/hell/ - internet death cult

My opinions on this are very political. Wanting to keep it cozy, I'll tread lightly. I think it's precisely that we are so deeply moralistic, but that our morals are often so flawed on fundamental levels, that has caused the problem first and foremost. That is the root of the problem. Communications technology is a catalyst, something that hastens this development, as it dehumanizes others by creating less-real feeling modes of communication. That is, communications technologies do play a role, but they are not the only or principal cause of the issue. The worst catalyst at play is a rather contentious issue, so it's perhaps not discussed here.

>there is no real external or internal demand to intervene
what lack of demand do you see? I argue that the cruelty with tech comes not from what happens beyond the screen, where your real identity and family lies. but rather behind the screen where people hide and have no incentive to be kind. But even then, I argue that tech didn't make us cruel as it gave us an avenue to show the cruelty we already had.

The concepts we live by don’t enrich our lives or give us sustenance. In a liberal market economy, we are expected to be responsible individuals and take care of ourselves. Therefore, any act of generosity towards another is purely voluntary and there is no compulsion to do it. Since there is no compulsion, few people bother doing it.

>>5334
When you do a kind deed you can see it register with the other person. You can see them smile, the warmth on their face, their thanks. The screen eliminates this exchange. It places us in a huge sushi rollymous crowd where we have even less incentive to be kind to others. This allows our crueler side to grow unchecked and because hey it’s just pixels on a screen and you can just turn it off. It’s the same reason dating apps have increased hook ups and porn consumption by making sex inconsequential.

The problem of online life is that its not like real life but is slowly colonizing the meatspace. Since most of our value systems involve social interaction how can we have any morality in a world that's less and less social?

>>5334
i think it's a combination of detachment where the other person in the screen becomes content to us like a character and so we can forget they're people like us with complex lives and feelings, and learned behaviour where algorithms and the detachment encourage cruelty as a form of entertainment. It's not that anyone is cruel by nature, but rather that memetics of cruelty infect us.

The NPC meme, tearing others down to hide our own insecurities, the dehumanization of the other. I think perfect blue and serial experiments lain are both connected to this? There may also be a bigger issue of fragmenting reality, simulacra, and a reducing intersubjectivity. Though I don't know these concepts well enough to talk on them, and i believe a lot of this is a consequence of memetics of cruelty that are activating in the current political climate.

>>5332
>>5335
unfortunately in the current system many people are conditioned to adopt a transactional worldview, a worldview of "worthy" and "unworthy" people that justifies cruelty.
Kindness must be motivated by internal loci. kindness is intrinsically worthwhile because of things like sonder. it can be motivated by a sense of obligation from empathy. when you see yourself in another person you hate to see them suffer, and people often come to eachother's aide in times of trouble. you see this extend beyond people, like how often people adopt pets. I'm remainded of "echoes" by pink floyd, one of my favourite songs. "I am you, and what I see is me".

>>5337
There's a famous story about Himmler. One time, he went to inspect a camp where einsatzgruppen were massacring Jews by firing squad. Himmler was visibly distressed at the horrific sight of young girls and children being lined up to die. Visibly pale and weak, he urged his men to be merciful and not to be hurt them. When a piece of her flesh splattered onto his shoe, he thew up and collapsed. But this same guy went back to his office in Berlin and was happy to sign away human lives at the stroke of a pen, ordering others to do what he couldn't stomach. The reduction of lives to statistics, signs which can be manipulated and calculated, makes it easy to be cruel. Personal computers and the internet were cooked up by PC homebrewers and hackers to empower people, but it has increased this process of transforming life into calculable signs which can be engineered according to calculating rationality. This alarming tendency is now colonizing many areas of our existence.

>detachment where the other person in the screen becomes content to us like a character and so we can forget they're people like us with complex lives and feelings
There's another side to this. People taking 2D characters and treating them like people with complex feelings and emotions and duties. The saddest thing about the internet is you can form bonds but they are always disembodied and unfulfilled. I've heard in the dial up BBS days it was common for BBSes to have in person meet ups.

>perfect blue and serial experiments lain are both connected to this?
SEL is definitely about how dehumanizing and disorienting tech has made us but also how addictive and euphoric it can be too. Its a double edged sword. The internet disembodies us and atomizes us, subjecting us to algorithms and market dynamics. This makes it hard to live a healthy embodied social life. It can open up new opportunities, but the forces of state, capital, and our own stupidity inflict damage on us.


>a consequence of memetics of cruelty that are activating in the current political climate
Yes. Modern political ideologies are all built on a friend-enemy distinction. A political community is defined by the antagonistic enemy (we are not them) and the aim is always to overcome, defeat, and destroy the enemy and win for your own group. You see this in democratic liberalism, Marxism, and Nazism. If you look at other approaches to politics, like medieval Platonism or Confucianism, you'll see a near total lack of this friend-enemy mentality. Western Europe was far less diverse than most Asian societies too and bred this idea of exclusive communities defined by outside enemies and aliens who must be fought and destroyed. You also see it in American Westerns and frontier mythology. This friend-enemy mentality is now how most online subcultures work but in a hyperreal environment where 'reality' is irrelevant and all that matters is owning your opponents no matter how absurd or cruel.

>"I am you, and what I see is me".
What makes Western society different is its particular brand of individualism based on the atomized autonomous, independent individual with an inner self untouched by social life. People are encouraged to be responsible for themselves. So its your own responsibility to seek treatment if you're sick. If you are unhappy, its your own fault. If others are cruel to you online, well just turn the machine off. This allows people to inflict emotional damage on each other by shifting the responsibility to be emotionally unaffected on the victim. In other times and places, each person is formed by their social relationships with other people and even non-humans. Each human person is formed by the social ties that make it up and these involve mutual obligations. Emotions and kind deeds are shared and reciprocated and those social bonds are reinforced through mutual acts of giving and receiving.
You can't really do this online but you sometimes see it in a faded form, like people trading tunes or software piracy.

>>5332
Ibn Khaldun talked about that 600 years ago. In developed civilizations there are no organic relationships between people and morality becomes a series of abstract principles instead of a way of life rooted in the structure of society. In his view, that was one of the main contributors to the fall of civilizations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycEdm086KNs

>>5339
I have issues with the way Ibn Khaldun is translated but I think he's right about urban life. Still I think there are other things going on here too.

>>5333
I agree
I also think another problem is that people hear someone say a controversial opinion/hot take (on either side of political spectrum, or even just things that question social constructs that "we" built, quotations on "we" because its more or less society not the individual) and people respond to them as if they are the boogeyman in their head for that day and respond in utter vitriol not realizing that is a real person behind the screen and that not everyone shares the same moral code or raised with the same values. There's a lot less educating and a lot more shitflinging in modern discourse, as well as a notion that either side of an issue can't be reasoned with. This is exacerbated by social media engagement farmers and bad faith actors poisoning the well for money or notoriety. I don't have many controversial takes myself, and I usually keep the ones I do have private but it is very hard to get a nuanced discussion or honest discussion online.

>But why does that matter if we're talking how online is making us more cruel?
Simply put, online is bleeding out into real life and through the encouragement of social media and a lot of discussions and beliefs we would've otherwise not talked about publicly are now mobilized to the real life through said encouragement. And despite this, we aren't anymore honest with ourselves and admitting that we don't know. Instead we stand with false bravado and show our ugly side more to prove we are "legitimate" to others when we are anything but. I was thinking about this today when I had two classmates start insulting each other over politics in the middle of my professor's lecture, and both of them didn't seem very informed, just the same old talking points from the media/social media. I agree with you that this a much broader problem that has roots other than technology we use daily, but technology has 100% propelled the problem to where it is today. There is increased scrutiny and distrust of everyone around us, particularly on the basis of gender, race, and sexuality.

I'll admit I'm not the smartest person in the world, but I'm a bit glad to have grown up back when the internet was more of a "don't use or tell others your real name, address, etc" because the things I see people saying online without any protection at all is worrying. I've already seen acquaintances of mine have their lives nearly destroyed for some of the things they have said or posted as dumb 20-somethings who have no idea how the world is like. I don't even know much of how the world is like other than I need to tread carefully (something I'm admittedly bad at at times). There are genuine lunatics out there thirsty for blood and chaos and utilize flimsy justifications (such as disagreement over certain things) to do such stuff, on both sides of the aisle.

Its a moral and ethical problem. Different factions on the political spectrum appeal to abstract moral principals but aren’t interested in justifying them. So moralist rhetoric has become a way to manipulate and defeat others, justify one’s own lifestyle, and tear down others. This reflects a deeper failure of capitalist modernity. The combination of this failing moral culture with a hyperreal tech saturated media environment is why there’s so much hate and conflict. It didn’t begin online, the internet just supercharged it.

>>5341
Online spaces encourage people to see the worst in each other, to see one thing and instantly jump to negative and aggressive conclusions. Good conversation depends on hearing people out and listening to what that person is actually saying.

If you say one thing, other people will assume things about you without basis or align you with some online faction they perceive as enemies or something to be mocked. Like religion? You must be a tradcat h return to tradition chud. Don’t like a certain politician? You must be a deranged woke radical left. I must destroy/mock you. This makes it hard to discuss anything and destroys nuance.

There’s also no path to redemption, no atonement, no forgiveness for apparent wrong doing but also no accountability for bad behavior either.

>>5332
tech seperates us
when your screen is more important than what's around you, there might be a problem

>>5343
my screen is absolutely more important than plenty of things around me. my screen is where my friends are!

>>5344
People you meet online can never be your friends. Those people are not friends.

>>5345
masaka……

>>5332
apologies if this gets a bit political/uncomfy but

my mum has become radicalised by twitter, facebook and youtube in the past few months and i absolutely hate it. it has turned her into a really bitter, ignorant, perpetually angry/outraged person, and i don't think she even realises it. she's constantly complaining and fearmongering about immigrants, trans people, etc despite hardly ever interacting with them irl. she's stuck in a massive echo chamber, believing damn near everything she sees online and not even willing to change her mind on a lot of things. it's almost always american culture-war crap too, which has very little relevance to our country.

even when she's not watching political slop, she's watching videos of paedophiles getting busted, or celeb gossip about scientology or whatever. obviously these things are more justified, but there's still that underlying misery/negativity behind them if that makes sense ("this guy was trying to groom kids", "this actor is in a cult and abuses his family", etc.). like she doesn't really watch anything innocent or harmless (eg: cat videos or something), it's always something negative, something outrageous, something involving someone to look down upon and feel better about herself, however justified or unjustified that may be. if that makes sense, idk.

i think the worst part is that she still has good intentions, that she's still a good person at heart. like i don't think she genuinely hates immigrants or trans people or whatever, but her concerns (however valid or invalid) are being exploited by professional outrage merchants and grifters who actually *are* legitimately racist/transphobic/etc, and that she's too naive to realise it.

idk where i'm going with this but i just absolutely hate social media and how quickly it has changed her, with zero signs of stopping. i can't even bear to look at her sometimes because it just makes me sad, and i don't know what to do about it. at least my dad feels the exact same way so i have someone to vent about it with, but my god it's depressing. can anyone else relate to this?

>>5347
My aunt believes in psychic aliens. I don't need to interact with her tho. Also, I believe AI development poses an existential threat, but I think that is warranted since AI experts also believe it now.

Relatedly, AI optimizing for engagement is stoking bad vibes…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/

It's probably going to get worse. I don't know what to do about it, but start guarding your focus more diligently is a good idea. Keep a focus journal and write about the kinds of ideas you want to engage with and spend time on, and if you notice you are spending significant time focused on other things, it might be an issue. Maybe tell your mom you are worried she is spending an unhealthy amount of time focusing on things she hates in a really unproductive way.

>>5348
thanks for sharing that blog post sushi, i really enjoyed reading it. i've seen that cgp grey video before and it's also very good at explaining why i dislike social media so much (or rather, what it does to warp people's thinking).

also worth mentioning, i played mgs2 earlier this year and i was absolutely horrified by how relevant the famous "AI speech" at the end was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C31XYgr8gp0
>Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum. They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large.
>The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh. No one is invalidated, but nobody is right.
insane shit for a game that came out in 2001.

i don't really know what to do about this problem either, especially when platforms like youtube and now twitter actually offer financial incentives for rage-baiting and engagement farming. a big part of why i like imageboards so much is that they don't facilitate any of this crap – no usernames or profiles, no likes/dislikes or upvotes/downvotes, no algorithm boosting certain posts at the expense of others based on your history/data, etc. i feel like imageboards have an inherent authenticity to them that social media could never replicate, and this one (sushichan) in particular is like an oasis in a desert of shit. i've been lurking here for a few years and i love how kind and empathetic everyone is here, there's very little trolling or "dunking".

personally, i've been distancing myself from a lot of this crap for a few years now, and i'm happier as a result. i follow very few political content creators online now, mostly out of exhaustion. i still read the news every day, but through rss feeds, and i read the whole article – i don't rely on someone else on social media to interpet and sum up the article, doing my thinking for me. you can fit a lot more nuance and information in a news/magazine article than you ever could in a tweet. i also generally try to not spend too much time worrying about the politics of other countries, unless it personally affects me in some way (i work in tech, so unfortunately i have to follow certain parts of american news, as much as i hate it).

it's just that i don't really know how to convince my mum to do the same (you obviously won't convince a non-techie to use rss, lol). a lot of her online media consumption is "passive", in the sense that she has it on in the background while doing something else. i could try and send her some news articles that contradict a lot of the things she believes, but idk if she has the patience to read them, or if she'll just dismiss them as "fake news" or whatever. my dad has tried to talk and argue with her before and she just gets defensive and says "i don't want to talk to you" whenever she gets cornered on something. it's grim. if he can't convince her, i probably can't either.

i remember she watched "the great hack" (a documentary about the cambridge analytica scandal) on netflix a few years ago and she was horrified. she wanted to delete her facebook account afterwards, but she never did – and at this point, idk if she ever will. now you see elon doing in plain sight on twitter what cambridge analytica were doing behind the scenes on facebook a few years ago, and she just laps it up…

I saw a discussion on some other site that said racism should be allowed because it isn't really the same as hurting another person. After all, these are just words and you know sticks and stones right? Liberals have a "no harm" principal but their idea of harm is very narrow. They only see non-consensual damaging of property as harmful, of course the body is someone's property according to Locke and therefore sucker punching a guy is really nothing more than unlawful property damage. When you yell the n word on the street, nobody's property rights are being enfringed on. After all, nobody owns the sidewalk right? Heh (this is actually not true). Hence, as distasteful and offensive yelling insults at blacks or trans or bald people is, its not actually harmful unless it falls under libel or you're doing it inside a classroom or a private place where its not allowed. But this contradicts the experiences of everyday people. At somepoint in our lives, we've all felt hurt by something somebody has said to us e.g. being told your brother was killed by a Tesla car, getting rejected, getting fired, being called a subhuman etc.

Because we don't see words as harmful we end up throwing it on the injured person. Its not anyone's fault if you're offended, you just need to toughen up and know words can't hurt you. The consequences of this narrow idea of harm are open to see. Western civilization is the only place in human history were randomly insulting others is seen as a good thing and pushing someone to suicide is perfectly legal. In Edo Japan, insulting someone could result in loosing your head, getting into a massive fight or being whipped by the county magistrate for being a dick. The internet just took this permissive Western attitude and accelerated it. Most websites have this "no harm principal" ideology where mocking someone isn't considered harm and if you let humans be cruel and make it a virtue they will crank it up to the max. Its no wonder that ZOMG where are teh ruelz 4chan became the hellscape it is.

Back in the 70s, gays had this retarded permissive culture of mass orgies and having tons of sex with random strangers in bathhouses, like 30 a night. Then AIDS hit and they screamed and refused to close down the whore houses or change their behavior. It got dozens of them (and other people) killed. Today they accept virtually no responsibility, it was all Reagan's fault or bisexuals did it or blame the Africans for shooting chimps in the jungle. The huge mass of hate speech, suicides, mass shootings, and uncomfy political bullshit is basically what AIDS was for the gays and like them nobody online will change their behavior until shit seriously hits the fan and just like the gay bath house owners there is a vested financial interest in encouraging our bad behavior.

>>5348
>start guarding your focus more diligently
This is a really hard part. I can't scratch the itch to check stuff or post here or do that and my mind trails off into places where it shouldn't be.

>>5349
>i don't really know how to convince my mum to do the same (you obviously won't convince a non-techie to use rss, lol)
There are some friendly RSS applications for tablets and phones. You could always try the old fashioned way and subscribe her to some reputable papers, but its not like they even exist anymore. Even respectable journalism these days is garbage.

>>5350
>Western civilization is the only place in human history were randomly insulting others is seen as a good thing and pushing someone to suicide is perfectly legal.
I got some bad news for you if you truly believe that. Not saying its not a problem, but its a worldwide problem not limited to just the west. In Japan, people are often bullied harshly, especially kids, to the point of suicide and in some case outright murder. The teachers will either not care or cover it up to protect the school's reputation. This isn't a problem that stops only at school either, jobs in Japan are notorious for shaming people outright, underhandedly mocking or subverting people, or if they don't want to fire them (due to workplace culture) but want them gone they will put you in rooms with the most menial labour possible until you quit. It's a far cry from Edo-era Japan that we are taught about. In the middle east and Africa there are humiliation rituals done on people. And Asia has plenty of horror stories of people just being outright twats (mainland china is particularly aggressively hostile to commoners and foreigners alike).
Where the west differs, however, is that there is a weird sense of morality attached to being a dickhead. "Don't care, didn't ask, plus you're white", "I don't like foreigners invading my country", "Trans people are ruining the country", "Black fatigue" etc etc
The west seems to know that this sort of behavior is shunned but justifies it with moralistic values to get away with it. You see this on twitter on the time. It's not just because they don't like the person, its because their views are "corny" or they are an external characteristic that they can't control and that external characteristic has "history" to the abuser. It's almost like the west has a toddler-like mentality of trying to abuse others but explain to their mother that it was okay they did it. Nobody truly accepts their own accountability but lops the accountability on famous people, ecelebs, political figureheads, etc for a culture that the average person had a part in making.

https://youtu.be/FOGSUSW98eI
https://youtu.be/Azms2-VTASk
https://youtu.be/Qgdnb1JboJ4

>>5351
Well yeah, America has spread its values to the world. Pretty much every country on earth is influenced by liberal principals that go back to Locke and are baked into the legal system and capitalist property regime. Japanese can be pretty bad but they aren’t as overt and aggressive as Americans.

>It's a far cry from Edo-era Japan that we are taught about. In the middle east and Africa there are humiliation rituals done on people.
Humiliation rituals were passed as a legal punishment for crimes and misdeeds, not on the innocent. They were designed to knock a person down a peg by hurting their pride and reputation. Generally, in Asia there were strong cultures of honor so slight insults can and did cause serious fights and feuding. Insulting a person was a criminal offense in many places. In Islamic law, you can be whipped for calling a woman a slut or insulting a Jew and one Chinese emperor had a magistrate executed for hate speech against Huis. Non-European cultures tended not to separate signs from meanings, they often attributed power to symbols (good example: talismans) and literally believed words could cause physical harm (hence taboos on witchcraft, songs to cure sickness or demanding prayers as a civic duty) whereas we think words are just air.

>Where the west differs, however, is that there is a weird sense of morality attached to being a dickhead.
A popular character archetype in Western pop culture is a guy who’s a blunt asshole and gives no fucks, the bad ass. But it’s always reasoned away that his opponents deserved it so he’s a tough good asshole who’s beating up the right people. e.g. Kiefer Sutherland in 24 has no redeemable qualities. All he does is torture people but he’s torturing the right people (bad guys) so he’s a good torturer. This brings up another disturbing side to Western culture, the way they paint certain groups as irredeemably evil subhumans and so anything, no matter how sickening, can be done to punish them for their sins. You see this in online mobs where these people claim to be avenging some injustice, but then stoop to the same lows as the people they attack.