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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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If you’re trying to tune out, writing a big motte post about how much you don’t care is not really necessary, and is probably counter productive to your goals.

One of the dank failure modes of social media obsession is reading and re-reading one's own comments.

  • comments that are up voted generate feelings of being valued and understood
  • comments that are down voted generate feelings of superiority: those poor fools are not on my level!
  • all comments generate a reassuring feeling that at least one person on social media is writing sane comments

Picture the scene in a weeks time when Whining Coil succumbs to the temptation to re-read his own comments. Soon he reaches a big post about how bad all this is for his health. That gives him the opportunity to turn off his computer and play with his dog. That is in line with his goals:-)

Okay if you’re trying to tune out writing a big motte post about how much you don’t care is not really necessary, and is probably counter to your goals.

Huh?

It’s an interesting and self-aware comment about how overwhelmed he is. It’s probably pretty close to how the average politics spectator feels nowadays. Nowhere does he say he doesn’t care either—he cares quite a bit and explained its effects on him over 7 paragraphs.

Right back atcha: telling users a post was unnecessary is unnecessary, unless it’s rule-breaking.

My point is not that I don't care, it's that I'm trying not to care and failing. Include my post in my failures. There just aren't a lot of places I can get that meta about it.