It seems the more people spend online the more they trust online picture whatever it is (for most people it's an algorithmically generated feed) and less pay attention to what they can see in person. Smartphone addition is harmful in so many ways.

In the past I think people were equally wrong when assuming their real life was accurately similar to average for the entire society they lived in and not a regional and perhaps class based bubble. I think there was a short period when amateur media was correcting more misconception than adding to it.

I have a friend that is a "Bernie Bro." Basically, everyone sucks; right, left, etc.

He constantly sends me hate-porn videos; much of it obvious fakes; AI or not (It's been going on far longer than AI tools).

People get hooked on anger. It's -literally- an addiction, and they behave like addicts; seeking out the best "hate dealers," selling the "best" anger-inducing content, and savagely attacking anyone that questions the stuff.

I learned to just ignore most of what he sends me. I've asked him not to send it, and he's ignored it (like an addict).

I have friends that are into the far-right and far-left cesspits, too. It's pretty sobering.

What was it that Bill Burroughs said about heroin?

> "Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy."

You could replace "junk" with "hate," and it would apply.

That's because Internet and apps has largely cut communities. People would rather stay at home and doomscroll tiktok videos, than meet their neighbors at the library and see that they are actually not scary at all

yeah they cover this in the article. broadly theres like three types of this activity: nation states; individuals / loose groups with an ideological agenda; people who want ad revenue money.

Not what I expected when it was said “we will hang you with the rope you sell us”

Could also be a combination of both, e.g. like Russia's "rent a disposable saboteur" concept, just for misinformation instead of physical sabotage. If it brings in additional ad revenue then that's just the cherry on top.

It does go both way as for example I have seen westeners make videos about developing nations with huge population say India because it would get them more views. Sure the ad revenue per 1000 views would be less but you would just get more views overall and I have seen that there is still anger/polarizing content generated towards Indians as such.

Which also generates hate towards Indian people online too which is definitely quite a problem, so this issue cuts both ways.

In my opinion, I used to think that there used to be nation-state actors involved within the perception of a country but the thing is that you can just have such perverse incentives and you wouldn't even need to create nation-state actors and they can then stay away blame-free even.

Edit: another thing that I remembered is that it shouldn't be a developing nation or developed nation critique but rather an critique of the system in general as I have seen western people critique about for example UK's downfall and I have seen Indian people critique about for example say India's downfall.

My point is, everyone makes rage inducing content nowadays if one looks for it and the algorithm sometimes even pushes it and so the algorithmic structure has created these perverse incentives and is pushing them on all of us basically

I mean, it has objectively declined from a point in time where it held dominion over one in four of the world's souls, keeping most of them in poverty as it siphoned resources out of them, and blocked their own economic development, by dumping its own products into their markets at gunpoint.

And that decline is a good thing.

More recently? It's been making some effort towards burning the furniture.