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PaperclipPerfector  14d ago (text post)   25432 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 22, 2024

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So, uh, I feel like this post straddles the line between Friday Fun Thread, because I'm only like, 49% serious about it, but it's definitely culture war worthy, so, you know. Please remember I'm only partially serious. I'm not going to die on this hill, and gun to my head, I don't really think this happened. But... I think it could have.

Could Steven Crowder's Marriage Have Been Targeted by Silicon Valley?

Steven Crowder has gone the route of many youtubers into, IMHO, algorithm triggered insanity. Youtube content creators have been having mental health struggles for almost as long as it's been a job. I saw one youtuber describe it as having a robot boss that refuses to tell you what they want. And you keep throwing effort into their implacable gaping maw, and wait to see if the algorithm rewards you with income. If it does or doesn't, you have no idea either way what you did to please it. But you know you must.

This may have hit it's high water mark when a mentally ill Youtuber went to shoot up Youtube's offices.

So I see lots of content creators lose their damned mind. Something in the algorithm changes, they can't pay their bills anymore, they can't contact any actual human at Youtube about what to do, and gradually or suddenly they begin acting erratically out of desperation and anxiety. Steven Crowder was no different. His deteriorating mental health, paranoia, and controlling behavior are as plain to see as the sun in the sky.

What was different about Crowder was we know that he was specifically targeted by social media companies.

The former curator was so troubled by the omissions that they kept a running log of them at the time; this individual provided the notes to Gizmodo. Among the deep-sixed or suppressed topics on the list: former IRS official Lois Lerner, who was accused by Republicans of inappropriately scrutinizing conservative groups; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report; Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered in 2013; and former Fox News contributor Steven Crowder. “I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news,” the former curator said.

So, if we take as a given that algorithm chasing drives people insane, and that furthermore Steven Crowder was specifically targeted by Silicon Valley, what does that have to do with his marriage?

Well, on a human level, divorce is a social contagion of sorts. Backtracking and caveats aside, the raw numbers go like this

These researchers determined that that when close friends break-up, the odds of a marital split increase by 75%. They also found that people who have divorced friends in their larger social circles are 147% more likely to get a divorce than people who have friends still married. People with divorced siblings are 22% more likely to divorce. The study even revealed the contagion of divorce among co-workers could be as much as 55% in small companies.

And when you are talking about social media's influence on divorce

Firstly, it facilitates reconnecting with past romantic partners, which can lead to emotional affairs and infidelity.

Secondly, excessive time spent on social media can lead to neglect of one’s spouse and relationship, causing feelings of dissatisfaction and disconnection.

Moreover, social media platforms often portray idealized versions of others’ lives, creating unrealistic expectations and comparisons within relationships. This can increase feelings of unhappiness and resentment.

But this is all the background radiation from the no-fault divorce atom bomb going off 50 years ago.

Could Silicon Valley, not unlike how they targeted Crowder's business through the algorithm, having also targeted his marriage? Could they have crafted an Iago algorithm and had it target Crowder and his wife: to sow distrust, resentment, and a belief that there are better options out there? Ten years ago Facebook was caught experimenting on user's emotions by adjusting the algorithm they were exposed to.. It's not like they don't have the technology.

With AI, the odds of automating zersetzung are approaching 100%.

It's much less disruptive than jailing people, and probably cheaper.

...the Stasi often used a method which was really diabolic. It was called Zersetzung, and it's described in another guideline. The word is difficult to translate because it means originally "biodegradation." But actually, it's a quite accurate description. The goal was to destroy secretly the self-confidence of people, for example by damaging their reputation, by organizing failures in their work, and by destroying their personal relationships. Considering this, East Germany was a very modern dictatorship. The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions.

That really is the key behind my fears of SV. They have so much information at their fingertips. It's already known that even 10 years ago they were experimenting on directly influencing how we feel. I'm supposed to believe there is anything stopping them, any moral or legal barrier, from developing systems that act just like this? The deleterious effects of social media algorithms on mental health are already well understood, but they craft them because it's good for their bottom line. Why would they not lean into the explicitly harmful effects, and unleash it on their enemies? What we already know they do, and have done, is proof of malice enough.

I'd not really fear SV that much, but what D.C. gestapo contractors and their opposite numbers in China are going to do.

"You never know how evil a technology can be until the engineers who designed it fear for their jobs." -Stewart Baker

Probably related would be to say that you never know how evil a law can be until the politicians who passed it fear for their electoral prospects.

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