Ask Lemmy

That's right. I mean the point is you end up with an information stream that is framed to appease you. And I end up with info that is framed to appease me. Neither of us necessarily gets "the truth". (And it's a skewed perspective and self-reinforcing. Mind that I'm talking about the causality of the dynamics, not identity of certain terms.)

I agree with the perspective on America. I'm afraid we're here in some European countries could be headed in the same direction. At least that's what I think when I see our conservatist politicians invite scumbags like Ron DeSantis over. Or repeat their talking points. And the far-right is on the rise everywhere I look.

Our political system is vastly different however. The wider spectrum and the availability of more than two parties who actually get voted into parliament. Precedent of new parties forming every now and then and rising to like 20% over time. And occasionally they spend their days deciding useful stuff.

But we also have some of the same dynamics. People who wish it were the old times. Asking for simple truths. Wanting capitalism to solve everything. People making up their subjective reality instead of looking at objective facts.

I sometimes try to talk to random people who aren't part of my own echo chamber. And from my own experience, the vast majority seems to be nice and caring people. Everyone has their own struggles in life but they're open and liberal enough to grant the same freedom to their neighbours. But occasionally I meet one of the minority of idiots who think climate change and vaccines are a hoax, immigrants are the most important issue and giving equal opportunity to women is a mistake. And I'm always dumbfounded by that and not sure which world they're living in. I've traveled and saw the glaciers in Switzerland or what's left of them. I read the news and how Spain is struggling with serious droughts. Affecting the price of vegetables in my supermarket severely. And I can't get to work (properly) because the train system is beat-up after Germany has been stingy with investing money for decades. It's kind of whataboutism from my side, but I can't relate at all why we should focus on immigrants or more strict laws concerning gender, now. And I don't see how capitalism is going to solve any of that, because it's what ruined the train system in the first place. And we can look at the USA and see that this kind of capitalism also has negative effects on infrastructure, healthcare etc. Very severely in the case of healthcare for example. And I'm not a communist or tankie at all, I think that's even worse and will also take away our freedom. I think we already have the answer to that problem and it's social market economy. Maybe eco-social if you will. But we need individual freedom and some degree of capitalism. Just not without any limits. The solution is neither of the extremes. And we need to agree on facts and objective reality and base our decision on science and facts, not emotions and tribalism.

And that's kind of why I worry that the post-factual world is a huge problem for society. And we need to address it. I think the internet is the single best tool we ever had to enlighten us. But not everything in it is fine and dandy.

However, I don't think the political situation is caused by the internet or anything like that. It's waging there too, but politics is complicated. And some people just like autocracy more than democracy.