08-20-2021, 11:53 AM
Well, I guess that's a combination of a lot of things. The rise of the internet is probably the biggest one I can think of.
- Everyone gets to hide behind screens and say nasty things without much recourse. How likely are you to come up to a 6'2 guy on the street and tell him he's stupid, versus the exact same guy but he's far away from you and you're chatting online?
- The time between action and gratification has been reduced down to almost nothing. Order something from a company far away? 4-6 weeks for your shipment to arrive vs prime delivery. Some big world event happened? You find out in 3 seconds now instead of waiting for the papers to pick it up. Social media escalated this click -> reward pattern down to literally being instant.
- As an add-on point to the former, in order for something to grab your attention it needs to out-compete everything else out there trying to grab your attention. That generally means the flashiest, noisiest, most extreme things are going to draw you in. This has led to the "news" outlets generally covering the thing with the highest death toll, and continually hammering on a the same few outrage-generating, click-inducing pieces of content. Ironically enough, this means ignoring most of the actual news happening in the world. That, in turn, draws top billing for anything in an extreme or extremist position. Do you really think the world is 50% of people diametrically opposed to 50% of the other people, and everyone who's not in line with your ideals is an ignorant scumbag, or worse? Most people are in the middle and want to make a living, be healthy, raise their families, become successful, and generally don't care all that much that the person next to them is 5% out of alignment on a couple of viewpoints. But the constant draw to the extreme, the loud drum beat of "THEY hate US, THEY are not like US" is starting to drown out even the most sensible voices of reason.
- People can find others like themselves on the internet. Forums and sites tend to become echo chambers, and the echoes reinforce each other instead of dying down. Actual genuine psychopaths can find others that are just like them, too... and then exclusively hang out with those people.
- Everyone gets to hide behind screens and say nasty things without much recourse. How likely are you to come up to a 6'2 guy on the street and tell him he's stupid, versus the exact same guy but he's far away from you and you're chatting online?
- The time between action and gratification has been reduced down to almost nothing. Order something from a company far away? 4-6 weeks for your shipment to arrive vs prime delivery. Some big world event happened? You find out in 3 seconds now instead of waiting for the papers to pick it up. Social media escalated this click -> reward pattern down to literally being instant.
- As an add-on point to the former, in order for something to grab your attention it needs to out-compete everything else out there trying to grab your attention. That generally means the flashiest, noisiest, most extreme things are going to draw you in. This has led to the "news" outlets generally covering the thing with the highest death toll, and continually hammering on a the same few outrage-generating, click-inducing pieces of content. Ironically enough, this means ignoring most of the actual news happening in the world. That, in turn, draws top billing for anything in an extreme or extremist position. Do you really think the world is 50% of people diametrically opposed to 50% of the other people, and everyone who's not in line with your ideals is an ignorant scumbag, or worse? Most people are in the middle and want to make a living, be healthy, raise their families, become successful, and generally don't care all that much that the person next to them is 5% out of alignment on a couple of viewpoints. But the constant draw to the extreme, the loud drum beat of "THEY hate US, THEY are not like US" is starting to drown out even the most sensible voices of reason.
- People can find others like themselves on the internet. Forums and sites tend to become echo chambers, and the echoes reinforce each other instead of dying down. Actual genuine psychopaths can find others that are just like them, too... and then exclusively hang out with those people.
