Your Social Media Habits Could Be Destroying Democracy

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I think the headline of this article is a bit melodramatic. First of all, dumb people have been voting without knowing the issues forever. And then there is that whole popular vote versus Electoral College thingy. So, while social media might be adding to the problem, I don't agree that it is "destroying democracy." Brain cells? Yes. Democracy? No. :D

A study released this week may help confirm what you probably suspected. That endless stream of hashtags, emojis, listicles and Onion articles isn't necessarily making you any smarter. And in some cases it could hamper your political judgment.
 
A lot of social media just seems to pablum thrown out there these days that some people latch onto just to try to justify their beliefs to begin with, rather than trying to look at anything informative in general.

At least it has appeared that way to me for a long time now.
 
It does create a hive mind mentality. A lot the collective tends to place people on "witch hunts" for having opposing views. Even if opposing views are a healthy and needed part of a democracy. There are several quick blurp sensationalist posts from Huff Post and various other political leaning blog/newsources that will build up an opposing view as "evil" and subject the person to social media stoning. It happens with both left and rights, and the idea of a personalized ideology does feel like its being pushed aside. Forcing those to "Join or die."
 
twonunpackmule said:
It does create a hive mind mentality. A lot the collective tends to place people on "witch hunts" for having opposing views. Even if opposing views are a healthy and needed part of a democracy. There are several quick blurp sensationalist posts from Huff Post and various other political leaning blog/newsources that will build up an opposing view as "evil" and subject the person to social media stoning. It happens with both left and rights, and the idea of a personalized ideology does feel like its being pushed aside. Forcing those to "Join or die."
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I'm glad there is still some sanity in the world. (y)
 
The US is a procedurally democratic civil oligarchy, not a democracy. Talking about "ruining democracy" is a complete failure to understand how the real world works.
 
A for profit corporation in charge of creating and directing a hive mind.

What could possibly go wrong?
 
evilsofa said:
The US is a procedurally democratic civil oligarchy, not a democracy. Talking about "ruining democracy" is a complete failure to understand how the real world works.
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The real world works? I only see varying magnitudes of dysfunction.
 
evilsofa said:
The US is a procedurally democratic civil oligarchy, not a democracy. Talking about "ruining democracy" is a complete failure to understand how the real world works.
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The US is Hybridized Geographic and Popular Representative Democracy with Constitutional Limitations on Government Authority.

Where things go to shit is in the Party System. There are two closed clubs that self-select the Representative options for the rest of us most of the time converging on all of the time. The Party System is extra-governmental. Its not part of the system. It matters because of the Public and the Media. The Public is unable or unwilling to view politics without a party system overlaid on it. Its great for the lazy. Without "the jersey" you might actually have to study the person and be introspective about your own beliefs and compare them against your options and then actually choose. The Media is unwilling to do this job for the lazy either but pretends they do and rubber stamps the Public's lack of attention and thought.
 
It's articles like this that show how our education system has become a complete failure on teaching civics and government, especially US Government.

When you get a bunch of marxist hippies teaching civics, you end up with idiots like this that think the US should be like ancient Athens with a sprinkling of totalitarianism.
 
tetris42 said:
I'm pretty sure the modern news networks and corporate media is doing far more to destroy democracy than screwing around with social media.
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Not so sure... I know plenty of people that pretty much use FaceBook as their window to the world... Which makes sense as internet is replacing other forms of entertainment.
 
Destroying the idea that 51% can decide to kill and eat the other 49% is a good thing.
 
MongGrel said:
A lot of social media just seems to pablum thrown out there these days that some people latch onto just to try to justify their beliefs to begin with, rather than trying to look at anything informative in general.

At least it has appeared that way to me for a long time now.
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Collectivism has been an issue for as long as people have been socializing. The medium in which it happens has just changed. Unfortunately it's able to reach larger amounts of people now. Post-modernism being taught in college has certainly not helped.
jpm100 said:
The US is Hybridized Geographic and Popular Representative Democracy with Constitutional Limitations on Government Authority.

Where things go to shit is in the Party System. There are two closed clubs that self-select the Representative options for the rest of us most of the time converging on all of the time. The Party System is extra-governmental. Its not part of the system. It matters because of the Public and the Media. The Public is unable or unwilling to view politics without a party system overlaid on it. Its great for the lazy. Without "the jersey" you might actually have to study the person and be introspective about your own beliefs and compare them against your options and then actually choose. The Media is unwilling to do this job for the lazy either but pretends they do and rubber stamps the Public's lack of attention and thought.
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You hit the nail on the head about the Party system. We have somehow enabled a small group of elites who have no oversight to dictate who the public is able to vote for in each election cycle. It really exacerbates the issue of collectivism that is now running rampant within social media.
 
As usual, everyone needs to have a cause, no matter how bad it is. *cough* black lives matter. No idiot. All lives matter. That whole movement is racist.
 
Democracy only works when the people voting are educated about the issues and care about more than just themselves.
 
The US is a Constitutional Republic . . . NOT a Democracy. The more we move toward a Democracy, the messed up the country gets.

A Democracy is mob rule, i.e. 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
 
evilsofa said:
The US is a procedurally democratic civil oligarchy, not a democracy. Talking about "ruining democracy" is a complete failure to understand how the real world works.
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Very well put. This is essentially what we have become. The politicians are our rulers and overlords. Its they reason why the fear guys like Sanders or even a buffoon like Trump and have spent so much on attack ads on them - because nothing scares the shit out of them more than someone who isn't swayed by Political money, and will be out to freaking torch their political world like the Joker in the Dark Knight.

That's why I'm down for a Trump presidency. Do I think he can make good on his promises? No.

Do I think he will fuck over both the far right and far left, and potentially could leave the current politicial system in such shambles that the people that come after him MAY have a shot at actually doing something for the people?

Well, if there ever was the perfect confluence of hubris, finance, and influence that could lay waste, that sad sack has it.
 
dandirk said:
Not so sure... I know plenty of people that pretty much use FaceBook as their window to the world... Which makes sense as internet is replacing other forms of entertainment.
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That's just a stepping stone though, the other people are getting their news from somewhere. Since we have very little hard, factual news reporting now, it spreads outward.
 
tetris42 said:
That's just a stepping stone though, the other people are getting their news from somewhere. Since we have very little hard, factual news reporting now, it spreads outward.
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I would disagree. We live in an era of unprecedented access to information. I think the idea that there used to be this "hard news" free of biases is something of a myth. Humans have long understood that dissemination of information is a powerful tool. We live in a time where there's no central control of information. One is free to chose who and what they believe on a level that's never existed in human history.
 
jpm100 said:
Where things go to shit is in the Party System. There are two closed clubs that self-select the Representative options for the rest of us most of the time converging on all of the time. The Party System is extra-governmental. Its not part of the system. It matters because of the Public and the Media. The Public is unable or unwilling to view politics without a party system overlaid on it. Its great for the lazy. Without "the jersey" you might actually have to study the person and be introspective about your own beliefs and compare them against your options and then actually choose. The Media is unwilling to do this job for the lazy either but pretends they do and rubber stamps the Public's lack of attention and thought.
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This. Let's present two ideas out of an entire universe of possibilities and pretend they're the only two!

I like to think that if we could increase congress by 10x maybe there could be more room for alternatives. But even with ~33% of people reporting as independents now, the two majors don't leave any breathing room for one to grow.
 
heatlesssun said:
I would disagree. We live in an era of unprecedented access to information. I think the idea that there used to be this "hard news" free of biases is something of a myth. Humans have long understood that dissemination of information is a powerful tool. We live in a time where there's no central control of information. One is free to chose who and what they believe on a level that's never existed in human history.
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In US history, not too terrible a myth. See, there was this era where all journalism was essentially "TMZ meets Lewis and Clark" - an era of what they called "Yellow Journalism" where there was little hard facts and basically every paper was like the inquirer today, and there were no libel laws to protect people from attacks from the papers.

Know who put a stop to it?

The Government. The Government stepped in, shut down much of that shit by passing privacy laws, and essentially forced papers into credibility, which gave birth to true journalism in the US.

Think the Government could do that now? Pfft...

Now we live in a second age of yellow journalism, except not many people are even aware of it, or even give a shit. Meanwhile, yellow journalists get all thin-skinned when called on it and pound their fists on the legacy of their forebearers, ignorantly unaware how those same forebearers are likely rolling in their graves for having their names invoked by such ridiculous hacks.
 
heatlesssun said:
I would disagree. We live in an era of unprecedented access to information. I think the idea that there used to be this "hard news" free of biases is something of a myth. Humans have long understood that dissemination of information is a powerful tool. We live in a time where there's no central control of information. One is free to chose who and what they believe on a level that's never existed in human history.
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Oh there is real news out there, but it's mostly for people who are really trying to track it down. For the average joe, the news is more laden with whatever agenda the reporting source has than ever. We have about 6 companies controlling 90% of the news media in the USA. Also in the past, there used to be a firewall between news reporting v. advertising. A company couldn't just stop a story because advertisers or the finance department didn't like it. That's no longer true at all any more. Also there's a difference between bias v. omitting information, never covering certain stories, not fact-checking, or flat out fabricating. I wasn't trying to suggest old news never had bias, more that there were more journalistic standards that aren't in place today.
 
TwistedAegis said:
This. Let's present two ideas out of an entire universe of possibilities and pretend they're the only two!

I like to think that if we could increase congress by 10x maybe there could be more room for alternatives. But even with ~33% of people reporting as independents now, the two majors don't leave any breathing room for one to grow.
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The problem is, by nature, people don't want to think. They want to be told what to think. They want to have an emotional reaction, not a rational one. 2 parties works for people, because it gives them something to fight over. Think about it - we have it here. AMD vs Intel. NVidia vs AMD. Ford vs Chevy. Coke vs Pepsi. McDonalds vs Burger King. Republican vs Democrat.

And like idiots, people like to pick a side and stick with it for no other reason it was the first one they heard about, or it was the first one they were told about as an alternative when they were feeling like rebelling against whatever it was they had shoved down their throats until that point. And then they stick with it. And they accept the conditioning that comes with it. "War on Women?" RAAAAGEEE! 'War on Terror?" RAAAAAGE "Black Lives Matter?" RAAAAAGGGEEE!!!!!!!!!!


Notice how those are all tightly packaged? Like a slogan for an ad campaign? It's by design. It's because the money brokers on both sides know people are morons who are easily conditioned like Pavlov's dogs to want to pick a side and dig in, and will cherry pick stuff for their side to defend it.

And expecting human nature to change now, sadly, is impossible. It's because there aren't more mercenaries, willing to do the research and vote for the best people, rather than the best slogans, that the country is truly fucked.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
Now we live in a second age of yellow journalism, except not many people are even aware of it, or even give a shit.
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People, at least online, seem to always question where others get their information and how they arrived to their conclusions.
 
heatlesssun said:
People, at least online, seem to always question where others get their information and how they arrived to their conclusions.
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And yet many have no problems using the information they question themselves if it helps them win an internet pissing contest. Seen it too many times. The pissing contest seems to trump all reason.
 
Hell, Andrew Jackson had Francis Preston Blair, an active editor of major newspapers back in the day. Could you imagine the furor today if a President had the editor of the NYT or WSJ on their cabinet??
 
TwistedAegis said:
Hell, Andrew Jackson had Francis Preston Blair, an active editor of major newspapers back in the day. Could you imagine the furor today if a President had the editor of the NYT or WSJ on their cabinet??
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That's why they try to keep it quiet. You don't even want to know how many Editors, "Journalists" and other press Mike Madigan (Illinois State Senator) has in his pocket. And an army of trial lawyers to sue you if you try to come after him or his cronies....
 
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