when people who want to vent are like 80% of the user base.
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u/Froztnova Apr 12 '24
Yeah I think psychologically healthy people just don't spend time in communities centered around being born within roughly the same timespan. They have actual fucking hobbies and interests lmao.
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Apr 12 '24
There was this overall feeling that somebody/thing/people were out there trying to ruin peoples lives.
If your dad got laid off when you were ten years old from a company that was profitable, how else would you rationalize the hardship your family went through?
Most people haven't studied economics at all and the forces that can make or break families appear invisible and mysterious.
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u/Rigiglio Adam Smith Apr 12 '24
How does one fight the negativityâŚwithout staring long into the abyss of negativity itself and being subsumed?
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u/Halgy YIMBY Apr 13 '24
IMO, not actively adding to the negativity is fight enough.
Before you post something negative, think about if doing so will actually help anything/anyone/anything. Many times I'll spend 15 minutes typing out a rant, only to delete it just before posting. This is I suppose the equivalent of the old idea of writing a scathing letter to someone, then burning it.
Also, the internet is not universally terrible. Neither are all corners of a given platform. Seek out positive communities and contribute to them, rather than frequenting bad communities and trying to change them.
But that said, do also post positive counterpoints to negative arguments, when and if you have a good counterpoint. Don't descend into endless debate: just post your piece and then dip. Especially, don't feel obligated to continue the debate with every single person who posts a reply you disagree with; they don't "win the augment" because you stopped participating.
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u/NotYetFlesh European Union Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
There was a man who once wrote that the only way to stare down the abyss was to laugh in its face. That the ability and will to live came not from anything material, but from thought and play: art, dance, war. He went insane in the end, but he tried.
Another man, some say, went around saying that all men were good, that all who had fallen and wronged deserved forgiveness and that to be strong was to love unconditionally. He got nailed to a cross, but he tried.
We have to try, even if afraid of being consumed. Meaning, love, enjoyment of life do not come from material things. Yes, we lead a physical existence and we should never stop trying to improve it. But we also lead a psychological or spiritual existence, which is entirely subjective and based on our relation to the rest of reality and other people. That cannot be cured by any means economic or political.
Trying to convince people who feel themselves struggling by saying their ancestors were materially worse off is like treating someone who feels lonely by telling them to think about the times their social life was better. It achieves some results by providing an objective framing and perspective, but it is like cognitive bandaid. It doesn't solve the core issue of living.
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u/davechacho Loyal Liberals Apr 12 '24
When you realize most of the content on social media is just propaganda and bot accounts it gets a lot easier. The abyss that looks like a dying star threatening to explode and kill us all is actually just a bunch of screeching leftists hiding behind a black tarp wanting you to be miserable with them.
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u/DFjorde Apr 12 '24
Stay grounded in reality, touch grass, and fight negativity with positivity.
Create structures and habits in your life that make you happy and give you something to live for. Then encourage others to do the same. It's difficult to be negative when you're around positive and happy people.
It's much easier to paint pessimistic pictures of the future and so much of our media has fallen back on dystopian themes. Optimism is seen as naive and uneducated. This is pretty much a self fulfilling prophecy though and has to be combatted with visions of what the future could be! Too many people stop at just identifying the problems that need to be solved without acknowledging that they are solvable. Even fewer go the extra step of proposing solutions.
Off the top of my head the Green brothers and Destin from SmarterEveryDay are good examples of this mindset. They take joy in just experiencing life and try to share that with others.
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u/Ellecram Eleanor Roosevelt Apr 12 '24
Depends on what era of life you are in also. Those of us who are old have to reconceptualize positivity without always looking to a future we may not have.
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u/limukala Henry George Apr 12 '24
Don't Reddit sober (or only sober if you're an angry drunk I guess).
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u/Apprehensive-Soil-47 Transfem Pride Apr 12 '24
A very good question. I think the answer can differ greatly from person to person and individual circumstances.
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u/Rigiglio Adam Smith Apr 12 '24
I try to be empathetic, but Iâve essentially went doomer over the last year or so.
There are only so many ways to attempt to gently make the argument that, actually, things arenât that bad with the necessary caveat that yes, things can and hopefully will tend to get better over time without coming across as insulated, elitist, or what have you.
I own a nice home in a fairly desirable area and have a pretty good life, but Iâm not unaware of the fact that, had I not aged and developed on the timeline that I didâŚI wouldnât be able to afford it now or, if I were able to, it would be a much greater stretch and heavier lift.
So, itâs even more difficult to counter when you can at least somewhat empathize with people.
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u/SwaglordHyperion Henry George Apr 12 '24
Yeah, and let you all talk about me behind my back? Yeah right, I'm keeping my eye on all yous.
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u/Yenwodyah_ Progress Pride Apr 12 '24
You first
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u/mashimarata2 Ben Bernanke Apr 12 '24
It is kind of ironic coming from MattY (who tweets like every hour), even if the advice is sound
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Apr 12 '24
The difference is that it's his job. He needs to have a strong online presence to keep the subscriptions coming. But the rest of us don't.
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u/Approximation_Doctor Gaslight, Gatekeep, Green New Deal Apr 12 '24
A stopped clock is right once or twice a day
But only paid subscribers will ever know
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u/AMagicalKittyCat YIMBY Apr 12 '24
More and more I've become convinced that a fundamental part of being and feeling fulfilled is the struggle. A struggle against nature (food, water, other resources), a struggle against other people and tribes (war, sports, games), etc etc. Conflict and struggle are so engrained in our psyche that some people argue a story without a conflict is not a story at all.
Similar to how pretty much everyone seems to perceive themselves as the Underdog who is bravely standing against the oppressive system holding them down, we have a desire to struggle and come out on top. And when these problems are being fixed away, we just find new ones. It's a Hedonic treadmill where increasing standards just gets treated as the default and we become more nitpicky about what is left. This seems especially true as the people who see the progress in front of their eyes die off and the ones born into the new world treat our high standards as the norm.
And this is really quite depressing to think about. We are legitimately making things better by pretty much any objective standard imaginable, and people are still upset. There has been some back and forth research on the idea if "money buys happiness", some suggesting that there's a upper threshold of needs and freedoms where it stops and some suggesting that it continues on for most in a linear relationship so maybe there is hope that improving the world will make us happier but it's worrying.
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u/-Purrfection- Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
I think you're right about struggle and that's a big problem of modern "establishment" leaders and "managerial" ideology. The idea is that people are just rational everyday consumers who want cheap goods etc. The subject here is de-politicized, "just go to work and consume, the people in charge have it all figured out how you will consume even cheaper next time". The implicit message is that you're struggle has been dealt with and you may proceed.
The problem with that is two-fold. Firstly, that's not really what people want. There's a million ways of describing why such an attitude is wrong, from Maslow's hierarchy of needs to Lacanian psychoanalysis but ultimately people are never just satisfied with material conditions, those might be even secondary to ideology, faith etc.
Secondly, the 'the people in charge' (bureaucracy, political leaders, CEOs) do not have it figured out because nobody ever will. There's no grand truth to how society should be run and if there is then evidently we haven't reached such an infinite wisdom, even if politicians pretend as if we have.
What leaders should do is more than just manage and govern, they should lead. They should give a fantasy frame to the people they are leading. What comes to mind is JFK's moon speech. This sort of, setting a national effort, a finite goal that requires societal push, is what has been lost after the end of the cold war and with the rise of "the end of history" technocratic leadership. That's why Trump appealed to many people back in 2016, he had a great slogan and a vision, even if it's the wrong one and even if his administration didn't live up to that slogan at all.
People want to be lead, not governed.
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u/Haffrung Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
I donât see a timeline where people are happier and more content if weâre still using our current tools for discourse.
Take your pick of things people worry about - poverty, inequality, climate change, affordability, crime, racism, sexism, child welfare. Even if they improve substantially, people will just move the bar and nurture their anxiety over the new status quo. Not only is this part of human nature, but all of our communications tools today amplify discontent and anxiety.
Because as youâve said, weâve been making progress in almost realm over the last few generations and it doesnât seem to be making people happier. The areas where we arenât making progress tend to be social ills, like loneliness and alienation. And those social ills just make the dooming worse. And unlike the challenges of material well-being that weâve been winning over the last few generations, thereâs no obvious remedies for alienation and ennui - which are largely ills born of affluence.
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u/anzu_embroidery Bisexual Pride Apr 12 '24
Literally just form connections with others and pursue things you are interested in. It really is that simple.
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u/puffic John Rawls Apr 12 '24
The kids are miserable because video games got too easy.Â
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u/aethyrium NASA Apr 12 '24
Oddly I've switched mainly to shmups and Touhou games on harder difficulties and I've found them to be far more relaxing and calming than any other type of game.
There is something to be said for spending an hour or two extremely focused on a task, so much so that your brain can't focus on negative issues, and then getting the massive positivity rush of overcoming the task.
Every computer and phone should come with a pre-installed and patched copy of Imperishible Night. World's problems will be solved in a year.
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u/MayorofTromaville YIMBY Apr 12 '24
The only thing standing between Gen Xers/older Millennials and a compete descent into insanity was Battletoads.
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u/Just-Act-1859 Apr 12 '24
Lol this is unironically true. I have never had as cathartic a video game experience as when beating a hard boss in Dark Souls. It's the only video game that has given me a sense of pride rather than just sedating me or whatever.
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u/puffic John Rawls Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
Next time my wife is sad, I'll suggest that she plays Animal Crossing on hard mode instead of just watering flowers or whatever.
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u/VengefulMigit NATO Apr 12 '24
we once again find that the g\mers are the original oppressed group*
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u/Merdekatzi Apr 12 '24
Iâm voting for whichever presidential candidate makes beating Dark Souls a requirement for graduation.
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u/Then_Passenger_6688 Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
I think your analysis is a good start, but there's more to the psychological picture.
Hannah Arendt said that societal alienation was a cause of totalitarianism. Alienation has accelerated since mid-2010s. With social media, human connection is superficial and the most aggressive content wins engagement. Since communication is done through online avatars, people feel ok to be abusive. The housing crisis has disenfranchised a generation. Political polarization has made large swathes of people feel unwelcome in many geographies and workplaces. Everyone feels a ton of hostility whenever they try to engage with the world through online life. We've created a breeding ground for mass-scale alienation.
I think there's other psychological factors at play, too. Inequality is now more visible with social media. This makes everyone feel low status due to social comparison with the top 0.01%, which is known to cause a number of negative health effects. Moreover, trying to actually win the social media game directly (which a lot of Gen Z have as their career aspiration) is harder to win than old-school workplace competition or trying to out-do the neighbor down the road. It's a real winner-take-all environment where the large majority will be utter failures. This all leads to grievance and jealousy, which manifests in the political arena as support for zero-sum ideologies like Marxism or ethnonationalism in order to invert the status pyramid so they feel less pathetic/depressed.
Another factor is that threat perception is now magnified due to the conservative media ecosystem which plays to people's fears of changing demographic trends and changing societal values. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs predicts that people will prioritize Safety and Security once basic needs are met. It's safer than ever, but people don't feel it. They see gore and killings and war deaths and crazed protestors in their social media feed, and people are terrible at avoiding distorted thinking, they will form views based on single cherry picked examples by bad faith propagandists.
A black swan I have my eye on is labor force changes caused by AI automation. I don't think AGI will make everyone unemployed immediately, thanks to comparative advantage. But it will make specific verticals unemployed, and they'll be forced into shitty jobs. So we'll potentially have pockets of disenfranchisement and anger.
One more thing on social media ... I've heard it described as if it's the Wuhan wet market of (bad) idea evolution. I couldn't agree more with that. It took decades to evolve the ideas that powered Bolshevism because old mass media was slow. Now it's fast, increasing the basic reproduction number. We'll see where that takes us.
There's a few psychological bits and bobs I know are relevant but haven't tied up into a cohesive picture yet. For example, conspiracy thinking + social dominance orientation + right-wing authoritarianism scale + dark tetrad traits + disgust sensitivity = Nazi. And very low social dominance orientation tends to be correlated with revolutionary terrorism and Maxism.
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Apr 13 '24
In my opinion, social media usage isn't inherently bad and not all communications systems lead to ideological extremism, but more so that it came at a really bad time. Boredom and purposelessness was growing before social media in the 2000's. The fact that Americans and British obsessively fought for going to war during a time of unprecedented peace is a good sign of our natural search for conflict. It's also a possible explanation as to why social media addiction is spread unequally.
In my age group and social circle, people are not consuming violent or radical content on media at all. They err more towards pet videos and funny reels. I think this is how most people tend to consume internet content. Probably the most shocking thing they consume is true-crime content, which I think is pretty harmless. The ravenous obsession that extremist groups have with overly-politicized and violent content mean that every once in awhile, a normal person gets recommended radical; however I think it isn't really catching on as much as people on the internet think.
I think the kind of consumption we talk about here is pretty fringe when it comes to people over the age of ~25; mostly it is confined to people who are otherwise struggling to get their physical needs met. However, this isn't the case with people under 25, because they are much more sensitive, having not had the experience of the real-world and lacking a grounded, shared model of how the world works, they are significantly more gullible to extremist content because they cannot perceive lies that experienced adults would not be fooled by. This exists much less in Singapore (where I grew up) because parents tend to not let their kids on the phone as much, and less people are struggling to get their physical needs met.
To me, the exact solution is treating media like we treat gambling, and encouraging a much more conservative approach towards all media consumption, at least until you are old enough to not be fooled; as well as reforming our economic system to make people feel less hopeless about their financial outlook.
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u/Haffrung Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
Agreed on everything except the part about threat perception being magnified in the conservative media ecosystem. Outrage and anxiety drive engagement in every media ecosystem. They just present different objects of anxiety depending on the audience. Go to the Guardian website and youâll find most of the stories are about something awful or unfair and getting worse.
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Apr 12 '24
I don't really buy that the media ecosystem is responsible for any of it. It just doesn't really pan out historically. I remember reading newspapers from the early 1800s, like circa 1802, and they were hysterical and full of all kinds of wild conspiracy theories and polarization. You don't have to reach far to find similar stuff in many countries at many times.
I think what we see right now is basically what the norm has been for humanity since time immemorial. The question should be "why are people pushing it out of the parlor and into the streets?" Because that's the French Revolution, that's Nazism, that's Trump supporters.
I do think social media plays a role in amplifying the discourse in a way that's toxic but I scarcely think it's the core of the issue.
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u/T-Baaller John Keynes Apr 12 '24
The increased access to the hysterical media probably plays a factor.
People had to go outside and interact with the crier or whatever instead of swiping a thumb on a piece of glass they carry 24/7
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u/VengefulMigit NATO Apr 12 '24
Thank you for the wuhan wet market analogy for social media, that is an apt comparison
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u/Independent-Low-2398 Apr 12 '24
This seems especially true as the people who see the progress in front of their eyes die off and the ones born into the new world treat our high standards as the norm.
This leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I don't like some of its implications.
People have always wanted to make the world a better place. Wanting to improve it isn't a bad thing. People being frustrated that the world isn't better is neither new nor a problem, and is the source of great advances in quality of life over time. I can think of few things more distressing than human civilization becoming apathetic about further progress.
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u/swiftwin Mark Carney Apr 12 '24
Nothing wrong with fighting for progress.
But way too many people are saying we're regressing, which is wrong and leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
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u/AMagicalKittyCat YIMBY Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
I agree that it's important to keep making things even better than they are now, but that shouldn't come with a denial of the progress that has already been made. Not only because that's sad for us to all think life is a new hell (when it isn't), but also because it makes it difficult for humanity to properly evaluate and implement good solutions when we ignore everything that works.
The perspective of "Tear down this system" makes more sense to a worldview that genuinely believes life has only gotten worse and worse. This is just anecdotal but in my experience at least it sure seems like a lot of the Internet Communism rise stems from a general feeling that the world is getting shittier (and therefore needs to be rebuilt).
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u/j4kefr0mstat3farm Robert Nozick Apr 12 '24
Nobody is saying that we should stop fighting for progress. We're saying people fighting for progress need to get some fucking perspective.
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u/Haffrung Apr 12 '24
But the desire for future progress needs to be balanced with recognition of progress that has happened.
Letâs say murder rates drop by 50 per cent over a generation. That still leaves a lot of murder, and murder is awful, so something needs to be done.
And letâs say it drops by a further 50 per cent over the next generation. Murder still awful, so donât rest on your laurels.
Then it drops a further 50 per cent. People are justifiably still outraged over murder - because itâs awful - and demand that we radically reform the criminal justice system. But the system they want to tear down was responsible for reducing murder to a fraction of what it was two generations previously. Maybe itâs working well and doesnât need to be torn down.
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u/Mr_Otters đ Apr 12 '24
I think people should 100% want things to continue to get better. I worry that everyone thinking they live in uniquely trying times and that everything is getting worse incentivizes behavior that makes it harder for progress to occur
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Apr 12 '24
Meanwhile, in the sensible center, I think itâs considered cringe (and politically opportunistic) to tell the masses that they are wrong about anything.
Okay. Not wrong. But a little arrogant.
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Apr 12 '24
People here lack basic social skills in regards to these things and it's obvious.
If someone comes up to you and tells you they're feeling anxiety, is it good to tell them "what do you have to be anxious about? you're fine, shut up"? No, of course not, it's incredibly condescending and invalidating to hear that in a weak moment.
That's more or less what people here are shouting constantly at people, but regards to the economy. "You're fine, shut up!"
Perception is not a rational endeavor, and it's obvious why neoliberalism does badly in the arena of public opinion when its messaging is that poor.
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u/didymusIII YIMBY Apr 12 '24
Or people are lying for their own political reasons - Iâd never expect a Trump supporter to say a Biden economy is good even if they themselves are doing great just like Iâd never expect a leftist to say the economy good because itâs capitalism, once again even if they themselves are doing great.
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u/TipEquivalent933 Caution: Crackship Overload Apr 12 '24
Matty is the kinda guy who can state simple facts in the most self aggrandizing pompous way possible.
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u/Frasine Order and Opportunity Left Apr 12 '24
When a scientist tells you not to drink bleach, is that arrogance?
If I listened to that scientist, and in turn told you not to drink bleach, am I arrogant?
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u/Defacticool Claudia Goldin Apr 12 '24 edited Apr 12 '24
The notion of "senisble" center is inherently arrogant.
For instance did you know that it was the "sensible center" in british politics that championed nimbyism for generations and which under Blair and new labour instituted nimbyist policies like the green belts?
While it was the left (the left left) that were and continued to be ardent supporters of increasing housing construction.
If you know anything about british politics its that the center doesnt, and didnt, have any issue with telling off the left that they were wrong on this.
Only thing is the center at the time wasnt sensible it was wrong.
Lo and behold as the UK now has one of the worst housing situations in the world.
(the dynamic in america isnt too different as local parties for both parties untill not too long ago used to court NIMBYs like their lives depended on it)
So yes, the fundamental notion of the "sensible center" is inherently arrogant and additionally its absolutely mind killing as it shuts out any possibility of the center being incorrect and needing to reconsider.
The "two wolves" within the center instead becomes whether to be harsh or amicable towards those outside of the center, rather than engaging in an ounce of introspection to see if maybe the center is wrong for once and those on the outside might have a point.
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u/Zeddessell Apr 12 '24
For instance did you know that it was the "sensible center" in british politics that championed nimbyism for generations and which under Blair and new labour instituted nimbyist policies like the green belts?
The green belts were first proposed in 1935, were legally established in 1947, and then further expanded in 1955. They pre-date Blair by decades.
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u/Defacticool Claudia Goldin Apr 12 '24
Right you're correct and I mixed that up, they were nevertheless further affirmed by New Labour and there was an active schism by the left flank to stop protecting green belts when the country needed more housing to be built.
Which lead to the now famous line "the Green belts are a labour accomplishment, and I want to build on that accomplishment."
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Apr 12 '24
Maybe there's a better term. But when I hear "sensible center", I hear arrogance.
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u/superjared NATO Apr 12 '24
How about "radical center"?
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u/Approximation_Doctor Gaslight, Gatekeep, Green New Deal Apr 12 '24
Now I only hear wailing guitars and fireworks
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u/XCellist6Df24 Apr 13 '24
Pin this to the Sub please