And when you have a billion people doing this, that’s a lot of insanity. Like, world-spanning plague-level insanity.
People blather about nothing and things they know little about in basically every setting. It’s what people do, and is commonly called conversation.
Sometimes it’s called the Joe Rogan Experience.
Um… why do I feel like I should ask: do you have any experience organizing social media conversations? :-D
The ability to learn from other people without needing the same first hand experience is a hallmark of intelligence. It’s one of the things about our species that allowed us to develop past just being yet another animal in the wild. Education is largely based on that principle; your history teacher didn’t experience the horrors of trench warfare firsthand.
So I wouldn’t call social media insanity so much as potentially addictive, which can cause you to overindulge in those behaviours. Admittedly addiction can feel like insanity when you’re in the throes of it.
It is not the obvious function of knowledge that’s at issue, it is its quality. When the observation and the knowledge get too far apart, the words cease to refer to the observation and begin to refer only to themselves.
And then the quality becomes poopoo. A solipsistic black hole.
I have never verified 99% of the knowledge I read in textbooks either. But aside from math little in the textbooks held much truth. Especially the economy books.
All the economic textbooks in the US at least basically boil down to “Neo-classicalism works guys… no really. No really, really”
People have been spouting authoritative-sounding bullshit about things they have no business talking about for as long as humans have had language. The only difference is that now, any single humans bullshit is able to reach everyone on the globe with a smartphone in seconds.
Agreed. It’s an old problem. Call it “bad epistemology” (BE).
The method of Science was arguably contrived to combat BE (or at least to offer an advantageous alternative).
Which gives us a nice spectrum. On one end strong reference to observation, delivering high-quality knowledge (IE science etc). On the other end a recursive BE machine.
Social media has turned the BE into a kaiju. A reverse scientific enlightenment.
Team peepee
Do you think people only talk about things online that they haven’t experienced irl?
Personally I tend to only talk about things I’m sure about or have first hand experience in.
Is the “stupid question” if it’s literally insane? If so then no, that’s not what insanity means. But I think this is a thinly-veiled vent more than a question…
When reality goes north and opinion goes south, getting further apart every day, then yes, I call that insanity.
And that’s more than just the present state of opinions. That’s arguably the core function of the present system. (not necessarily by design of course. That would probably be just paranoid).
Imagine a game of telephone. Where, a hundred exchanges down the chain, the chain twists upon itself, looping, conversation feeding upon recycled conversation, recursively. That’s where we are.
If that’s insanity then humans have been insane for thousands of years. People talking out their asses isn’t new at all
By that logic a little plutonium never hurt anybody. And you’d be quite right. But now we have a big hill of the refined stuff.
Except we’ve had this kind of brand of plutonium for hundreds of years. The concept of a widely distributed collection of knowledge dates back to the printing press. And believe it or not it was even more filled with utter bullshit than anything today. Remember when we thought diseases were caused by bad smells?
Do you have any personal experience with insanity, then? /j
I mean, sort of. “Insane” is pushing it, as it’s very normal. You’re not really supposed to take anyone’s statement at face value.
It was a thing before social media you know the bar talk about train are alwuys late, you just need to do that, that and that, or teacher don’t use proper pedagogy with kids and tons of other.
It’s eusy to talk about something you don’t know
It’s insane, but I love it.
Every AI discussion I’ve read this morning following the SORA promotional release.
But, also, this describes every response to a ML prompt.
literally
Adverbs are fun. Know any others?
When we repeat statements from scientists in that particular field, and it’s a well-proved assertion that has survived regular scientific challenges, it’s a different thing from parroting the verbal drool of someone paid to say outlandish and unfounded gibberish.
If we’re talking vaccines, give me an army of epidemiologists vs a street-preacher like Joe Rogan.
Credulously, conventionally, smugly, provincially, dogmatically, unironically
not only that, but occasionally someone with significant professional experience will contribute, but will be immediately downvoted if their professional take isn’t in line with the uninformed consensus.
Oh yes. All the time.
PSA: The antagonist of FarCry 3 is not a credible source for what does or doesn’t constitute “literally insane”
When somebody’s ideas about reality, and reality itself, are really different, we say that person is fantasizing or hallucinating or suffering a fugue state. More or less insanity.
What I describe could be a personal insanity. Or a social kind of insanity, where society is insane. Like, the meme-structure from which our culture is made has assumed a pathological form.
Source: trust me bro
