A utopia you say? This was the 70's and the 80's. Just about everyone was middle class. Millionaires were rare. We've had the same problems, but people were happier and life was better.
Well, as one who was there, this was certainly not my experience. Or even one I saw. I'm not saying it wasn't like that, but it certainly wasn't everyone's experience.
Things that may be different:
Even ten years ago, a news junkie would have to keep 10 browser tabs open...
In conclusion, I think we're seeing the dark side of postmodernism. Search engines and social media are essentially a pomo technology that have removed the focus from the objective to focusing on how popular the subjective is. If you google something, the results are not ranked by objective truth but rather ranked algorithmically according to how many people agree with subjective truths. Social media is the same. There's been some crude backtracking to avoid the worst side-effects using modernist approaches like "fact-checking" the "fake news", but that's not very effective anymore. Of course my position here smells of elitism, but I do think the pendulum needs to swing back a bit.
I consume a huge amount of history podcasts. Ancient and modern history. And one would think that I would agree with the above statement. NEWS is worse than it has ever been.
But the funny thing is, it's not. At all.
Journalism has always been the telling of a story, relating the experience to an audience, in terms they could understand. Anyone who has been at an event and read about it afterwards understands the difference. One does not come close to being the equal of the other. The bigger the event, the bigger the difference; if for no other reason than breadth of experience vs space to describe it.
As our culture became more urban, so did journalism. Journalists are chosen based on their ability to relate to their audience. So the focus of journalism became sharply G ladder related in the Michael O. Church model. It became more relatable to an audience with a more narrowly focused set of experiences. As journalists became more specialized in their experiences, so too did their audiences become more urban/cosmopolitan and less generally informed, causing further journalistic specialization. (reread the Church piece, how much of journalism, as practiced today, even acknowledges that there is anything other than G class, poverty, or super powered elite villains? Just how much reality can be fit into that worldview? Turns out, not much.)
While at the same time, one of the G ladder signals of quality was to be well versed in world events. A signal that could be generated by going out into the world (expensive and exclusive) or imitated by consuming journalism. This is the true nature of journalism. It isn't there to help one understand the world, it's there to help one know what signal to give at cocktail parties to show other consumers of journalism, that one is well read. Part of the quality people who thinks right.
As radio then TV came online, journalism started getting curated, by more powerful forces. Fewer outlets meant that a narrower narrative could be crafted. Many people my age think of this as a good time, back when we all "knew" what the story was. Or as I think of it, back when nobody knew what the story was, but we all knew what to think about the pieces we heard.
Go back to those old New Yorker think pieces, or Atlantic monthly. Then read Wikipedia, or a few books on the subject. How accurate was the journalism in representing the reality on the ground? Maybe that was a fluke, and you should try it again, different time/subject. Keep it up until the pattern is clear.
This was before fake news was a thing, so I guess you will need your own term for the difference.
I've noticed on facebook that one can write either for objective analysis or for maximum likes or anger. Facebook itself will promote the latter. They don't have "detailed analysis"-pieces floating to the top based on word count. Everything is based on "reactions" and "ad-revenue". Thus if you're more social (sociocentric) or in need of a paycheck than you satisfied by an existence of being accurate but poor and ignored, the choice is so simple it's practically made for you.
I'm talking about "detailed analysis pieces" as much as viral emotive pieces. They are all there to help you signal intelligence to an audience only vaguely capable of, or interested in distinguishing intelligence from nonsense. And to train you to make the same choice, based on equally spurious evidence. And feel good about your choice.
Myself, I gave up news 6 years ago, and I find myself far happier for it. My worldview is very different than it was then. I can find out far more about the world doing my own research than tuning into short attention span propaganda theater. And I have a much firmer grasp on how much I do not, and cannot know.
"Jacob, do you believe people are stupid?" Yeah, I guess I do
Whereas I think you are occupying a box seat in a theater, watching the crowd milling about, trying to find their seats. You can see the layout of seats, they can't. You can see how people navigate toward their seats, and often get lost, often give poor advice, and the most lost being most vocal about seating arrangements. From your perspective, it is easy to see the confused, and ineffective behavior. Additionally, you have been trained to see it, by other box seat holders, who all have their own pet theories of crowd behavior. Each trying to impress the next with a new crowd pattern they think they have found.
But you don't go down into the crowd, to find that the seat row markers are only visible from above. You don't see that many tickets go to the same seat number and some tickets have no matching seat. You don't see the spilled drinks across the paths, to cause people to take indirect routes. You don't see the people who lost their tickets, trying to adapt/adopt/or steal another ticket.
So of course people look stupid. Of course people act in ways that are directly against their own interests, for your perspective. They don't have your perspective, and have entirely different information to work from.
But if you were to break with tradition, rather than watch the crowd, instead look at theater design, you would see that the theater is bigger than you thought, and there are many levels above. Places where people watch the box seat holders mill about, with the same smugness that the box seat holders have for general admissions.
After studying that level for a bit, you may find that one level above has similar information asymmetry to the box seats, as box seat holders over GA. And you may want to get to that level. That's only natural, go where the information is, and surely one can learn what one does not yet know.
But I think the problem is the theater. The theater was laid out to cause the confusion, highlight it, and broadcast it as a signal of superiority to the level above. The theater was built with box seats in mind. Box seats were crafted to highlight the differences in behavior at each level, but minimize the observational difference in information sets. The purpose of the theater is to help people sort themselves into a hierarchy of seating, each level having one below, showing confusion to reinforce the sense of superiority of seat holders at each level.
In other words, your position on stupid people was crafted for you, before you ever thought about finding a seat. And once you took that seat, all the evidence available to you reinforced your position. Everyone around you sees what you see. It's obvious, as it should be.
The only way I know of to address this false sense of superiority is to move away from your seat, and gain different experiences. However, your seat was made to be comfortable, and your view crafted for aesthetic and emotional comfort. Those in box seats around you reinforce the patterns you see, and reassure you that your seat comes with status and the right perspective. From here, all the signals are genuine and true...
So I'm not surprised you still think people are stupid, but I am a little disappointed.
A useful heuristic, if overly simplistic and reductionist but necessary in the interest of time, is to assume everything “they” say is a lie.
I don't think this is a very useful heuristic, at all. If I were to use it, I would search only in the areas "they" say I shouldn't. From a Bayesian perspective, I would be artificially restricting my dataset, based on someone else's perspective. What are the odds that "they" are simply wrong about everything? The viewpoint I would build with that heuristic is merely oppositional. "They want me to believe X, so the truth is in X not space".
This would cause me to hold a worldview with datapoints that are mutually exclusive to "They". I would become oppositional to "They".
Whereas I believe that if what I know is more accurate than what "They" know, this is a lever. I can use what I know in ways "They" don't understand to be possible. I don't need to convince, cajole, or ridicule "They or they" that I am right, I need to demonstrate that I am right.
If I can't, then I need to learn more. If I can, "They" will adopt the minimum change necessary to include the perspective I have demonstrated. And pretend that they knew it all along. Often by denying that what I did was ever different from what "they knew".
Any thought or action that is oppositional, is wasted energy, that could have been used to learn something useful. Pointing out something wrong, engages defense mechanisms; pointing out something right, but previously unconsidered, has the possibility of a new result. Each repetition of the pattern exponentially increases the chances of a new result.
It's hard to find something right, while searching for something wrong.
After a while you can work on points for style. Like the club tie and a firm handshake. A certain look in the eye and an easy smile.
It's hard to formulate new games, when one's thinking is shaped by winning the old game. Simply look at the the games proposed by winners of the old games, to see this is true. Implementing new strategies using old tactics is wise (strategic misdirection and sound tactics). But mastering old tactics is unlikely to result in developing a new strategy.
So my questions to you, MI, are "What are you trying to do?" and "How is what you are doing helping you?"
And "Where did you come up with the AEIC concept? It is just about perfect for conveying the international layer of Capitalism in action, in one term."
