Close, but no Cigar

Many of the topics trending in our digital society share a common scheme. They are presented as solution to problems. Can you spot the scheme and the common points? Here is a non exhaustive list of recent excerpts:

• Immigration with relation to population (de)growth.

• Aliens with relation to how life appeared on earth.

• Deficits with relation to government budget.

• Deference to experts with relation to democracy.

• One pill with relation to diabetes and obesity.

• The simulation hypothesis with relation to natural world.

• Dunning Kruger effect with relation to truth in social sciences.

• Using English words in French in order to have inclusive writing!

• San Ti to with relation to the human race.

The last point is a reference to the three body problem TV series recently aired on Netflix. I am not going to elaborate further to not aggravate the spoil. Each of these points exhibit a similar pattern: there is an external solution to our problems. Those problems may be of various nature: political, environmental, intellectual, related to health etc. The solution is seen as:

• simple: it is one thing.

• external: it is not me or not here.

• terminal: the conversation is ended precisely at the point where it should start.

This is another version of the three body problem. Maybe it is linked to, or at least made worse by, how social media operate. People are informed and react through the same channel, moreover this is done in a standardized way. The technical constraint of interest is the size of a screen. Basically the idea is that the arguments have to fit within a single smartphone screen. This appears compelling at least regarding the simplicity and terminally aspects. The externality seems to come from deeper layers of the victimhood culture. Let’s have a closer look at those items and how they express themselves in our digital society.

Simple Minds

Social media have exacerbated the tendency to demand answers. What was the job of pundits has become democratized and massified. Everyone has to have an opinion on anything at anytime. Well not anything, mostly the ones that are trending. Before social media there was at least a third party involved: “have you read/listened to X editorial?”. This made conversations less direct and thus less confrontational by nature.

There is a running gag of Twitter that specialists on bridge safety or naval affairs appear overnight (to take the most recent accident to date). If you are looking for visibility on social media you have to have an opinion ready for any event. Depending on your degree of sophistication you can either choose a monoclausal stance —the patriarchy, global warming, opression in general and racism in particular are the usual suspects but the list is not exhaustive— or have causal explanations ready to be used for specific categories: geopolitics —it is because of oil—, natural weather catastrophes —of course climate change—, societal collapse —it is because of the woke/white supremacists— etc.

Of course a ready to use explanation has to be simple. It also has to be widely shared so that few keywords are enough to tag it. You have recognized the tribalism issue. As the explanations are simple they gather a lot of supporters and this has a tendency to create uniform reactions. The idea that because anyone can express him/herself on social media will create diversity is completely false. It is the exact opposite that happens: because you have to be seen to exist you have to belong to a group and the only way to display credential is by adhering to large narratives.

The Big Cover

Couvrez ce sein que je ne saurais voir. Par de pareils objets les âmes sont blessées, Et cela fait venir de coupables pensées. — Cover that bosom, girl. The flesh is weak. And unclean thoughts are difficult to control. Such sights as that can undermine the soul.

Tartuffe ou l’Imposteur - Molière

Using ready made narratives also has this function: it is very useful to stop any self introspection right on its tracks. The grass is always darker on the other sides. Always pointing further away is a convenient way to cover our problems so that they are not seen nor dealt with. It is easier done on line than in real life. Every problem can be casted a screen away by a simple move of the finger. The ready made narrative acts as an automatic reply at an intellectual level. Once replied why thinking further on the subject? Moreover the replies are not open for debate.

So What You are Saying is

The third characteristic of those social media trends is that they tend to shut down conversation at the first step. Take any controversial subject on social media and you can see that in addition to the group signaling there is a moral posture in the very first sentences. Something like “X has done Y and it is horrible”. It can be more sophisticated, and hidden under questions (better for engagement numbers), but it transpires from the modern versions of headlines. “There is this issue on which my position is this and other positions are horrific/concerning/whatever.” is the scheme. From there discussion is lost on various trolling attempts and virtue signalling competition. For instance the issue of the Israel war in Gaza is almost exclusively treated under this light: are you for Hamas or are you supporting a genocide ? It is almost impossible to have a descriptive discussion —what is really going on?— much less a long term conversation on the issue—how can it unfolds and what could be done for the future?—. In less than a couple of tweets the conversation is bent by the gravity field of the strange attractors that are constituted by ready made narratives and the conversation cannot escape the gravity field.