What is outrage culture?

Introduction

Tapping into emotions is the secret to taking content viral. Anger has been shown to be the emotion which spreads fastest and goes viral easiest. Why is that? This post addresses the topic of "outrage culture" which is an important topic because it seems to be the driving force behind the growth of social media and content providers. Outrage producers would therefore have a financial incentive to stimulate outrage in their audience to get clicks, views, and as a result profit. Steemit itself is just as susceptible to this as any other social media so it's worth having the discussion.

What is outrage culture?

The phrase "outrage porn" was coined in 2009 and was originally popularized by Ryan Holiday. Websites can take advantage of many different potential powder keg situations to generate outrage. For example the racial tensions provide a backdrop for generation of "outrage porn" to get clicks and views and it doesn't matter which race you are. If you're black then you might see a lot of clickbait about police brutality where white cops are killing unarmed black suspects and if you're white you might see lots of clickbait about blacks killing innocent white people or jews taking over the world scamming people.

The truth of the matter is that outrage generates more money than positivity on the Internet. Disgust and anger are two of the most universal human emotions while sympathy, empathy, and other more complicated emotions aren't shared by all. Some humans for example don't feel these emotions because they are psychopaths incapable of experiencing it and some humans might feel it but it could be on a spectrum. Of course disgust and anger aren't the only emotions which get taken advantage of and abused by "troll armies" and "outrage brigades", because jealousy is another popular emotion which generates interest.

The rise of virtue signals or is it something else?

Around the same time as the growth of outrage culture we are also seeing the rise of what some call "virtue signaling". It is debatable whether or not virtue signals are a real thing but it's vital to the discussion that we mention it.

The rise of outrage culture seems to be fueling the growth of a values war. Different sides have different values and virtue signals allow people to signal to their own side that they share similar values.

Within evolutionary biology, signalling theory is a body of theoretical work examining communication between organisms. It is concerned with honest signals. For example, a peacock's tail is an honest signal of his fitness, since a less fit peacock would only be able to produce a less spectacular tail.

Similarly, signalling is considered within economics. A bank's impressive architecture may serve as a signal of its financial soundness, since a less well-endowed bank can afford less impressive buildings. Qualifications can signal a person's ability to an employer, even when those qualifications are not strictly necessary, since a less able job applicant will not be able to achieve the same level of qualification.[5]

Unless signalling is considered, costly religious rituals such as circumcision, fasting, and snake handling look paradoxical in both evolutionary and economic terms. Religion may have arisen to increase and maintain intragroup cooperation.[6] All religions may involve costly rituals, performed publicly, as a hard-to-fake sign of commitment.[7] Such behavior is sometimes described as "virtue signalling".[1]

There is at least a popular conception that to be beautiful requires showing moral aptitude. This moral aptitude is shown through signaling just as birds do or peacocks do. The idea that there is a such thing as moral beauty is related to the concept of a "good person". The concept of a "good person" is abstract just as "bad person" is abstract, and highly subjective. The point is that a typical person may be motivated to want to at least give the impression that they are a "good person" to their moral tribe.

What are moral tribes?

Joshua Greene used the term "moral tribes" to describe the divide in moral thinking between groups of people. This is best explained by Joshua Green himself in the video below:

Us and them

Us and Them refers to the very tribal nature of humanity. There are moral and political tribes. The Democrats and Republicans for example are political tribes. Moral tribes could include the religious thinkers (people of the book) and consequentialists. The people of the book who rely on commandments have a view of morality which relies on prescribed solutions from a holy book similar to have a parent might utilize a medical book to treat a sick child. The problem with this is that not every possible condition or ethical problem will be in the book. That said, Joshua Greene goes into details about the difference between point and shoot morality which is an automatic kind of morality and the manual mode which requires deep contemplation. Consequentialists must rely on cost to benefit analysis for all important decisions without being able to rely on any book or their emotional response (consequentialists spend much more time in manual mode).

In terms of political tribes there are different kinds of values fueling different parties. The Democrats tend to be more paternal, more focused on the needs of women, of immigrants, and of the "underdog". The Republicans seem to have their values more focused on the needs of businesses, of natives.

Of course I could be wrong on this and these are only my interpretations of these two tribes based on my own probably flawed assumptions but I'm using it for sake of argument that because the two tribes don't share the same values they will be in constant competition. In this constant competition, the members of each of these groups will want to signal to the wider group that they share values, that they live according to the virtues of the group they claim.

Conclusion

Disclosure, I am a consequence based thinker. Based on what I'm seeing from the growth of social media, of outrage culture, of what I will call "persecution culture" which includes both cyberbullying and excessive frivolous lawsuits, all of this is creating what I call "mob conflicts". These "mob conflicts" will only continue to get worse because for the most part the mob is a blind mob, an ignorant mob, following gut emotions, controlled by algorithms, and these algorithms have access to big data. The behavior of these blind yet furious cause mobs are directed for profit in some cases.

In Morals and Dogma there is a vital quote which stuck in my memory. Morals and Dogma is a book written by Albert Pike:

FORCE, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil and bruise itself. It is destruction and ruin. It is the volcano, the earthquake, the cyclone;--not growth and progress. It is Polyphemus blinded, striking at random, and falling headlong among the sharp rocks by the impetus of his own blows.

The blind Force of the people is a Force that must be economized, and also managed, as the blind Force of steam, lifting the ponderous iron arms and turning the large wheels, is made to bore and rifle the cannon and to weave the most delicate lace. It must be regulated by Intellect. Intellect is to the people and the people's Force, what the slender needle of the compass is to the ship--its soul, always counselling the huge mass of wood and iron, and always pointing to the north. To attack the citadels built up on all sides against the human race by superstitions, despotisms, and prejudices, the Force must have a brain and a law. Then its deeds of daring produce permanent results, and there is real progress.

That quote is vital to understanding just how important concepts such as "rule of law" and "regulation" are. It's also critical that there is a brain or "intelligence" so that the force can be properly directed according to truth. It's very easy for a blind mob to chase boogeymen, to persecute based on lies, to lynch completely innocent people. In fact we have seen these persecutions in history, looking at for example the murder of Emmett Till. It's not enough just to be decentralized, it's not enough just to promote liberty, it's absolutely critical to promote ethics and wisdom. Ethics and wisdom require knowledge, and only by having the accurate (truthful) information can people develop knowledge in the first place to have the wisdom and or ethics. This wisdom and ethics are what can guide the people to generate progress which is the point of all technological development including Steemit.

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
2. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-emotion-goes-viral-fastest-180950182/
3. http://observer.com/2014/02/outrage-porn-how-the-need-for-perpetual-indignation-manufactures-phony-offense/
4. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/moral-tribes-joshua-greene-review
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberbullying
9. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/11/deep-pragmatism-as-a-moral-engine/
10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics