The American Brain

[bluetomcat]

As a European observer of the general discourse in "popular speech platforms" of the "American Brain", I am baffled by the narrow breadth of topics that get discussed most of the time. Enormous heat is generated from discussions on gay marriage, gun laws, abortion laws and minority rights. Identity politics at full throttle. It feels very shallow and unintellectual. You are forced to identify as a member of some group, and then you become a social justice warrior of that group. It all feels like a very wrong way to approach politics on a national level.

[scottlocklin]

Sure it's wrong; that's how the clique on top remains on top. It works similarly to a forced card or misdirection of attention in a magic trick. You keep the little people angry with each other; calling each other names, denouncing each other over issues the powerful don't really care about. So nothing changes.

You're allowed to have "choice" in any of these heated micro-issues, but the national security surveillance state, the rule of the oligarchy, cheap labor, cultural atomization, the petrodollar and empire and eternal war are beyond question. I don't see anything changing short of an actual "fall of soviet union" style revolution or dissolution of the country.

[ChrisLTD]

Politicians and the people that run our mass media have a vested interest in the status quo, so they are happy to keep the hoi polloi talking about a narrow set of topics. If we start addressing the greater injustices in our society, the gatekeepers of political discourse might find themselves on the outside looking in.

[xibalba]

As an American, I would say you've basically got it right (IMO). What is most troublesome to me is how easily and consistently these dynamics are exploited.

And I'm not just referring to the disinformation campaigns of the previous presidential election cycle. I'm referring to the longer term trend of "wedge issues" that have been used to distract and divide.

For example, You can take a group of people who might be fairly homogenous in terms of, say, opposition to the U.S. military "adventures" around the world, but are very easily divide and distract them with abortion, guns, etc., thereby preserving the status quo with respect to the military issue.

[Miner49er]

What do you mean by "identity politics" in this context? What does identity politics have to do with gun laws, for example?

[beat]

All politics is identity politics. You can spot the people who function from a position of privilege politically, because they're the ones who think that "identity politics" is what other people are doing. Privilege is just a consequence of identity.

[stephanheijl]

A society’s mind is its marketplace of ideas, and the freer, more open, and more active that marketplace is, the sharper and clearer the giant mind is and the faster the pace of societal growth.

This is a good takeaway; even though the fringes of any discussion are generally filled with bad ideas, enabling people to have the discussion is paramount in finding the ideas that turn out to be "diamonds". It also permits us to gauge the quality of ideas that are not good allows us to consider why they are not. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

[groby_b]

This would be true if we were rational thinkers. We're not. There's a huge influence of emotions and irrationality on our thought processes, and the oh-so-glorious "marketplace of ideas" is thoroughly exploited by the people who capitalize on that, instead of actual good ideas.

As the obvious example: Germany in the 1920's had a really free and open marketplace of ideas, but also a lot of shitty ideas that resonated on an emotional level. In the 1930's those chickens^W ideas built the coop which they came home to roost in during the 1940's.

I don't think society as a whole has a good answer here yet (despite our large and sharp giant mind). There's universal agreement that some restrictions on free speech matter - yes, even the US has some. There's less agreement on how much. There's also not a lot of agreement if that's all it takes - I mean, Germany has taken a pretty aggressive stance on one particular kind of speech, and yet they see a recent rise in stances that sure look a lot like Nazis with subtle cosmetic changes.

Applying econ101 to that problem is a truly sophomoric approach, but it's not helpful in analyzing the actual phenomena.

[joelx]

I agree. The article's key takeaway is that "Mute buttons in any form should raise red flags".

[socalnate1]

This is chapter six of a much, much longer article; (which is not yet all published). Make sure you read it with that understanding, this is not intended to be read in isolation.

https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/08/story-of-us.html

[ihm]

This article is pretty naive in completely ignoring the role of propaganda and advertising.

[eisrep]

This was addressed in the text:

> In reality, there’s a lot of other stuff going on in the MPI—stuff like tribalism and virtue signaling and media manipulation and the cudgel of cultural taboo and other fun things in the pit of hell we’ll be descending into together later in the series. But we’re keeping things simple for now...

[TheOtherHobbes]

It's almost as if it's promoting a comforting but unrealistic narrative.

[helpPeople]

I find marketing such a strange idea.

I believe the Ancient Greeks hated these mind control techniques. But in modern society, we are told it's a good thing.

I'm not sure what is good about being tricked to buy average products at expensive prices. Samsung/Apple are my two examples in the tech world.

[HBKXNCUO]

Yup, and it also fails to take into account inherent group interests. One example would be that homosexuals have an inherent group interest in having others accept homosexuality.

It isn't enough for an idea to be "more wise" or "more correct" or whatever for it go from a fringe idea to a mainstream one. Someone needs to have some reason to bother pushing the idea. Any idea with a dedicated group pushing it is more likely to go from the fringe to the mainstream.

Depending on how dedicated that group is, and what kind of resources they have to push the idea, there is no reason to believe that some idea being "more wise" or "more correct" is even necessary for it to go from the fringe to the mainstream.

[paulpauper]

way too long of an article and obvious to anyone who knows about politics and political discourse over the past few decades. the window shifts. views that were not controversial become controversial, and the other way around.

>But dictators aren’t the only ones who use mute buttons. Given all of the obvious benefits of free speech, when a culture or a movement or an individual citizen seems threatened by free speech, the first question you should ask is: “Why? What are they so scared of?” Free speech is a tool that helps us see what’s true versus false and right versus wrong—so if you believe truth and virtue are on your side, a vibrant, open discourse is your best friend. And if someone is trying to repress free speech—that tells us something important.

this does not seem to apply to social networks and YouTube. tons of ppl and content creators have been censored or terminated for making certain content and remarks outside of the overton window.

[srmatto]

The premise of this article reminds me of this essay:

"If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious"

https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/USAconscious...

[olooney]

Interesting paper but t feels a little like a "paradox of the heap" argument[1]. A human has 9e10 neurons[2], while a rabbit only has 5e8, and there are only 3e8 Americans. I don't see a problem arguing that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon arising in networks of at least 1e10 nodes, or in networks that have certain recurrent structures regardless of network size, or that "consciousness" is a qualitative concept measured on a sliding scale so that a rabbit is 1/180th as conscious as a human. Though if someone wanted to argue that the United States as a whole exhibits about the same level of consciousness as a rabbit, I don't think I would argue with them... but, having known several pet rabbits, it would feel to me that we are saying the same thing, which is that neither exhibits a meaningful level of consciousness at all.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...

[pjc50]

There's a real "Whig view of history" going on here, which seems to center on the idea that society gradually moves from wrong ideas towards right ones. And that truth not only sticks but expands, so all you have to do is proclaim the Truth to enough people and it will move the window of acceptable ideas towards progress.

What this doesn't cover is the "history of bad ideas", and their virality. It's not enough to look at just America. For a full picture you'd have to look at Nazi Germany, Rwanda, etc. There are certain ideas which are popular, persistent, false, and dangerous; a classic example is the "blood libel", or the "protocols of the elders of Zion" hoax.

> "In 1959, almost every reasonable person in the U.S. thought interracial marriage was an immoral thing. Today, we see this as a failure of wisdom."

The thing is, this wasn't a position of blank ignorance; it was an ideology. It was something people had to be taught, and an idea that had to be fought. And there's no reason why it couldn't come back again if enough clever people promoted that idea.

[SuperFerret]

The "artificially generated speech" is really interesting. There's no reason why it can't happen on the other side of of the bell curve. Global right wing movements are a good example.

[pjc50]

I can't see where the article talks about this?