"Initially, our levels of empathy expanded as we tried to understand and get on with such disparate folk."
Were you on a different version of the internet to me...? 😈😅
I witnessed the exact opposite, most evidently during the early days of the 'Rainbow Civil War' (2010s?), whose consequences we are still feeling now. From what I witnessed, very little has undermined empathy and fostered polarisation more completely than social media. The nearest contender is probably twentieth century war propaganda.
Wishing you 'bon voyage!' for your newest paper baby - and do let me know when your Daleks tour is coming to Nashville, TN! 😜
I was not familiar with the 'dark forest theory of the internet', thank you for introducing me to it. As someone who never got into any sort of social media, that is pretty much how I have been using the internet for the past 25 years. Coupled with the idea of the mycelium for underground inter-connectedness, and perhaps thinking of mushrooms as a game of whack-a-mole for resilience ("exterminate/regenerate"), we now have a positive and optimistic concept of online presence again.
This is so important! I've just left a long comment on a leftish FB group pleading for empathy, because without it we're sunk. The urge to group-think on FB can be massively powerful, so you get this situation where hundreds of hateful, dehumanising comments are left on a post by people who'd think of themselves as solidly socialist.
I think empathy is HARD, harder than we expect. Especially when we're asked to feel empathy for people we think have done stupid, reckless, unkind or confusing things.
I've heard the call in political circles for *solidarity* rather than empathy - solidarity being a practical political outlook rather than an emotional one, and therefore possibly less complicated.
But I think empathy, emotional connection and all, is vital to resist the division of humans into us and them. Into people and animals. Into those whose motivations and morals we can understand or sympathise with, and those we can't - or don't want to. It's about recognising the humanity (flawed, inconsistent, occasionally glorious) in everyone. Dehumanisation is the foundation for fascism. Finding empathy for those we disagree with is essentially an anti-fascist action.
The Doctor Who book is really superb. Listening to the audiobook
"Initially, our levels of empathy expanded as we tried to understand and get on with such disparate folk."
Were you on a different version of the internet to me...? 😈😅
I witnessed the exact opposite, most evidently during the early days of the 'Rainbow Civil War' (2010s?), whose consequences we are still feeling now. From what I witnessed, very little has undermined empathy and fostered polarisation more completely than social media. The nearest contender is probably twentieth century war propaganda.
Wishing you 'bon voyage!' for your newest paper baby - and do let me know when your Daleks tour is coming to Nashville, TN! 😜
Chris.
I was not familiar with the 'dark forest theory of the internet', thank you for introducing me to it. As someone who never got into any sort of social media, that is pretty much how I have been using the internet for the past 25 years. Coupled with the idea of the mycelium for underground inter-connectedness, and perhaps thinking of mushrooms as a game of whack-a-mole for resilience ("exterminate/regenerate"), we now have a positive and optimistic concept of online presence again.
This is so important! I've just left a long comment on a leftish FB group pleading for empathy, because without it we're sunk. The urge to group-think on FB can be massively powerful, so you get this situation where hundreds of hateful, dehumanising comments are left on a post by people who'd think of themselves as solidly socialist.
I think empathy is HARD, harder than we expect. Especially when we're asked to feel empathy for people we think have done stupid, reckless, unkind or confusing things.
I've heard the call in political circles for *solidarity* rather than empathy - solidarity being a practical political outlook rather than an emotional one, and therefore possibly less complicated.
But I think empathy, emotional connection and all, is vital to resist the division of humans into us and them. Into people and animals. Into those whose motivations and morals we can understand or sympathise with, and those we can't - or don't want to. It's about recognising the humanity (flawed, inconsistent, occasionally glorious) in everyone. Dehumanisation is the foundation for fascism. Finding empathy for those we disagree with is essentially an anti-fascist action.
Amen to all of this. You have to feel sorry for them.