Tales from Crackpotlandia

By now, we all know that American conservative politics and the Republican Party has gone fully insane and authoritarian. The insanity is embedded deep in millions of trapped rank and file minds. After the worst of the enraged crackpots got kicked off of Twitter and Facebook, ProPublica writes on what happened:

In a Q&A with ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson, former intelligence officer and data scientist Welton Chang explains how conspiracy theorists and violent racists fled to smaller platforms. Once there, their remarks festered and spread.

Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, an entire ecosystem of right-wing social media platforms has come into existence — from Gab (where the alleged Pittsburgh synagogue shooter posted hateful screeds) to Parler (a hot spot for insurrectionary activities in the run-up to Jan. 6) to the former president’s own Truth Social (which was frequented by a fan of his who was recently shot to death after attacking a Cincinnati FBI office). This new wave of apps and sites follows in the footsteps of 4chan and 8kun, older internet message boards that continue to attract a sizable audience of conspiracy theorists and violent racists.

In general, what are the big extremist threats that you’re following these days? What worries you?

One is just the death of critical thinking and the amount of evidence-free speculation that becomes the truth, small-t truth, on these platforms.

But it’s also just the general lack of confidence in institutions writ large. … We’re at an all-time low in terms of government trust, based on all the different metrics that are out there. …

[This brings us to] the inherent incoherence of conspiracy theories and these really outlandish ideas about how the world actually works. People believe that the government is simultaneously totally incompetent and also all-knowing and all-seeing and capable of pulling off a massive effort like helping Bill Gates spread the COVID vaccine through mind control via 5G technology.

These are diametrically opposed ideas, yet folks are simultaneously believing both of them and saying, “This is what is happening in the world today.”

Look at the Pew Research polls that are out there about how many people believe the core tenets of QAnon. I think we’ve entered a new phase in which social media has altered and warped how we encounter information, how we process it, how we internalize what counts as the truth. It’s having significant impacts on our democracy.

I really do believe that social media is an accelerator. …

An accelerator of societal disintegration?

Yes, yes, exactly.

Yes indeed. We are witnessing the death of critical thinking and lots of evidence-free speculation passing as small-t truth. 

And, social media really is an accelerator of social disintegration. Anyone who says otherwise, e.g., Twitter or Facebook, deserves this well-considered, on-point response, in its entirety:

A heartfelt Bronx Cheer, a/k/a/ a raspberry!

Q: Is it over the top to say that the Bronx Cheer is a proper response when Twitter or Facebook tells us how much money they spend to keep their platform from being an accelerator of social disintegration?