Breakdown of traditional communities and the ability to determine social relevance

[BjornP]

So, on this forum we link to silly, extremist SJW/feminist/all-round PC articles, blog posts, tweets and facebook posts from time to time. What I keep noticing is that I have no clue who the writers are, what sort of influence they hold in society, and that I have no way of knowing how widespread their ideas are accepted and agreed upon, and by who, outside of counting their numbers of likes, re-tweets, etc. In a global social media landscape where 10k likes or retweets is actually only a tiny amount of people, I keep thinking that people overestimate the importance of some of these people.

And yet, their sentiments do become mainstream in the socially isolated, micro-cosmos that are the US colleges and parts of the media landscape. But how good do you think they are at determining if they are overestimating the social impact of some random stranger's tweet, blog post, etc? Human beings are tribalistic by nature, it is in our nature to conform to the values of the social group or tribe we consider ourselves part of (and not everyone else's). 10K retweets is not much in online terms, but I think it may give alot of people a....social illusion of them having to conform to their peer group. This is probably what's driving further in-group extremism, and it's also why it is wrong to assume that political extreminism on the left (and right) are "just minorities and dismiss them on those grounds. If a minority isn't in fact considered a minority, or if a minority is considered prestigious (like celebrities or nobles in the past), a minority can and historically has been able to influence a majority.

Peer, or percieved peer pressure probably has alot more influence than we like to give human beings credit for. The old rhetorical question underlined by a common fallacy: "Surely, all these people can't all be wrong?", is more relevant than ever in this day and age. Our mind isn't keeping up, and cannot be expected to be able to keep up without training, with a technological development that tricks our mind into thinking a given value, morality tabboo, etc. is broadly socially acceptable when the very notion of what constitutes a community is what is being fundamentally broken down.

[de officiis]

What you're really exploring are the behaviors that are catalyzing the political polarization in the US.

[Martin Hash]

10,000 is a big number. My suspicion is that a lot, if not most, of those views, retweets, whatever, are bots. Take this forum: we go to great pains to block bots. We certainly don't buy bots? (Facebook offers 1,000 views for $5, WTF?) Our real membership is about 100 active people, with a couple dozen of them posting (the rest lurking), yet the traffic is respectable, almost 10K posts/mo. If we had 10,000 active members, that extrapolates to 1 million posts/mo. Those are Redit numbers. Something doesn't make sense in those microcosms unless bots are the vast majority of their traffic.

[TheReal_ND]

To answer Bjorne's question you would first have to do an assessment of the last part of his thesis, concerning just how broke down American society is. Because let's be real, America is the only thing that matters, even on the internet. I'm currently bantering on a different forum about America between a Brazilian, a swede and a Finnlander. The whole world is obsessed with us. But what do you get if you look at our community? NOTHING. We don't have a fucking community anymore. The basic notion of what even constitutes being an American is challenged by marauding illegals on the streets now. Most of our lives our fractured. Our families sundered. Our families scattered to the wind and when boomers aren't busy reverse mortgaging their cheap as dirt houses to drive up the prices and leave their children with absolutely nothing they are actively crusading to not only be the world police and disrupt the world, but invite the entire fucking world in. Of course, many people have no idea what it's like to live as a minority in the hometown you grew up in or have no family to speak and the rest are too busy watching negroid sphere or some other form of deracinated entertainment.

[heydaralon]

10,000 is a big number. My suspicion is that a lot, if not most, of those views, retweets, whatever, are bots. Take this forum: we go to great pains to block bots. We certainly don't buy bots? (Facebook offers 1,000 views for $5, WTF?) Our real membership is about 100 active people, with a couple dozen of them posting (the rest lurking), yet the traffic is respectable, almost 10K posts/mo. If we had 10,000 active members, that extrapolates to 1 million posts/mo. Those are Redit numbers. Something doesn't make sense in those microcosms unless bots are the vast majority of their traffic.

100 contributing people is a good number. Not huge to the point where every post gets lost in a sea of others, but enough to where new content is generated and new interesting threads are created and discussed.

[TheReal_ND]

We have twelve posters and maybe half a dozen major contributors. The rest are lurkers and likely bots that Martin thinks are lurkers.

lol I'm 10% of the content here. Not sure how to feel right now....

[heydaralon]

We have twelve posters and maybe half a dozen major contributors. The rest are lurkers and likely bots that Martin thinks are lurkers.

lol I'm 10% of the content here. Not sure how to feel right now....

Nah theres more than 12. There's probably about 25 people here who post a lot and another couple dozen who post occasionally.

[Fife]

When do the maybe half a dozen major contributors get major awards?

It might just inspire the rest of us.

[TheReal_ND]

When do you stop acting like an entitled brat? I'm still waiting for some content from you that actually fires the ol neurons. So far all I've gotten is Pavlovian drivel. I'm sure you think you're being clever but this is why you are relegated to a sub forum of a niche forum to post your witty insight. You don't have anything to contribute to society. Neck yourself.

[BjornP]

What you're really exploring are the behaviors that are catalyzing the political polarization in the US.

Yes, though while the political polarization in my own country isn't significant, in the rest of the Europe political polarization (especially in regards to the EU) has been growing these last decades. So I figure I can try and take whatever lessons, experiences and observations you have as Americans and see how they might apply to Europe. If my thread had been centered on Europe instead, though, most of this forum wouldn't have been discussing something as close and familiar enough to them, as my country and Europe is to me. Hence my reason for using the US polarization as my debating template.