A serious curiosity derived from something I’ve noticed more and more often lately:
What the hell has happened to nuanced thought? It seems every day- more and more, it’s either this or that, with us or against us, black or white. What happened to the complexity of thought? Why have we come to be so polarized about every single thing that exists? And it seems it doesn’t matter the subject! The moment a topic is brought up. Sides are immediately taken in the War of Being Right.
It used to be that we considered things. We were rational. Logical. Contemplative.
Now? Everyone seems so quick to arrive at hastily constructed arguments that have to be either for or against- where no argument was necessary or even called for to being with!
It seems to me, that we need to relearn what was once so easily understood, and it’s that life exists between the boundaries of one and the other.
It was always like that, it is just that the intermet make it clearer
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I don’t think that’s the case. Before the karma system there wasn’t really an incentive to dunk on someone. Maybe for someone who just wants to be a jerk, but they didn’t really get any applause for it. Nowadays every piece of content put online is put through the filter of “How will this be received?” It’s performative from the very beginning.
Social media happened…
Twitter and its 160 character limit.
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I completely agree.
You could almost say that my reply… lacked nuance 😉
Part of it is microblogging. Part is the ubiquity of internet access and lack of general education in critical thinking. Part of it is a concerted effort by hostile actors (whether corporations, nations or other groups, such as oligarchs) to discourage long form media because it’s easier to push out Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt that way than it is to be positive.
I think a lot of people have always wanted easy answers to complicated problems. Now they’re getting messages saying that they exist, and the people saying “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that” are the ones trying to twist them to an agenda.
Easy solutions are comforting. Why think hard if you can just blame someone else and not have to do anything?
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I think people spend less time have long conversations with people that they trust, which are best space for nuance and exploring ideas honestly. If you’re messaging on social media, or even writing articles for blogs or publications, there’s a whole bunch of incentives and barriers that push people away from nuance.
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a lot of things are black and white though. the world is becoming more and more fascist, so a ton of people are done being polite and entertaining the spectrum of ideas. it’s easy to lose sight of it all and become frustrated and forget nuance.
nuanced discussion doesn’t excite/stimulate the nervous system the way self-righteous simplified discussion does.
A lot of people just don’t understand nuance or anything else beyond black and white thinking because that is how they were raised. They don’t understand that other people have different experiences, especially if they don’t interact with people who have different experiences.
Our increasingly disconnected society means fewer in person interactions to reduce the chances of finding out something new when they actively avoid it.
All of that is lurking in the background when they hop on the internet and interact with others by not reading and understanding what is being said and instead just digging in.
In the context of politics, billionaires have radicalized half the world into thinking that talking about ending certain livelihoods is just as valuable as talking about ways to improve life for your neighbors. It is black and white, there is no middle ground discussion on whether or not vulnerable populations deserve the right to exist
Online discourse stopped being about changing minds and started being about farming clout.
Most replies aren’t written to the person they’re replying to; they’re written to the invisible crowd that hands out upvotes. The goal isn’t persuasion, it’s applause. That’s why nuance is dead: nuance doesn’t get you 500 upvotes and a gold award. A savage one-liner that owns the libs / the chuds / the tankies does.
If you actually believe your view is correct, the morally consistent move when you meet disagreement is to engage and try to convince the other person (ideally while staying open to being convinced yourself). That requires listening, steelmanning, and sometimes admitting “yeah, you’ve got a point there.” None of that is rewarded here. What is rewarded is the quick, brutal dunk that signals “I am safely on the correct side” to the rest of the hive.
So people don’t debate in good faith anymore; they perform righteousness. It’s easier, it feels better, and the points roll in. We went from trying to do good to trying to feel good, and the karma counter is the drug that keeps the whole circus running.
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There was also a flood of bad faith discussions with every fallacy in the book from belligerent actors. Like Cambridge Analytica and similar scandals including Xitter’s most recent offshore Maga influencer revelation, any significant media audience is ripe for astroturfing.
Edit: at the slightest hint of a disingenuous discussion, the cutting barbs come out.
Is it less common than it used to be or are you just becoming more aware of it?
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The Hivemind Complexity.
I say that because it is a collective process that exist in a large amount of online communities, Lemmy and the Fediverse being no different. People online are way too used to having thoughts of theirs being parroted. Then comes the constructs of all of these karma systems for people to vote said thoughts of and that creates a level of its own discourse that, people will say or do things for some validity based on that.
And anyone else who comes along that thinks or says different than the seeming majority, are scrutinized, bullied and branded to be moderated.
Everyone is just too used to being around others who agree with them.
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youre arguing on the internet. there is no “nuanced” discussion
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It doesnt. Dont have an argument? Learn to debate and listen instead
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The last time I recall having engaging, thoughtful discussions on the internet was way back in the days of forums. And that was so long ago I’m skeptical of my own memory of it.
Lemmy comments may be different from Reddit comments, but they’re not better. I’ve concluded it’s structural. This format simply does not produce useful conversation.
None of the other social media formats produce it either. Perhaps it’s the result of optimizing for attention, which all social media does, whether by deliberate design or natural selection. Platforms that get attention grow. Those that don’t, languish. It may be that things which gather attention to themselves best are repellent of deeper, slower, more careful thinking.
Actually, maybe I can think of one example. I’m stretching the definition of social media, and I haven’t firsthand experience, but the way that Wikipedia operates may be a clue toward how to build a platform that produces useful dialogue.
I think it’s largely because of upvotes, likes, followers, etc. Forums didn’t have that so people had no reason to appeal to anyone other than the person they were talking to.
I blame smartphones
My theory is that: With social media people are exposed to more and more stuff, specially bad stuff due to algorithms, and when things happens, you usually feel a need to form an opinion on them. The quicker you have the form an opinion, the more nuance you lose, if you don’t form an opinion now, the next thing will arrive and you will be outdated. People are having to choose quantity over quality when it comes to their opinions.
Again this is based on not much and utterly unscientific but I think it makes sense kinda.
