This observation is of course entirely anecdotal, but manufactured outrage is so fascinating, even if it currently eroding the very foundations of society.
There's people on every forum (and regularly here) that suggest, sometimes explicitly, that we must have elevated anxiety and stress levels in response to specific presented content as a moral imperative.
I think cortisol makes the "content" feel more "important" or relevant at the present moment in time. 72 hours later assuming no other exploits our body systems adjust and the content isn't important. It's weird when we notice it, but most of the time our cortisol is being directed to another topic so we don't notice.
There's a ton written about our dopamine addiction and how it's exploited but not much about cortisol and our negative emotions are being exploited.
There are definitely many things to be said about the irresponsible use of this power.
In this particular case the creators were also harmed the most - the users didn't strictly get the "best" deals with Honey, but something is still better than nothing.
It is a completely ineffective method of making a change. I wish they'd stop spreading their anxieties online. I know it makes them feel like they're doing something, but one phone call to a relevant decision-maker is 100x more effective and 100x less destructive to those around them.
I don't think, the relevant decision makers are open for incoming calls from the internet, but I agree that panic and anxiety solves nothing, but creates just more problems.
This works in simple cases, like spilling your drink: it: it feels bad, the feeling makes you clean it up, and be more careful.
It fails in cases where the immediate effectual action is impossible, or not known. The only reasonable course of action then is to spread the word, because you can't actually fix anything.
And here ingroup / outgroup signaling jumps in! Feeling bad about some issues becomes a signal of group belonging, a kind of virtue signaling. Not feeling bad and not expressing outrage becomes suspicious, if not defiant. This is one of the streams that feeds the outrage machine.
What I mostly get is indifference or "didoing" ("it's not so bad") - and yes, that indifference spikes my anxiety. Because it feels like this is the same indifference that ultimately lead to "Didn't the Germans know what was happening?". The answer is, they didn't care to look.
I'm particularly annoyed by Twitter lately because I can no longer share anything with my GF because she have already seen it. Our timelines are largely similar, it doesn't matter much who do you follow. Also, the algorithmic discovery being the default is very effective to create this channels(Technology Connections recently made a video about it).
On Twitter it appears like there are few talking points, or "channels", are being pushed based on location and few other things maybe and apparently to get exposure you have to say something that fits the narrative.
Maybe its not intentional, maybe its the result of the algo dividing people in cohorts or something but I'm very annoyed by the potentially destructive effect of the firehose. Everyone being very outraged of something for short period of time or being very excited for short period of time can't be healthy because it lacks depth and continuation.
I think we should really be aware that, if tech companies weren't already able to build something like this anyway, with LLMs they are definitely able now.
There is lots of talk about the generative powers of LLMs, but they also have unprecedented analysis powers: You can now easily build something that automatically checks whether a tweet expresses a certain opinion or narrative and automatically upranks or downranks it based on the results.
So if you're the owner of a platform, you can now fully control the appearance of what "people are saying" on the platform, without even having to use bots or fake messages.
(Of course you could use those as well, in addition, if the opinion you want to push is so bad there aren't enough real users to uprank in the first place)
One of the big claim from Honey is that it finds for you the coupons with that make you spend the least amount of money, but that's false if they have an agreement with the seller to only show you certain coupons.
So no, it doesn't affect just influencers, it affects also customers and vendors.
I also notice that "influencers" are also influenced by this. They pick the talking points from real time media like Twitter and then make coherent videos over this stuff and it gets legitimized. People rarely revisit their past works once the firehose is spraying at some other direction and the fake public sentiment becomes the real public sentiment.
I call it “outrage porn.” I have a friend that is really politically engaged, and occasionally sends me YouTube links to almost cartoonish vids. I watched the first couple, but ignore them, now. He seems to take them completely seriously, and I’ve learned not to trigger him, when it comes to politics.
This seems to be de rigueur, these days.
It was all thoroughly scummy and against the spirit of an affiliate referral.
But I don't understand why YouTubers were so surprised. This thing is clearly generating revenue to pay off all the top shelf YouTubers and it's clearly doing that by inserting affiliate codes to generate revenue. There's no ethical explanation as to where this extra saving and Honey's revenue comes from.
You need to read up on the definition of genocide (especially beyond thinking of it as the last 2-3 stages; being defined out of existence is quite literally EO 14168) and then maybe have a look at https://translegislation.com/.
It's one of those things that'll always sound exaggerated, even if it's not.
Man it's as if billions of people were being peddled algorithmic content platforms whose "engagement" metrics benefit from showing you content that promotes overthinking, anxiety, and stress.
Algorithmic social media is severely fucked up.
If you all feel more comfortable with those words, feel free to replace genocide with all of the above. Does not help with my anxiety being rooted more in indifference to the actions than the actions themselves.
I honestly do not see how, to take one example, athletes only being allowed to compete against others of the same sex is a step on the path to genocide.
This suggestion of genocide does sound very exaggerated, and I believe your anxiety on this is misplaced.
The failure case I see most often is when this thinking is applied to some kind of a wicked problem.
1. The problem is not understood until after the formulation of a solution.
2.Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
3. Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong.
4. Every wicked problem is essentially novel and unique.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one shot operation".
6. Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.
Source: Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems 2006 Jeffrey Conklin ISBN: 978-0-470-01768-5
There's no reason to believe that this wasn't just people being impulsive as normal. The Honey debacle left my mind all the same, because life goes on.
If you have any evidence of this having been a manufactured outrage, please do post it. Otherwise, this is just a conspiracy theory, and I'm getting awfully tired of those.
If you can't get the image of genocide as traincars and skull piles out of your head, I can't help you, but there's a concerted effort to make our lives miserable to unlivable and to definitionally erase us from public consciousness (aside from painting us as legitimate dehumanized targets). If you can't see that I can't help you, I can just stack it on my anxiety pile as someone else who never wondered how Germany was for Jews (and many other groups, including queer people) in the decade before the holocaust.
Today it's dramatically more splintered than that. Still central wells, but the amount of content is many orders of magnitude larger and everyone has their own tailored feed.
I disagree, today there are just a few platforms and on Twitter at least everyone sees about same things. I say this because the feed of my girlfriend is very similar to mine, also I see the pretty much same stuff shared on WhatsApp groups of unrelated(related only because of some interest, not having social interaction beyond the group) people.
The total number of content is much larger, probably the absolute number of topics is also much larger, but in my opinion, the diversity of topics is getting smaller and it is directed by the platforms. People’s attention spans and time is limited and the platforms are choosing what they are going to fill it up with and what would be the main topics.
The worst thing about it is how it will actually make you less resilient, and a lack of resilience just makes it harder for you to function day to day as each adverse encounter, no matter how trivial, becomes increasingly overwhelming.
To me that feels like a night terror: screaming and shouting about a frightening thing at the end of the bed, but frozen in place and unable to act, unable to fight back. Has to be someone else.
I won’t lie, I think I’ve suffered from this and it’s held me back over the past couple of years as I’d choose flight or avoidance over fight, essentially repeating the cycle until I managed to deal with it and move forward.
Only thing you can do is step back and get out of your head. Separate all the stuff you can’t action from the stuff you can.
The Honey business model was the same as every other coupon website that has launched over the last two decades.
Providing coupons in return for affiliate cookies
Before the media outrage how did people assume they made money?
There's also some "performance" ban bills that are broad enough that they could classify a trans person existing in public as "drag performance" (the website you didn't read says "However, the language of the laws is so broad that it could extend to performances of Shakespeare.").
Please at least to attempt to "engage curiously" next time, the answers are all here.
The change might not come from them doing something for you, too. They may teach you something you don't know, which can reduce your friction in some situations, too.
For example, people commonly complain about poor consumer protection around the world. But usually, there are already laws against mistreating consumers, and if they were to report the incident to the right organization/inspector, they would get the remedy they want.
The solution is often the two right people getting on a call or talking in a room. In the EU, there are even some summer camps for teens aged 14-18 to learn how to approach government decision-makers. It is doable.
I think you may have some learned helplessness everyone here talks about. But if you give it an earnest try and approach a problem you see from various angles, you'll make some progress on it. Usually, this will be done by talking to a decision-maker.
We've seen bills introduced to consider trans people "misrepresenting" their gender as different from their birth sex as criminal fraud. This isn't too far from the current administration's executive order banning trans people from the military for being "liars", according to the bigots in the administration.
There are also bills trying to make the public visibility of trans people something that is threatening to children based on the bigoted perception of trans people as child rapists. So you'll get things like "public performance" classified as sexualized drag performance so that trans people experience the same limitations on being in or around places with children as sex offenders.
Then, of course, there is all the basic healthcare stuff. The white house put out an executive order (currently delayed by courts) withholding federal funding for hospitals that provide gender affirming care for people age 18 and 19. These are legal adults. If this stands, we'll almost surely start seeing legislation banning gender affirming care for adults in various red states. Criminalizing hormone treatment is forced detransition.
I'm with you: outrage alone is useless, but I wouldn't expect to be a "call to a decision maker" to be anything other than the same banner of "more to make yourself feel good".
If you want to change the world, do ANYTHING to make your voice heard. Shout your message to everyone. Sing, blog, go outside with a poster. Start a substack. Write a web browser. Heck, if someone wants to make a better version of Honey I hear there's a lot of people who want to support creators through affiliates but are evidently having a hard time finding a company who sees them as anything but patsies.
Perhaps use the exit, voice, and loyalty (EVL) model. It describes three effective responses that don't involve anxiety. Exit means you remove yourself from the situation — perhaps you move to a state where your rights are better protected or leave your current doctor for an activist doctor. Voice means getting into rooms and on the phone with decision-makers, as well as preparing for this. Loyalty means you stop worrying and remain loyal to an organization but hopeful that things will change. In this model, remaining in the situation and stressing about it is a misguided choice.
Just as you worry about the Third Reich, the EVL model explains the coping strategies of people who were under the regime. Some exited, some dissented, and some chose loyalty. These were very functional strategies.
I'm not going to debate the exaggerated genocide claim. Still, I'd say be careful how you use this specific historical term, as much genocide is happening in the world today, and much has happened in the last several generations. Some readers will have family trauma; it's easy to offend people this way and turn them off to your cause. In general, the more emotional language you use, the less trustworthy you will appear.
Either way, I acknowledge your anxiety is real and that some harm may come your way in the future. I want to be clear: this is not a dismissal of your fears. But I suggest action instead. Whether that action protects you or others in similar circumstances, it will be more effective than worrying.
Thanks for writing up this answer. I suspect the commenter you are replying to has never even stopped to consider the experience of a real person and what it would be like.
There are plenty of butch cis women who now get harassed in the bathroom for "looking like a man" because these policies have opened up the floodgates for bigots to transvestigate everybody they come across. And if everybody follows the law as written then there will be people using the women's restroom who are indistinguishable from cis men unless you inspect documentation (which nobody is obliged to carry in public) or inspect genitals.
The true outcome (and I believe the true goal, though not typically stated out loud) is that trans people (and people who don't fit rigid and traditional gender presentations) are simply not able to be in public safely.
The regression we've seen in legal rights has been so swift. In 2016 North Carolina tried to pass one of these bills and major organizations like the NCAA and Paypal took serious economic action in order to get it reversed. It felt like a society-wide rejection where it wasn't just left leaning activists pushing back but major organizations without a typical political agenda too.
In the past four years we've seen 13 states pass bathroom bills and more than half the states pass gender affirming care bans for minors largely without a peep from corporations.
Anger is a temporary motivator so bad actors use it as a way to increase the likelihood of swarm behavior like brigading.
There are also some people who enjoy being part of brigades because it makes them feel like they have a social group that does important things. That's why the same people often go from cause to cause without ever making a noticeable change beyond complaining.
It kind of sucks because they feel like they're special and march to their own tune but often they're being played by whichever piper is in town.
There was a whole scandal at Twitter about this around 2020 or 21. People came forward and said there were secret departments that would suppress certain ideas or keep certain stories from trending.
Not everyone in the EU will listen to you, either. There is a bit of a learning curve. Sometimes, you have to apply pressure through specific channels in specific ways, such as influencing stakeholders. Sometimes, you even have to form an organization for your cause. But not always. Sometimes, it just takes time to find someone who will listen. But effort it does take.
The main thing that I do, personally, is not engage in these things. There are some shows, vids, and news sources that I simply avoid, and that seems to have done the trick.
It's like giving up an addiction, though. I felt quite uncomfortable, for a time. I no longer feel uncomfortable, and these once-legitimate (to me) news sources, now seem to be little more than cartoons.
You are also slowly changing the culture and applying pressure to the societal outlook. This also applies to your decision-makers (whose friends, family, co-workers, and political or corporate partners partake in the broader culture) and future decision-makers raised in the culture you are shaping.
These are all tactics you can use, but some decision-makers are very resistant to societal and stakeholder pressure. They either have a strong negotiating position (like Donald Trump, who offered Americans many things other candidates were not offering for moral reasons), or they may have a model of functioning in the politico-organizational system that insulates them from the ideas of others (they may simply be narcissists or zealots). But if you speak with them and you negotiate in terms relevant to them, they will listen.
To that end, you first have to make the call or get in a room with them.
It gets collected and tallied by an intern who probably isn’t even paid. The tally is then reported for the day to an actual staffer who may or may not bother mentioning it to the rep that day.
To anyone with a modicum of business savvy, it's not remotely surprising. You literally (don't) get what you literally (don't) pay for.
I also wouldn't expect PayPal to recoup this huge marketing investment from very partial purchase data. It'd be nothing compared to what VISA and the other big card companies collect.
Have you been around children who spill a drink? The ones who experience high levels of stress bury their heads and treat it as a catastrophe, waiting for someone else to clean it up and soothe them.
Those who treat it as no big deal are more likely to clean it up.
And being more careful only grows slowly with age. Oh, and using heavier glasses btw. It's way better to give kids real glass for drinks and tolerate the occasional breakage than to have constant spilling with light plastic cups.
> I'm not going to debate the exaggerated genocide claim.
Too late, you called it exaggerated. I'm wondering, would you consider residential schools genocide?
This is (just about) in living memory - Donald Trump was 22 years old when the Stonewall riot happened - and there's plenty of people who would like to roll back the law to then. Not just ban trans people but overturn Obergefell v Hodges just like they did with Roe v Wage, end gay marriage, and re-criminalize homosexuality and LGBT expression. Which is why the community rallies against attempts to split off trans people from LGBT.
> There's no ethical explanation as to where this extra saving and Honey's revenue comes from.