That seems like the problem and what’s creating the perception making you agree with this.

No, you just personalize everything.

Again, I’m not making up the statistics. I’m not writing the books or doing the analysis. People who spend their whole career doing this stuff are doing it, and you find it easy to dismiss all of it because you agree with the “criticisms” section of a wikipedia page, have a confirmation bias, and you like the little tech bubble you live in…so it must not be a problem overall if it doesn’t affect you personally.

I put myself as a top plop on the pile, friendo.

I’m convinced I’m pretty immune to being sucked into a cult, but aside from that I consider myself about as stupid as your average people.

EDIT: I also don’t think of us as “sheep” or “glassy-eyed automatons”. I think we, as a species, are a different type of stupid. We spend most of our lives deluding ourselves into thinking that we’re somehow above (or the winners of) the natural order. We spend enough time in denial to buy a second home there. Our true nature isn’t all that much different from a monkey picking flies off of its shoulders in the jungle…just with more zoom calls.

Mass media has been pivotal in expanding and inflating the reputations of larger-than-life individuals (real and imagined).

I mean people belong to cults. I don’t think they joined because of the news (which doesn’t even cover them). People are idiots.

Its strange to see the American right

I’d agree full stop right there. They’re a strange beast. In a way it’s possible (though not something I’d bother with) to feel somewhat sorry for them…what with them being so anti-immigration in a country teeming with nothing but immigrants.

I’m sorry you’re struggling with loneliness, personally I’m definitely not and I can’t say I know anyone who is.

It has nothing to do with me personally. I’m a bit of a hermit myself. I’d say my social needs started to not be met around 2022 (after approximately 2 years of near total isolation due to COVID) but now I’m completely back up to baseline again.

It has to do with the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone.

The data also doesn’t tell the story you’re telling anecdotally here: https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-06-26/loneliness-most-prevalent-for-bisexual-transgender-adults-in-america-cdc-research-says

Yes, it’s possible for people in marginalized communities to reach each other digitally using the Internet; it’s also possible for them to encounter more hatred and bigotry online than they used to in real life (albeit with hopefully less dire consequences).

Sounds like we’re just measuring mental health awareness, plus the rise in boomers using the web and often exposing people to their alienating rhetoric.

I don’t think I’m “just measuring” anything. If you want to plug your ears and pretend that I’m not talking about real problems, that’s all fine and dandy. Go ahead about your day and enjoy your dating apps, but social media isn’t all roses.

There is research indicating that, for one thing, these platforms cause real harm to girls in adolescence specifically: https://www.noemamag.com/social-media-messed-up-our-kids-now-it-is-making-us-ungovernable/

Reagan wasn’t hit by Iran Contra until '87, and it nearly sank the Bush '88 campaign for President.

My apologies for getting the timelines slightly mixed up. In my defense I was 4 at the time. However, Bush winning in '88 despite being neck deep in an administration full of openly admitted liars doesn’t exactly bode well for your argument that US voters aren’t pretty A-OK with corruption.

The idea of a single all-power Ubermensch Superman isn’t a socialist view.

Nah, it’s a human one, and one that’s extremely common in the US despite our governmental structure all but guaranteeing that one guy alone can’t fix things.

We love simple power structures, because we’re simple beings. It’s also why I think there is more to horseshoe theory than people want to admit. Communists claim to want gay space communism but seem A-OK with some stupid asshole being basically a dictator as long as its their type of stupid asshole.

Once we formed up larger civilized order, it took us millennia to conceive of a different type of governance aside from “what one stupid asshole says goes”.

Time and again, large cooperative campaigns of mutual aid provide better outcomes than the public putting all our hopes on a handful of aristocratic elites.

I somewhat agree? I think? But I’m not sure it has much to do with anything we’re discussing.

I don’t think the US voter base is any more accepting of corruption than any other constituency.

Counterpoints: the US voter base re-elected Nixon (and largely wanted him to stay in office)…elected and then re-elected Reagan (despite him openly admitting to lying to the American public and exchanging guns for hostages)…elected Trump in the first place, cast more votes for Trump in 2020 than they had in 2016, and now look like they might just go ahead and put the corrupt gasbag right back in there despite the fact that he’s openly corrupt, brags about it, and will likely get more corrupt in any second term.

The only thing that can save America from itself is a new socialist turn.

So there’s your version of superman. Within the current political environment, I just don’t see this happening without another depression or similar (so perhaps even decades more of what we currently got). I also am decidedly not someone in favor of eliminating democracy in favor of purportedly “temporary” one-party rule (that never fucking ends).

Agreed, so why squabble with people pointing out that the US is more corrupt than other countries? It is.

And it’s more corrupt because not only are we more accepting of corruption, but “we” (like you) largely don’t believe in incremental change or taking small measures to problem reduction…we largely believe in our version of “superman” arriving…I dunno what your thoughts actually are…maybe some gay space communism revolution that’ll never occur?

I gotta tell ya at this point we’re much more likely to get full, mask-off fascism complete with gas chambers than we are to get any kind of communist revolution in the US.

We’ve got a collective fetish for being lightly choked all day while in an air conditioned space and attending meetings about “north star visions”.

😆

Would you say smaller forums where people largely know each other are communities then? IRC? Discord?

Probably not, but they’re at least closer. Real communities provide you care, support, relief from loneliness, a sense of purpose, etc. etc. etc.

It’s possible for some (lucky souls) to find tiny nuggets of these benefits in even the worst online “communities” (I think partially because we’re hard wired as humans to need these things), but by and large it’s does not exactly scratch the same itches that your grandma’s sewing circle or bridge club used to.

Because I struggle to think what else could or has ever fit such a strict definition.

It’s difficult to reason about because if you’re anywhere close to my age group (old ass millenial) online “communities” appeared and replaced existing physical communities across the country (I’m speaking in US terms). We’re now basically as lonely as we’ve ever been as a country, and I think it’s at least partially related to us going inside and screen timing it up for a number of decades on these platforms where “the community” is a bunch of strangers angrily typing messages to you through the Internet.

I find it no small coincidence that loneliness in America skyrocketed even as people became more active on social media. It points at the exact lack of benefit you get out of these “communities” that you used to get out of the old type.

You can make this same, tired, ultimately invalid argument about anything you look to improve.

You can’t prevent the spread of all communicable disease, so why bother taking any precautions?

Someone could build their own gun, so why bother preventing a convicted felon from buying an oozie?

Someone could evade a line item tax by hiring a fancy lawyer and setting up bespoke legal structures around themselves as an entity, so why bother looking at closing any of the existing tax loopholes?

The answer is that because it’s not fucking all or nothing. Sure, someone could hypothetically do lots of things to evade any precaution that you put in place around dangerous or bad things, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely ineffective. If it’s too much of a hassle, some people won’t bother. Some people will actually get caught. Hell, with the existing lax corruption laws and lazy ass enforcement in the US people are still sometimes found in violation of them.

It isn’t a “if you ain’t first you’re last” situation. Reasonable safeguards, laws, standards, practices, and the like save and improve lives.

Yeah but that doesn’t mean I think it’s a “community” that I am “joining”.

Certainly by some definition of the word you can call these things communities just because that’s how language works. Using “community” in this way is so pervasive I laughingly recall a tech bro watch company calling the people that buy their watches a “community”.

But from the meaning of the word before the rise of social media, social media platforms and the loosely structured groups underneath that you “form” by “joining” (AKA sometimes just looking at a video or web page or something) them definitely don’t resemble nor replace a community.

EDIT:

TL;DR: Being subscribed to “Lemmy Shitpost” (or just not blocking it, as is my case) isn’t exactly like joining the local chapter of the Loyal Order of Moose.

I don’t understand how anyone thinks any social media platform resembles a community.

The problem is the slaughterhouses hiring children, not that the children working there can’t moonlight as EMTs. 🤦

Sure, but that doesn’t mean that even discussing real or hypothetical measures to reign in corruption is inherently worthless because you can sometimes get around some of them.

I hate the US “either we solve everything, or nothing is worth doing” mindset that’s pervasive in this country, and the only reason I responded is because you’re providing a good example of it.

IIRC, people were talking about places in this thread that aren’t the US.

As stated, political bribery in the US is nearly 100% legal. You can even study it in school and make a career out of it.

Eh… There are a variety of end-runs around this mechanism.

There are any number of hypothetical end-runs around just about anything you can think of, that doesn’t make protections, mechanisms, controls, or safeties useless.

In the US, political bribery is nearly 100% legal. I’d rather have some hoops for corrupt officials to jump through. We don’t even make them break a sweat in this country.

Probably has fair few bots, foreign actors looking to stir up shit, and a half dozen corporate shills looking to alter public opinion as well.

Like industrial accidents from bad management and OSHA/child-labor violations.

Yes, which certainly we’d expect a kindergartener to encounter. /s

If you have a situation in your country where you’re regularly expecting kindergartners to perform first aid, you’ve failed them before you’ve even kicked off the lesson.

Problem is, gun are useful.

Problem is, people are stupid.

Which is evidenced by both your shitty grammar, and tired argument.