Some pathogens actually benefit from the inflammation the immune system triggers to destroy it. Salmonella ragebaits (injects proteins into) the gut and multiplies faster by feeding off the immune system’s reactions (tl;dr: gets the immune system to facilitate tetrathionate production, which feeds it). This environment allows it to outcompete other bacteria and grow exponentially. It eventually loses to the immune system but accomplishes the goal of getting you to diarrhea everywhere and transmit it to a future host.
The story of Salmonella sounds just like the lifecycle of ragebait: a speaker/creator presents inflammatory content that thrives off of mass criticism and negative attention. This allows rapid spread of ideology, but the strategy is a double edged sword: the speaker’s reputation is destroyed for the sake of reach. Eventually, people get used to the ragebait, the creator retreats to their small community of die hard fans, and they fall out of mainstream relevance. However, the ideology prevails, and it inspires new generations of master ragebaiters.
There are multiple steps in the process to prevent/treat Salmonella: cook food to kill all bacteria before ingestion (get people to stop using social media/content that is selected by an algorithm based on engagement), maintain a healthy gut so that the good bacteria can outcompete it (have algorithms serve non-inflammatory content), strong immune response (haha, maybe we just have to criticize them more), or holistic treatment and symptom reduction (treat society so people are less likely to become radicalized). This might be taking the analogy too far, but the concepts are there.
Unfortunately, pathogens are inevitable both in the literal sense and in the figurative. Conceptually, they represent strategies that spread and persist via transmission. When we first called memes viral, it was because they were funny and everyone shared them with their friends. Today, it feels more and more like the only content spreading these days is inflammatory, and the algorithms have revealed that anger is the best emotion to elicit for virality. Getting ragebaited is the new cough.
That's a really good analogy. I think I should be optimistic about my learning curve for digital hygiene. If more people were made sensitive to this infection maybe they would agree on measures to prevent infecting others by sharing inflammatory content. Especially that last point about treating society in a way people are less likely to be radicalized is interesting, I've recently had a conversation about outlawing words in schools vs. trying to change the school's culture to prevent harmful verbal habits. It's difficult to decide on how to treat society.
"His brand is built on controversy, and discussing him is like scratching a bacterial infection—any interaction will cause it to spread further." – this sentence is a treasure
The ship has set sail with History’s course set, but do not let the Sirens’ song tempt you. For though these waves rise regardless of man, to ride such unjust floods demise upon your lands.
It has long been internet wisdom to not feed the trolls, but when we're all just walking around with troll food (attention) it's tough not to feed them. Of course, it's still important to try; nothing is achieved without effort.
I would also suggest that folks consider taking accountability for their own emotions.
Does anyone have to let rage bait bother them? No. Do they have to respond? No.
The only person who can control your ideas and emotions is you. That's a scientific fact by way of the limits of human perception and processing stimuli. Maybe people don't know what cognitive re-appraisal is, but how privileged must life be if they don't? Must have had it easy enough never to have had to have been forced to change their attitude. Some of us wouldn't have survived it we didn't.
Even if we control the tech companies, then what? How will you control your rage bait when touching grass then?
Can we just take responsibility for our own emotions and ideas already?
Heavily agree, but I also recognise this isn’t enough. We can’t just rely on individual immune systems. Public and personal responsibility must come together if we want to see change at large
I'm pretty sensitive to ragebait and all that kind of stuff, honeypots and ragebait just make me physically nauseous, and I've kinda been mean to myself about it.
reading this makes me feel like it's more my brain protecting itself. my feeds are pretty free of this sort of thing, minus people like minimimuteman refuting the logical fallacies.
if only being a decent and moral person were more profitable :/
Exceptional framing of parasitic memetics as distinct from viral spread. The Financial Times example perfectly ilustrates the paradox: even documenting the scam amplifies it, which is different from how we've historically thought about information hazards. I've seen this play out in community moderation where banning bad actors gives them martyrdom they leverage elsewhere. The question isn't just platform accountability but whether there's any equilibrium where attention economies dont naturally reward antisocial behavior.
Your writing always leads me to think about things, mull over, consider. Thank you. I think what we see here has always existed - only it's a lot bigger now. It went from poisonous back fence gossip among a few who delighted in outrage/response, easily ignored if you were disinterested - to global village proportions, almost impossible to ignore. Possibly the ratio of people who foment is the same? But the numbers now are exponential. They have grown as communication technology has grown. One shutdown is to say it's boring - oh no not more of that old crap! In a way, that's the best way, because the attention of society does move on. Eventually a whole culture refuses to acknowledge, respect, or give any time or attention to some old endlessly repeated idea. No one laughs at the "joke" anymore. People don't get it, shrug, turn away. Isolation and disinterest whither the perps to dust on a back archive shelf. But it still matters to legally stop cruel and criminal actions, and stop perpetrators from harming people. And that means paying attention and supporting civil rights, compassion, decency where you can. I think this issue is as old as humans, and we can't ever give up trying to do better.
I thoroughly enjoy all of your articles - and TikTok of course! However, sometimes I think you just address an issue. No tangible steps forward here. Not that I'm sure I know how you would do this. If this is simply to rally the crowd then I suppose it serves a purpose - I suppose it is better it exists than does not. Thanks!
I'm curious if you've read "Enshittification" by Cory Doctorow? I feel like there's also a lot do to with the idea that platforms themselves enshittify themselves for profit, which leads to a lot of the parasitic mimetics that you're talking about; although one key difference is that he doesn't believe we should "hold the big platforms accountable", since we can't trust to platforms not to enshittify. So we need to hold governments accountable, instead of asking the platforms to make the rules that will inevitably make our digital lives worse. I'm also statistically more likely to comment because I'm a man, so maybe don't listen to me.
Some pathogens actually benefit from the inflammation the immune system triggers to destroy it. Salmonella ragebaits (injects proteins into) the gut and multiplies faster by feeding off the immune system’s reactions (tl;dr: gets the immune system to facilitate tetrathionate production, which feeds it). This environment allows it to outcompete other bacteria and grow exponentially. It eventually loses to the immune system but accomplishes the goal of getting you to diarrhea everywhere and transmit it to a future host.
The story of Salmonella sounds just like the lifecycle of ragebait: a speaker/creator presents inflammatory content that thrives off of mass criticism and negative attention. This allows rapid spread of ideology, but the strategy is a double edged sword: the speaker’s reputation is destroyed for the sake of reach. Eventually, people get used to the ragebait, the creator retreats to their small community of die hard fans, and they fall out of mainstream relevance. However, the ideology prevails, and it inspires new generations of master ragebaiters.
There are multiple steps in the process to prevent/treat Salmonella: cook food to kill all bacteria before ingestion (get people to stop using social media/content that is selected by an algorithm based on engagement), maintain a healthy gut so that the good bacteria can outcompete it (have algorithms serve non-inflammatory content), strong immune response (haha, maybe we just have to criticize them more), or holistic treatment and symptom reduction (treat society so people are less likely to become radicalized). This might be taking the analogy too far, but the concepts are there.
Unfortunately, pathogens are inevitable both in the literal sense and in the figurative. Conceptually, they represent strategies that spread and persist via transmission. When we first called memes viral, it was because they were funny and everyone shared them with their friends. Today, it feels more and more like the only content spreading these days is inflammatory, and the algorithms have revealed that anger is the best emotion to elicit for virality. Getting ragebaited is the new cough.
That's a really good analogy. I think I should be optimistic about my learning curve for digital hygiene. If more people were made sensitive to this infection maybe they would agree on measures to prevent infecting others by sharing inflammatory content. Especially that last point about treating society in a way people are less likely to be radicalized is interesting, I've recently had a conversation about outlawing words in schools vs. trying to change the school's culture to prevent harmful verbal habits. It's difficult to decide on how to treat society.
"His brand is built on controversy, and discussing him is like scratching a bacterial infection—any interaction will cause it to spread further." – this sentence is a treasure
The ship has set sail with History’s course set, but do not let the Sirens’ song tempt you. For though these waves rise regardless of man, to ride such unjust floods demise upon your lands.
It has long been internet wisdom to not feed the trolls, but when we're all just walking around with troll food (attention) it's tough not to feed them. Of course, it's still important to try; nothing is achieved without effort.
I would also suggest that folks consider taking accountability for their own emotions.
Does anyone have to let rage bait bother them? No. Do they have to respond? No.
The only person who can control your ideas and emotions is you. That's a scientific fact by way of the limits of human perception and processing stimuli. Maybe people don't know what cognitive re-appraisal is, but how privileged must life be if they don't? Must have had it easy enough never to have had to have been forced to change their attitude. Some of us wouldn't have survived it we didn't.
Even if we control the tech companies, then what? How will you control your rage bait when touching grass then?
Can we just take responsibility for our own emotions and ideas already?
Heavily agree, but I also recognise this isn’t enough. We can’t just rely on individual immune systems. Public and personal responsibility must come together if we want to see change at large
I'm pretty sensitive to ragebait and all that kind of stuff, honeypots and ragebait just make me physically nauseous, and I've kinda been mean to myself about it.
reading this makes me feel like it's more my brain protecting itself. my feeds are pretty free of this sort of thing, minus people like minimimuteman refuting the logical fallacies.
if only being a decent and moral person were more profitable :/
Can we please stop citing Bostrom? In the 90s, dude was writing an email about how stupid he thinks Black people are: https://www.vice.com/en/article/prominent-ai-philosopher-and-father-of-longtermism-sent-very-racist-email-to-a-90s-philosophy-listserv/
Bostrom is all wrapped up in the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies that, surprise surprise, furthers eugenics beliefs and argumentation:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/28/nick-bostrom-controversial-future-of-humanity-institute-closure-longtermism-affective-altruism
Beautifully written and so enlightening - thank you for this! 👏🏽♥️
Exceptional framing of parasitic memetics as distinct from viral spread. The Financial Times example perfectly ilustrates the paradox: even documenting the scam amplifies it, which is different from how we've historically thought about information hazards. I've seen this play out in community moderation where banning bad actors gives them martyrdom they leverage elsewhere. The question isn't just platform accountability but whether there's any equilibrium where attention economies dont naturally reward antisocial behavior.
Your writing always leads me to think about things, mull over, consider. Thank you. I think what we see here has always existed - only it's a lot bigger now. It went from poisonous back fence gossip among a few who delighted in outrage/response, easily ignored if you were disinterested - to global village proportions, almost impossible to ignore. Possibly the ratio of people who foment is the same? But the numbers now are exponential. They have grown as communication technology has grown. One shutdown is to say it's boring - oh no not more of that old crap! In a way, that's the best way, because the attention of society does move on. Eventually a whole culture refuses to acknowledge, respect, or give any time or attention to some old endlessly repeated idea. No one laughs at the "joke" anymore. People don't get it, shrug, turn away. Isolation and disinterest whither the perps to dust on a back archive shelf. But it still matters to legally stop cruel and criminal actions, and stop perpetrators from harming people. And that means paying attention and supporting civil rights, compassion, decency where you can. I think this issue is as old as humans, and we can't ever give up trying to do better.
I thoroughly enjoy all of your articles - and TikTok of course! However, sometimes I think you just address an issue. No tangible steps forward here. Not that I'm sure I know how you would do this. If this is simply to rally the crowd then I suppose it serves a purpose - I suppose it is better it exists than does not. Thanks!
I'm curious if you've read "Enshittification" by Cory Doctorow? I feel like there's also a lot do to with the idea that platforms themselves enshittify themselves for profit, which leads to a lot of the parasitic mimetics that you're talking about; although one key difference is that he doesn't believe we should "hold the big platforms accountable", since we can't trust to platforms not to enshittify. So we need to hold governments accountable, instead of asking the platforms to make the rules that will inevitably make our digital lives worse. I'm also statistically more likely to comment because I'm a man, so maybe don't listen to me.