[jebartle]

Originally Posted by MartinSE

I think the "root cause" of our problems and all the vitriol is the internet. It is something new, it is sometimes called "information overload". We know everything that is going on everywhere all the time - that is good. The bad is EVERYONE has a bullhorn louder that even Presidents have historically had, which means fringe groups no matter how small and insignificant, that used to just be a "local annoyance" can now have international audiences. Most of them are wrong, but some of them can be very convincing.

This combined with 24/7 news which has to find ways to stretch 1 hours worth of news into a constant stream for 24 hours, competing with every other "news" stream for clicks. That leads to the sensationalistic/vitriolic headlines and stories written to spin a particular point of view or opinion.

And on the news, I don't think the news streams have any particular agenda, I think their motivation is to make money, period. The "agenda" appears because each outlet caters to their audience. Fox doesn't run stories about tree huggers in a positive light, because Fox News audience for the most part are not tree huggers. Same exact thing with CNN/MSNBC - they run stories that their audience will like. It is easy to say Fox or CNN have "agendas" and are brainwashing people that watch them, but I disagree. I think both want to make more money. PERIOD. And they have teams and algorithms that analyze their audience reaction to stories and fine tune their message to maximize their impact (clicks). Just watch the same story run a dozen times in a day and each time with a slightly different headline and a slightly different spin - that happens in real time as they adjust the story to maximize their audience reaction.

On the other hand, the good news is, I think this is all transitory. I think we will learn to handle the "information" overload. I think we will learn to put the wacky-doodles back into a position of irrelevance and I believe we will learn how to be civil again, but it is going to take time. Change is painful, it always is, but eventually "the people" get what they want.

I know these forums can be brutal at times and it can appear to entire world has gone crazy. But when I turn off the screen, walk outside and talk to my neighbors I see a different side of The Villages. My neighbors are friendly, my neighbors talk respectfully, my neighbors are neighborly. More so than any place I have lived in the past 30 or 40 years.

It's the "anonymous" angry people that cause the issues online. Each of us should learn how to deal with the constant flood of (mis)information and emotions and vitriol.

Each of us needs to remember the old saying, "If you can't say something good, say nothing at all".

Wonderful, you should write a book!!!!